Chillies, Peppers, Tomatoes & Melon crazy 2019

[The Pepper Man]

I checked on the greenhouse today and found 2 new rodent holes, but no further damage to plants. I promptly blocked them up and put chilli powder around the perimeter of greenhouse & around plants. Hopefully the little cretans stay off my plants.

The melons are doing really well and the first sign of budding is now apparent.

Boule D'or...


Red Star...



On another note, I have been left extremely disappointed with my service from Thompson & Morgan. Some of my cucumbers died in the ground for some reason, so I needed to order some replacement cucumber plants. I went with Thompson and Morgan because they were pretty much the only supplier offering Dominica cucumbers, which I was specifically after.

Once I had selected 3 x 9cm potted Dominica cucumbers, I was then incentivised at the checkout to spend another £8.99 in order to get a pack of giant Fuscia's for just 99p. Therefore I added some melon plants to my basket to bring up the price and qualify for the discounted fuscia's.

Low and behold, my order was delivered 10 days later containing just the two DAMAGED melons and NO cucumbers or fuscia's! After spending my own time to investigate the issue and check up on it, I noticed that my online order page had been changed and said '0 x Dominica cucumber' as well as the fact that I had been billed £4.99 for the Fuscia (should have been 99p). So it had been altered behind my back without any attempt to notify me!

After an hour or so looking into it, I found that they had refunded me the price of the cucumbers into my bank account (without any telephone or email notification). And because the cucumbers had been deducted against my account, I was also being charged full price for what were previously discounted Fuscia's. And the Fuscia's hadn't even arrived in the order with the melons, which I still do not have. But the fact of the matter is that I had no cucumbers, which was the main reason I placed the order in the first place! And I didn't even have them. But I had the melons which I had been incentivised into buying.

Thompson & Morgan made no attempt to contact me by phone, or email, to notify me of any stock issues, or why they could not fulfil my cucumber order. I waited 10 days, for a partially complete order to arrive, and was left scratching my head and having to do my own investigative work to find out what had happened because they were too lazy to contact me.

Given that I specifically placed this order to get cucumbers, only to be incentivised at the checkout into buying other stuff, and then not even receive the damn cucumbers that I initially set out to get, I have to say as a first-time customer, I am absolutely furious! If I knew I would not get the cucumbers, I would never have placed the bloody order in the first place! And I am left with 2 more melon plants that I didn't really even need. Plus I now have to get cucumbers from somewhere else and I have lost nearly 2 weeks of growing time over this inconvenience.

What is even more sketchy, is that after making £30 payment with my hard earned cash, I was informed that an email order confirmation was being sent out, yet I received NO email confirmation, or order summary. Very shady indeed and dreadful customer service. I will not be using them again!

[Small pumpkin]

If you look around the rest of the vine ( forum ) you will fine many threads on how disappointing T&M are at the moment.

[toomanytommytoes]

If there's one thing T&M are good at, it's upselling at the checkout. Prepare yourself for disappointment if the fuschia plugs do arrive, their standard plugs are about as big as two knuckles of my little finger (and I've got stubby fingers!).

[Scarlet]

Yep! Growing from seed is the way to go!

[The Pepper Man]

This is going to be massively controversial, but I can categorically say that I will never, EVER, grow melons inside a greenhouse again!

There are several reasons for this...

- too vigorous growth
- difficult to maintain in tight/enclosed spaces
- higher humidity makes fruit prone to rotting
- very prone to blackfly

As you can see, their side of the greenhouse is completely crowded out and hard to maintain, despite regular pruning. The whole left hand side has also become infested with blackfly, which I keep having to treat. It's just all-round frustrating to deal with, when confined to a 8 x 6 greenhouse, given the speed that these melons grow at.



I left a bunch of other melons in small pots for about a month, which have since been planted outdoors, in the ground. They are growing well in my southern climate, without the ridiculous vigour of the greenhouse melons, and are much easier to manage when not confined to a small space, such as in the greenhouse. The fruit is not rotting either on the outdoor ones, due to the lower humidity and better airflow. And they're not being attacked by blackfly, which spreads rapidly in the greenhouse, especially with all that foliage. So there are several positives to growing melons outdoors, as opposed to in the greenhouse, from what I have observed.

The only disadvantages are that you can't put the melons in the ground as early and the growth is slower. But that is easily combated by starting them early, keeping them in sufficiently sized pots and starting the pots in the greenhouse for additional warmth, before transplanting them into the ground come June. Unfortunately I left my outdoor ones in smaller starter pots for too long and did not place them in the greenhouse to grow on, which stunted them a bit. But now they are growing well. I won't make that mistake next year. I know how to approach it differently next season.

It's a similar situation with my greenhouse tomatoes as well. I am beginning to wish I just planted them in the ground and freed up the greenhouse for the peppers and cucumbers. Like the melons, the tomatoes have taken over all the space and touched the greenhouse roof many weeks ago. Even with constant pruning of these vigorous F1 varieties, it is very hard to reach the tomatoes at the back of the greenhouse due to the lack of space. It's just frustrating dealing with these vigorous veg types in enclosed spaces and something I want to do differently next year.



Next year, I will leave the greenhouse exclusively for peppers, cucumbers, a few exotics & starting seedlings. None of the big, vigorous growers like tomatoes & melons which clog up too much space. But that is just my own opinion. I'm sure others have great success with growing tomatoes & melons in greenhouses. But me, personally, I would rather just keep them outdoors, in the ground. For the reasons I have stated, and observed.

On another note, has anyone noticed problems with Black Russian tomato setting fruit? Mine seems to have a habit of dropping most of their flowers, which snap off at the branch, shortly after flowering. Only a few have actually set fruit successfully. ???

[annie8]

I can’t speak for melons as I don’t grow them but I am looking at how I grow my tomatoes and am trying some in the gh and some outdoors. Maintenance of the outdoor ones is certainly easier once they are in the beds. Not much difference in crop so far - have had a few from the outdoor types but they were started earlier. The only issue is that some tomatoes won’t work outdoors where I am so will always need some to be in gh. I might reduce the numbers a bit through to have less of a jungle. On the Black Russians I am growing for the first time. I did noticed that some of the fruit seems a bit mutant will post a pic later. Haven’t noticed drop off though.

[The Pepper Man]

Update time...

My largest sunflower this season is a self-seeded true to form Harlequin, which sprouted on its own accord. Most of my self-seeded sunflowers are hybrids, but this one looks 100% true to form.



The hot peppers are coming along well too...

[The Pepper Man]

The Carolina Reaper and Chocolate Carolina Reaper have come on leaps and bounds in recent weeks. Setting pods aplenty now.



The Pimenta de Neyde is still pretty small, but starting to grow well and setting some pods now, much like the Reapers.

[The Pepper Man]

The Padrons are really starting to produce well now, having started off slower than normal this year...



Looks like I'll be having Pimenta de Padron tapas for dinner...

[The Pepper Man]

I harvested some of the Jalapeno Early x Red Padron hybrids earlier today. Very early to set pods and they are already very red.



Harvested quite a few Shirley F1 tomatoes already this year. Solid producer. Reliable as always. Can be prone to splitting though.

[The Pepper Man]

And now onto my favourite tomatoes this year...

Here's a Black Russian that I harvested the other day. Absolutely delicious. 10/10 on flavour. The bar has been set.



I have also been picking Sungold's every day for the past 2 weeks. So far, this has been the most productive tomato this season by miles. 10/10 for yield. Tastes great too.

[The Pepper Man]

I better update this as it has been 6 weeks since my last update...

Still got plenty of tomatoes coming in now, despite a big blight outbreak back in August. Conditions have since improved however...



The Gigantamo's have been one of the best, most consistent performers this year...

[The Pepper Man]

Still very hard to beat the Black Russian for quality and favour. It still reigns supreme for me this season, having harvested 17 different varieties so far. It will be the first tomato on my list next season. Very good indeed.



To change the subject onto peppers, I wonder if anyone can advise me on an issue I have encountered this season. Basically my large King of the North sweet pepper has had several branches snap off.

The thing is, the branches have snapped off when there hasn't even been that much weight on them. Which has left me scratching my head as I haven't had this happen before, even on bigger plants with bigger peppers. Should I be staking these pepper plants? As in stake the side branches?

[The Pepper Man]

Keeping the subject on peppers, I have harvested a number of sweet peppers in recent weeks. Some interesting varieties which are producing well...

Purple Beauty (sweet pepper)



Sweet Chocolate (sweet pepper)



And don't worry, I made sure to wash the dirt off the plants. These are grown in the ground, outside of a greenhouse, hence why the dirt is splashing up onto the pods from the rain.

[The Pepper Man]

Here's a very interesting sweet pepper hybrid that I bred last year. I have appropriately named it the Dinosaur Claw pepper. I prefer to cut them when fluorescent green. Excellent flavour. 9/10 quality.



Onto slightly hotter things... here is one of my Carolina Reapers ripening up...