Topic: Fair dinkum?

[tim]

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[saddad]

Excellent, I have several photos like that in the camera.. just need to mail them to this 'puter...
 :-[

[mc55]

what a fantastic haul - how come your peppers are red already ?  Mine are still quite small and very green.

[Biscombe]

Indeed!!! only my chili's and baby orange peppers ave changed colour!!!! Jammy or what!! bet yjay Tim sowed late too!!!  ;)

[tim]

MC55 - Gypsy are always fairly early. My Rosso are only just turning, & Yellow Labrador are way off. Much depends, also, on size?

[Barnowl]

Apart from overwintered chillies, the only one to have gone red is the Mirasol planted out in the open up at the allotment. The greenhouse plants have been slow to even flower, partly because I've left the door open since May to avoid spider mite, but I think mainly because  of the overcrowding in the GH they have gone for height before flowering.

[tim]

1. Funny about the outdoor ones - maybe they think they're dying & have to get on with it!

2. GH? Some GH!!

3. Red Spider? Not sure that that's a preventative. We have 20 vents & still get it.

[Barnowl]

I think you might be right about that - they've matured when the plant is half its normal height and doesn't look too happy.

I thought low temperatures put red spider mite off? With my size of GH leaving the door open effectively means the temperature inside at night will drop to pretty much the same as outside - just less wind exposure.

Just looked RSM up: Oops! Lower temperatures don't stop them, they just breed more slowly - it's the parasitic wasp that you buy to kill them that needs a minimum temperature!

[tim]

Predators? Yes - NOT LESS than 60F or so!

So - your 'house cools down at night -  but the day temperature is what? Despite vents & shading, ours goes off the clock.

[Barnowl]

I'm out at work during the day and these stupid new non-mercury max-min thermometers only seem to last 2-3 months. But from the w.e.'s I would guess that with the door open during May / June in the good weather it regularly stayed over 30degC / 86F,  July  to August around 25C /77F   except on sunny days (hah!) when it would have a much higher peak. Yesterday morning it was only 14C/57F  so I'm starting shutting up overnight again.  I don't have any flagstones or similar - so not great heat retention overnight and it really is quite shaded from the sun for much of the hottest part of the day. At least it means that I didn't have to wet down very often last summer and can leave it for a 2-3 days without worrying.

[tim]

Temps in the shade, presumably?

[Barnowl]

Yes - when the sun wasn't directly on it. Not warm enough - going to have to cut back the magnolia again and give the eucalyptus a trim before next season.