Now
that Autumn is here and the weather has taken a dramatic nose-dive as
far as night time temperatures are concerned, I have been busy
harvesting the remains of my fruit/vegetables.
Although
my new little greenhouse is capable of maintaining a temperature 2-3
degrees warmer than that outside, it is not frost proof.
Within
its confines I have grown some rather weedy looking Hungarian Hot Wax
chile peppers as well as 3 extra Red Robin mini tomato plants. They
were taken as inter-nodal cuttings a few months back. The peppers will gradually turn redder and get hotter as they ripen further.
Here
they are freshly harvested and washed.
A
couple of days ago, I also took the fruit from my indoor pepper
plants (again a poor show) as well as those from some extra nodal
cuttings of a Ferline tomato. Hopefully these will also go red and ripen.
Finally,
the last few tomatillo's have been gathered.
You are certainly not alone in having poor crops this year. I have just been talking about this with a friend and both of us had the same. While my tomatoes have produced a reasonable crop they are still green and are splitting as they turn orange. Hopefully we will get a few ripened on the windowsill. Every little bit helps to eke out the budget. Lets hope for lovely weather and bumper crops next year.
ReplyDeleteI put my green tomatoes in a shoe box to ripen :)
ReplyDeleteLizzie - I used to put mine in a brown bag but at the moment, they are ripening okay in amongst the red ones. Good tip though, especially if you have loads.
ReplyDeleteKaren - I was most disappointed I think with the chillies and beetroot. Only got two of those!
I've just got back from the allotment. Our pear crop amounted to 1, and our apple crop ( from 2 trees) amounted to 5. There are barely any blackberries either, but I did pick half a colander of raspberries and a lot of runner beans. The weeds have done well though!
ReplyDeleteWe did have 6 red pears but they kept falling off only half grown. 1 left now but not very good to look at. Other pear tree had 9, 4 of which look pitted and the rest okay but small. No apples. Only 2 beetroot. At least you can freeze your runner beans and enjoy them in winter.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful rich greenery there! Have you tried slipping a banana in to your bag of ripening fruit? I know they produce gases which aid some fruit ripening - it guess it's worth a go for tomatoes? x
ReplyDeleteThank you Kim, your WW roll looks delicious by the way!
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