You chose wisely with the Kuroda long carrots. I finished off pulling the carrots in my garden on Saturday. I had about 35 total feet worth of these planted. The size was good, with most of them being in the 4-6 inch range and not many fatties, stumpys, or misshapen ones. I now have 35 lbs of carrots to wash, slice, and can. That's 1 1/2 five gallon buckets worth of carrots and it's going to take forever. I picked the wrong week to quit chewing tobacco.
Supposed to get below freezing tonight so I picked the last of the tomatoes. Lost a few more of the pepper shaped ones due to little green worms.
Cluster up to keep warm and eat honey. When it gets above 50F, they fly around and poop. In the south, the queen lays year round.
If you want them to ripen up really quick, put a ripe banana or two in each basket and cover it with a cheese cloth. The ethylene gas emitted by the bananas will make the tomatoes ripen.
Here are some of the Kuroda longs that I pulled. These are outliers, for sure, but they show how big they can get.
This year's garden is a wrap. The dirt is tilled, everything is canned, and planning for next year has begun. Here is the final tally. Green beans 40 lb, 10 oz total. 31 quarts canned Beets 59 lb, 12 oz total. 23.5 quarts canned Carrots 39 lb 13 oz total. 21 quarts canned Potatoes Only 20 lbs Tomatoes 110 lbs total. 24 quarts spaghetti sauce 9 quarts of chili 54 pints of salsa 6 pints of regular (multi use) 63 total quarts canned In total, I got over 275 lbs of food out of the garden when you include the peppers, jalapenos, and the carrots, beans, and tomatoes I snacked on while working in the garden. Here's what it looks like. Spoiler
The entire garden is 20' x 24', but I leave about 2' open along 2 of the fences for a walkway. My math tells me that's roughly 18' x 22'.
There's plenty that didn't go right. My squash was a wash. I don't know why, but I didn't get shit. My potatoes only yielded 20 lbs. I should have had 60-70 lbs. My tomatoes only got 3.5 lbs/ plant for my Bonny Best and 7 lbs for my Super Beefsteak. For my tomatoes, I know instantly how to improve those yields. I got hit with early blight or fusilarium wilt, so I have to take steps to correct that. I'm also moving them about 10' to the south, which will allow them to catch the afternoon sun through the neighbor's trees. My dad's garden is about 2/3 or the size of mine and he out produces me in almost every way.
We had great amounts of zucchini and squash, but were light on the tomatoes as well. Our lettuce didn't grow back in after we initially trimmed it. And the beans were weak after the first few pickings.
lhprop1 what kind of beets do you recommend growing? im about to put in an order for some saffron bulbs and radish seeds so i figured i would get some of those while im at it
Detroits are the way to go. I tried the Early Wonder variety this year and was disappointed. The yield was really good, but the flavor was really bland and wasn't nearly as good as that of the Detroits. Also, they were woody, despite rarely being bigger than a racquet ball. Other people have better things to say about the Early Wonder variety, but this has been my experience. It will be Detroits for me from here on out.
peppers are progressing - a couple were added after the first batch so they are of differing sizes only got about 60% germination rate so im trying a new technique to bump that up a bit so i dont waste seeds. tried germinating 6 datil seeds and none of them have done anything yet, so hopefully i can get at least one going this way - soak paper towel in dilute chamomile tea - place 2 seeds inside each folded over paper towel and place in baggie - set in fridge for 2 days - germinate on heat mat in small deli containers - plant in jiffy starter cubes immediately after the root tip emerges - water with the remaining dilute chamomile tea for a few weeks to prevent damping off got a few more packets of seeds being shipped so i will plant probably 3-5 more varieties depending on how im feeling
I seriously think we did this same germination papertowel thing in a science class as an elementary kid. I would have never thought of doing now, but I bet it works well also, what is the "bubblegum"?
it works great - although its better to have a single ply paper towel instead of one folded over a few times when you put it on the heat mat because it heats more evenly this way. i grew hundreds of cotton plants for my masters and used the paper towel in a bag/foil pouch technique for all of them its called a 7 pot bubblegum - its a cross between a red morgua scorpion and a 7 pot yellow. superhot variety that looks unique because the pepper color "bleeds" into the calyx:
found an old sweet potato with a giant eye so I put him in water to root looks like we will be having sweet potatoes
Bummed out I am just now finding this thread. Will post the results of our garden throughout the winter. May even take some pictures...
sweet potato is growing nicely and (a sample of) the peppers are looking good quite liking the chinese 5 color pepper - might bonsai this guy. should go from purple to white to yellow then orange and red as it ripens
Taques this is for you buddy... what do you think about me and the woman's haul for today? Purple bell peppers, Sweet puerto rican peppers, habeneros, japs, cayennes, eggplants
gonna try to cross a few peppers and try to grow them out for a few seasons to stabilize them - really enamored with making my own strains white fatalii x aji russian yellow = white russian is the first thing that came to mind maybe datil X aji pineapple or lemon drop X hot paper lantern
So we had to clip all of our plants today and bring our pepper plants inside (the ones we want to save anyways) and that was a chore but I think we got about 4 times more than what that picture shows. Also, if you are part of the chicken thread, got our first blue eggs today.
growing everything in my office with a heat mat and a couple LED grow lights will top them all when appropriate and then take them outside when spring hits
anybody do hydroponics? ive just started researching it - ive got a couple crude kratky non-circulating setups using 2 liter bottles for my aji russian yellows and aji amarillos
Me and the lady don't mess around with hydroponics. She wants me to make her a greenhouse but as of right now we just use the laundry room for summer plants and just do winter plants in the winter. Our snap peas and different forms of lettuce are doing great. And raddishes for days.
bought some 7 pot yellow, trinidad congo red, trinidad congo peach, trinidad beans, scotch bonnet MoA, and datil (ones i had never germinated) seeds today i have a problem at least its not an expensive problem
I got my Baker Creek Seed catalog in the mail the other day. It's pretty much a contest between me looking at that and my 4 year old looking at the Christmas catalog to see who can circle the most shit on their wish list. My proposal of expanding my garden to encompass the whole back yard has been shot down by the wife every time it's brought up in committee. She likes eating all of that nice fresh food, but she doesn't want to give up our back yard for it. You can't have it both ways, missy.
my wife's family told me to make a christmas wish list so i just gave them a link to my baker creek and buckeye pepper wishlists we barely have any room for growing veggies outside but my wife will be gone all summer on digs so i get the whole back patio area for myself
You could have the whole back yard dug up and tilled. As long as you've got it sodded by the time she get's back, she'd never know.
I received my flow hive last week and I'll be putting it together soon. I'm looking forward to having bees this year :)