Posted by Ed Adamthwaite on March 5, 2007, 4:32 am
Hi Chookie,
I have had a fantastic summer (Belgrave in the Dandenongs Victoria).
Built a 6.5 x 3 metre hot-house on new ground, conditioned the soil with
lime and gypsum to get the pH correct. Dug in cow poo, horse poo and pea
straw, leaving some pea straw on top for about 6 months. Planted tomatoes in
late September and was harvesting by Christmas. I trialled a grafted Apollo
from Bunnings. It has spread out to 4 branches, so far yielding more than 60
tomatoes averaging 300g each. The biggest so far was 600g!
The other tomatoes are producing well too. A mis-labelled beefsteak plant
turned out to be a cherry tomato. I have picked hundreds from it and it
still
has heaps! I use tomato growers' clips to suspend the vines from a rail.
Normal binders string breaks under the load. I use thetwine from the pea
straw bales now.
Every day I take a couple of tomatoes and a cucumber to work just to keep
up. (The ladies at work have asked if I'm trying to suggest something).
I take Zucchinis grown outside the hot-house too.
I've bottled heaps of tomato source and spaghetti source, using chopped up
zucchini in the spaghetti sauce.
The chillis have gone nuts! They love the hot-house. The capsicums are
incredible. It's the first time I've grown them. They are so much better
than
the weeks old garbage that Safeways sell.
The tomatoes I planted outside are just starting to go red now, but seem to
be suffering from some type of wilt. I think the hot-house protects the
plants inside from air-bourne nasties. The only downer is the broccoli, It
grew OK but I couldn't keep up with the white cabbage moth grubs. A leaf
would turn into lace over night.
I reckon the hot-house is the best thing. I've never had such a prolific
harvest before.
I hope that next year is as good.
Regards,
Ed.
>I am unhappy wiht my tomato results. Hardly a tomato from any of my
>plants.
> The three that I have eaten so far were nice, but that's not much of a
> crop
> from 7 plants!
> And my beans have all been strange. Usually you get a big flush of beans,
> then more later on. I've only been getting one harvest per plant. Just
> lack
> of water, I think.
> Did my autumn planting into punnets today...
> --
> Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
> (Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)
> "Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You
> may
> start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
> Kerry Cue
Posted by 0tterbot on March 5, 2007, 4:58 pm
> Hi Chookie,
> I have had a fantastic summer (Belgrave in the Dandenongs Victoria).
> Built a 6.5 x 3 metre hot-house on new ground, conditioned the soil with
> lime and gypsum to get the pH correct. Dug in cow poo, horse poo and pea
> straw, leaving some pea straw on top for about 6 months. Planted tomatoes
> in
> late September and was harvesting by Christmas. I trialled a grafted
> Apollo
> from Bunnings. It has spread out to 4 branches, so far yielding more than
> 60
> tomatoes averaging 300g each. The biggest so far was 600g!
> The other tomatoes are producing well too. A mis-labelled beefsteak plant
> turned out to be a cherry tomato. I have picked hundreds from it and it
> still
> has heaps! I use tomato growers' clips to suspend the vines from a rail.
> Normal binders string breaks under the load. I use thetwine from the pea
> straw bales now.
> Every day I take a couple of tomatoes and a cucumber to work just to keep
> up. (The ladies at work have asked if I'm trying to suggest something).
lmao!! you'll have to stop giving them two tomatoes and a cucumber each <g>
> I take Zucchinis grown outside the hot-house too.
> I've bottled heaps of tomato source and spaghetti source, using chopped up
> zucchini in the spaghetti sauce.
> The chillis have gone nuts! They love the hot-house. The capsicums are
> incredible. It's the first time I've grown them. They are so much better
> than
> the weeks old garbage that Safeways sell.
> The tomatoes I planted outside are just starting to go red now, but seem
> to
> be suffering from some type of wilt. I think the hot-house protects the
> plants inside from air-bourne nasties. The only downer is the broccoli, It
> grew OK but I couldn't keep up with the white cabbage moth grubs. A leaf
> would turn into lace over night.
i succumbed & started using derris dust, if that helps you for next year. i
could keep the butterflies off iwth netting, but not the moths (which are
smaller). one year i am going to try enclosed boxes made of flyscreen & see
how that goes.
> I reckon the hot-house is the best thing. I've never had such a prolific
> harvest before.
> I hope that next year is as good.
> Regards,
> Ed.
disregarding the fact that i'm nearly purple with envy - what is your
hothouse made from? if it's not too much trouble to describe it briefly. and
i take it you are growing directly in the soil, yes?
kylie
Posted by 0tterbot on March 7, 2007, 3:43 am
> Hi Kylie,
>> - what is your hothouse made from? if it's not too much trouble to
>> describe it briefly.
> Its made from steel hoops with plastic film stretched over it. I bought it
> from Monbulk Rural Enterprises.
> http://www.monbulkrural.com.au/
> They make them to size in approximately 2.1 meter increments in length.
> The
> film is made with a non-drip inside surface and has a slightly insulative
> property. I added 3 extra rails, a central rail between the top of the
> doors
> and one down either side at about 2 metres high offset 100mm inwards.
> These are used for supporting the twine that the tomato clips attach to
> and
> for supporting a trellis mesh when needed. The irrigation feed lines for
> drip irrigation run down each side and along the central rail.
> As a general rule the daytime temperature inside will reach nearly
> double the outside maximum, so it is important to keep the doors open on a
> day that goes over 23 degrees max. Tomatoes require somewhere between 12
> and
> 14 degrees for the chemical process that makes them turn red, so the
> greater
> temperature of the hothouse means that the tomato season is increased in
> length.
>> and i take it you are growing directly in the soil, yes?
> Yes. The Dandenongs mountain soil is acidic and clay based, parts closer
> to
> the clay under-soil where I placed my hothouse had a pH of 5, so quite a
> bit
> of preparation was called for to get it back to the optimum of 6.5. I have
> made a double bay compost bin and will be digging in a bit over 1 cubic
> meter of compost after this growing season to increase the biota in the
> soil.
interesting, thanks! those greenhouses look nice! i have one (plastic as
well) but it's pretty basic, and the plastic is even worse since the Great
Greenhouse Mishap of 2006. I aspire to a really nice one one day. ;-)
>> i succumbed & started using derris dust, if that helps you for next year.
>> i could keep the butterflies off iwth netting, but not the moths (which
>> are smaller).
> I tried some derris dust, but didn't like the idea of eating the broccoli
> heads as it is quite hard to wash them out, so gave up.
it is? i haven't had any trouble at all, but then my broccoli heads are
quite loose for some reason. (might make a difference, i don't know!).
>>one year i am going to try enclosed boxes made of flyscreen
>> & see how that goes
> The flyscreen sounds good, but I wonder if it might shade too much of the
> light. If you do try the flyscreen boxes, please post the results.
> I'd like to hear how they go.
someone here wrote in once that they used shadecloth boxes & it worked well.
this summer i have had a shadecloth top over the broccoli & cabbage &
they've been fine (and haven't bolted either! as i was genuinely expecting
they might as they went in late). so i feel pretty sure flyscreen would be
all right. at any rate, if i ever get on with it, i'll report!
kylie
Posted by FarmI on March 6, 2007, 3:44 pm
>I am unhappy wiht my tomato results. Hardly a tomato from any of my
>plants.
> The three that I have eaten so far were nice, but that's not much of a
> crop
> from 7 plants!
:-((
For once, I have have got a superb crop of tomatoes. Mind you, I've waited
about 15 years to have a return of the Great Tomato Glut. They had a rocky
start. I planted on Melbourne Cup day (the time for planting here) and then
because it was still cold, I put plastic sleeves around them and every cold
night I rushed out and covered them and they still managed to get bitten by
frosts in late November. I added 4 more plants after that frost because the
originals looked so sad, but they came back so I had about 10 or 12 plants
all up. I x cherry tom - "Sweet Bite" - superb, will plant it again. 1 x
'Russian' - black one from a friend - also delicious. 1 x 'Monster' - a
beefsteak which normally doesn't grow well here because of the short season
,but it's still powering on and producing well. Several 'Grosse Lisse' -
always a good reliable tom. 1 x 'Tigerella' - hopeless - flavour not good
and too few fruit - won't bother again. Several 'San Marzano' - good and
prolific. Several 'Roma' ditto.
I've bottled puree and made Tom Sauce and today I do Rich Fruit Chutney and
later this week it will be bottling of tomato chunks for use in winter
stews.
This year zucchinis were not too good - also experienced by a friend in
Melbourne - not a lot of them and slow to produce. Corn went beserk - must
be the Elephant poo. Potatoes growing strongly but as it's not time to
harvest yet, I dont' know if the tops indicate a good crop, but if the tops
are anything to go by, I'll have lots of Purple Congos (under a pile of
weeds thrown on top) and whatever other ones my husband planted. Have
rockmelons on vine and couldn't be more thrilled! If I can only get a nice
long Autumn, I may even be able to eat some. Tried to grow these now for
several years but this is the first year I've had a vine produce fruit. I
had sex with the vine by way of a brush so that may be the answer to non
fruiting. Lebanese cucumber in plague proprtions - giving them away like
confetti. butter bean only now beginning to set pods - may not get too many
but they were planted late after inspiration from you Chookie. Silver beet
doing well after a slow start. Chinese veg did well but need to plant
more - now on for young and old as it's time to get in winter/spring stuff.
Posted by FarmI on March 6, 2007, 3:50 pm
The only downer is the broccoli, It
> grew OK but I couldn't keep up with the white cabbage moth grubs. A leaf
> would turn into lace over night.
Some years ago, I read in either 'Earth Garden' or 'Grass Roots' that
cabbage moth are terratorial and they gave an idea for making fake cabbage
moths and putting them round whatever the moths were attacking. I made some
fake ones using a cut up plastic 2 litre milk container putting on black
dots with texta,s tuck these on satay skewers and then stuck the skewer onto
a thing bamboo stake and pushed it into the ground next to the plants. It
worked!
I watched the moths dancinfg around and then moving on to where there wasn't
another 'moth'. Not totally undamamged, but enough for me to get a good
result and it's non toxic.
XML site map
>plants.
> The three that I have eaten so far were nice, but that's not much of a
> crop
> from 7 plants!
> And my beans have all been strange. Usually you get a big flush of beans,
> then more later on. I've only been getting one harvest per plant. Just
> lack
> of water, I think.
> Did my autumn planting into punnets today...
> --
> Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
> (Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)
> "Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You
> may
> start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
> Kerry Cue