Overheated in the August garden

Gosh.  No August garden thread and it is 3/4 over !  Should have started one before I went away.

My allotment is parched. The squashes look well unhappy, and the water butt is empty.  The carrots are small and strangely tough.  What looked like being a great year for apples is being ruined by wasps, presumably drawn to the moist fruit flesh.  But the pears don't seem to be interesting to them ?

Chillies are liking it in the greenhouse.  Lots of ohnivec and prarie fire.  Still picking padron peppers which I barbecued tonight, and washed down with Domaine Chilli-head (grape) wine.  It could be more intense,  but is still quite drinkable, and comes to us with about 100 food yards !

(Although actually here it's too hot to sit outside!)

Last day of August - decided to have a go at sowing some winter salads. I've no cold frames now, and nowhere in the garden to plant them yet, but the greenhouse has some sad looking bare earth (tbh, it looks more like dirt you would sweep off the floor). So long as I get germination, and I've started everything off in seed trays, I will get a couple of growbags and empty the contents over the soil and plant into that. With a couple of years experience of winter salads now, at least I've some idea of what to expect.

At least you have space in the greenhouse - I can hardly get in mine for the jungle of chillies ! Lots of prarie fire and Ohnivec.

I managed to make friends with the lady at an interesting deli recently, and she gave me an assortment of dried chillies for the seed; so I will be trying Aji Mirasol from Peru, as well as Mexican cascabel and guajillo next year.

I have been less than successful with winter salads, I have to admit. Either they don't even germinate, or don't take off properly and sit and sulk. Or rot at the base. Or attract hoards of aphids ! As I say, my greenhouse is full, but I have space outside and cloches ... I do still have some land cress you sent me FB - would that work ? It didn't germinate last time, I have to admit. I also have watercress and pak choi - any chance of success if sown soon ?

Up with my Dad today. He has dug almost his whole garden ! Great effort for 82. I was going to help him, but there's not much left to do.

Chilli-head wrote:At least you have space in the greenhouse

Ha ha, only just! I have no storage for my gardening tools, so it doubles as a shed, as well as having a load of stuff used by its last owner that wasn't cleared when we bought the house (two broken kettles included?!). At least your chillies are productive.

Sorry to hear the land cress didn't germinate. Certainly not had any problem with mine, although I've chosen not to grow it this year, as I've less than half the space I had before. Last year I sowed in seed trays and germinated outside but with cover for warmth and slug/snail protection, then when large enough, planted straight out into the ground within the (open) cold frames.

I'm sure it is my lack of experience with them, I have seed left so I can try again. It is so dry here, it is easy to let germinating seed dry out at a critical stage.

I'm still picking the occasional tomato from the greenhouse, but I seem to have had a lot of foliage and not so much fruit. Which is a shame, as this year I splashed out on buying the proper fertilizer for the Easy2grow self-watering system I use. I should have compared the NPK ratio to the other (cheaper) tomato feed I use on plants in the garden before I got rid of the bottle. I'm wondering if there was less potassium in the 'proper' fertilizer than in something like Tomorite. The expensive stuff is very soluble, so you don't get any build up of sediment which might block the tubes, but I'm wondering if it really aimed at people who want to grow Other Plants in their Easy2grow system (you know, those illegal plants...!!!). I realised soon after I started using the Easy2grow that it is a completely different type of gardening, and accidentally wandered into some 'interesting' sites when finding out what spares I could buy!!!

Similar to growlights. Useful for attic gardening

My tomatoes have a lot of leaf. My dad's - which I grew from seed for him but have been growing a bit over 100 miles north, look quite autumnal with relatively little leaf left.

Chilli-head wrote:

My tomatoes have a lot of leaf.  My dad's - which I grew from seed for him but have been growing a bit over 100 miles north, look quite autumnal with relatively little leaf left.

That's interesting, so maybe seasonal temperatures in different areas. I have to say that the one tomato plant I stuck in the garden, because there was no room left in the greenhouse, has behaved itself beautifully - the normal amount of greenery and a better proportion of fruit