Food gardening

Mick Doobie said:
What did you plant? Did you plant in fall, spring..
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These were all five gallon pots and the trees two to three feet. I planted two apple, two plum and two peach trees in the early fall. I forgot, I bought six. I have a huge pear tree in the back that has the juiciest, biggest pears ever, yellow, I mentioned them before. There must have been 300 pears on that tree last year. The year before there were none. I bought the house in June, I guess there was a late frost. I am hoping there isn't one this year. Everything is blooming. I don't know what zone I am in but I am on the Va.Ky.Tn. border. Before this house I was about 40 minutes north of here and I had fruit trees on that property and none of them bloomed that year either.
 
spantini said:
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I bought a new carb for the one I have. It was running and cutting fine but every other cut I had to pull the carb off and clean it and replace
it. I replaced all filters and plugs. After about the fifth or sixth time pulling the carb I lost one of the jets. The new carb was only 26 bucks. If
it don't cure it I am just going to buy another one. This one is getting old, one tire doesn't hold air. I put one new blade on it, I couldn't get the other one off
I will be looking for a Craftsman DYS4500, it is what I have so I would have a bunch of extra parts. 46" cut 24 horse B&S motor.
 
Slight change of plans for us.

Ok.... so today seeds went in for arugula, red lettuce, green lettuce, and pinto beans. Bitchen.

Jalapeños, squash, and okra getting seeded in a few weeks. I'm stoked. :thumbs up:
 
I have tomato plants that are about 6 inches high. What I have found out is that having energy efficient triple pane windows makes the light lousy for plants. I put 3 plants by the window getting sun for about 3-4 hours, plus light for the rest of the day, and kept 3 under the grow light. The ones by the window are about 50% as big and strong as the ones under the grow light.

I've got a half dozen ghost pepper sprouts as well, just about an inch high.

I might have to get another grow light this week. The window thing just doesn't cut it!
 
By the back window, south facing, wife has seeded...

Some kind of heirloom tomato, Paul Roberson?..eh, kind of reaching, spindly, one or two have first real leaves. We'll see.

Ghost peppers...zowee!

Sugar Peas..looking forward to those, although I purchased those to go straight from seed in the group as soon as the weather gets a little better. Plenty of seeds left.

Strawberries! Forget the terminology, but not the runner type. I just picked up the seeds because that's all they had. Probably get some of the runner type plants to mix along side or within.

Local country store had onion sets, 1.58/lb. Picked up more than I will likely need. Said to repel deer, so I'm thinking here and there, perimeter of beds. Will also do garlic for aame purpose as well as eating.

Beet seeds. They'll go directly to soil. I don't know about beets, as far as eating. Haven't tried any since I was a kid, pickled beets. Wasn't a fan. We'll see. Said to be a super food, top greens edible and nutritious. Will get a few different varieties of tomato plants. Lots of tomatoes. Wife ordered potatoes for planting, seed potatoes(?), Yukon Gold, I think.

If the weather will ever break, soon I hope, cukes and squash straight from seed in the ground, corn from seed, rainbow swiss chard from seed, already purchased 2 four packs of broccoli and cauliflower plants, may get more. I have this old stone planter that was on the property when we got here, will probably do herb garden.. cilantro, basil, oregano, thyme, sage, maybe bunching onions and lettuce, etc. Need to find a place for a rosemary bush, or 2, or three...for the eats as well as the smells.

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PorterhouseMusic said:
Slight change of plans for us.

Ok.... so today seeds went in for arugula, red lettuce, green lettuce, and pinto beans. Bitchen.

Jalapeños, squash, and okra getting seeded in a few weeks. I'm stoked. :thumbs up:
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I'm glad you're stoked! Glad for ya. I'm stoked as well! Thanks for also providing an update, Rich.

Man, for those who have never tasted squash fresh off the vine, it's almost not the same animal as what you buy in a store, or even semi fresh from a farmers market. And the smell!
 
....radish seeds. I like em, and they harvest quick. accelerated gratification.

PEPPERS. The ol' lady has the ghost pepper seeds planted. I'll likely do cayenne for stringing to dry. Hot jalapeno, semi versatile. Maybe habanero, a favorite. Bell peppers I've never had the best success. I want and need nice thick walled bell peppers that will stand up on the flat top, pot, or skillet. I gotta figure out where I'm going wrong with that, maybe variety and/or soil amendment.
 
We grew broccoli over the winter months and it did really well. And it was delicious. I think we were talking about this? Rabbits were a nuisance - but what amazed me was... that broccoli survived two brutal extended freezes. We covered them but one of the two freezes had extreme wind for about two days with an extended wind chill in the single digits. There was no question in my mind that they were toast. But to my surprise - they made it through and kept producing. Amazing!
 
Doobie, Ghosts take almost 3 weeks to sprout. I had tomatoes that were a few inches high before I saw the first ghost poke it's head out of the dirt.


Yesterday morning, I stopped in to the local Walmart to grab a couple of items. As I was walking in the door, there was a stand with a bunch of spring flowers sitting in the morning sun.... with the temperature at about 24F. The poor things were just frozen and wilted. I guess when the boss says "put the spring flowers out" you don't talk back and say "but it below FREEZING outside!"

I wonder if they were marked down 25% this morning.:-)
 
Man, I wanna grow some sunflowers. Picked up seeds last summer but it was just too late to move forward. Even if I did at that point with no fencing at all I'm sure the deer would have got em. I'll just pick up some more seeds to make sure any effort isn't wasted. They have the big 12 footers all the way down to a few feet. Some just the yellow, which is nice, but some more colorful. Will probably draw pollinators as well. I sure wish I could just scatter them all over the place, here there and everywhere.

I thought celery, given that the trinity in Cajun cooking is onion, bell pepper, and celery. From what I'm reading slow to germinate, and takes a full 4 months to harvest. Just for the hell of it I took the last center stalk with root end from spent celery from the store, trimmed the bottom to reveal fresh green and stuck it in a small glass of water. If it roots I'll stick it in the dirt.

Yeah, I haven't asked or checked on the ghost peppers. Truthfully I've never tried them, but I will if they make it. Stupid hot, zowee. I do love habaneros, though. They're pretty damn hot...but fruity.
 
You don't want to eat ghost peppers. They are WAY too hot unless you a) have not sensation, or b) are a total masochist. I use them for stuff like chili, and I've tried them and put them in an old pepper grinder. I give it a turn or two over a pizza, or maybe on some lasagna. I can coat something in black pepper and it doesn't phase me. A few flakes of ghost and you can feel the heat!! Before you use one, use latex or nitrile gloves, just cut the tip off, get a bit of the juice on your gloved fingertip, and touch your tongue. You really don't want it on your skin in case you touch our eyes or worse, take a leak!!!!
 
Mick Doobie said:
Man, I wanna grow some sunflowers. Picked up seeds last summer but it was just too late to move forward. Even if I did at that point with no fencing at all I'm sure the deer would have got em. I'll just pick up some more seeds to make sure any effort isn't wasted. They have the big 12 footers all the way down to a few feet. Some just the yellow, which is nice, but some more colorful. Will probably draw pollinators as well. I sure wish I could just scatter them all over the place, here there and everywhere.

I thought celery, given that the trinity in Cajun cooking is onion, bell pepper, and celery. From what I'm reading slow to germinate, and takes a full 4 months to harvest. Just for the hell of it I took the last center stalk with root end from spent celery from the store, trimmed the bottom to reveal fresh green and stuck it in a small glass of water. If it roots I'll stick it in the dirt.

Yeah, I haven't asked or checked on the ghost peppers. Truthfully I've never tried them, but I will if they make it. Stupid hot, zowee. I do love habaneros, though. They're pretty damn hot...but fruity.
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Just before I moved from NY someone planted a whole hillside of sunflowers. It was pretty impressive. People were stopping to take pictures. They didn't plant them the following year?
 
Asked the wife on the ghost peppers, they're not up yet. Good to know on the slow sprouting, she continues to lightly water. I don't know, in a way I don't get it, you don't eat them. I like eating peppers. I mean sure, with a Jamaican Jerk marinade you don't eat the scotch bonnet(or in a clutch habanero as a substitution), you get some of the heat and the fruitiness. There's a thing in some Chinese cooking referred to as "Mala". A misconception among many, Szechuan peppercorns are not peppers at all, and have no heat. They're the bud from the prickly ash. They are numbing. So combined with hot peppers, you can eat more hot peppers and it doesn't burn or overheat your mouth up. The heat gets down in your core, warms you all over. Mala, it's a dance, a beautiful thing.

Seems with ghost peppers youll definitely get that dance, I'm sure some of you know the dance. The walking around the house part laughing, part in panic mode hoping at some point the burn from peppers will stop....so you can eat some more. :thumbs up:
 
I forget what I was making with hot peppers and then I rubbed my eyes lol. My wife had a good laugh guiding me to the sink and laughing at my predicament.
 
I have tried starting pepper seeds from a store bought pepper, waiting to see if they sprout. I have to try some tomatoes next. I have four pot plants sprouting though.
 
I don't know that much about it, but heard tell that seeds from grocery store items are likely a hybrid variety. They won't grow or if they do the resulting plant/fruit/vegetable won't be the same variety from which the seed was harvested? Given that, production farmers can't harvest seeds and must buy them every year? That may not be true, I don't know. Of course a workaround would be, for example, purchasing an heirloom tomato, harvesting the seed and then planting. The wife planted some garlic cloves from store bought. They've been in the ground since fall, didn't do that well, but in all fairness the soil wasn't loosened very much, sort of a no till thing. They grew, and I'm fixin to pull some right now. Overall pretty much just an experiment. Brb, I'll post a picture of whatever I find.

Alright. Hm, looks like an onion to me. Maybe the hybrid garlic reverted back to an onion ancestor? Curious thing. Ima eat it. If you don't hear back from me call the ambulamps. Pay no attention to my gardening clog shoe things. Easy on, easy off, plaskit and washable.

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Hm, yeah that onion, definitely garlicky. A little background sweetness. Could definitely be used as garlic. Interesting. Wife likes it, says she wants to plant more. Curious a round bulb came from a not perfectly round garlic clove.
 
I've tossed old tomatoes out in the back yard and had volunteers pop up the following year. Many years ago, someone in the neighborhood must have been growing cherry tomatoes. Apparently the squirrels were stealing tomatoes, and climbing up my tree to munch away, dropping seeds on the patio. The rain then washed the seeds off onto the dirt, and the following year we had several massive cherry tomato plants.

The Ghost peppers that I've been growing are from a couple of plants that I got from a friend years ago. Each year, I will pull the seeds from about 4 or 5 pods, and keep them in a little plastic container. I plant them the following year. This has been going on for at least 6 or 8 years. I don't know if the plants have be cross pollinating with other peppers in the area, but they are still hot!
 
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