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I'm in the process of transplanting some of my seedlings, cherokee purple tomatoes, fish peppers, chocolate peppers, and fatalli peppers. Moved them to bigger containers that will hopefully last until its warm enough to transplant outside. With my new setup I got about %50 success with the tomatoes and peppers. It was my first time using coconut bricks as a starting medium, I definitely over watered killing some plants and causing white fungus to grow on some flats that I ended up tossing. Here is my setup:  One main light, a supplemental LED light I just kind of hung up there for extra goodness and a heat mat with a thermostat underneath. In that same first flat I also started some grandma Hadleys lettuce that I moved:  Its doing well. Temps are staying above 34 F here so far so I think I will try and move them outside soon. I also had some brussel sprouts, broccoli, and lemon mint I started alongside everything else. I think I need to split them off into a different setup since they dont like the heat as much as the peppers and they need more water. BaseballPCHiker fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Apr 25, 2019 |
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Apr 25, 2019 16:47
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vonnegutt posted:Cantaloupe grown at home was disappointingly small (I thought) until I tasted it, and then it became a perfect single serving melon, incredibly soft and sweet. We went through that same attitude adjustment. Once we learned to check the stem and blossom end for ripeness and not rely on the size it became another world. We settled on Santa Fe cantalope for a couple of years. Unlike other melon varieties when you freeze cubes of Santa Fe they come out of the freezer firm and almost as good tasting as they went in. Unfortunately they're an F1 hybrid and haven't been offered for sale for the last two years.  We have a similar problem with January King cabbage. As a cabbage it's not as much of a standout as Santa Fe is as a cantalope but it does well overwintering in our climate. Unfortunately the seeds seem to only be available one year out of three. Fortunately it's an open pollinated variety, so I am finally getting off my butt and getting organized to start seed saving from the plants I overwintered this year. Ape Has Killed Ape posted:You can make little hammocks out of old shirts or bed sheets if you're worried about them. This. Mesh bags from onions also work, and you can sometimes get melon bags in garden shops if you need to buy something.
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Apr 25, 2019 18:10
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Ape Has Killed Ape posted:You can make little hammocks out of old shirts or bed sheets if you're worried about them. 
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Apr 25, 2019 18:48
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Sir Lemming posted:drat I should really try that! I haven't seen that problem with past plants that we definitely left alone longer than we should've, and I was wary of picking too many when it's only been a few weeks (in our garden, obviously not in the nursery). But I'll be more aggressive about it. About the only kind of basil that I've seen having trouble with regrowth is Thai sweet basil, which seems to be less willing to fill out after harvesting once it starts trying to bolt. Most basils can be convinced that it ain't time to bolt by judicious pruning (and just pinching off the flowers) but Thai sweet basil always seems to want to stick with bolting whatever you do. Holy basil/kaprao seems relatively finicky when it's getting established (compared to most basils), so I'm more cautious harvesting while the plant's still small, but once it gets going you can't harvest it fast enough to keep up. Hubis posted:Plus having access to some off-the-wall varieties I wouldn't even be able to get elsewhere. About the only exceptions to this are herbs, which I grow just to always have some on hand: rosemary, thyme, epazote, lovage, and so on. And I kinda throw peppers into that as well, because I'm always reaching for a handful of fresh or dried peppers to go into a stir-fry, sambal, or whatever.
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Apr 25, 2019 20:22
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SubG posted:About the only exceptions to this are herbs, which I grow just to always have some on hand: rosemary, thyme, epazote, lovage, and so on. And I kinda throw peppers into that as well, because I'm always reaching for a handful of fresh or dried peppers to go into a stir-fry, sambal, or whatever. I should try Epazote. What do you use lovage in?
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Apr 25, 2019 21:02
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Hubis posted:I should try Epazote. What do you use lovage in? Anything you might want some celery-ish flavor in
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Apr 25, 2019 21:06
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Hubis posted:I should try Epazote. What do you use lovage in? I can't think of many recipes where it's a holy poo poo you've got to have the lovage or it just ain't right or anything like that. But it's one of those things you can go to if you just want something to garnish with. I almost always grow potato onions, replication shallots, or some other holy-poo poo-there's-a-lot-of-them allium, and end up harvesting greens just because I want to throw something green on top of whatever I'm making. Same thing with lovage, only lovage gets you a more leafy thing and allium greens is more of a chiffonade type thing.
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Apr 25, 2019 21:16
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SubG posted:epazote, After three years of searching I finally got some epazote seeds this spring. Is there a trick to germinating them? The first batch I tried to start in a chamber on a heat pad produced one sickly stalk that keeled over and died as soon as I took it out and put it under the main grow lights.
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Apr 25, 2019 21:52
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Hexigrammus posted:After three years of searching I finally got some epazote seeds this spring. Is there a trick to germinating them? The first batch I tried to start in a chamber on a heat pad produced one sickly stalk that keeled over and died as soon as I took it out and put it under the main grow lights.
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Apr 25, 2019 22:13
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Hexigrammus posted:Absolutely. Nothing like having four 4x10 raised beds of tomatoes get the blight and go from robust health to black mounds in 3 days. Gives you a whole new insight into the Irish Potato Famine (same bug) without the winter starvation thing and leads to a bunch of interesting reading in plant pathology and history. Haven't had the same problem since. I'm mildly stressed since I'm only growing things I can't buy anywhere locally, so if they die I'm poo poo out of luck. Hexigrammus posted:And now I'm wondering what roasted parsnip and gobo roots taste like. Both my wife and I remember the boiled parsnips of our childhood as disgusting, but roasted? Worth a try. I've never heard of roasting gobo, but that could just be that Japan doesn't roast anything. This is the classic gobo preparation: https://www.justonecookbook.com/kinpira-gobo-braised-carrot-burdock-root/
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Apr 25, 2019 23:46
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Got everything moved into bigger pots. The Reapers and Primos might be the slowest growing thing I've... well, actually ever seen. List of the seeds started:  This is the first year I've used the thermostats with the heat mats as well as the first year using a dedicated light. Much, much higher germination rates, especially on the fiddly picky ones like the peppers. Next year I'm going to stop using the peat pots. They just accelerate drying of the soil and don't really help the plants when they go in the garden. I'm going to start seeds in bigger plastic cups (like the containers on the right) and skip the seed start-> transplant to pot step entirely I think. I might have to add a mat or two but I've got a good chunk of room in that part of the garage. Now I just need to quit procrastinating and get the garden plots covered back up in compost and tilled. One of these years I'll actually mulch and plant a cover crop over winter. One day.
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Apr 26, 2019 01:29
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mischief posted:This is the first year I've used the thermostats with the heat mats as well as the first year using a dedicated light. Much, much higher germination rates, especially on the fiddly picky ones like the peppers. Next year I'm going to stop using the peat pots. They just accelerate drying of the soil and don't really help the plants when they go in the garden. I'm going to start seeds in bigger plastic cups (like the containers on the right) and skip the seed start-> transplant to pot step entirely I think. I might have to add a mat or two but I've got a good chunk of room in that part of the garage.  Last year, I lifted out a storebought pot of mint that I'd planted with its peat pot. It hadn't done well, and it turned out it never actually decomposed/shed the pot. Starting plants from seed this year, the cardboard/peat pots I'd started in just grew moldy and the plants are all doing better now that they're in real plastic pots. I might still stick with smaller plastic pots, though, just to help the heating mat.
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Apr 26, 2019 01:36
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I love these things for starting seeds: https://www.amazon.com/Count-Jiffy-...423487254&psc=1 Easy to move delicate little seedlings when they're fragile and tiny, and don't take up much space.
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Apr 26, 2019 01:37
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We go through so many eggs I just use the egg cartons and seed starter mix. Transplant into pots when ready to go outside. Our heat mat broke though, was a cheapy. Doesn’t work great for larger seeds but small ones are fine.
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Apr 26, 2019 01:43
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Earlier today I was looking around for any new seedlings poking out on the ground, and I noticed these little fellows instead: https://photos.app.goo.gl/TA33GGLkuzki7Pm69 I'm fairly certain these are fungus gnat larvae. We've had a rainy as gently caress winter in the Bay Area, and my herb planter outside is crawling with adult ones. I didn't bring any outside soil in, but it's entirely possible some have snuck in while the balcony door was open... They seemed contained to only two of the compartments, but in any event, I got some tweezers and picked all the ones I could see or dig for then dumped them in vinegar and flushed them down the toilet.  How likely is it that I've nipped this in the bud? Am I going to wake up in 2 days to swarms of gnats and dead seedlings? 
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Apr 26, 2019 04:02
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SubG posted:I'd just direct sow unless you're living in the Arctic Circle or something. And pick a patch you want to keep it in, because it'll end up self-propagating. Thanks, I will try that. I'll be deliriously happy if they self-propagate. The only place I can get epazote for cooking is a sketchy little spice shop that sells little bags of flavourless stalks of something that might actually be hay. Grand Fromage posted:I've never heard of roasting gobo, but that could just be that Japan doesn't roast anything. This is the classic gobo preparation: https://www.justonecookbook.com/kinpira-gobo-braised-carrot-burdock-root/ Bookmarked, pending a successful crop. Just transplanted the gobo seedlings into the garden this afternoon. My wife seems a little ticked off at me. "Gobo is burdock?! And you planted it next to my strawberries?!!"  The King apple she wants will be going in this weekend. Jan posted:
Interesting. I've run into the same problem after we switched to drip irrigation. At first I put it down to the way water moves through the soil under buried drip tubes but putting spot overhead emitters over peat pots hasn't helped. For a while I used regular plastic trays with 72/32/24/whatever insert cells to start seedings. I must be a bit clumsy because I had a lot of problems extracting the seedlings undamaged at transplant time. Soil cubes have worked much better for me. Unfortunately the moulds aren't cheap. Payback for a set was about 2 years worth of peat pots and media for the amount of seedlings we start. I suspect though that the price of peat pots and Jiffy pellets is exorbitant in this part of the world.
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Apr 26, 2019 06:12
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Hexigrammus posted:Thanks, I will try that. When it's germinating it wants the soil moist and well drained, like most things. But after that it really doesn't give a poo poo about soil quality or need any special care. It's the kind of thing you can find growing wild in drainage ditches and that kind of thing. The main problem you're likely to encounter (if you're growing it for culinary use) is that it's prone to bolting, and once it bolts you'll have trouble getting enough leaves to be useful.
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Apr 26, 2019 07:38
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Jan posted:Earlier today I was looking around for any new seedlings poking out on the ground, and I noticed these little fellows instead: https://photos.app.goo.gl/TA33GGLkuzki7Pm69 That’s what those look like. You might have gotten them, but other options are flushing the pots with Bt, putting a layer of sand on top of the soil, and letting the top of the soil dry out. The first is probably best for seedlings.
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Apr 26, 2019 13:16
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Wrestled my cheap plastic greenhouse to the ground because of storm warnings for tonight and tomorrow. I've put some of the small pots in the shed but there wasn't room for everything. Fingers crossed that the poor baby plants outside can cope with one uncomfortable night. Assuming the storm hits. Currently it's cloudless with a light breeze.
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Apr 26, 2019 20:09
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My dad just got some Jerusalem artichokes from one of my aunts, and I have to figure out where to plant them. I know Jerusalem artichokes will grow in drat near any kind of soil and crowd anything next to them, but how much sun do they need? Google isn’t telling me poo poo.
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Apr 26, 2019 20:10
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I. M. Gei posted:My dad just got some Jerusalem artichokes from one of my aunts, and I have to figure out where to plant them. They're related to sunflowers, so they probably want at least six hours of full sun a day.
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Apr 26, 2019 20:20
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Ape Has Killed Ape posted:They're related to sunflowers, so they probably want at least six hours of full sun a day. gently caress... full sun space in my yard is kinda at a premium right now. I’ve already pretty much earmarked the last remaining spots for other poo poo. Like apple trees. And roses. And blueberries. And a peach tree. And those last two might already end up in dappled sun.
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Apr 26, 2019 20:55
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I. M. Gei posted:gently caress... full sun space in my yard is kinda at a premium right now. I’ve already pretty much earmarked the last remaining spots for other poo poo. Like apple trees. And roses. And blueberries. And a peach tree. And those last two might already end up in dappled sun. Well, this guy had pretty good results in less than full sun, so you're probably alright.
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Apr 26, 2019 21:39
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 Warfare declared on squirrels. Still have to build more but this is a good start. It's nice and heavy, was windy today and it didn't move an inch. Might be excessively tall though, going to make the one for the other box a foot shorter. Replanted that entire box post Squirrelpocalypse so here's hoping.
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Apr 27, 2019 01:07
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You have squirrel problems, I have unexpected snow problems. At least I can just cover what has sprouted and it should be just fine. Still annoyed that the weather is doing 35 degree flips.
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Apr 27, 2019 01:14
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Grand Fromage posted:
Nice. If you want to dress the sides up you can staple the chicken wire to the OUTSIDE of the uprights....just pull it as tight as you can, but don't kill yourself. Then at each corner take a pair of flat-nosed pliers (the widest ones you are likely to have) and twist the wire to make a Z as tight as you need to all the way down. You can probably get it looking all squared up and professional like if that's your thing.
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Apr 27, 2019 01:18
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I don't care that much about the looks, I just wanted it sealed. I used a shitload of staples on the top and bottom to secure it all closed. I might try to secure and square it a little better to the uprights later but right now I just want to get all my cages up. I didn't know there were techniques to square it though. For my trellis plants, I'm thinking that I will build a chicken wire dome or cylinder to cover the top of each pot, maybe six inches tall. Then the plants can grow through the holes and up onto the trellises. I can't really protect the trellises without like caging in the entire drat yard, but the dome should keep the pests from digging the whole plant up and killing it at least. I can accept some lost cucumbers to the squirrels, the problem was they were tearing up the entire drat plants and seeds so growing was going to be impossible.
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Apr 27, 2019 01:23
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Grand Fromage posted:I didn't know there were techniques to square it though. Yeah, sorry I didn't mean to be judgy at all. I'm just a little obsessive about that stuff, and figured you may not know about the fence tightening thing. Also, you probably DO want to go on the outside with staples, or at least staple on the inside because your zip ties may not even last a season. You can get UV resistant ones - they are black or if you have big bucks stainless steel, but not all black ones are actually UV resistant. So it's probably easier to just go on the outside and use staples for durability.
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Apr 27, 2019 01:39
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No worries, didn't take it as judgy. I didn't know zip ties degraded that quickly in UV, I've been using them on my trellises too. I'll find some UV resistant ones and double up when I get the chance.
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Apr 27, 2019 01:47
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This is the stuff we used in the industry: edit: correct link for above ground: https://www.grainger.com/search?searchBar=true&searchQuery=cable+tie+outdoor (outdoor fiber and other cabling but they are really spicy) You can likely find something on Amazon or similar that will work just fine. I'm looking now and seeing a lot of.....ummmm...questionable claims on a bunch of them. I wouldn't know how to choose between those generic sellers. I'm sure there is something in between from a known source/company someone has heard of before. Second edit: Or just go get a roll of fence wire from the hardware store and use that to wrap around the uprights and hold the chicken wire on. You'll spend $8 on it and have enough for about 75 of those enclosures. This stuff is too large of a gauge to work with comfortably, but as an example: https://www.amazon.com/Fi-Shock-350...=gateway&sr=8-3 Tractor supply is gonna have what you need if one is near you. Motronic fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Apr 27, 2019 |
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Apr 27, 2019 01:56
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I. M. Gei posted:My dad just got some Jerusalem artichokes from one of my aunts, and I have to figure out where to plant them. Never worried about sun or soil when we grew them, just keeping them contained. In our climate they like to travel if not planted behind barriers like sheet metal sunk a foot the soil, blacktop, or a neighbour's fence when you don't care about your neighbour's opinion.
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Apr 27, 2019 03:54
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What monster ate every leaf off my newly transplanted pepper plants and left just the stems?! SHOW YOURSELF YOU COWARD CATERPILLAR! Someone better fess up RIGHT NOW
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Apr 28, 2019 18:43
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Sounds like time for biological warfare courtesy of Bacillus thuringiensis. Let it eat those caterpillars from the inside out AND MAKE THEM PAY.
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Apr 28, 2019 19:20
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:What monster ate every leaf off my newly transplanted pepper plants and left just the stems?! SHOW YOURSELF YOU COWARD CATERPILLAR! Someone better fess up RIGHT NOW Sorry... I was hungry 
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Apr 28, 2019 23:12
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 Turnip bois looking good.  Some raab.  This is the solution I've landed on for my trellis plants. Not going to be able to protect everything but at least this should prevent any little fuckers from digging the whole plant up. The wire is secured to the pots with zip ties. Beans fit through the holes easily, I'm thinking the squashes will be tougher but I can always cut the holes bigger.
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Apr 28, 2019 23:20
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Anyone have giant pumpkin tips?
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Apr 29, 2019 00:50
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Anyone have giant pumpkin tips? Or jack-o-lantern pumpkin tips, for that matter?
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Apr 29, 2019 02:28
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It’s been a while since I posted in here, but I know some of y’all will want to know that Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has scheduled Cliven Bundy to speak at an event they’re holding. https://twitter.com/neolithicsheep/status/1122677437538754560?s=21 has their confirmation in the comments.
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Apr 29, 2019 14:11
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:It’s been a while since I posted in here, but I know some of y’all will want to know that Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has scheduled Cliven Bundy to speak at an event they’re holding. https://twitter.com/neolithicsheep/status/1122677437538754560?s=21 has their confirmation in the comments. TBF he's definitely an expert at sowing the seeds of discontent. Heirloom seeds of discontent apparently.
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Apr 29, 2019 14:36
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Thanks for sharing that. I'll be switching seed suppliers in the future.
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Apr 29, 2019 14:43
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