Dead pepper tree

The first frosts of winter have been genocide to the plot. While the sprouts may only improve with some extreme chilling, the dwarf French beans, the pepper plants and all but two of the squash plants have been killed off.

It’s left it in a sorry state, and at the same time revealed how many peppers were hiding among the foliage. I reckon I could have picked two dozen if they’d had another couple of weeks to mature.

The squash, which I thought would be hardy and easy to grow, are turning out to be quite fragile. There are no fruits on any of them yet, and only the ones growing in the trugs, which I thought would have been more susceptible to the cold than the ones in the ground, are doing anything that looks remotely like growing.

Obviously the theory that the residual heat in the ground would help didn’t work out. I guess all that heat has well and truly gone by now. Perhaps covering the soil with black plastic would have helped, but it would be pig ugly.

So we need to have a big clear out of anything forward of the leeks, which won’t take too long, but is a shame nonetheless.

The cabbages, meanwhile, remain something of an enigma. They’re quite leggy, rather than round but I’m still hopeful they’ll fill out around the middle in time for Christmas. As things stand, though, they don’t really look all that appetising.

Related posts:

1. Squash and Dwarf French Beans
2. Last of the beetroot, end of the squash
3. A very late harvest