Watch out! It's still hanging around.

[MKG]

Evening all, and what a perfectly gorgeous, late afternoon, evening I'm having.
I've solved a few problems (painfully - everyone knows best, don't they?) and have spent today preparing a 16 ft x 4 ft bed. I got the whole thing done, which I'm annoyingly pleased about.
Smug, or what?
Waves to everyone and their mates while I'm in a good mood
PS - I don't make wine any more - it makes me fall over. So I took up making beer, which was OK, but nothing like the real thing. Then I thought ... hang on ... why not make (strong) beer strength wine? So I did. Never looked back.

[MKG]

Oh no - I lied!!!! It was a 20ft x 4ft bed.

[Green Aura]

Hey honey, glad to see you. Glorious weather isn't it.

[MKG]

It's bloody ridiculous weather, and I'm taking full advantage. Sitting in a folding chair drinking home-made medicine is sheer torture, but someone's got to do it.
It makes up for all the wasted time trying to get Yellow Rocoto chillis to germinate. One did but fell over shortly afterwards and I've had diddly squat since. Ah well - at least I still have last year's bumper jalapeno harvest to fall back on.
I think I've got to the position of having both greenhouses in full production this year and, as you may have gathered, have discovered that thinking about your plot as a series of smaller beds rather than as a complete and rather frightening thing is a good, constructive thing.
I still have to do things at arm's length, but I'm finding that you can do a lot more than I thought that way. Small-bore plastic drainage piping is a wonderful thing - puts things more or less where you want 'em.
How's Scotland?

[Flo]

Ooooh I was going to ask how MKG got a bed that big into the house. And where he bought the bedding for it from. Then I realised he was talking mere gardening .....

[MKG]

Only you, Flo ... only you

[Odsox]

20 feet by 4 feet is a strange size Flo, I suppose you would sleep end to end, with maybe the dog in between to stop you playing footsie in the night.
Oh, hang on ....

Hiya Mike, nice to see you again.

[MKG]

Oh - another thing
If you happen to be growing chillis in your greenhouse/patio/scout hut (and you should be!!) and you come across the advice to control vegetative growth by restricting the plants to smallish pots thus stressing the plant into producing many, many more fruits, ignore it. It's cobblers. At least, it is for jalapenos, so it should be true for others (I'll know that at the end of this season).
Use a smallish pot until the plant is about 6 to 8 inches high, then get it into a really big one (I use between 3 and 5 gallon size). Take off the first fruits for use as soon as they reach a reasonable size and feed that plant!! It will grow into a 3-foot high bush. I kid you not! Anyone would describe these plants as bushes. When you get fed up of eating green chillis, leave the plant to its own devices (apart from watering, feeding, etc) and you'll soon have a long succession of red chillis which you can eat, give away, or freeze (as is - no treatment necessary).
I still have about 5 lbs of the things in my freezer from last year, and the new plants for this season are doing well.
I did try overwintering them last year. Epic fail!

[Green Aura]

I did try overwintering them last year. Epic fail!

It's definitely a hit and miss affair. We've managed to retain one plant (I had hopes for a couple of others but they're slower to revive than the new plants are to grow so we've no room for them!). That one plant, however, has produced 3-4 peppers, singly, throughout the winter and they've even ripened. That one's definitely got a place here.