[mike1987]

b&q are selling tomatoes and peppers that already have ripe fruit on them the wife wanted to get some but at 6£ a plant i soon put a stop to it any idea how they are at the fruiting stage already?

[mumofstig]

they are grown in heated glasshouses with growlights on for the first few week, I would imagine.

If you sow and grow a small tomato plant on the sunniest windowledge of a centrally heated house you may match their timing. I meant to try it this year but forgot to do the early sowing

[Kristen]

There's an early-sown-Tomato thread on another forum. They sowed in early January. I haven't read of anyone who has Tomato fruits more advanced than mine - which are now getting close to 2cm diameter, and mine were sown mid February.

I reckon to get them with ripe fruit on them I think they would have had to be started a lot earlier and/or given a lot of extra light and heat.

[rubenjohnson]

such early ripe is due to forced ripping and thats not natural.
 

[chrissie B]

i planted some tomatoe seeds for hangigng baskets and although thet showed quite quickly they are dragging their heels and are jst not growing looks like i might have to buy some the same is happening to my peppers and chiliis any ideas
chrissie b

[JayG]

Where are you growing them at the moment?

(Anything outdoors, even a greenhouse, will have experienced pretty extreme temperatures this past week.)

[Paul Plots]

I have first truss of flowers on a few tomatoes in an unheated tiddly greenhouse. It is no more than 6' tall, 6' long and 2.5' wide but the wall it's on soaks up heat like a radiator.

[barbarella]

I planted my best tomatoes in growbags in my frost free greenhouse yesterday (and the cucumbers)  - they look really healthy and vigorous and all the tomatoes have flower trusses.  They were sown in early February.

Sadly the peppers and aubergines sown at the same time are still tiny.  I thought they all needed a long growing season so started them off early but next year will leave the peppers and aubergines until later.  I will probably buy some plants for this season that are further on.

[mumofstig]

Sadly the peppers and aubergines sown at the same time are still tiny.  I thought they all needed a long growing season so started them off early but next year will leave the peppers and aubergines until later. 

I don't understand how sowing them later will give you bigger plants

Aubergines and peppers will grow just as rapidly as the toms, but they do like a higher temperature than toms do for active growth.
I treat mine as houseplants in the dining room, which seems to suit them just fine 

They were all planted in the greenhouse yesterday

[Kristen]

I sowed two batches to Melons this year. The first, earlier, batch got a bit chilli at night, and they have never caught up, they are still small plants, and the second batch have overtaken them and shot up ...