|
Bloody Cat Farm posted:I have a weird question. For some reason, whenever I grow peppers, they don’t fully mature before the weather gets cold. I have no idea why. Everything else does. It’s now September and temps are starting to dip below 60 at night at times. If I bring my scotch bonnet and bell pepper in now, will they continue to mature? They’re in pots. They'll do fine down to 32* as long as it does not frost. Mine also exploded in growth after putting into 5g buckets  
goodness fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Sep 7, 2020 |
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 19:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 10:09 |
|
|
Flipperwaldt posted:What capacity would you say your pot/bags are there? The one on the left looks glorious. Thanks! The left one is seven gallons - I bought a pack of twelve for like $20 on Amazon.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 20:07
|
|
|
showbiz_liz posted:Thanks! The left one is seven gallons - I bought a pack of twelve for like $20 on Amazon.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 21:38
|
|
|
Flipperwaldt posted:Would you expect these to rot eventually? It says they're made of fabric, but it doesn't say synthetic or anything. I've had fabric pots like that for a few years and they did fine just living outside. The first thing to go will be the bottom, but I'd give them 3-5 years before they fall apart. I've also found it important to start peppers (especially super hots) in January and then pot them up to larger size for when they get moved outside. That way they start strongly and get big early. Or you can be completely crazy (like me) and start next year's now, so they can grow indoors all winter and maybe start to produce fruit before I even get them outside.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 21:46
|
|
|
Flipperwaldt posted:Would you expect these to rot eventually? It says they're made of fabric, but it doesn't say synthetic or anything. It's not quite fabric, more like a thick felt. It's definitely sturdy enough to pick up and carry by the handles while it's full of dirt, anyway. And for the price, even if I only get a few years out of them I'll be happy.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 21:55
|
|
|
I broke ground today at my new acreage to plant a few shrubs and to transplant rhubarb, and the soil is loving gorgeous.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 22:04
|
|
|
CommonShore posted:I broke ground today at my new acreage to plant a few shrubs and to transplant rhubarb, and the soil is loving gorgeous. Sweet. Waiting on success pics in the spring. Per the thread title, I'm shelving this whole poo poo show:  Everything is out except tomatoes, and those got aggressively pruned to hopefully force things to ripen, then they're going. Then I'll be tearing down the fencing lol........this is getting moved for next year. I'll scrape off the good soil from my bed mounds and figure out how to deal with it. I think it might be best to try to mix it in with the compost while it's going off to kill as much of the stuff that's in it as possible but I'm gonna check with the ag extension.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 22:26
|
|
|
I am about to shelve 90% of my shitshow. Tomatoes are overgrown and caved in their trellis, corn just took a fuckin nosedive somewhere in early july and didn't recover, broccoli+cauli was always awful, probably just keep the peppers and huck everything else into a compost heap
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 22:37
|
|
|
Motronic seems like the guy to ask - I have well and truly lost the crab grass war in this god forsaken year. I've got two rows of tomatoes to come out then I'm seriously considering just hitting the whole garden with glyphosphate and covering it up with cardboard so I can ignore it in shame over the winter. Am I correct that it's a pretty short lived chemical in the ground? I've always been pretty organic with this stuff but I got my rear end kicked this year.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 22:39
|
|
|
My present garden is getting shelved before the next frost - I'm blanketing through tonight's because the forecast is that we'll have another mild week before it freezes again. I think I have secured enough compost material to do a lot of no dig next year. It won't be my only method but I want to give it a spin. If nothing else one year of it will be a good way to suppress the grass and amend the soil.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 22:45
|
|
|
mischief posted:Motronic seems like the guy to ask - I have well and truly lost the crab grass war in this god forsaken year. I've got two rows of tomatoes to come out then I'm seriously considering just hitting the whole garden with glyphosphate and covering it up with cardboard so I can ignore it in shame over the winter. Glyphosate claims to be safe to reseed in 2 weeks, and is supposed to rapidly break down in sunlight, and not contaminate the ground. Those are the claims. From experience I find them to be reasonably accurate. But here's the real problem: neither glyphosate nor your cardboard is going to control the seeds that are undoubtedly in your soil right now from this years crabgrass. You can glyphosate now to make sure the already established plants are good and dead under your cardboard, but if it was really bad you're going to need a pre emergent in the spring to break this cycle. And it MUST be a pre emergent for vegetable gardens because most are not. If you're willing to put in a bit more work early in the season to stay organic you can try corn gluten meal. But you NEED to have the correct timing for that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 22:52
|
|
|
Jhet posted:I've had fabric pots like that for a few years and they did fine just living outside. The first thing to go will be the bottom, but I'd give them 3-5 years before they fall apart. One thing about fabric pots is it can be a big pain in the rear end to transplant from them. Over wintering pepper questions: I think I started my aji charapita early enough from seed but I didn't get the humidity right for them for a while thus they were really stunted from the jump. They've rebounded nicely but I dont think these flowers will produce fruit in time. They're in a thin walled greenhouse that probably doesnt stay more than a few degrees above outside temps when it's cold and I'll be seeing frost within 4-6 weeks. My plan is to keep them in the greenhouse as long as I can but I'd like to over winter these two. From what I've read online I can leave it in a garage or windowsill or under a grow light, trimming it back heavily after it drops leaves. Any tips for success besides dont water them? Should I cut back as aggressive as people say online? I think it could have some pretty amazing structure for next year if I did. I've spent a ton of energy on these and they're the only survivors left haha. They're already dropping fruit (I think underfed?) so I'm just looking for the future at this point  
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 22:59
|
|
|
nature is shelving this whole shitshow on my behalf. 95F in denver right now, 35F and up to 5" of snow tomorrow. RIP the ripe tomatoes and the crooknecks got combined with a storebought eggplant and are rattatouing away in the oven right now. the green tomatoes are now chow-chow, the habs got combined with other peppers and are fermenting for hot sauce in a month, the beets + chard stems + cukes + carrot were devoured with salt and olive oil, the greens will be stewed with orange juice and chili paste.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2020 00:11
|
|
|
 Still limping along, I think I'm down to about 8 tomato plants and 3 peppers. I think I should have fertilized more consistently this time around, the tomatoes coming in are extremely pale.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2020 01:50
|
|
|
Jhet posted:I've also found it important to start peppers (especially super hots) in January and then pot them up to larger size for when they get moved outside. That way they start strongly and get big early. Or you can be completely crazy (like me) and start next year's now, so they can grow indoors all winter and maybe start to produce fruit before I even get them outside. Chili plants grow so slowly in cool conditions that there are serious diminishing returns. I overwinter mature plants, but younglings I consider more trouble than they’re worth.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2020 02:46
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:Chili plants grow so slowly in cool conditions that there are serious diminishing returns. Yeah, that would be true, but they're in the room with a vent right next to the furnace, and I have the space insulated with reflective insulation. With just the lights, it stays about 77F in the space with a fan running so I'm not trapped in humidity. So far so good too, Almost everything is cooperating with height and stem thickness. I started 4 of one variety though and it's shot up ahead of everything else and will probably outgrow the environment everything else needs still. Harry Potter on Ice posted:One thing about fabric pots is it can be a big pain in the rear end to transplant from them. Tips for wintering, water them like they're still alive. You can winter them, but if it freezes they'll be dead, so you want to pretend it's the sort of winter they can handle. So 50-60 degrees and still watered, but not drowned. They still need some hydration, but not so much that the roots get rotten. They'll drop leaves and be cranky, but you can prune them just fine. Don't cut it down to a stump unless you want it to need to grow up from it next year. Small branches will die off anyway, but leave enough for the plant to be happy still. If you put that in a larger pot next spring it'll get bigger and grow happier too. They may be dropping flowers and fruit because of that too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2020 07:07
|
|
|
My tomatoes are pretty much done now. A few plants might still ripen some of their fruit, but I brought in most of the nicest green tomatoes to fry and pickle. We're getting down to ~60 at night, but the peppers are still going strong. My shishitos went nuts this year and I'm thinking I might be able to get two more decent-sized harvests out of them. They're so loving good sauteed with just a bit of oil and salt that I'm going to leave those plants until the bitter end. Lots of other random peppers still ripening, so fingers crossed. This was our last big harvest at the end of last week:  My cubanelles were kind of a failure this year and I have no idea why, sadly. edit- eggplants still seem to be producing a lot, too. this was my first year growing eggplants and they've been productive as hell. Paradoxish fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Sep 8, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2020 07:08
|
|
|
mischief posted:Motronic seems like the guy to ask - I have well and truly lost the crab grass war in this god forsaken year. I've got two rows of tomatoes to come out then I'm seriously considering just hitting the whole garden with glyphosphate and covering it up with cardboard so I can ignore it in shame over the winter. To echo Motronic-farmers here burn down their winter cover crop with glyphosate every year and then replant with peanuts/cotton a few weeks later no problem. Alot seem to be moving to no-till too which is interesting, though I guess when the peanuts get harvested every other year that sort of tills things. I would also echo Motronic's point about the weed seeds. I've usually just nuked my flower beds with glyphosate when the weeds get really out of control and that's fine. However, this year I had a forest of weeds, I think because last year all those weeds I zapped had set seed and dropped it into my beds. I'd be a little wary of a pre-emergent in a garden, not so much for health reasons (which I know nothing about-read and follow the label etc), but because many pre-emergents work by stunting fine root growth. Supposedly this doesn't harm healthy plants but keeps seeds from being able to gather enough energy to really get going. It seems to me it would have to have a stunting effect on any plant growing in the area? Maybe it is confined to the very top bit of soil, but I'd try and do some more research/ask an extension agent before I put it in a garden I wanted to be productive. My favorite garden writers say 'good sanitation is the key to weed/disease/pest management' and that includes killing weeds before they set seed (the hoe is the recommended tool) and removing from the garden any that have set seed (the gloved hand is the recommendation here). Maybe one day I'll actually take their advice...
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2020 14:42
|
|
|
Jhet posted:Tips for wintering, water them like they're still alive. You can winter them, but if it freezes they'll be dead, so you want to pretend it's the sort of winter they can handle. So 50-60 degrees and still watered, but not drowned. They still need some hydration, but not so much that the roots get rotten. They'll drop leaves and be cranky, but you can prune them just fine. Don't cut it down to a stump unless you want it to need to grow up from it next year. Small branches will die off anyway, but leave enough for the plant to be happy still. Thanks a bunch for the tips, so basically bring it inside, water a little lighter than normal, repot in spring, and trim it lightly once it starts dropping leaves? The trimming timing is slightly confusing for me, I've read a bunch so its blending together haha.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2020 15:36
|
|
|
I'm gonna experiment with overwintering at least a couple peppers for the first time. So we will take this journey together!
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2020 15:47
|
|
|
showbiz_liz posted:I'm gonna experiment with overwintering at least a couple peppers for the first time. So we will take this journey together!  leggo friend, are you going to try those two you posted the other day? They look almost identical to these two in different sizes pots, I laughed when I saw them. Keep us updated! I dont have a good windowsill in the winter for sun unless I set up a grow light which I was hoping to avoid (unless this is 100% the way to go). The sun wont be touching my yard soon D:I've been eyeing this two headed monster for a while, I cut the first huge head off early because I was worried it wasnt going to hold without snapping, can these really handle 3 heads this size?? I'm super excited to start the drying process 
Harry Potter on Ice fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Sep 8, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2020 15:53
|
|
|
Harry Potter on Ice posted:Thanks a bunch for the tips, so basically bring it inside, water a little lighter than normal, repot in spring, and trim it lightly once it starts dropping leaves? The trimming timing is slightly confusing for me, I've read a bunch so its blending together haha. Trimming isn’t as bad as everyone makes out, but it’s a little like learning how the plants grow. You don’t want to expose main arteries unless the plant can expend the energy closing up again. So I don’t cut way back, but most of the way to the the stem so that it has a good base plant to start from next growing season. Peppers don’t mind being pruned either (by and large), but most of the US doesn’t have a long enough season to do a lot of pruning past topping them in the spring. Plenty of varieties react well to being pruned, but saying that I’ve had the least success pruning C. annuum varieties. And they tend to grow fast and big enough that I won’t winter them, so it’s not a problem. I have a Thai variety that I picked up this year because it looked lonely that I’m debating about wintering myself. Good flavor and if I’d gotten it earlier it would have been a full bush with a hundred pods.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2020 17:09
|
|
|
Going back to the paste tomato chat from the previous page, I just harvested a shitload of tomatoes I should have picked before yesterday's torrential downpours...I have a ton of cracked/otherwise thrashed tomatoes, and for a lot of these I'll just be salvaging whatever portion of the tomato I can for sauce or whatever. Anyway here's a couple Amish Paste, with a few chunks taken out due to splitting, etc: Another really nice heirloom paste tomato is the Opalka, which is a little harder to find:  Of the two, Amish Paste probably wins for productivity, and Opalka for flavor. The Opalka probably has a little higher meat ratio too. But they're both great tomatoes.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2020 00:05
|
|
|
Got a facebook 12 month reminder this morning, and it made me realise just how much nicer a space our front yard has become over the last 12 months. A year ago, not long after moving into this house. The sellers had tried to make this bare dirt patch look neat by covering it in gravel. Note they didn't put down any of the weed matting, it was sitting nearby unused because they had clearly decided even that was too much work. When starting to dig up the patch I discovered it was also full of rubble (all those bricks came out of digging that one hole):  This was taken this morning. The plants around the edge haven't been in the ground long which is why they look a bit limp:  (Yeah I know the lemon needs a good prune) Senor Tron fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Sep 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2020 02:39
|
|
|
It is amazing the difference it can make to your well-being to have some green stuff around. Looks good! Wish my lemon tree looked like that, it is suffering (potted, indoors, UK, negligent owner).
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2020 09:07
|
|
|
Senor Tron posted:Got a facebook 12 month reminder this morning, and it made me realise just how much nicer a space our front yard has become over the last 12 months. This rules. Man I want a yard some day! (And maybe by the time I move back to North Carolina it'll be a climate that can support citrus trees... hahaha... ha.)
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2020 15:47
|
|
|
JoshGuitar posted:Going back to the paste tomato chat from the previous page, I just harvested a shitload of tomatoes I should have picked before yesterday's torrential downpours...I have a ton of cracked/otherwise thrashed tomatoes, and for a lot of these I'll just be salvaging whatever portion of the tomato I can for sauce or whatever. Anyway here's a couple Amish Paste, with a few chunks taken out due to splitting, etc: Oh yeah, I'm definitely sold on trying one or both of those next year.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2020 17:33
|
|
|
ixo posted:green tomatoes are now chow-chow I'm gonna need that recipe bud 
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2020 21:54
|
|
|
Here's some garden news to share. No one in my life cares about my garden much so I will share it here. My zucchini produced one single veg. I have a raccoon or opossum in the area that was robbing any new growth that would get started. My squash produced around 8 of them, which is nice. I guess the raccoon/opossum preferred zucchini. I just killed both plants because the squash bugs had finally hatched and I didn't want any in my garden so I chopped up both and sent them to the compost. The cucumber plant that was in that raised bed marches on. My partner wanted cucumber even though I don't care for it I planted it to try to get her interested in the garden a little more. She tried making pickles with it and apparently they taste bad. The next garden task is I've got an order of new wood heading to Menards (20' boards) that I will make into a 3'x7' bed. If that goes well I'll put in another order to get some more 20' boards for another raised bed. That will fill out the raised beds for the year. Then it's on to getting the trellises built that I was asking about posts a while back. Have to get the two new beds in before the trellises. The highlight of my garden this year just happened this morning! I went out to check the plants and do some watering because I had just finished a block of code for work (love working from home). I found just the greatest thing, a monarch caterpillar resting on the underside of some of my milkweed. I ran back inside to get a crate to set over it so no birds would try to dive-bomb that poor caterpillar and eat it. Set the crate over it and went back in to sling some more code. Went back out at lunchtime to check on it and it was gone. I've got no clue where it headed, but I'm going to not disturb that raised bed going forward. It probably crawled into the sweet potato forrest of leaves to hide in there during the day. Finally, if you want to hear Kelly Brook talk about gardening you can watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPz2UuyRyTA I love Great British Bake Off and that came across my youtube feed. I thought it was a real treat because I have always had a crush on her.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 01:32
|
|
|
Earth posted:Here's some garden news to share. No one in my life cares about my garden much so I will share it here. My zucchini produced one single veg. I have a raccoon or opossum in the area that was robbing any new growth that would get started. My squash produced around 8 of them, which is nice. I guess the raccoon/opossum preferred zucchini. I just killed both plants because the squash bugs had finally hatched and I didn't want any in my garden so I chopped up both and sent them to the compost. The cucumber plant that was in that raised bed marches on. My partner wanted cucumber even though I don't care for it I planted it to try to get her interested in the garden a little more. She tried making pickles with it and apparently they taste bad. The next garden task is I've got an order of new wood heading to Menards (20' boards) that I will make into a 3'x7' bed. If that goes well I'll put in another order to get some more 20' boards for another raised bed. That will fill out the raised beds for the year. Then it's on to getting the trellises built that I was asking about posts a while back. Have to get the two new beds in before the trellises. Thanks for sharing! I love having this little pocket of the internet where I get to talk about gardening cuz I don't have that much irl either. I try to cut myself off before I go on too much and bore my partner, but it's hard to stop when something new just emerged that I thought didn't make it thru the winter or the phlox in the shade garden set some really nice blossoms or etc I have a lil monarch caterpillar on my sole milkweed but it disappeared after a day, came back the next day, then disappeared for good on the fourth. There really isn't in other milkweed in caterpillar walking distance so I figured it got ate. If I get one again next year I'm going to build a little outside terrarium and move milkweed plants one after the other in. I've always wanted to see a butterfly pupate and it would be so cool to do with a monarch, I really had hopes for the one in the yard. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 01:55
|
|
|
CancerCakes posted:I'm gonna need that recipe bud try this on for size I didn’t add bell pepper because that’s weird and they don’t belong. added some sliced ruby chard stems because I had them. used kosher salt instead of pickling salt. go wild, make a few different varieties with that many. put some turmeric in one batch, some hot chiles in another. let your hair down, save a handful for Indian green tomato chutney too
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 02:10
|
|
|
My Thai neighbor gave me some beautiful long rear end beans. I gave her some butternut squash and young luffa gourds she was going to cook the luffa with chili paste.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 02:43
|
|
|
CancerCakes posted:I'm gonna need that recipe bud If you want a dessert you could try green tomato pie. Despite how it sounds it's actually pretty good, kinda like a gooey apple pie.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 06:00
|
|
|
I don't think I'll use the classic square foot spacing again for my corn next year. Ended up with 42 plants carrying 44 ears in a 10' x 4' block. Normally I'd plant double rows and need 25' of 4' bed for that many plants but get 80+ ears. I'm not that cramped for space and seed isn't cheap. Even with the unseasonably warm weather the last three weeks the ears in the centre of the bed are very small and slow to ripen. I knew square foot for corn had this kind of trade off but it still grates a little. I thought the tomatoes in the hoop house had been hit by late blight but they didn't keel over and die in 48 hours so maybe it's just the mildew that's on the cucurbits following this hot spell. Hosed them down with copper spray but at this point I'm not too concerned if the tomatoes on this end (cherry and early slicers) die. Hopefully it stays away from the Long Keepers on the other end - they don't get picked until closer to the first frost.  Since this is Zone 8 Maritime the shitshow never ends! Finishing up planting the winter vegetables, including collards (no idea, never tasted them) and this Japanese leaf brassica called Mizuna. It's supposed to be quite mild and good in salads. Hopefully it goes well with the corn salad/sorrel/arugula/kale weed salad we make in the winter.  8 to 10 feet high you say? After some of the okra pictures posted up stream I think I'm going to quit trying. This is the most success I've had to date - one plant tucked into the end of the hoop house because I was running out of room. The rest of the cohort out in the open were the same height with no pods and got ripped out in August to make room for next spring's onions. This is the only plant I've ever had produce pods. Yes, the marks on the trowel are inches.  I built a herb spiral in the garden a few years ago with a horse bucket pond at the base. I occasionally find this little lady taking a bath in it, but mostly she hangs out hunting under the strawberries and raspberries. Pros - no slugs. Cons - I think she might have eaten the goldfish we were using for mosquito control.  Nothing like beehives to add drama to a garden. Must the the royalty. Two of the three overwintering hives dwindled and died by early spring. I was able to combine the last of the workers and stores with the remaining hive to give it a boost but then the queen in that hive started failing too. When I tried to buy a new queen all the shipping channels into Canada were shut down due to Covid. The professional beekeepers are highly reliant on queens and packages from Chile, New Zealand, and Australia at that time of year so there were a lot beekeepers sweating bullets before Ag Canada got things opened up again. My inquiry for one (1) new queen registered on absolutely no one's radar. Fortunately the workers were able to take care of making a new queen and I didn't need to worry. The new queen did a good job but it takes time to get laid and start laying so she had a late start and didn't build up enough workers to take full advantage of our nectar flow. She doesn't have enough honey now for me to take any without risking starving her during the winter. While she was building up I set up an empty bait hive nearby in case I screwed up and she decided to lay more queens and swarm, buggering off with a bunch of workers and stores and setting things back again. She didn't swarm but someone else's hive did and took up residence so I ended up with a second booming hive of FREE BEES!  Unfortunately the new girl hasn't had time to build up enough stores for the winter either so it's off to Costco for a couple of large bags of sugar to feed my welfare queens.  Thumposaurus posted:My Thai neighbor gave me some beautiful long rear end beans. I had no idea they came in any colour other than green. Those are gorgeous. Given my record with regular yard long beans (success 1 year in 4) I don't think I'll try them though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 06:01
|
|
|
She told me the red ones are sweeter than the green ones. We're letting some go to seed so we can save them and plant them next year.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 13:14
|
|
|
Thumposaurus posted:My Thai neighbor gave me some beautiful long rear end beans. Long, long, BEEEEEAAAAAAAAN!
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 15:10
|
|
|
Long beans are the #1 thing I'm most excited about trying next year. Gonna make Szechuan dry-fried beans erry drat week.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 15:47
|
|
|
showbiz_liz posted:Long beans are the #1 thing I'm most excited about trying next year. Gonna make Szechuan dry-fried beans erry drat week. This sounds good. You got a recipe?
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 16:20
|
|
|
Green tomatoes make great salsa.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 17:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 10:09 |
|
|
JRay88 posted:This sounds good. You got a recipe? I've never made them myself but this looks about right. Although that recipe actually uses "regular" green beans. They wind up almost along the lines of fried shishito peppers, with the blistered skin. You can get it at most nicer Chinese restaurants, and I also ordered it all the time when I studied abroad in China. I never actually realized until this thread that it wasn't traditionally made with French-style green beans, but on reflection I always thought they were a bit different from the green beans I was familiar with.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 18:00
|
|