What's growing

I'm quite a negative person - it has to be said! My glass isn't half empty - I have no glass! and if by chance I did have a glass it would have a hole in it!
Negativity is part of who I am and always has been, it never really bothers me until I'm having a fight with the Black dog in which case it can be quite debilitating and when I'm gardening it can turn what should be a pleasant potter in the garden into a full blown mental assault on myself, anxious about all the things I'm not doing and which are getting on top of me - this usually then results in me flouncing about all cheesed off with myself and achieving nothing. Of course that then results in more of the mental attack on myself and so the cycle begins.
I tell you this because it began to happen again over the last few days and so nothing was getting done but instead of wallowing in the 'woe is me' attitude I determined to go to the polytunnel (mess as it is right now) and think about nothing but getting plants planted and seedlings potted on - music is my choice of weapon for those wandering thoughts.

So here is what is growing in my polytunnel just now

I don't grow many onions, certainly not as many as I should - these are Stuttgarter and they seem to love it in this soil.

Sweetcorn grow so well in this soil and last year I had pretty much 100% cob success. I wasn't going to grow in bottomless pots this year but I noticed mice ate the first batch of seedlings so I decided to play it safe with this second batch. The polythene is purely to stop that wretched Horsetail weed.

I am seriously naff at growing salad crops so I only gave up a small area this year. The Spring onion ain't springing it has to be said and the Pak choi has bolted - what the heck is Pak choi anyway? and what do I do with it?. The rocket was waaay to strong flavoured for me but the Spinach is tasty as are the radishes - guess I'm sticking to Radish and Spinach from now on.

First year Strawberry plants. I gave up growing these years ago cos I never got a decent yield but I'm giving it another go and hopefully have better succes over the next few years.

This Conference Pear is still riddled with some kind of pear leaf disease so it's going out in the garden in a sheltered area from the summer on. It may not produce fruit outside but it'll give the birds more cover in the garden.

The Victoria Plum is outgroing the PT so it too will be going to the garden against a sheltered south facing wall. It has 7 fruit this year - a grand improvement on last years one!

Climbing French Beans - I love these. They do so well in here and produce masses of fruits.

Second batch of Cucumber plants after mice ate the first lot. Also Courgettes are growing the other side.

The cut flowers are really romping away and I've already had a few Dianthus flowers.

The one flower I couldn't imagine not growing - sweetpea.

Quite alot of Allium on here, lord knows what I'm going to do with them all. Plus can you see the Thalictrum n the two middle pots on the middle shelf - I have loads of these that I grew form seed this year, I'm really pleased to see the doing well.

More shelving with Sunflower 'Teddybear', Coreopsis plugs and other plug plants from one of the 'Gardeners world' readers offers.

The plants have now overspilled to outside the PT door.

More overspill

Tomato blight and Pear problems

I think I'm going to have to destroy what is left of my Tomato plants because I think they have blight. It's not the first time this has happened, in fact it's happened a few times before, I'm just not 100% sure that it is actually blight they suffer from because they're in a polytunnel.
Are there any other blight sufferers out there who can confirm one way or the other?

The plants are covered in those brown areas and most of the foliage has now died back. The fruits still on the plants don't seem to be affected yet but that's just a matter of time.


I also have other disasters in the polytunnel - the Victoria plum tree has lost most of its leaves after they turned yellow and the very top branches are dying back too. On closer inspection it's infested with the dreaded Red Spidermite so we've had to remove it from the polytunnel. In the future it will over winter in the tunnel but will spend the summer outside.
The Bramley apple tree is suffering a little too. I positioned it next to the sweetcorn and the sweetcorn pollen has left a mess all over the leaves and fruit, the wasps have taken residence in the fruit.
I'll be more on the ball next year, will thin the fruit better and will reposition it.

This Pear tree is a annoying me now though. I posted earlier in the year the problems I was having with it and it was suggested it may have Pear scab. I left the fruit on it just to see what would happen and all of them are suffering from the same ailment, they're not rotting but the skins have gone scaly and split - is this a result of Pear scab?