Gardening: (2016– )

[Martin Fisher]

29 minutes ago, KennethT said:

I dont' know about indeterminate chilis, but bell peppers can be either depending on the cultivar. From what I can tell, most greenhouse production use the indeterminate variety- just like in greenhouse tomato production.  The determinate peppers are commonly called "field" peppers.

 

I think that comes from this article. https://www.alberta.ca/guide-to-commercial-greenhouse-sweet-bell-pepper-production.aspx

Note that they don't use any references or mention any specific cultivars in that part of the article.

It's all about management.

Heck, I can get almost any chile to bloom and produce fruit at any time based on management.

Edited May 9, 2019 by DiggingDogFarm (log)

[Martin Fisher]

I crawled the Chile Pepper Institute website.

"Determinate" or "semi-determinate" are mentioned a handful of times.

But really only in terms of concentrated fruit-set which is sought after for mechanical harvesting.

 

Edited May 9, 2019 by DiggingDogFarm (log)

[ChocoMom]

Wandered out to the grapevines today. Most of the snow has finally melted, but there is still a little. (Had a goofy little snowstorm Wednesday night). Noticed that the blackberries spread voraciously amongst the grapevines, so I spent two hours out there chopping away at the bases of the blackberries. I love the blackberries, but they have their respective patches:  One way out back, and one up front.  We figured a bear took to munching on them years ago, and his/her droppings  "planted" the ones we're trying to get rid of.   

My arms bear the markings of thorn exposure. Should look stunning when I dress for church tomorrow....in my cap-sleeve dress. 

[Shelby]

Planted about 40 tomatoes yesterday along with green beans, collard greens, mustard greens, okra, corn, watermelon, cantaloupe and squash.  To do next week: peppers, basil, dill, eggplant and a few more tomatoes.

 

Now we will see if anything grows.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, Shelby said:

Planted about 40 tomatoes yesterday along with green beans, collard greens, mustard greens, okra, corn, watermelon, cantaloupe and squash.  To do next week: peppers, basil, dill, eggplant and a few more tomatoes.

 

Now we will see if anything grows.

 

I planted three tomatoes yesterday.

 

[Shelby]

7 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I planted three tomatoes yesterday.

 

Well that's good!  

 

I have all of this empty garden that screams at me if I don't fill it up.  Trust me, I'll be envying you when I'm out with a back ache weeding.

 

I hate weeding.

[Okanagancook]

Have you considered using poly?  Can you put drip lines underneath?

[KennethT]

3 hours ago, Shelby said:

Well that's good!  

 

I have all of this empty garden that screams at me if I don't fill it up.  Trust me, I'll be envying you when I'm out with a back ache weeding.

 

I hate weeding.

I don't know if I posted it here.. but a long time ago, I saw a kickstarter for a weeding robot.  Looked like a pretty good design!

Edited May 18, 2019 by KennethT (log)

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

I don't know if I posted it here.. but a long time ago, I saw a kickstarter for a weeding robot.  Looked like a pretty good design!

 

The mind boggles.

 

Nancy in Pátzcuaro

[JoNorvelleWalker]

2 hours ago, KennethT said:

I don't know if I posted it here.. but a long time ago, I saw a kickstarter for a weeding robot.  Looked like a pretty good design!

 

 

I thought these were for sale.  Made by one of the original Roomba founders.  They are solar powered and never need charging.  My concern is what happens when they escape into the wild and reproduce?

 

[dans]

I hadn't thought about doing any gardening this year. I tried the potato tower last year and threw some pea plants in pots with mediocre results on both. We stopped by the local nursery and they had one last pot of tomatoes (Sun Gold) that I couldn't leave behind. I guess I'll be doing some gardening after all.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Tertill…$299.  Ships to USA and Canada.

 

https://www.franklinrobotics.com/

 

[TicTac]

If you are too lazy to weed, either let it grow and turn it over into the ground or just put newspaper over top.

 

That robot sounds like a terrible idea.

 

Shelby, you have my respect - nowhere near your scale, but I just finished planting our newly expanded 150 sf plot:

 

12 Tomatoes (6-5 varieties)

4 Zuccini

6 snap peas

4 yellow beans

20-30 Bunching onions

2 Huskberry's

2 Poblano's

2 Aurora peppers

3 pickling cukes

3 English cukes

Basil plants thrown in around the 'Maters.

 

Oh and at the farmers market this morning my farmer and I were chatting, he gave me a present he was growing for some other clients (and himself) - a beautiful little (legal) Cannabis plant

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

On ‎5‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 10:21 PM, KennethT said:

I don't know if I posted it here.. but a long time ago, I saw a kickstarter for a weeding robot.  Looked like a pretty good design!

 

 

You did post it in another thread.  I just came inside from admiring my peas.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

First strawberry.

 

[dcarch]

Happy Memorial Day!

Happy indeed! Succeeded in Zone 6 to have ripe tomatoes before Memorial Day!

Last year's goal was to have tomatoes before July 4th. With my DIY high power LED lights, Memorial Day is the objective for this year.

Next year Mother's Day? :-)

 

dcarch

[JoNorvelleWalker]

 

I was distracted by strawberries but I couldn't put off the peas.

 

 

[heidih]

They appear lusty - best of .\luck

[suzilightning]

well, we shall see how this goes...

after my morning meeting I have to stop by Home Depot to pick up 3 bags of container soil and whatever I want to plant in the kitchen garden.

out front in the half tub which gets good sun I am looking for a couple of cherry or grape tomato plants.

tarragon, thyme for sure after that....

[Kerry Beal]

The side of the house is the spot where I’ve planted a few things that I routinely forget are there. Today while waiting for the child to be delivered home on the bus I wandered over to see the plants that hubby mentioned had ‘gotten really big’.

 

 

Guess I’d better cut some rhubarb soon.

 

 

Some Angelica I planted a few years ago and wormwood. I planted the Angelica with thoughts of candying it. Might be a good time.

[Shelby]

10 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

The side of the house is the spot where I’ve planted a few things that I routinely forget are there. Today while waiting for the child to be delivered home on the bus I wandered over to see the plants that hubby mentioned had ‘gotten really big’.

 

 

Guess I’d better cut some rhubarb soon.

 

 

Some Angelica I planted a few years ago and wormwood. I planted the Angelica with thoughts of candying it. Might be a good time.

Rhubarb jealousy .

[Shelby]

The gardening and farming for us has been quite challenging this year due to the massive flooding.  Most of our field corn was wiped out and we have now re-planted.  A lot of the garden--and the field corn seeds have had trouble sprouting.  The ground was so flooded...and then the sun beat down and basically baked the top layer of soil to the point that it's so hard and crusty that the little plants are having trouble bursting through.  So, we'll see what we end up with.  Snapped some pictures this morning.  We have 3 different gardens this year.  One will have pumpkins and other odds and ends, one has the asparagus, a few tomato plants and a lot of red potatoes. All of the cucumbers I've planted have looked great for a few days and then they up and die.  Arrrgh.  I hate to think of summer without fresh cucumbers from the garden.  Anyway, here are some pics of the main garden:

 

Jalapeños and bells

 

Radishes

Red potatoes

Red, yellow and white onions--the onions certainly loved all of the water we got

 

Beans--lots of the seeds didn't sprout

Some basil

Mustard greens and collard greens

okra

Sweet corn-again lots didn't come up

About 60 tomato plants

Squash

 

[KennethT]

@Shelby I've been thinking of you as I've heard the news of the flooding going on over there... hope your weather gets better soon!!!

[dcarch]

Last year I found out the trick to get artichokes to blossom in my zone 6. This year with my DIY high power LED grow light, I am hopeful that I will have even better results.

 

As of today, things look promising.

 

dcarch

 

[KennethT]

Here's an interesting study done by Univ of Michigan that tested how the amount of light during the seedling stage of basil affected the yield at harvest.  Seemed like a well controlled study - although, as the article even admits, this may be crop specific.  For instance, we know that basil loves tons of light - it's hard to give basil too much light, as opposed to other crops (like strawberries) that do worse under high light conditions, even with temperature/humidity/etc. the same...

 

https://www.producegrower.com/article/lighting-basil-seedlings/