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Greenhouse Growing

Quick Greenhouse Update

Our 8’x10′ greenhouse has been a hive of activity – seed sowing, pricking out, potting up, potting on – since early March. But as most of the plants have now been moved outside to their longer-term homes, things are a bit more sedate now, with a few of the more tender and/or heat-loving plants settling in to some serious growing.

Here’s a whole shelf-full of chilli plants, happily doing their thing:

July 2016 greenhouse chillis
Larger specimens at the back are producing fruits, smaller ones still thinking about it…

The taller plants are all ‘Cayenne’ – the standard red chilli sold in most supermarkets – and they’re all producing fruits quite happily. The smaller plants in front of those and on the lower shelf are an assortment of ‘pot black’, ‘prairie fire’ and ‘habanero / Scotch bonnet’ (t.b.c.). They’re healthy and have all flowered, but have been slower to produce fruit, I suspect because they’re hotter varieties and therefore need more sustained heat that we’ve had of late? A more seasoned chilli grower than me might be able confirm that one.

Sneaking in from the left of the pic, you might spot the flowers of Fuchsia ‘berry’ – a variety from Thompson & Morgan that’s meant to produce large, edible, tasty fruits.

The flowers are certainly large and impressive enough:

July 2016 fuchsia 'berry' flower
A big, bold and bright bloom on this fuchsia variety.

We’ve also managed to grow a decent basil plant or two, which is a first for us:

July 2016 greenhouse basil
Green, bush and red varieties.

The green at the top and the red at the bottom have been grown from seed. The ‘bush’ basil in the middle is one we bought from a nursery the other week (I might take a few cuttings and see if I can multiply it along.)

It turns out that we’re growing indoor beans this year as well. Not deliberately – I started off a few climbing French bean ‘Purple Queen’ and instead of climbing they ended up draping themselves down the staging. It seems to be working for them though: there are flowers and even a couple of proto-beans:

July 2016 purple bean flower
‘Purple Queen’ seems to like the indoor living conditions.

Yeah, I think they can be left to do their thing.

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