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I’ve been toying with the idea of trying to coax some of my pepper plants through the winter since they are perennials after all. However, a bit of a niggle has struck me.

I assume that they’ll show little sign of life before late March and probably more likely into April, by which time it’s rather late to be sowing replacements if it turns out they didn’t make the trip. I do normally like to get my peppers (and tomatoes) out of the starting blocks in mid January though perhaps I need to be rather more circumspect about that now. This year we had some exceptionally late (mid April) frosts that killed off a lot of my father-in-law’s tomatoes not long after he’d planted them out in the polytunnel. Over the previous few years we hardly even had frosts in January and February. Perhaps sowing in several batches might be a good plan, so replacements are already growing in the event that the first ones do get hit. Or I could insulate the greenhouse with some bubble wrap and get them into larger pots in there before they go into the polytunnel a bit later on.

[9th September]

The seedlings in the greenhouse are going great guns now. Loads more of the onions have come up, and the chervil and coriander are also coming to life. Possibly one or two of the lettuces, too, though they could just be odd weed seeds that have got into the compost. Despite being in the greenhouse the onions have developed an obvious “lean” towards the sunny side — a sign I guess that light levels are already dropping and the Sun is lower in the sky. Every warm outdoor surface seems to be covered in flies at the moment as they try to take advantage of the last of the summer’s warmth. There are hundreds upon hundreds of them though, which is not pleasant if you walk past and disturb them without realising they’re there 🙁

We’re having fajitas for dinner tonight, made with a mixture of sweet peppers from the polytunnel — green, creamy-yellow and purple so dark it’s almost black. I noticed one of the green ones was starting to turn yellow, so we’ve left that on the plant to see how far it will ripen.

[7th September]

I think I’ve posted before that growing plants from seed is the nearest thing there is to real magic. I nipped out to the greenhouse this lunchtime to find a few more spinach and chard seedlings had sprouted, but also the first two onion seedlings had appeared as well, so small that it wasn’t even possible to tell that their “folded over” shoot was actually folded over. I’ve just been out again and all of a sudden there are dozens of them! Very pleased about that, I have to admit.

A quick stroll through the polytunnel and around what is now a rather bare-looking veggie plot suggests that the butternut squash plants are not long for this world. The leaves are definitely starting to turn a more yellowy green. I reckon it will probably be harvest time before the month is out. Still a handful of fruit left on the courgette plants though. They’ve been really good value this year. The comics are saying that September is going to warm up considerably with temperatures reaching 25C and possibly lasting into October. I’m disinclined to give them much credence, but if it does happen perhaps we’ll see the courgettes keep going even longer.

My daughter and I pulled a huge amount of ivy off a barn wall yesterday. The more unmanageable bits (a couple so heavy that I struggled to even drag them along the ground) went on the bonfire heap, but we fed a trailer load into the shredder this afternoon and put it in the compost bin.

I also planted some land cress. Being in and out of the greenhouse a fair bit whilst seeds are germinating has been fascinating. Yesterday morning there were a couple of spinach seedlings that had sprouted. By the afternoon there were at least half a dozen. This morning a single red chard seedling had come up and now there are four or five. I can’t wait for the onions to start sprouting 🙂

[5th September]

I have spent some of the morning in the greenhouse planting seeds though. I put a few more spring onions in, mostly to use up the packet really. And then as a complete experiment I have planted some lettuce seeds from the varieties we grew outdoors this year — Webbs Wonderful, Robinson, Lollo Rossa and a red Little Gem. My intention is to see if I can keep these ones over the winter in the greenhouse as part of my winter salad project.

I also noticed that the spinach that I planted only five days ago is already sprouting. At that rate I’ll be needing to plant it out soon, so I’d best get on with making next year’s beds!

[31st August]

Though it seems odd at this time of the year, our greenhouse is starting to fill up with seed trays again. Today I planted red and brown onion seeds into modules, four to a module (or thereabouts). They will be planted out in clumps once I have the compost in place for the new veggie beds, to overwinter in the ground ready to get going in the spring. If there are more than four per clump then I’ll pull the excess to use as spring onions early next year. And on the subject of spring onions I’ve done the same with those, but planted eight to ten seeds to a module. They will also go out over the winter, as will some spinach plants (sown three seeds to a module). The spring onions will get pulled as an entire clump when we want them, but my plan is just to harvest the outer leaves of the spinach. It’s shocking how many red onions we get through. I’m fairly sure the ones I harvested this year won’t last us until Christmas. I’ve therefore sown enough seeds for around 400 red onions next year, which should mean there are enough for the in-laws as well.

I also planted the first of the plants for winter salad leaves. This is a bit of a wild experiment as I have no idea how many plants I’ll need or even if some of them will live through the winter. So far I’ve planted coriander, chervil and red chard, again in modules, with some mustards. salad rocket, leaf radish and lettuce to be sown probably next weekend. In the longer term they’ll all be planted into some boxes that I’ll have to make up, or I might see if the grocer’s in the local town wants to part company with some of their mushroom crates for a small amount of cash and use those lined with newspaper and filled with compost. Those will stay in the greenhouse right through the winter.

In the veggie plot itself we’ve started to mark out where the new beds and paths will go. I’ll be trying to get rid of as many of the perennial weeds as possible now the ground is quite soft (mostly docks and dandelions with a few nettles and the occasional tuft of couch grass) and then put a thick layer of compost down where possible some time next month. Some of it will have to wait until late winter however, until I’ve lifted all the parsnips and so on.