Time to put things to bed in the Winter Greenhouse

The incredibly long lived tomato plants I was showing you last week, finally bit the dust. They still had flowers on and tiny fruits but as the cold finally closed in this week it would have been futile to leave them. Besides I needed the space in the greenhouse!

A stay of execution for the Lemon Trees!

As this weeks frost was forecast, I desperately needed to bring the pots containing tender plants into the greenhouse. Mainly Agapanthus and Nerines but also those contentious two lemon trees.

Do you remember the garden apprentice saying, if they didn’t fruit this year, they were history?

It’s because he can’t abide plants with spikes on, especially ones in pots! This is understandable as he’s the one that has to carry them around. So if they don’t provide value to the garden….

Well, with plenty of TLC they’ve been looking much more healthy, we also had a few promising starts with lots of beautifully scented white flowers and tiny little fruits, but sadly, they all dropped off!

Anyway I pleaded their case and bought them another over wintering in the greenhouse. Unfortunately as they were being carried in, the inevitable happened and yet again he was spiked by one.

This prompted him telling them, in rather colourful language, that they have twelve months or he’ll take great pleasure chopping them up into little bits.

Let’s hope for the best!

Cheerful Chillies

Luckily to make up for the lemon tree debacle, the garden apprentices favourite crop has had a bumper year. We’ve had a chilli fiesta!

We’ve even had our first double chilli, twice as much bang for your buck!

The habanero chilli plants have yielded their second generous harvest this week, producing more jars of ‘lethal sauce’. You can find the recipe under, Super, Simple, Hot Habanero Chilli Sauce.

They’ve been VERY carefully labelled, to avoid blowing my brains out. As I prefer my chilli sauce a little milder!

The best of the plants have now been trimmed back and brought inside for their winter stay.

Winter Salad

I actually remembered to sow a little salad whilst we still had some heat in the sun. I usually forget to keep sowing as we go into winter, but mustard mix is surprisingly hardy. It means we at least have a few leaves to pop on a sandwich

2022 Greenhouse Produce

All in all it’s been a pretty descent greenhouse harvest this year. Including an aubergine that resembled a caterpillar! I really don’t know why the first fruit came out such a strange shape, as the ones that followed were quite normal.

The gherkins had a very productive start, faltering a bit through the extreme heat of mid-summer. But coming back to life latterly.

The tomatoes also seemed to suffer a little in the heatwave. The fruits came slow and steady all summer long but we didn’t have the glut that we normally have.

The real winners though were the chillies, that thought they were back in their native south America, loving all that hot sunshine.

Good job we’ve got a few jars of chilli sauce to bring back the heat of summer to the now cold winter!