Pepino Growing Diary
This year John has had a bumper crop from his pepino plant in a Rain & Drain Small.
I hope to do even better than last year’s record crop. To help me achieve my aim I have taken measures to eliminate the factors which took a toll last time out.
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To protect them from the inevitable frosts I have rigged up a small EXO FRAME. This sits on top of the horizontal support frame. Each evening I will cover the plants with a layer of bubble film lying over this frame.
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Years of experience with frost protection has taught me not to make any use of frost forecasts so I’m putting the bubble film on every night until the risk is over and this way I won’t be caught out. I could of course still fall victim to a fairly severe frost which we cannot rule out and that’s why I have “back-up” plants in the VITOPOD. I’ve also put a solution heater in the GS300 set to 22°C. This will add usefully to the frost protection. I will switch the heater off about the middle of April. In addition, I have raised the horizontal netting on which the pepinos are supported to about 30” (0.75M) also with EXOFRAME. This is to make it easy to access the earliest ripe fruits without disturbing the dense canopy. |
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I’m very conscious that in 2008 the crop of pepinos was slow to ripen “on the plant” and that we nearly lost the fruits to an early frost. |
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It’s still a challenge to pick the fruit but it has been very rewarding. I have been storing the picked fruit on a wire mesh in the polytunnel and sure enough they have almost instantly turned yellow indicating a rapid ripening process. |
I note last year’s total yield from the GS300 was 19.8kgs and I am weighing all the fruit as it’s picked. It will be a close thing but my feeling is that I might just have improved a kilo or so.