let's see your veggie garden {pics} 2021-25

[GreenDragon]

Tobacco Company Swag from the 1990s

Lot of peppers happing in these recipes. I would say that this (the book, not the tank top) is a wonderful investment for individuals who delight in outdoor cooking. Thank you, @Knucklehead, for bringing it to our attention.

Bob

Peppers are, in my opinion, one of the easiest things to grow in the garden. Nothing much eats them, and they are fairly pest free. They like it hot, full sun, and well drained soil. Start your seeds the same time as your tobacco seeds.

 

[deluxestogie]

Nothing much eats them, and they are fairly pest free.

Hornworms, TMV, groundhogs.

 

[GreenDragon]

Hornworms, TMV, groundhogs.

I've been lucky! Haven't had a problem with any of those. I've found that if I grow tobacco, tomatoes, and peppers, the hornworms will preferentially go for the former over the latter.

It's one of the few crops, that, while I was in Texas, the rats would not eat!

 

[deluxestogie]

Guide to Starting Seeds Indoors, from Johnny's Research Team

Follow these 12 steps for success with indoor seed-starting, to grow healthy seedlings and extend your growing season, plus troubleshooting tips, from Johnny's.

www.johnnyseeds.com

Seed-Starting Date Calculator: When to Start Seeds Indoors | Johnny's Selected Seeds

Enter your spring frost-free date and the calculator will provide recommended date ranges for seed starting and transplanting a variety of garden crops.

www.johnnyseeds.com

I found that the displayed schedule (after entering my last frost date) for just the vegetables could print out on a single page, for posting in a handy place.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

For those of you worrying about how your lovely, long and cylindrical peppers will distort when they dry:

Physical Review Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.048201

Bob

 

[smallwanderings]

onions, red of florence

 

[deluxestogie]

Selective Improvement of Hungarian Hot Wax Peppers

Johnnyseeds.com

This is an interesting article, recounting their nine year selective growing process at Johnny's Select Seeds, to improve the open-pollinated pepper to its original, ideal characteristics. It is directly applicable to improvement of a tobacco variety.

“We got rid of any plant that lodged, and any plant that had fruits that weren't true-to-type, including those that had either had constrictions in the neck or cayenne blood in them.”​

Johnny’s OP Stewardship Project: Restoration of ‘Hungarian Hot Wax’ Pepper

Learn how Johnny's restored the best qualities of this long-cherished open-pollinated variety to offer growers a reliably improved strain.

www.johnnyseeds.com

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

I have ordered some Chilhuacle Negro Hot Pepper Seeds from Terroir Seeds. I noticed that there are only 12 seeds in the packet. These Oaxacan peppers are allowed to mature and dry to a chocolate brown on the plant. Restaurants seek them out for making mole. The dried peppers themselves are wildly expensive, even in Mexico. ["...today they are offered at $1200 per kilo"] The seeds are now out of stock. But the story is interesting.

Chilhuacle Negro Hot Pepper Seeds - (Capsicum annuum)

Want the finest heirloom seeds and great advice? We help you grow your best garden - from the soil to the seed to the food you love!

store.underwoodgardens.com

With only 12 seeds to work with, I intend to do some serious seed-saving. For some reason, I had never considered that peppers (Capsicum annuum) might be self-fertile, even though they are a close relative of tobacco. With neighbors growing various peppers, I am unable to achieve a ~500 foot separation, to avoid cross-pollination. So, with this self-fertile plant, I will just bag 1 or 2 entire plants. [These are kind of bushes in their growth habit. So, really big bag.]

"Mole is a very complex dish that combines the use of Mexican dried chillies, seeds, nuts, dried fruit, onion, garlic, spices and, perhaps most importantly, dark Mexican chocolate that give this rich sauce its very distinctive flavor." Jan 18, 2022​

How to Make Amazing Homemade Mole Sauce in Less Time

This recipe is the perfect special occasion dinner.

www.thekitchn.com

Bob

 

[skychaser]

Pretty good article on Hungarian Wax Peppers. I grow them every year and they are definitely one of my favorites.

"Then you enter into what can be, what some Pacific Northwesterners affectionately call Juneuary, when it can be cloudy and drizzly up until the 4th of July, after which, suddenly, you are in one of the driest places in the whole continent."

I have lived here my entire life and never heard anyone say "Juneuary" It is common to get nights in the upper 30's at night in early June but most years it is one of the nicest months we have with daytime temps in the 70's and 80's with good gentle soaking rains. In 2021 we broke our all time record high at 109f in late June. They did get the 4th of July turning point right though. Then it goes into the 90's and we rarely get a drop of rain until Sept or Oct here in Eastern WA. Fortunately I have some great irrigation water or I would grow nothing. If it does rain in summer, it's usually a ripping thunder storm with high winds and dumps an inch of rain in a 1/2 hour. Not good for big tall tobacco plants. I'd rather make it "rain" on my schedule.

I might buy a pack of their Hungarian Wax peppers and see how they compare to mine. I must have started with some good seed stock because I have never seen any variations or off type plants. My plants look like their end result of their breeding program. Peppers are inbreeding plants, but they will cross with others. But in my experience the out crossing is very low. Less than tobacco, and more like tomatoes. Banana peppers are a mutation of Hungarian Wax with no Capsaicin. They look the same, but don't mix them up or you are in for a big surprise. Guess how I know. lol

I crossed a large and very sweet pepper with a very crazy hot little pepper that is usually considered an ornamental. What I crossed is my secret. I got a pepper I call Sweet/Hots. They are 4-5 inches long and about as big around as your finger with two color variations. Red and Orange. They are super sweet at the bottom and get hotter as you go up towards the stem. That last inch sets your mouth on fire! They dry very easily and are great for salsa or for cooking. Great sweet/hot flavor and aroma to them when dried. I'm seven years into this experiment. It took a couple years to stabilize them and I have been working on stabilizing the two different colors the past couple years. Then last year I suddenly had some throwbacks that went each way back towards the original parents. Why? I dunno. Fun with genetics. Someday when I get them fully stabilized, I will release them into the wide world of peppers.

I did the same with tomatoes seven years ago. I crossed an high production indeterminate hybrid with a large determinate beefsteak type. (another secret cross) What I got is a very large heavy producing determinate tomato with the best qualities of both. They only took a couple years to stabilize fully. I grow a lot of tomatoes to sell as produce in the summers. After a few seasons of trial grows they took their place out in the field with my other high production tomatoes last year. And I sold plants last spring for the first time. It will be interesting to see how many people come back for them this spring. I call them Dizzy Girl. I named them after my wife. That was her on line name. And they do produce a dizzying amount of very nice tomatoes. Might be my claim to fame someday. Who knows.

I've never grown Chilhuacle but I have grown a couple different Reapers and Ghost peppers. The seed is insanely expensive. Now I know why. They need a very long growing season. Start them in January to harvest in October. The plants get huge! And they are generally low in production with small peppers that produce very little seed. Lots of time and effort involved to get that seed. And don't even touch them without gloves on if you cut one open! I don't know how anyone can eat one. One tiny dried flake on your tongue is like a red hot nail burning through it. Not for me! I'll stick with wax peppers and jalapeno's.

 

[deluxestogie]

My Chilhuacle Negro seeds arrived today. Imagine my shock when I counted them. Instead of the stated 12 seeds, the envelope held a whopping 13 seeds. It's a good omen for the coming season.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

The Heat of Chili Peppers

"When piperine and capsaicin come into contact with the tongue and mucous membranes, they bind to the exact receptor that also reacts to heat, acids or injury. This receptor then triggers a stimulus in certain nerve cells, which humans perceive as spiciness."​

Researching how pepper grows

How do plants make those pungent substances, anyway? The Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (IPB) is working intensively on this topic. Recently, a group of scientists led by Dr. Thomas Vogt have pinpointed the crucial enzyme that gives the fruits of the pepper plant (Piper nigrum) the...

phys.org

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Care Worker Protests Sprout in Brussels

Thousands of care sector workers protest in Brussels

Did I post this in the right place?

Bob

 

[GreenDragon]

I protest any sprout that is boiled! Only roasting allowed.

 

[deluxestogie]

Only roasting allowed.

I accept your protest, and raise it by frying in butter.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Starting Peas Indoors

I have watched a video of starting peas indoors inside lengths of plastic rain gutter. When ready to go outdoors, the soil and seedlings in each gutter was then slid out, into a furrow of the garden. This works for planting peas in rows. Since I plant peas in a rectangular area, rather than rows, I pondered how I might utilize a similar technique.

I have poly-nylon tobacco bags that are 10" x 30". I located a used one that was a bit shorter, but still longer than a 1020 tray. ("1020" means 10" x 20"). I set up 3 nested trays: tray with holes on top; tray without holes below that; lattice tray on the bottom, for structural support during lifting and moving.

Although the bag blocks drainage, the side edges allow excess water to seep into the tray with holes. The bag ends were tucked into the lattice tray at each end.

This is my usual seedling mix (2/3 Miracle-Gro sphagnum moss peat; 1/6 Miracle-Gro Perlite; 1/6 fine vermiculite)

Sometimes I plant standard garden peas, and sometimes snow peas. The former are more productive of peas, but the latter provides edible pods (prior to maturity) as well as peas.

I created staggered rows of divots, dropped 1 pea into each one, and covered them. I poured about 1 quart of water into the tray, around the edges. I'll check moisture level tomorrow.

The seeded, watered tray is covered with a dome, and placed onto a seedling heat mat, on a shelf in a sunny window of my enclosed back porch.

When ready to go out to the garden, I will have to determine if I can lift out a doormat-sized, complete tray of seedlings, or if I have to cut off the end of this tray with holes, and slide it out. (I replaced all my 1020 trays, except the lattice trays, this year. For the peas, I'm using one of the old trays, which are scheduled for discarding.)

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Starting Chilhuacle Negro Peppers

I wanted to start these chili peppers (from Oaxaca, Mexico) in 3" pots initially. But I have only ever owned two seedling heat mats. Usually the staggered timing of when I need them works out well. But I've got one mat beneath my tobacco germination cups and the other beneath a full tray of snow peas. Eight 3" pots would have no warm place.

So I searched through my archives of saved old trays and tubs and fruit boxes, etc. Two of these ancient tubs, which once contained mushrooms from the grocery store, would barely fit onto the tray with the tobacco germination jars. Instead of planting directly into soil-filled tubs, I discovered that a 4-pack insert fit perfectly.

The 4-packs were filled with my starting mix, water added to the tubs, and each tub covered with a section of plastic wrap—using a Popsicle stick label as a tent pole.

And here they are, on a heat mat.

These Chilhuacle Negro are supposed to be a beast of a plant, so I suspect I may need to re-pot them prior to my time for setting them out.

Bob

 

[Homegrowngoodnes]

I used takeout trays from wafflehouse to start seeds this year. They have clear lids with ventholes so not too much condensation. I sowed seeds Friday afternoon n set them on my kitchen windowsill (west facing) n light above the sink stays lit all night. Some condensation was gathering by Wednesday so I decided to check and it looked like time to mow! Lol I left the lids off and used tweezers to transfer to soil blocks on Friday afternoon, just 7 days after sowing. I did everglades tomatoes the same way and those were roughly 2" tall in that week's time! I have bare root strawberries and 2 yr old asparagus crowns being delivered in the next few days. The asparagus and strawberries will be interplanted with the strawberries about 6" deep and asparagus about 6" deeper than the strawberries so they aren't competing for nutrients. Both should produce for many years to come!

 

[deluxestogie]

I was worrying that I might have cooked the peas on the heat mat plus dome plus direct sun. Also, this is my strange tray arrangement with a poly-nylon bag beneath the soil. This one pea sprouted today.

The Chilhuacle Negro chili is a happy sight, given how few seeds came in the packet (13), and the seed site's discussion of how troublesome they are to germinate.

Bob

 

[smallwanderings]

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=coRHndcS78c

 

[deluxestogie]

Blue Ballet: This "smaller" Hubbard squash, from Johnny's is supposed to produce a faded blue, mostly spherical squash of 6-8 pounds, rather than the much larger, standard Hubbard. This will be my only winter squash for 2023. Of course, it's just a pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima).

I started them in a 4-pack of my 1020 tray inserts, but realized fairly quickly that it would be root bound in just a few days. This morning, I re-potted them to 3-inch pots, which already look a bit too small.

Bob