Allotments 4 All

Here's a little synopsis from a RHS report.

How can anyone achieve those temps - or the RH??

And half strength fert for peppers - interesting? What about aubs, I wonder?
And fresh seed for peppers - never knew that.

TOMATOES indoors.
1.   Sow mid-March. Best germ @ 68F.
2.   3 to a bag. (Don’t agree!)
3.   Best growing Night 59F â€" Day 68F.    No lower than 50F Night. No higher than 75F Day.
4.   Feed weekly with ½ strength tom fert when plants have 4 true leaves.
5.   Pollination natural but help by shaking canes. Stop at 5 trusses.


PEPPERS indoors.
1.   Sow mid-March. Best germ @ 75F. USE FRESH SEED.
2.   Best growth 65-70F.
3.   Plant out after 8 weeks at 4” with first flowers showing.
4.   Maintain Night 59F. Don’t exceed Day 86F.
5.   Feed every 2 weeks with ½ strength tom fert.
6.   If weak, pinch out @ 12”.
7.   If slow, remove first flower bud.

Comments welcome!

Thanks for the info Tim,  agree with your point (2) on toms, 3 to a bag is too many.  Since I grow toms & peppers in the same GH, like everybody else probably, it will be interesting tying to maintain an optimum temperature that suits both plants.

i dont know. ideal temperatures at between 26 and 30? do not exceed 30? hmm.
how do all the southern countries manage? i guess they have a longer/warmer spring - so maybe when it gets too hot, the plants stop growth?

starting in march - i wasnt anywhere near that this year. must be more organised next year.

The conditions & requiremetns that the RHS have recommended are far too stringent, sadly, this info would put any newbie off growing anything!
Extra elements for growing successfully: just enjoy what you are doing, remember the fundamentals of life, air, food & water, chuck in abit of tlc and 'what your grandad did' and enjoy!

Quote from: tim on July 07, 2006, 06:24:27
TOMATOES indoors.
1.   Sow mid-March. Best germ @ 68F.
2.   3 to a bag. (Don’t agree!)
3.   Best growing Night 59F â€" Day 68F.    No lower than 50F Night. No higher than 75F Day.
4.   Feed weekly with ½ strength tom fert when plants have 4 true leaves.
5.   Pollination natural but help by shaking canes6. Stop at 5 trusses.

Utter tosh.

1. okay
2. Too crowded.
3. Impossible, my patio has reached 105.4°F during this heat wave and hasn't been below 66.7°F in the last month.
4. I never feed till fruit set.
5. Okay
6. Why stop if there is stil time, I have more than 5 trusses on most my plants, they are only 3' tall, why stop now, there is loads of time left.

QuotePEPPERS indoors.
1.   Sow mid-March. Best germ @ 75F. USE FRESH SEED.
2.   Best growth 65-70F.
3.   Plant out after 8 weeks at 4” with first flowers showing.
4.   Maintain Night 59F. Don’t exceed Day 86F.
5.   Feed every 2 weeks with ½ strength tom fert.
6.   If weak, pinch out @ 12”.
7.   If slow, remove first flower bud.

Comments welcome!

1, I never use fresh seed, I have no problems.
2. Impossible again
3. I often have no flowers, or fruit already set, they don't care.
4. Pah! We grew them in Thailand, when I lived there, it never fell below 90°F and averages about 100°F
5. Okay
6. Maybe
7. I have never found this to help anything.


Why do RHS put out such piffle, it makes growing vegetables look so much harder than it is, a brand of elitism in my opinion.

Yes, I think the RHS are looking at IDEAL conditions for best crops (define best ... ), but these are probably well out of the reach of a beginner (and I include myself in that category). I work with what I have got, some details I can adjust, but I have neither the time nor energy to maintain these professional standards.

I am impressed by those that can though ...

Svea - figures??

So I got comment!!  The figures were from trials of a huge variety in !999.
As noted, they are obviously the ideal. But it's amazing how one copes with huge variations of temp & RH.

I would like to know the ideal for aubs & cus.

Feeding - I feed every day. And, yes - only when fruit set. And toms, peppers, cus & aubs all get the same treatment.

amphibian - is there an art in getting so many trusses by 3'? My first often doesn't come till plants are about 18".

Spacing - some say even 3 aubs to a bag.  Some aubs have a bag-width spread!!

tim, what can i say? i am a metric girl ;D

Its OK for them with their automated systems, i.e when its too hot the vents open, when its a bit cool the heat will probably be supplementd.

I'm afraid my 30 year heath robinson greenhouse does not perform like that.

Its either draughts or high humidity I'm afraid.

I generally have some good success as the attached pictures will show.

Basically I sow old and/or new seed, depends what I have in stock.

Some of my stock are ex-supermarket varieties so these can be quite old.

Some that I sowed this year were taken in 1998 and the are growing just fine.

What I find best is not to plant out too soon, I plant out into a cool greenhouse the first week in June.

I like to keep them quite humid till the flowers set, this I think helps the set and deters the whitefly (whitefly love them).

Once the flowers set I increase the ventilation otherwise the fruit can sweat and rot, particularly if they are touching each other.

Here are some of my results in years gone by;









ps for more on how I grow mine click here;

http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Peppers.htm

Nothing wrong with that lot, TG?? But one of my points is that even with 24 vents - 8 of them auto - I've still had it down to 50F at night until the last week, & up to 95F in the day. But I'm sure they didn't add heat. And I seem to remember that they had their vents open all night.

Humidity? Yes - I try to keep the cu end high but, as the spiel says, peppers don't like it. As you say, the miracle is that we still produce great stuff!!

And Svea - much as I love metric girls - in whatever proportions their measurements come - I'm still searching for my repeat of 86 (30)??

Well just about every last one of us here feeds cukes with tomato food and get excellent results. Today I happened to look at the Vitax catalogue and lo and behold, cukes don't like potash! Go figure!Sometimes I wonder how all these plants survive in the wild without our pampering.

A bit boggling??

For 40 years I've used a high Potash feed! on everything!  Now they tell us??

My way;


Week 26: Feed fortnightly from now on, with a high nitrogen fertiliser.

Quote from: tim on July 07, 2006, 10:56:27
amphibian - is there an art in getting so many trusses by 3'? My first often doesn't come till plants are about 18".

If there is an art, I do not know what it is. Sorry.

sorry tim, not ideal temperature at 30, but not to exceed 30 (86F) - peppers, see your first posting.

no matter what, my comment still stands - how do they do it in hot countries then?

I asked my wife that, as she's from Sierra Leone. She says peppers just grow really well. 30 centigrade is the average daily temperature for several months out of the year.

Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on July 07, 2006, 22:52:20
I asked my wife that, as she's from Sierra Leone. She says peppers just grow really well. 30 centigrade is the average daily temperature for several months out of the year.

Quite, indeed look at the big chilli eaters of the world, and you start to notice a pattern. Hell, look at where most of the cultivars come from.

Thought that that would spark it!!

Temperature apart, what about humidity to dissuade RSM but not peppers??

Depends on the climate. Namissa complains like mad about our damp heat, and says that when it's really hot in Freetown, it's a dry heat. But at other times of year, humidity's around 100%, and it's still averaging around 28-29 degrees.