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Might have to give up growing onions as I have white rot in all my beds. Usually I use sets and again this year they were decimated by rot. As an experiment I grew some from seed and they fared better. I will try seed again next year. Anybody have an explanation why seed grown appear less affected?
 
Might have to give up growing onions as I have white rot in all my beds. Usually I use sets and again this year they were decimated by rot. As an experiment I grew some from seed and they fared better. I will try seed again next year. Anybody have an explanation why seed grown appear less affected?
We have done the same, can't grow sets but seed is not too bad. Lose a few but we pull them early and cut and freeze them. Most store Ok. But shallots seem to be the best idea! Hardly any rot in those!
 
Seeds are much cheaper, too. I sow four seeds per module in trays towards the tail end of January/early February in the greenhouse, then plant the clumps out a month or so later. It would cost a fortune to buy enough sets to see us through the year.

James
 
Aliums have major pest problems. From botrytis, Rust to eal worm. With onion eal worm you need to give about 7 to 10 years break. May be time for alium break. Thats why cross contamination is so bad. Clean tools etc
 
I now cannot remember which member recommended St Pierre tomatoes but thanks to him/her I now have some really tasty mid sized red tomatoes in my greenhouse. Thank you. Very hot in the greenhouse at present and all tomatoes are doing well although not all ripe yet so I have a spread through the summer fruiting season starting with Suplice.
 
Oh! I grew this last year. Looked fantastic, tasted a bit meh! All show IMHO.
Just picked some of the Kellogs. As you say they look amazing. I have never eaten such a tasteless tomato. Seek advice for next year not seed sellers descriptionj.
 
Just picked some of the Kellogs. As you say they look amazing. I have never eaten such a tasteless tomato
maybe they were named after Dr Kellog (not his brother the cornflake maker) after someone said "you can stuff that tasteless thing up your a..........................."
 
Just picked some of the Kellogs. As you say they look amazing. I have never eaten such a tasteless tomato. Seek advice for next year not seed sellers descriptionj.

You're looking specifically for a large fruit? (Not that I'm suggesting it's a bad thing. A large fleshy fruit can be great for making sauces.)

James
 
You're looking specifically for a large fruit? (Not that I'm suggesting it's a bad thing. A large fleshy fruit can be great for making sauces.)

James
Has pretty much no flavour though. Better off with Roma for sauces or Marmande for a big tomato with bags of flavour IMHO
 
Has pretty much no flavour though. Better off with Roma for sauces or Marmande for a big tomato with bags of flavour IMHO

Oh, certainly. I just wanted to be sure that was what the poster was after. For example in the last few years I've grown a very sweet tomato called Apero which tastes fantastic when it's in a salad, say, but it's way too small to be making sauces from.

James
 
Seedless grapes, this picture is not this seasons, as they are not near ready yet. I have a unheated plastic hoop house and have one grape growing up and over each hoop, 4 in total. This one is supposed to be Suffolk Seedless, definitely not for our zone 2a without this protection.

The greenhouse has zero heat in the winter so it does get to -40C in there but I believe that it is not always the low temp. but the duration that the plant must survive at that temp. Even on a cold winter day, once the sun comes up it warms up nice in there. I do lay the vines down and throw a blanket over them in the fall.

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Oh, certainly. I just wanted to be sure that was what the poster was after. For example in the last few years I've grown a very sweet tomato called Apero which tastes fantastic when it's in a salad, say, but it's way too small to be making sauces from.

James
I need to try that one next year. Where did you source the seeds?
Growing Indigo Apple for the first time this year. Looks nice, fruiting well but not particularly tasty.
 
I only try to grow for flavour with tomatoes and most home grown vegetables. Just such an improvement over those in the shops. Similarly with apples I grow varieties not usually available in main supermarkets.
 
I only try to grow for flavour with tomatoes and most home grown vegetables. Just such an improvement over those in the shops. Similarly with apples I grow varieties not usually available in main supermarkets.

That's very much my approach. With soft fruit for example, I'll live with having to wear a suit of armour for the harvest if the taste warrants it. Some of the apples, pears and plums I have planted may not produce the biggest crops and can sometimes be a bit temperamental, but they taste excellent.

I do also prefer to grow open-pollinated vegetables if I can, but sometimes it's just impractical.

James
 
I'm trying to move away from F1 varieties as much as possible specifically so I can save seed, though in some cases it's just not practical anyhow -- I read that for sweetcorn for instance you ideally need to have several hundred plants to maintain sufficient genetic diversity. Even the few dozen plants that are desirable for getting seed from brassicas would take up a lot of space (and for a long time).

Tomatoes are tricky though. Larger varieties aren't bad and I've found a few non-F1 varieties that I'm happy with, but the really nice cherry tomatoes all seem to be F1. Last year I tried rooting some side shoots from some of my plants to keep through the winter, which worked well but I didn't get the timing right and they got too big (and started to flower) before winter even arrived. This year I'm growing an F1 cherry tomato called Apero and I'll have another go but leave it a little later. My father-in-law likes an F1 variety called Orange Paruche which has somewhat unpredictable availability so I'll try with that as well. Has to be worth the effort given that F1 tomato seeds seem to cost about 50p each!

James
I saved some seed from a supermarket variety called Brioso. They seem to be easily available and produce nice trusses of medium sized tomatoes, they also tend to be the first to ripen. Well worth looking for.
 
Blight is something of a nightmare. It thrives in warm, damp conditions and can spread tens of miles on the wind, so it's largely unavoidable. This is the first year in a long time that I've not had it to some degree here (so far), which I assume is down to the very dry weather. My potatoes always suffer first because they're outdoors, but it does eventually get to the tomatoes in the polytunnel too. Fortunately that's usually not until very near the end of the season when we're just trying to get the last few fruit to ripen.

The blight fungus actually requires a live host and from memory can't survive in any form (spores or "live" fungus) without one for more than a few days, so composting plants that have it really shouldn't be a problem. I've read suggestions that where potatoes are concerned, the larger problem is "volunteer" potatoes from previous years' crops that provide a host for the fungus over Winter and then spread it again when they sprout in the Spring. For that reason I've been removing all signs of volunteer plants this year.

Where potatoes are concerned, I think growing resistant varieties is probably the only real choice unless you just learn to live with it. Farmers have other options using chemical controls, but not ones that are available (nor even viable, really) to the rest of us. In the case of tomatoes growing under cover seems to be the best choice though there are blight-tolerant and blight-resistant varieties if that's not an option.

Watering when the air is still might help, as the fungus needs a period of time when the plant is wet to infect it, but all it takes is a rainy and windy summer day and whatever precautions you've taken may well be rendered useless :(

James
Good advice, we have a massive crop of queens and beat the blight by removing the foliage in time. Unfortunately they are heavily scabbed. They got 7-6-17 when sowing that's all. Any ideas re the scab
 
Didn't quite make the pound 15 and 1/4oz. However good flavour and many similar. Wish I had kept the packet as don't know the variety but at £1 per seed was worth it!!
 

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Any ideas re the scab

I'm afraid not. It's not a problem I've ever had. The biggest problem this year with the maincrop potatoes is the blackbirds keep digging them up! Because of the lack of rain I think under the foliage is I think the only place that is likely to be moist enough for beetles and other stuff that they eat to live. So having put a load of compost on the plants to earth them up, the blackbirds have spent weeks digging in it for food and unearthing the potatoes in the process :(

James
 
I'm afraid not. It's not a problem I've ever had. The biggest problem this year with the maincrop potatoes is the blackbirds keep digging them up! Because of the lack of rain I think under the foliage is I think the only place that is likely to be moist enough for beetles and other stuff that they eat to live. So having put a load of compost on the plants to earth them up, the blackbirds have spent weeks digging in it for food and unearthing the potatoes in the process :(

James
I had two apple trees stripped clean in a couple of days, during the drought, never saw this before, It seems that when the word got around it was a free for all, both little and large?
 

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