Plant failures
14 September 2023 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeIt looks pretty certain that I shan't get any ripe Demon Red chillies this year -- a week of heatwave has done no good, and night-time temperatures are definitely autumnal now. It's possible that the only reason why they ripened the first year was the heatwave earlier on in the summer; otherwise I really don't see what I could have done differently. Planted *later*, possibly. This plant had months of 'extra' growth time as versus the first ones, and it didn't grow at all...
The pak choi are still being stripped bare by caterpillars of such large size that it is astonishing they can possibly slip through the net of my daily checks (or grow that fast in 24 hours!) and commensurately large appetite. I would be more concerned if the plants had bred true :-(
I don't think I'm going to get any viable seed off the mesembryanthemums this year either, and certainly not the white ones. Like poppies, the flowers need to grow to a minimum size before you seem to get any actual seed in the seed-cases, and none of them have been really big enough this year. Their habit of trailing over the edges of the pots and getting trodden on when I'm trying to reach things nearer the back doesn't help, either.
The pak choi are still being stripped bare by caterpillars of such large size that it is astonishing they can possibly slip through the net of my daily checks (or grow that fast in 24 hours!) and commensurately large appetite. I would be more concerned if the plants had bred true :-(
I don't think I'm going to get any viable seed off the mesembryanthemums this year either, and certainly not the white ones. Like poppies, the flowers need to grow to a minimum size before you seem to get any actual seed in the seed-cases, and none of them have been really big enough this year. Their habit of trailing over the edges of the pots and getting trodden on when I'm trying to reach things nearer the back doesn't help, either.