Gardening: My Tomatoe and Pepper Progress

[applescrap]

I tasted it, but didnt want to sway anyones opinion before answering. And also, sadly, i dont entirely trust my judgement, but i should. I dont trust my golf game either . Tasted like onion, or chive. Perhaps a little garlicky too. Never seen flat leaves before or had anything last a winter. Just wanted to make sure before i started feeding the kids.

 

[applescrap]

Oops

 

[applescrap]

This isnt our first rodeo. We saw it coming and raced home from pool. Swmbo and i worked together and just in time.

 

[passedpawn]

haha

 

[estricklin]

applescrap, hope the hail didn't damage anything, it looks like serious hail.

I was out weeding with my dad today, everything is coming along well. My tomatoes are about 5-5 1/2 foot so far. Corn is doing good, lots of watermelons. I'll take some pics of my peppers next.

 

[applescrap]

Wow, im just getting started here. The garden looks awesome estricklin.

 

[brewbama]

applescrap, hope the hail didn't damage anything, it looks like serious hail.

I was out weeding with my dad today, everything is coming along well. My tomatoes are about 5-5 1/2 foot so far. Corn is doing good, lots of watermelons. I'll take some pics of my peppers next.

Squash is lookin good too. We sautéed up our first three yellow squash of the season for supper last night.

 

[estricklin]

Squash is lookin good too. We sautéed up our first three yellow squash of the season for supper last night.

Thanks. Yeah we are only on week 2 of the squash pickin, the photo shows about 1/3rd of my squash plants. I plant some in succession since they are prone to pests.

 

[Evilgrin]

Poddage galore!!!

Mystery plant but its hot...i know i ate part of one before i made the vinegar.

No heat hab types...Aji Dulce and Trindad Perfume

These MOA reds from MWCH are crazy. Never seen so many peppers on a plant this size

Ripe Aleppo is so cool looking. A few more are just starting to turn too.

This Aji Arnaucho is just 18" tall...crazy

Miraflores is doing way better in more shade but its gunna get reall hot soon. Probably lose all the flowers too.

 

[applescrap]

Beautiful chillis. Are you hand watering? The gardens look great. What are you fertilizing with. You have inspired me to try some heatless chillis next year.

 

[Evilgrin]

Well we had several days of rain. A few of mine dont like that much rain. One of the rocotos REALLY hates too much water and they are a PITA to grow in my climate anyway. They grow ok its just hard to get any peppers off of them.

I mostly hand water from a rain barrel. I use mostly Alaska Fish Emulsion 5-1-1 and supplement it with kelp based products and CNS17 Grow 3-1-2. When i cant use liquid nutrients i use Alaska vegetable and tomato dry pellets. Its 4-6-6 with 7% calcium too. Its also made from fish and kelp. You dont need to buy expensive liquid seaweed. Its simple to make from dry wakame or kombu if you have an Asian market. A couple ounces makes at least 5 gallons. A little epsom salts 1-2 times a month. About a tbs per gallon of water.

Alaska Fish Emulsion is around $20 a gallon. You only need a tbs or 2 per gallon once a week.
The dry pellets are $7/3lb bag at Menards and $10 a bag at Lowes. 1-2 cups is enough per 5gal pot for around a month or more.
I also get calcium nitrate just in case i need a fast calcium boost. A 4lb bag is only $6. About a tsp per gallon per week is enough most of the time unless your other stuff is really low in calcium.

Botanicare CNS17 Grow is a great hydro nutrient if you want to keep it simple.

This all depends on how much rain you get and how often you need to water. Lots of rain/water tends to wash out the pots. Thats when the dry pellets come in handy. The pellets also have lots of the other trace elements that are missing in lots of fertilizers. You could just use kelp meal if you wanted instead of the pellets but its not much cheaper.

 

[Evilgrin]

Ouch...Got Milk?

Those are a couple days old. So they might be ready today. I leave the first few on a bit longer for seed stock.

 

[applescrap]

Awesome advice evilgrin. Im not familiar with any of those products but they sound great. I need to look into them, thanks.

 

[applescrap]

My update pics. Safe to say the squash like their new home. Massive, not sure how this will end. Sorry for my lawn shoe pic, but I feel it gives some scope to the lettuce. I wear a size 12 double wide. They are huge. The tomatoes are doing well and you can see them peeking out. There are 5 more tomato plants that I thought had blight which I'll send a picture of later.

 

[estricklin]

Harvested 142 ears of G90 after a long vacation. I had someone picking the garden for me while I was gone but a few things got missed as you can tell.

 

[HoppyDaze]

Here’s a nasty one.

 

[Evilgrin]

 

[Evilgrin]

317 grams worth today and more almost ready
5 Naga?, 8 MOA reds, 2 Arnaucho, 2 mystery peppers (supposed to be Bell of Gollu?), 1 Bell of Gollu and 3 Jamaican Gold from CCN with the wrong pheno. Damn things are hot though.

A few from a couple days ago. Ground squirrel bit into my Brazilian Starfish so now its war. RAT ZAPPER INC!!!

 

[z-bob]

The first of my Serrano peppers should be ready to pick soon. And I'm getting a few cherry tomatoes but not many yet. I need to give my big tomatoes a good shot of nitrogen fertilizer to get them to put on a bunch of leafy growth to get ahead of the blight that's just taking hold. They are a blight resistant variety (Celebrity) but we've had so much warm humid weather and night-time rains they are losing a lot of lower leaves. (The cherry tomatoes don't care, if they lose a leaf they just put out a new branch to replace it)

The weird tepin x Lemon Drop peppers are just starting to set fruit. I had a scare with them the first time I saw the plants at the end of a hot day. The ends of the branches curl up in the evening like they'd been hit with 2,4-d herbicide (and I've had problems almost every year with the city illegally spraying herbicides thru the fence into my garden.) And it's not curly-top virus either; next morning they uncurl and continue growing.

 

[Evilgrin]

The 4 yellow ones are Trinidad Perfume and the little red one next to it is a Aji Dulce. No heat at all from the perfume and just a hint from the Dulce. Smelling both you would swear they would light you up. They smell just like a habanero.

 

[probablynotnick]

My wife and I are closing on our first house soon that sits on a 1/3acre. We're both pretty excited to get a garden growing in the back, and all of this has been a fun read and only adds fuel to that fire!

Hope to have a few pics of my own to share next year!

 

[applescrap]

This is my first time growing hard squash. I think this is a winter squash, but wonder if it's an early pumpkin. Anyways anybody know when to pick it. It seems ready.

 

[jakeasaur]

This week's harvest

 

[shelly_belly]

This is my first time growing hard squash. I think this is a winter squash, but wonder if it's an early pumpkin. Anyways anybody know when to pick it. It seems ready.View attachment 580111

That looks like a spaghetti squash.

https://brownthumbmama.com/when-to-harvest-spaghetti-squash/

 

[applescrap]

^^thanks!

 

[applescrap]

Oh man look at the size of these squash plants they really took off. They grew down where they're getting hit by the sprinkler and I sense some powdery mildew starting. I pulled the pool back onto the deck but I think I cut the bottom with a screw. Anyways I also cut some of the large leaves that were suspect. Anyone know if that hurts the plant. Tomatoes are starting to grow put in the big spikes.

 

[Evilgrin]

The Pain Train just pulled into the station.

Only picked a few ghosts, Jamaican Golds and P Dreadie bonnets. Mystery pepper just for comparison to the ghosts.

 

[ong]

I think these are really cool — it’s a heirloom cherry tomato called Helsing Junction Blues.

 

[jakeasaur]

Gone for the weekend and came home to this. Anyone have any thoughts on the culprit? Chimpmunk?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

Pick of the day

 

[z-bob]

I'm starting to pick cherry tomatoes and serrano peppers. The serranos are big ones, about 3 inches long and look like skinny jalapenos, but way hotter than most jalapenos. I planted "Celebrity" big tomatoes this year specifically because of their disease resistance, but it wasn't enough. I will get a few tomatoes off of them, but they are eat-up with blight. The cherry tomatoes (2 different varieties) barely seem affected by the blight, so I might plant all cherry tomatoes next year. The exotic peppers are doing well, but I'm not going to pick any until the first one starts to change color because I don't know how big they'll get and I don't want to pick them too early.

I have 3 hills of squash up, just planted a week or so ago. Should still be enough time to get a crop. And today I transplanted 2 rows of leeks from a packet of seeds I planted in a bunch a couple of months ago; they are about pencil size or a little smaller now. I spaced them about 2 inches apart. I'm hoping to pull about half of them for scallions in a few weeks and let the rest get big.

And I bought a 10 cent packet of collard green seeds, so I will plant those somewhere for a fall crop.

 

[applescrap]

Gone for the weekend and came home to this. Anyone have any thoughts on the culprit? Chimpmunk?View attachment 581424

Rat or mice?
Beautiful fruits sucks to see.

 

[jakeasaur]

Rat or mice?
Beautiful fruits sucks to see.

I'm leaning towards squirls... setting up one of my brother in-laws hunting cameras tonight

 

[probablynotnick]

What sort of light diffusers are you guys using? Thought I noticed that in Evilgrin's photos.

 

[Evilgrin]

Got milk and baby wipes?.....yep

2 kinds of bonnets

Bunch of Fresno, Trinidad Perfume and Aji Arnaucho

Mystery peppers and Ghosts

The HAUL!!!

 

[Evilgrin]

What sort of light diffusers are you guys using? Thought I noticed that in Evilgrin's photos.

Nothing if you mean photography related. My digital cam is a older Panasonic. If you mean like a shade cloth i use huge peanut bags to shade the black fabric pots and plants.

Early season pics but it gives you an idea.

 

[probablynotnick]

...If you mean like a shade cloth i use huge peanut bags to shade the black fabric pots and plants...

Exactly what I was asking, thanks! My wife and I just bought an old house that has a huge yard with part of the plot already tilled for a garden. The catch is that almost all of the plot is in direct sun for most of the day, hence my question. I guess "shade cloth" is the right term.

Can any of you recommend a good gardening book or other material to tide me over until planting season? I mean there are a thousand things to fix with the house, but I've always wanted a big garden and don't know where to start.

 

[Evilgrin]

thehotpepper forum is a gold mine of info.

Some peppers seem to love virtually full sun all day. My Aleppo and Jalapeno do fine with full sun to maybe 6pm. Many of mine are getting lots of shade by 4pm. You need to take into account my climate and temps. Its been over 90F a lot sofar but nights have mostly been in the 75ish F range.

If your highs are a bit lower and lows are similar then more sun should not be an issue. My buddy in Idaho is cranking out with rocoto peppers that are doing poorly for me. My plants look great but i have very few pods. He has tons of rocoto pods from the exact same seeds. His night time temps are way lower than mine. His humidity is also lower than mine.

 

[Evilgrin]

Mess of Papa Dreadie Scotch Bonnets, Brazilian Starfish and some Sichuan peppers. Them Starfish are so good to eat fresh. Add them to a slaw or tuna salad OMG!!! So sweet and not much hotter than a jalapeno. Most of it is pretty mild until you get closer to the seeds.

 

[bleme]

The Pain Train just pulled into the station.

I literally started sweating, just looking at those pics, LOL!