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Flipperwaldt posted:
That looks delicious! I would definitely get down on it all. It's tough trying to wait and see if stuff is going to get better or if now is the time to pick. Generally veggies in my garden dont really "turn the corner" and get better, sometimes it is what it is which is totally fine.
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Sep 13, 2019 14:39
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I've never had my sweet peppers be actually sweet like store bought ones, which is why I'm leaving them on as long as possible now and I'm hoping they'll lose the slight bitter aftertaste. The tomatoes, I know, will ripen decently even if plucked while green. It's my sixth year growing those orange Thai chilis, they're extremely prolific and I still don't know what to use them for. They're so spicy you can't process them without teargassing yourself in the process. You can feel your fingers burn slightly after just touching them.
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Sep 13, 2019 15:17
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You can just send them to me. I make hot sauce out of all my hot and super hots. I've got about a half kg in the freezer of Caribbean Red and over 2kg of Cayenne (milds too) that I'll use for base sauces. There's a lot more left to ripen, and the 8" long Datils really need to turn orange so that I can eat them. Supposedly habenero heat in a fruit as large as a lot of bell peppers. Yes, please. What's that large orange pepper? Is that a sweet one? That's a really nice haul for a container garden, especially tomatoes. I'm drying the Korean dark green variety that is similar in size and shape to your Thai. They should make for good hot pepper flakes and they're not very wet to start so drying is really easy.
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Sep 13, 2019 15:48
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Flipperwaldt posted:I've never had my sweet peppers be actually sweet like store bought ones, which is why I'm leaving them on as long as possible now and I'm hoping they'll lose the slight bitter aftertaste. The tomatoes, I know, will ripen decently even if plucked while green. Hot oil! Always easy and tasty. Get oil and garlic warm without burning the garlic, discard garlic, pour oil over ground peppers in a Mason jar. Amazing little gifts
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Sep 13, 2019 15:58
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I made sambal ulek in previous years, but even the self professed spice lovers I know turned out to be mayonnaise people in disguise when confronted with the orange Thai chilis. Personally I can stand two or three of the red chilis in a dish, but I'm definitely not a pain seeker and the orange Thai ones are a different ball game altogether. The big orange pepper is sweet yes. I looked it up earlier in the thread and they probably are sweet Hungarian banana peppers. They have thinner flesh but a more intense taste. Or they are supposed to. The ones I grew are fairly non-committal.
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Sep 13, 2019 16:58
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Pictured: My garden in Spring (left), Summer (center), Now (right) I managed to weather this absurdly scorching summer, but the follow-up of sequential blights of whiteflies and what appears to be powdery mildew (?) and the combination of it being way too hot and gross for me to be out there doing necessary pruning and care really took a toll. S-Rank  - Starting from Seed: Pretty good luck with both greens and veggies starting them indoors, and then direct sowing more greens and carrots outside. I was late this year, but I am hoping this will let me really hit the ground running next season - Cukes: Tremendous success, more than I could use. They ended up incredibly thirsty. I think next year, I'll go with 2 vines per pot in the same soil volume -- less crowding, less over-abundance, less water demand. - Shishito peppers were another excellent grower and crowd pleaser. Very versatile -- slice and use raw, or blister the hell out of them on the grill/griddle - Japanese Eggplant: great producer all season, great flavor, very useful. A-Rank  - Sugar Baby Watermelons: I got 2 melons from 3 vines in my 7gal pot. Flavor and texture could be improved a bit (it was slightly on the mealy side and not as sweet as I'd hoped) but in definitely worth a repeat - Tomatoes: Bush Early Girl actually developed latest of all my tomatoes, but the size/texture/flavor was fantastic (until my garden melted and I had fruit rotting on the vines). The Baby Boomer Hybrid was my best performer for cherry tomatoes. - Mini Bell Peppers: The Sweet Jungle Parrot variety did pretty well. It seemed stunted in the 3-gal grow bag, but when I moved it to the SIP it exploded. Definitely useful to have, and I think will be a big hit next year if I do it in the larger pot from the start. - Quick Pickles: My recipes need some tweaking in terms of vinegar/water ratio and seasoning, but they were well received and a great way to burn through some excess cucumbers B-Rank  - Carrots: They were great to have, but seemed fairly stunted. Either I wasn't watering/fertilizing right, or they didn't like the soil mix I had in the grow bags, or needed to be thinned out more. Definitely going to try again, but they need work. I think I'll try a larger/deeper bag next time. - Geotextile Grow Bags: I started off really loving them, but as the season went by it seemed like things I was putting in them were stunted compared to similar plants in the larger SIPs. I did a bunch of peppers in individual 3gal bags and they seemed kind of stunted, but the ones I transplanted into the SIPs exploded as soon as they got established. Maybe they would have done even better in equivalent sized grow-bags, but then they are big enough that watering becomes a bigger limiter. I'm trying to figure out a good use case for them. Next year I may try combining them with a drip irrigation system and seeing how they do; however, in practice it feels like the theoretical problem of aeration and pot-boundedness isn't a big limiter in the SIPs I have. They might do better for certain kinds of plants than others. - The honeycomb hybrid SIP/Fabric planters from Gardener's Supply: These did pretty well, when they worked. I think that the soil volume is pretty small for a lot of things -- I found I was having to completely refill them either daily or every other day depending on the plant -- but the plants did seem to like them, and the integrals supports were nice. On the other hand, quality was pretty hit-and miss, and I got one that was completely unusably broken (though I did get it refunded at the least). I'll keep using them for my cherry tomatoes but probably won't buy any more. - Hops: After three previous years of focused effort, and two of disappointment (following a very successful first year) I exercised some benign neglect and let them kind of do their own thing. Surprisingly, they actually seemed to grow pretty well (albeit very bushy and without a ton of cones to harvest). I actually had a small family of baby bunnies move into one of the planters, and those bines took off, which led me to believe that I'd actually been underfertilizing them. I'd suspected a nutrient deficiency before but couldn't really pin anything down. Doubling down on the fertilizer they seemed to green up and grow really well, so I think this fall/winter I will do some repotting and redouble my efforts next spring. - Salad Greens: One thing that has worked well with the grow-bags has been direct-sowing leafy greens into them. It's been tricky figuring out when to harvest, though, and even in shade I've had trouble harvesting them in the narrow window where they were mature but before they bolted. - Herbs: Basil did pretty well in the grow bags, but it was a little hard keeping it sufficiently watered. I think next year doing all the basil in a larger single grow bag and fitting it for drip irrigation will help a lot. I had mixed success with a stackable herb planter (below) but growth was enough to keep up with demand it and it did afford a lot of variety, so I'll mark that up as a success. - Dill: I actually got a lot of dill harvested before it died/bolted! C-Rank  - The Heatless Jalapeno and Nada-baneros I grew (to sub into recipes so our kids could enjoy them) grew really slowly and never bore much in the way of fruit. This might have been due to the grow bag issues mentioned above (they were each in 3-gal bags and got consistent water) but - The Mr. Stacky stackable container I picked up: The smaller one I put a bunch of bare root strawberries in, and the larger one I did herbs in. I think it's clearly best for a hydroponic-style garden rather than as a stackable planter. The "water flow through" didn't really work with an actual potting medium, and the result was that I needed to water it a lot, which was awkward because I had to water up and down each side. I may try moving the strawberries to the larger one next spring and putting in an integrated drip irrigation line to automate some of the process, but the smaller one just didn't seem to have enough soil volume to support what I was hoping to grow. F-Rank  - The dwarf eggplant variety I tried never really produced much (and when it did I couldn't tell if it was ripe before it started yellowing and rotting). I think I needed to put it in a larger container, but with the success of the japanese eggplant I'm not sure I'll bother again. - Horseradish: I harvested the root I grew over this and the previous year, and got something that was a little bit spicy but ultimately kind of disappointing for the effort. A fun experiment, but impractical. - Cilantro lol - Borage: Planted it around the stawberries I had in beds. Kinda "meh" -- maybe it'll do better if I get it in earlier next year. I'm probably leaving some stuff out, but in general I tried a lot of new stuff, had some mixed successes and failures, and ultimately let everything crumble due to being otherwise overworked. Next Year, though... Next... Year...
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Sep 16, 2019 17:56
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Flipperwaldt posted:That's what I've got over the last three weeks, which isn't bad for container gardening, I think. I picked a bunch before that and most of the peppers are yet to ripen fully. All the plants are looking ratty and disease ridden now though. I honestly don't know if that's normal at the end of the season, but this happens every year. Still, best harvest I've ever had due to stepping up a couple of pot sizes compared to what I used to use. My tomatoes have been battling what I think is a double whammy of spider mite infestation and some sort of (bacterial?) wilt:   Despite all of that, I've been keeping it alive as some kind of tomato palliative care experiment and it's still producing new blossoms and fruit. I'm starting to accumulate tomatoes and cucamelons faster than we care to eat them and might have to do some sort of pickle or sauce with them. (I'll have to get a picture of the harvest when I get home.) The skin of some of the black cherry fruit end up with lots of little dots from spider mite nibbles, I'm assuming, but if I go through the little extra effort of blanching and peeling them before using them, the end result is still delicious:  I had a mind-blowingly good burrata at one of my favourite restaurants back in Montreal where they'd peeled the cherry tomatoes--I've been doing this since and it absolutely increased my caprese game.
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Sep 16, 2019 18:13
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Hubis posted:- Cilantro lol Yep. Any cilantro I've grown comes straight out of the ground ready to bolt, regardless of season.
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Sep 17, 2019 05:33
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When should I harvest winter radishes? I’ve got a few that are quite large already. I tried a small one earlier since a squirrel or something took a bite out of it but it was pretty hot and a little bitter. Do they tend to get more mild with colder weather?
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Sep 18, 2019 14:17
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I've just spent the morning dealing with grapes. I got about 6kg of them for jelly this year. Should be okay as they're plenty tasty, but they're always small and not sized like concords at all. I have no idea the variety as they were planted probably 10-15 years ago based on the central vine. Hot chile collection is going great. Up to 4kg of cayenne (another 0.5-1 on the plants) and 1.5kg of Caribbean Red. Reapers are ripening still, but I have about 4 dozen on the plants that are turning. Korean dark green turn red, so I'm letting them so I can use them for flakes, kimchi, and hot oil. Should have maybe 1/2 kg of those. They're pretty light but they pack a nice punch. My Datil are not even turning ripe, but if they ever do turn orange they'll be a great haul. Half of them are large 8" pods and pack a habenero punch. I'd guess more weight (double?) the cayenne if they ever ripen. I won't run out of hot sauce this year and will have plenty for gifts. One woozy bottle will last everyone for a year because they have pain receptors in their mouths that react still. Also have fall greens and radishes sprouting in the garden. I planted a wine barrel and three 7' rows of small daikon, and then 2x 7' rows of misome and komatsuna. Plenty of time to eat really well for a while until I have to rely on my hydroponics corner for greens that don't cost $3 for a bunch. Eeyo posted:When should I harvest winter radishes? I’ve got a few that are quite large already. I tried a small one earlier since a squirrel or something took a bite out of it but it was pretty hot and a little bitter. Do they tend to get more mild with colder weather? I've found that depends on the weather and the variety. I haven't kept good notes or anything, but I find when it gets hotter, or they start hotter, then they have more heat/spice. Bitter I haven't run into. Could just be that it's not ripe enough/too ripe.
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Sep 18, 2019 18:38
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I swapped a tub of chillies with my neighbor for a bucket of damsons. Now I need to figure out what to do with them, thinking of putting most of them in booze, either that or learn to make jam.
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Sep 19, 2019 12:56
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Jhet posted:I've just spent the morning dealing with grapes. I got about 6kg of them for jelly this year. I'm in South Australia (a major wine producing region) and despite grapes being everywhere I never see grape jam. What's it like?
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Sep 19, 2019 15:56
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Senor Tron posted:I'm in South Australia (a major wine producing region) and despite grapes being everywhere I never see grape jam. What's it like? It's made from sweeter grapes, and tastes strongly of grape with plenty of sweetness and acidity. Wine grapes won't always make good jelly for plenty of reasons, but no reason you couldn't try. It's very easy and requires nothing but grapes, sugar, and lemon juice. It being jelly and not jam means that it's turned into juice first, and then turned into jelly. No chunks of fruit left in the jar.
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Sep 19, 2019 16:58
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Anyone growing garlic in grow bags or containers? Any advice? My garden beds wont be built until Dec/Jan so these guys are getting semi permanent homes on my sidewalk.
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Sep 20, 2019 01:07
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You should be fine, but move them before it freezes if you can. Once it thaws they'll take off pretty quickly. Garlic also needs more water in the fall while it's starting than it does in the spring/summer. Don't drown them, but don't completely neglect their water either.
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Sep 20, 2019 02:02
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Hubis posted:
I've considered buying these for a year but figured there might be a problem with even watering if you don't buy the hydroponic kit to go with them. Pleased to see an objective review. Lolie fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Sep 25, 2019 |
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Sep 25, 2019 01:05
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I had to leave my first garden to move to the Bay Area 4 years ago this week, and I've finally started my second garden. It's in a raised bed. I started some seeds indoors that looked like this by the end of August: I transplanted and irrigated my beans, peas, and beets on September 8th, along with some nursery starters of herbs and broccoli.  One of two peas died, and only one beet remains, but the beans are flowering and the surviving pea is up to my waist!  Something I learned about irrigation: not all tubing is the same! Some 1/4" tubes are much less pliable than others, and that makes it very hard to position the dripper heads where I want them. Feel before you buy.
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Sep 25, 2019 05:31
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Today we actually finished a few parts of our somewhat elaborate garden engineering plans. My wife and I moved to Australia in January, and successfully got through a winter garden in a raised bed, planted with spinach, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower - the lettuce produced one good crop then fell apart, the cabbage failed due to water problems and slugs, but the broc and cauli were great and the spinach is still going. Being from the flat, cold part of Canada in the middle, we had never considered a "winter" garden - not much grows under a foot of snow at minus 30 anyways. But here, even though Armidale is 1000 m above sea level and gets below zero and frosts pretty regularly, we were able to pull it off. Now, we're in a severe drought, and water use restrictions are in force. This means no watering any plants - indoors or out - with tap water. Greywater is permitted, so we bought a 100L tank and piped the output from the washing machine into it. Because greywater will usually contain a small amount of "black" water (i.e. poop) you have to use it within 24 hours and it's a bad idea to spray it onto plants, especially vegetables. The drought also means any water sitting on the surface will evaporate into the dry, dry air very quickly. So we came up with a plan for below-ground irrigation in our raised beds, outdoor pots, and in-ground beds. The house is a rental so there's a limit to what we'll do, but we haven't reached that limit yet! The raised beds and some of our other plans will wait for next weekend or later, because the seeds started indoors are not urgently in need of re-planting, yet. The squash (pumpkin to Aussies) was looking ready to go out, though.  Irrigation sleeve by Martin Brummell, on FlickrWe bought 25 m of irrigation hose, and I drilled it full of holes. A simple fabric sleeve should help keep plant roots and soil particles from clogging the holes too much.  Squash (pumpkins) by Martin Brummell, on FlickrThree squash plants, with buried irrigation pipes. We put about 40L of water from my shower this morning (captured by standing in a big bucket) down the pipes, as well as some water in with the potting soil mounds they're planted in. The squash plants are small, only about 15 cm tall, and those vertical sticks in the middle is a rose that looks like it's coming back after some pretty severe pruning.  Pea Pots 29 September by Martin Brummell, on FlickrI also put in a set of green peas.  Discovery Garden by Martin Brummell, on FlickrAnd this free set of random plants from the local grocery store, who are running a get-your-kids-into-gardening promotion with free little plant pots.
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Sep 29, 2019 07:52
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Stubbornly posting this in here because I wasn't smart enough to know that even though these starts were next to the cucumbers and zucchini, they aren't edible. They still might be my favorite thing I grew this season. 4 starts in a pack for $2 and look at the variation I got! Dangerous Gourd Dog  Some more peppers from the greenhouse, bull horns, a small basque that didn't do so well this year, lemon jalapeno, buena mulata (was originally purple!), suger rush peach, thai 
Harry Potter on Ice fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Sep 30, 2019 |
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Sep 30, 2019 01:34
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Stubbornly posting this in here because I wasn't smart enough to know that even though these starts were next to the cucumbers and zucchini, they aren't edible. They still might be my favorite thing I grew this season. 4 starts in a pack for $2 and look at the variation I got! Everything in this picture is adorable.
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Sep 30, 2019 04:32
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ExecuDork posted:Today we actually finished a few parts of our somewhat elaborate garden engineering plans. My wife and I moved to Australia in January, and successfully got through a winter garden in a raised bed, planted with spinach, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower - the lettuce produced one good crop then fell apart, the cabbage failed due to water problems and slugs, but the broc and cauli were great and the spinach is still going. Being from the flat, cold part of Canada in the middle, we had never considered a "winter" garden - not much grows under a foot of snow at minus 30 anyways. But here, even though Armidale is 1000 m above sea level and gets below zero and frosts pretty regularly, we were able to pull it off. I admire your commitment to trying to maintain a garden on level 5 water restrictions. For the first few years I was in Sydney we were on level 4 and I didn't even try. Good luck with it.
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Sep 30, 2019 06:50
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ExecuDork posted:Now, we're in a severe drought, and water use restrictions are in force. This means no watering any plants - indoors or out - with tap water. Greywater is permitted, so we bought a 100L tank and piped the output from the washing machine into it. Because greywater will usually contain a small amount of "black" water (i.e. poop) you have to use it within 24 hours and it's a bad idea to spray it onto plants, especially vegetables. The drought also means any water sitting on the surface will evaporate into the dry, dry air very quickly. So we came up with a plan for below-ground irrigation in our raised beds, outdoor pots, and in-ground beds. The house is a rental so there's a limit to what we'll do, but we haven't reached that limit yet! That's really cool. For some reason Australia and israel have been leaders in drip irrigation technology. Interesting that you're allowed to use greywater. We wanted to put a greywater system in when we built our house (lots of rain in coastal BC back then but my wife and I are geeks about some things) but it was strictly verboten by code and it would have been impossible to sneak one in between the plumbing inspection and the permit to cover inspection.
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Sep 30, 2019 07:42
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Hexigrammus posted:That's really cool. For some reason Australia and israel have been leaders in drip irrigation technology. Interesting that you're allowed to use greywater. We wanted to put a greywater system in when we built our house (lots of rain in coastal BC back then but my wife and I are geeks about some things) but it was strictly verboten by code and it would have been impossible to sneak one in between the plumbing inspection and the permit to cover inspection. There are a lot of regulations relating to its use, but it's not unusual to see people getting grey water poly tanks installed after a couple of years of severe water restrictions.
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Sep 30, 2019 08:56
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 Hot chile pictures. Small haul today, so I thought I'd take a picture. Not pictured, a single Cayenne today. The plants are mostly done for the season, but I've gotten over 1kg. Most are slated for hot sauce production next month. The Datil are on the top. It's both the large red and small yellow orange things. They're different sizes and color and from the same drat plant. No idea, but they're supposed to be orange. About habanero heat. Korean dark green. They turn red, but are delicious either color. I'm leaving them because I can't possibly cook with all the green ones as they're decently hot. They're drying really well and I've gotten about 0.5 kg of them drying already with ~0.12 kg left to turn red. Caribbean Red. One of the more prolific group of plants this year. I've gotten about 0.75kg from 6 plants. They're delicious, fruity, and hot and I love them. They make great hot sauce. Carolina Reaper. Six plants again, but I get much slower production. The one in the picture looks more like a 7 Pot maybe, but the rest look like normal Reapers. They're only just starting to produce and I've gotten about 2 dozen pods. They're still producing, and all told I'll get between 6-12 pods per plant. Not great, but not terrible. Very very hot. Great hot sauce. So my tomatoes were kind of a disaster plant wise, but there's been some really good growing even with a very wet spring. Temps are starting to cool off though, so another round of radishes and cool weather greens are already going. Also, I have an indoor hydroponics and microgreens going now, I may post pictures of that once I have something more than tiny seedlings. The umaina and pok choy are starting on true leaves, so it won't be all that long. Purple radish microgreens are growing well, so maybe next weekend I'll get to cut some.
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Sep 30, 2019 22:37
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/\/\/\ Those peppers look great! We're trying to find habaneros here, all we have so far are some little Thai chiles that are just coming up in their little pots indoors.Lolie posted:I admire your commitment to trying to maintain a garden on level 5 water restrictions. For the first few years I was in Sydney we were on level 4 and I didn't even try. Hexigrammus posted:That's really cool. For some reason Australia and israel have been leaders in drip irrigation technology. Interesting that you're allowed to use greywater. We wanted to put a greywater system in when we built our house (lots of rain in coastal BC back then but my wife and I are geeks about some things) but it was strictly verboten by code and it would have been impossible to sneak one in between the plumbing inspection and the permit to cover inspection. The council sent out a pamphlet yesterday about the restrictions, the goal is to get the city down to 160L / person / day. My wife and I did a quick back-of-the-envelope estimate of our use, trying to be as pessimistic as possible, and we figure we're at around 125L / person / day but we've started flushing the toilet with a bucket of shower water anyways. I don't know why we hadn't been doing this earlier, but given my awkward splashing in our tiny closet where the toilet is (Aussie houses often separate the toilet from the rest of the bathroom) might be a clue as to why. Presumably I'll get better at this whole "pour the bucket into the toilet" thing, but for a while I guess we'll have damp socks. The squash are still upright and green 48 hours after re-planting, so we're pretty happy.
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Oct 1, 2019 00:40
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Jhet posted:
Those are some good looking peppers! Thats really funny about the Datil. The Buena Mulata I grew that started purple and went to orange then red were awesome and weird. I picked a bunch of purple ones because I want to grind them down and have purple chili flakes for white sauce and asparagus pizza, or something else to get that heavy contrast. Reapers always look so mean, I want to try chocolate reapers sometime. I totally forgot about the Caribbean Red I really want to grow that next year. That and Aji Amarillo are burning in my mind. I'm looking forward to the hot sauce production pics too..
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Oct 1, 2019 02:34
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Those are some good looking peppers! Thats really funny about the Datil. The Buena Mulata I grew that started purple and went to orange then red were awesome and weird. I picked a bunch of purple ones because I want to grind them down and have purple chili flakes for white sauce and asparagus pizza, or something else to get that heavy contrast. Reapers always look so mean, I want to try chocolate reapers sometime. I totally forgot about the Caribbean Red I really want to grow that next year. That and Aji Amarillo are burning in my mind. I'm looking forward to the hot sauce production pics too.. They're supposed to be orange, but the big ones went straight from green to red. Not that it matters, they're mild and at least fruity. Not at all what I was expecting. I ate a green one off the plant a couple weeks ago and they had good heat, but this was just disappointing. Probably won't do these again. The Caribbean Red are really amazing. Grow strongly and stayed true this year to their type. I have more seeds saved from last year, so I'll probably try those again to keep any generational drift down. They are also delicious and the perfect amount of heat to be a regular thing. The Reapers are a fair amount hotter, and while I could eat it every day, the Reds are worth all of the effort. If you do Chocolate Reapers, just know they take forever. A good 120-150 days growing. I start my seeds in early February. Next year I'm going to try some Aji Charapita in the front in a pot along with a couple other things (Charapon Amarillo?). They're really pretty and prolific. The Aji Amarillo should be good, but they're kind of in that middle heat range where it's not mild enough for feeding to others, and not hot enough for me to be bothered. They're good for powder though. I'll do some 7pot and maybe some Scorpion or Bhut Jolokia next year to fill the space the Datil don't use. I'll keep repeating the cayenne as they make a good base for the superhots without over-powering their flavor. I do love my heat.
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Oct 1, 2019 04:07
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I've a load of mixed peppers I don't fancy making sauce with this year, any prep needed to dry them or just find somewhere nice and hot and dry?
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Oct 1, 2019 07:07
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cakesmith handyman posted:I've a load of mixed peppers I don't fancy making sauce with this year, any prep needed to dry them or just find somewhere nice and hot and dry? Wash them and put them in a place with good ventilation. I have these $0.99 tortilla baskets that work great. They're a flexible material and they breath well. On the Korean Dark Green above (the long skinny red ones) I just break off the stem and pop them in the basket after washing and drying. You want to remove the dirt before drying. Last year I dried some cayenne and I strung them up (chile ristra). That works well for some varieties too if you can hang them in a breezy window. Basically any method that keeps the chiles from sitting in their own moisture while they dry is best.
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Oct 1, 2019 15:20
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Oh man those baskets would be perfect. I lost a decent amount to some mold because I thought a metal bread baking tin would be sufficient in a dark place (nope). Now I just throw them on a paper towel for a few days until I'm not lazy enough to put them in the dehydrator. This post is actually just a plug for a dehydrator which I've really been into lately for my herbs and peppers. Going to try getting into fruit soon enough
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Oct 1, 2019 15:50
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Oh man those baskets would be perfect. I lost a decent amount to some mold because I thought a metal bread baking tin would be sufficient in a dark place (nope). Now I just throw them on a paper towel for a few days until I'm not lazy enough to put them in the dehydrator. This post is actually just a plug for a dehydrator which I've really been into lately for my herbs and peppers. Going to try getting into fruit soon enough Don't put them somewhere dark, the sun helps and most dark places don't have air movement and are more humid than a window sill. You could use your dehydrator trays on a counter if they stack too. Watch any video of people doing old school chile drying and it's always somewhere with lots of airflow, usually sunny, and not stacked in deep piles. Also, $2 is cheaper than a $200 dehydrator and they're very easy to replace. Also good would be those old school wicker paper plate trays. My first year doing it I thought a paper bag left open would be a good idea. It was not and I had to toss a bunch of them.
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Oct 1, 2019 18:24
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ExecuDork posted:When I lived in Victoria (the capital city of BC, not the Aussie state) I applied for a summer job with the water authority, some kind of water-quality monitoring at the reservoir. This was 20 years ago; at the time, they told me the reservoir would just barely last the city through a drier-than-average summer - we had a few garden-hose bans - but would get enough water to drain-and-fill it 80 times over each winter. Water management is hard all over. My wife and I were students in Victoria a long time ago, it's a weird place. If I remember correctly, average rainfall in Gordon Head was less than 25" per year, head north for less than half an hour (assuming the Colwood Crawl isn't active) and you're into Goldstream with +100". A lot of island municipalities have been looking over their shoulders this summer after the last five years of summer drought. There were water restrictions in April and some were up to Stage 4 by May. We dodged a bullet forestfire-wise with a cool cloudy summer but no rain meant that the Cowichan River was drying up in August and the lake needed to be pumped lower to keep the river flowing, not something that anyone has had to deal with before. A couple of more years of this and official attitudes towards greywater might change. I'm in a rural area, so if we can find it we can use it. One of my neighbours has four wells drilled to 400' and barely has enough water to keep the house going. Another neighbour has adopted the Gulf Islands approach of storing rainwater in the winter for summer use. He has a 4500 litre storage tank that fills from his garage roof. Unfortunately the system isn't frost proof so he had to wait until our month of deep freeze in February ended before filling it this year. It was only a third full by the time summer arrived, we didn't get enough rain after February to fill it. The people who bought the place in August just ran their well dry watering their garden. We didn't buy one of the expensive properties with a spectacular view on the rock ridge above us, opting for one in the valley with a swamp and a gravel bar on it. It's worked out well, it's taken a while to build up a layer of soil on the gravel bar but the water supply is good. The drip irrigation system made a noticeable drop in electrical use when we switched to it several years ago. Apparently pumping water through an impulse sprinkler 24/7 is expensive. Added benefit is I no longer risk having an angry mob with pitchforks and torches at my gate wanting to discuss my wasteful watering habits.
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Oct 1, 2019 19:24
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Jhet posted:I just break off the stem and pop them in the basket after washing and drying. Here in NC I usually just pop the stems off and leave them in the garage. The stem seems like it makes the biggest difference. I'll try to get pictures tomorrow but I started some Reaper white liquor today. Gonna make a drat good bloody mary.
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Oct 2, 2019 01:07
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Jhet posted:They're supposed to be orange, but the big ones went straight from green to red. Not that it matters, they're mild and at least fruity. Not at all what I was expecting. I ate a green one off the plant a couple weeks ago and they had good heat, but this was just disappointing. Probably won't do these again. Those are weird looking Datils. They have a fair bit of variation, some cultivars do funky stuff. Unless those are the mutt seeds I gave out like 2 years ago, then weirdo mutations are par for the course.
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Oct 2, 2019 01:29
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Suspect Bucket posted:Those are weird looking Datils. They have a fair bit of variation, some cultivars do funky stuff. Nope, I bought them from a seed place. The strangest part to me is the variation on the same plant. I'd expect some variation on different plants because that happens. I've just never had so much of a difference with the fruit on the same one. I ate another today and it had slight heat, but not even as much as a jalepeno. I guess I'm of the opinion that if it's a stable cultivar then you should be able to at least identify the chile based on what it looks like? Definitely seems like a mutation, bad hybrid, or unknowing cross. None of which are really appreciated when you're buying the seeds from a purveyor who should know better.
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Oct 2, 2019 03:44
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Sometimes peppers are just weird. I had a jalapeno plant that grew round fruit once. Kinda wish I had saved some seeds from that plant in retrospect.
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Oct 2, 2019 20:54
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Ape Has Killed Ape posted:Sometimes peppers are just weird. I had a jalapeno plant that grew round fruit once. Kinda wish I had saved some seeds from that plant in retrospect. They can be to an extent. It'd be different if it weren't all 12 plants doing this. I think it's just bad seeds. I honestly care much less about how they look than what they taste like. They don't taste even close to what they should.
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Oct 2, 2019 21:07
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Gourd morning everyone!
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Oct 4, 2019 16:06
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Gourd morning everyone! Arrange them like this: 
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Oct 4, 2019 19:20
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Just had our first frost last night - a little early, the average usually falls around Nov.1. The sweetpotato leaves were turning black this morning so I harvested before the tubers get damaged. This is the second year we've tried growing cool season sweetpotatoes. Last year we tried a half dozen different varieties planted in "raised" beds - compost added and mixed in until the bed is mounded above the path. Results were unimpressive. The only variety that produced worthwhile roots was "Superior" developed in the Great Lakes region. Even those didn't get larger than a toilet paper tube. We managed to keep some of the Superior roots long enough to start new slips from them in the spring and ordered another half dozen different varieties to try. This year we planted in actual raised beds with 10" cedar sides and put black plastic mulch (slit open garbage bags) on them before transplanting. Even though this summer was much cooler than "normal" (last five years) the results were much better.  The Superior (left) had a good showing from just two plants. I was surprised at how far down I had to chase the roots to harvest them. I should probably remove the drip tubes from next year's beds and double dig them so harvest is easier next year. Travis White (right) produced a lot of roots but they're mostly small - a bit larger than my finger so just harvestable. If the four plants had all filled out like the Superior it would have been impressive.  Tainung-65 didn't produce a lot of roots but what was there was huge. I had to get a bigger bucket before digging more plants. Now I need to find a nice warm place inside to cure these for a couple of weeks and see how they taste. We often make dried sweetpotato chips for dog treats. This morning she decided to go straight to the source and help me clean up the small roots, even munching on the attached leaves. (They're perfectly edible, but I had to remind myself of that when I saw her eating them.) 
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Oct 10, 2019 21:13
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