Gardening: (2016– )

[FauxPas]

2 hours ago, FrogPrincesse said:

I planted a cherry tomato with a variety of basil last weekend, together with more herbs (an assortment of basil varieties, summer savory, more parsley). The cilantro from February bolted and I planted its seeds; fingers crossed that I will get a second generation.

 

It will be so pretty as it fills in! Looks like some nasturtiums in there also? 

 

What variety of cherry tomato, do you know? I have "Husky Cherry Red", a few "Sweet 100", "Sugary" grape tomato, and several "Sweet Million" cherry plants. I would have had more of the "Sweet Millions" but some of the ones I started from seed didn't fare very well. So I'm glad that I  bought a few plants at the nursery when they were on sale. 

 

I picked the first strawberries yesterday. I just have two hanging baskets with plants but they have quite a bit of fruit for their size. Not enough ripen together to do a full dessert usually but enough to enhance a fruit salad or have with a bit of yogurt. 

 

I have some snap peas too but lost some as I discovered that my cat likes to munch on pea shoots. And not just dainty little nibbles either, ha.  🙂

 

 

 

Edited June 7 by FauxPas (log)

[FrogPrincesse]

2 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

 

It will be so pretty as it fills in! Looks like some nasturtiums in there also? 

 

What variety of cherry tomato, do you know? I have "Husky Cherry Red", a few "Sweet 100", "Sugary" grape tomato, and several "Sweet Million" cherry plants. I would have had more of the "Sweet Millions" but some of the ones I started from seed didn't fare very well. So I'm glad that I  bought a few plants at the nursery when they were on sale. 

 

I picked the first strawberries yesterday. I just have two hanging baskets with plants but they have quite a bit of fruit for their size. Not enough ripen together to do a full dessert usually but enough to enhance a fruit salad or have with a bit of yogurt. 

 

I have some snap peas too but lost some as I discovered that my cat likes to munch on pea shoots. And not just dainty little nibbles either, ha.  🙂

 

 

 

Correct, I have some nasturtiums in there too. I will probably move a couple of them to the backyard where they will have more space to spread out!

I do not know the variety of cherry tomatoes. This was from Walter Anderson, a local nursery, and it was the only one they had (although they had dozens of varieties of regular and heirloom tomatoes). It’s my first time ever growing tomatoes so you can imagine how excited I am!

I looked for snap peas when I was there but they didn’t have any. Probably a good thing as my space is very limited!

i just harvested some chard, parsley, and sorrel for my lunch. It’s so nice to have all these fresh greens available.

[FauxPas]

5 minutes ago, FrogPrincesse said:

It’s my first time ever growing tomatoes so you can imagine how excited I am!

 

I hope you'll share details of your harvest with us!!!   🙂

 

I start peas from seed, they tend to be pretty easy to grow here on Vancouver Island as it's not usually very hot. 

[FrogPrincesse]

I also have this on a fence. It took many attempts but seems well established now after a few years. As of this morning, there are more than a dozen passionfruit on the vine.

 

 

[FauxPas]

2 hours ago, FrogPrincesse said:

I also have this on a fence. It took many attempts but seems well established now after a few years. As of this morning, there are more than a dozen passionfruit on the vine.

 

That's awesome! I had a couple growing at a place in Arizona, but they never formed any fruit so they may have been just the ornamental variety. They were still attractive and unique though the actual fruit would have been nice! How long do they take to ripen, do you know? 

[FrogPrincesse]

They take a few weeks to ripen once the fruit has reached its full size (like the one in the picture). This variety turns purple when ripe. At that point, they can be harvested but they will continue to ripen and get a bit wrinkly as they do. That’s when they taste the best, with the skin still supple but no longer smooth. It’s not hard to grow them here once they are established. I was warned by someone at the nursery that it will take over my yard but we are not quite there yet.

[dcarch]

Got poison ivy.

Never had poison ivy before. Got lots to learn!

 

dcarch  🥶

[KennethT]

 

The first of my keriting chillies has started ripening!

[FauxPas]

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

The first of my keriting chillies has started ripening!

 

So exciting! 

Lots of peppers on that plant, you must be providing them the right conditions!  🙂

 

[KennethT]

29 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

 

So exciting! 

Lots of peppers on that plant, you must be providing them the right conditions!  🙂

 

It seems like chilli peppers in general like lots of light and are heavy nutrient feeders, so I am giving them a lot of light and am using a strong bloom formula nutrient, so yeah, I'm really happy with the way this plant is working out.  All the leaves look great - no sign of nutrient deficiency which also means that the roots are in good shape as well.

 

I think I'm going to harvest a bunch of the chillies green - maybe today... and then freeze them since I don't have much time for cooking this next week.  Hopefully that will make the plant want to start flowering again as flowering has really slowed.  I'll let the rest of the chillies ripen on the plant - hopefully they won't get too far while we're away starting in a little over a week.

[liuzhou]

8 hours ago, KennethT said:

9 hours ago, FauxPas said:

 

It seems like chilli peppers in general like lots of light and are heavy nutrient feeders

 

Chilli peppers are my most successful balcony crop (in a very short list). My success I put down to fortuitously having a generous supply of sunlight on my east facing balcony. (And yes the same feeding regimen of bloom nutrient.) 

 

I stick to local cultivars such as 'facing heaven'.

 

 

[KennethT]

For those growing chillies, how does one know when they are ripe and ready to be picked? By feel?   Also, if looking to pick them green, how do you know when they're ready since they stay green for quite a while before ripening?

[TicTac]

9 minutes ago, KennethT said:

For those growing chillies, how does one know when they are ripe and ready to be picked? By feel?   Also, if looking to pick them green, how do you know when they're ready since they stay green for quite a while before ripening?

Different colors will provide different flavour profiles (I am sure I do not have to tell you that).

 

Also experience is the answer, knowing the chili itself and when it is at its 'fullest' color will allow you to pick it at its peak.

 

They often will go from a bright red to a darker hue and that is when I will pick.

 

If I want to pick them green, I will do so at an early stage and right as it is starting to turn.  See what heat level you prefer.

 

Just doing Fish peppers this year, would have done Serrano's as well but could not find my seeds.  Love fish peppers though!  Highly recommended. 

 

Enjoy!

[FauxPas]

1 hour ago, TicTac said:

If I want to pick them green, I will do so at an early stage and right as it is starting to turn.  See what heat level you prefer.

 

Just doing Fish peppers this year, would have done Serrano's as well but could not find my seeds.  Love fish peppers though!  Highly recommended. 

 

I looked up Fish Peppers, they sound interesting. Caribbean origin and a serrano variety, if what I read is correct. 

https://www.incredibleseeds.ca/products/fish-hot-pepper-seeds

 

As for picking green peppers, I just kept sampling until they started to get nice and hot. In our climate, it's tricky to get fully ripe peppers without a greenhouse, so I only had a few here and there that turned red. 

[TicTac]

10 hours ago, FauxPas said:

 

I looked up Fish Peppers, they sound interesting. Caribbean origin and a serrano variety, if what I read is correct. 

https://www.incredibleseeds.ca/products/fish-hot-pepper-seeds

 

As for picking green peppers, I just kept sampling until they started to get nice and hot. In our climate, it's tricky to get fully ripe peppers without a greenhouse, so I only had a few here and there that turned red. 

They are not only gorgeous to look at, but absolutely delicious, just the right balance of heat and flavor.

 

The other issue one runs into when you let them get fully ripe is rot.  And (not in Ken's case) bugs, of course.

 

 

[chromedome]

I've mentioned from time to time that we cultivate specialty mushrooms from grow kits. We've had a few flushes in the past couple of weeks, so in the absence of much else going on in my garden at present I'll post a few pics of those. 

 

Here's a nice batch of blue oysters, which came to almost a pound: 

 

   

 

Oysters aren't one of those mushrooms that simply pop right up after a rain. Here's a time lapse of our elm oysters, taken over three days: 

    

 

...and the end result (day five). 

 

 

 

That's just over a pound, for the non-metric among us. 

We also had a big flush of winecap mushrooms from our old spot under the apple tree, after a big rain. They didn't come up in the original bed itself, but from the soil under the apple tree. Winecaps grow on hardwood, so this is what we'd hoped/planned for when we situated the bed in that spot. Unfortunately we also had a very large flush of slugs pop up after the same rain, so I was only able to salvage a few.

Winecaps, unlike oysters, *are* the kind of mushroom that goes from "small button" to "overblown and sporing" in the course of a day, but for mycophiles spore prints have a certain beauty of their own: 

 

 

They're primarily used as a tool in doubtful identifications (sometimes you can distinguish between two visually-similar mushrooms by comparing spore prints for color, spore shape/size, etc), but I have also seen some very artistic and beautiful spore prints. In those, the photographer chooses a surface (usually paper) with a texture and color that will complement the spores' color, and then lights it and adjusts the white balance to show the spore pattern to best effect.