How does your polytunnel/greenhouse grow this year?

[Green Aura]

I think we all must be suffering this "summer" Tony. My chillies and peppers are only just flowering and they're behind glass on our windowsills.

[diggernotdreamer]

I have found this year to be really awful. As you may know, many of my tomatoes and peppers got struck down when we had a -4 frost in late May. Well, those plants have revived, mainly I think down to me being really horrible to them and making them toughen up when they are young. I had to bring in my leeks and winter brassicas from outside as they were not doing anything out there, they have perked up now and I will have to bring them back out to harden up. My strawberries did not amount to much, which I have put down to the yoyo conditions, the leaves went red which I think may be that they were not taking up nutrients as they thought it was winter again. June conditions where evening temps never got above 4 and the daytime was not above 12 for a good three weeks. Even lettuce decided not germinate so I now have a gap for a few weeks where I won't be selling anything until the plants I just put in bulk up. But have had a good crop of sugar peas in the tunnel as they liked the cooler conditions. The potatoes came good in the end in spite of getting frosted in the tunnel.

[Odsox]

Thought I'd update the pictures. The leeks that you can see in an earlier photo are now big enough to eat and should last for a while.

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In my other tunnel the Brussels sprouts are just about to start as well, they should last until the beginning of February

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Further down there are 4 Calabrese which should head up by early December and then keep producing spears until we get fed up with them and they get pulled up. The little plants with them are spring cabbages.

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On the other side of the path is a "clump" of January King cabbages, and me being me I planted them a wee bit too close. There are 8 cabbages in that clump, but it looks worse on the photo than it actually is.

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Finally, above the cabbages are two Crimson Crush tomatoes still living up to their description as being blight proof. The reason they look a bit leggy is I had already planted up that bed with tomatoes when I was offered the (FREE) crimson crush plants, so they got jobbed in between the existing tomatoes and the side wall of the tunnel, so wedged between mature tomato plants and a grape vine. You can see them as small plants in the earlier photos above.
In the distance you can see a solitary PSB (I have 2 more outside to follow on) and the remains of the other tomatoes which DID get blight, and still have.

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[Green Aura]

No pictures, I'm afraid, just a quick review or the tomatoes we tried this year. We continue in our quest to find decent-tasting, short season types so this year we grew - Bloody butcher; Brandywine; Silvery fir; Red cherry (free packet on the front of a gardening comic); Latah; Burpees delicious; Rose de Berne (?); Totem (indoors on the windowsill) and as a late thought Marmande.

Most were really disappointing from extremely low yield (Silvery Fir - we're still arguing over whether the two tomaotes we picked from two plants were actually from Marmande branches that had fallen across ) to almost tasteless (Bloody Butcher - which was unfortunate because they were the first to produce and kept going throughout the season). The Totem were lovely but obviously are tiny plants. Everything else was somewhere on the continuum.

Anyway the outright winners for amount and taste were the Red Cherry - free packet. As it is apparently unnamed (try Googling Red Cherry tomatoes) we can only hope that the few seeds we managed to save will come true next year. The Marmande, which we sowed very late, came second. They produced lots of fruit and I'm guessing would have produced more had we sown them at the same time and were not bad tastewise.

Loser, by a mile? Silvery Fir. Assuming we got any fruit at all (as I say, disputed) the expense of shipping the seed from Canada for the production of some pretty, feathery, green foliage won't be repeated.

To qualify the above we have had the worst summer for many a long year, with virtually no sunny days between the end of April and the start of October (both of those months were lovely). So we may have to give some of them a second chance to see if a bit of sunshine can sufficiently ramp up the taste.

[Odsox]

The tomatoes I grew this year were Ferline, Stupice, Tigerella, Dr Carolyn, Green Zebra, Crimson Crush, Totem and a supposedly Gardeners Delight but which was some weird cross with a Tigerella.

The Ferline is supposed to be blight resistant but didn't do much resisting this year where the Crimson Crush is still totally blight free. The Dr Carolyn was a disappointment in that it didn't produce much fruit and was tasteless. The Green Zebra was a very late starter, but did produce nice sized sweet/acid fruit that makes the most bilious yellow green purée that would make even the most bland pizza "interesting"
Stupice is probably good for you Maggie, it grew quickly from a January 1st sowing and unlike other early varieties it ripened very quickly and has a very good taste as well. First ripe fruit from it picked here on 31st of March.
Star of the show must be the Crimson Crush and I will grow again next year. Not sure how quickly it grows as I was given 3 plants at the beginning of June to evaluate.
Totem are doing well, sowed beginning of September they are just getting pea sized fruit now

Bilious Green Zebra

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[Green Aura]

I'll give some a try next year, those green zebra look fabulous. I bet they'd make a great salsa.

[Odsox]

I'll send you some seed then Maggie, as I have about a dozen left in the packet and I don't intend to grow them next year. I'll also send some Stupice that are this year's saved seed (It's non-F1)

[Green Aura]

And we have some Silver Fir by return, as promised. Was there anything else?

[Odsox]

Was there anything else?

Since you're asking, can I have some Marmande please ?
I've often thought I'd like to try it, but never have.

[Green Aura]

Okey doke.