Whatcha Growing?

[SwampDonkey]

Peppers after about 2 weeks of transplanting. They won't go in the garden for about 3 weeks.

[SwampDonkey]

The tomatoes are just starting to germinate.

[aigheadish]

Swamp those looks great! My Cayenne don't appear to be growing a whole lot outside yet, I'm hoping they are growing down and with some warmer weather they start popping up more. I didn't transplant a bunch of them from their seedling trays and that probably didn't help, but they should be ok. 

cfarm- what do you mean when you say crop cover? I don't know what that is...

[doc henderson]

We have made the mistake when we were young and excited and planted stuff as early as the book said we could.  nothing happened for weeks, then suddenly they took off.  I think it depends on the weather.  peppers like warmer weather.  just wait.  Or recent tomatoes were bought past the date stated and they started growing the next day.  

[thecfarm]

Sorry really should of called it row cover.
I fixed my post.
Do a goggle on row cover. It's very light white fabric. You can pour water on it and it will go through it as fast as you can pour water.
If you don't hold it down it will blow away.
Plants growing under it, will just about pick up the fabric as the plants grows.
Works to keep plants, crops warm too. I have seen fields of sweet corn covered in crop cover.

[thecfarm]

Peppers like to be hot.
I've been putting mine on black plastic for 20 years.
I wet the ground a little, don't need to make it muddy. I lay out the black plastic and put  on the sides. I put a fist size  about every foot.
I make an X in the plactic and plant the pepper plant. I put a  between each plant so the wind will not pick the plastic up and cover the plant. I water each plant as I plant them.
First year I did this I had some peppers!!!!
Made a believer out of me.
I do it with tomatoes just as a weed control. I did not notice anymore yield from tomatoes.

[jb616]

I guess I will plant my garden this weekend. Was going to do it this morning but DanG, it was 33 degrees yet.

[SwampDonkey]

I've always had lots of peppers here when I started my own and not buy little small ones the green houses sell. I usually do a big batch of relish here to use up all the bells. That will use up 25 big fat thick walled bells around 0.5 lb each. I have used ground cloth just to control weeds around peppers and tomatoes. I can use it over and over for years, it's the heavy durable kind. I usually have pales and pales of tomatoes, I make different sauces: ketchup, BBQ, and pasta sauce and I can several 1 litre (>1 quart) jars of whole ones to make beef soup in the winter.  I also can pint jars of mixed hot/sweet slender peppers for meat sandwich toppings. I freeze bags of peppers for winter pizza, fried meat, and chop suey. I like to fry a bunch up with onions and cabbage to and serve with chicken strips and rice and egg rolls. I'm making some this weekend. 

[jb616]

I guess I will plant my garden this weekend. Was going to do it this morning but DanG, it was 33 degrees yet.

DanG, 32 today.... I will plant the seeds but the tomatoes are staying on the porch a little longer.

[trapper]

Any negatives or cautions about using pole barn metal siding to make raised beds

[SwampDonkey]

I think the main thing is to have a sturdy frame so it won't bow outward or collapse. A lot I see are cross braced across the width a time or two along the length of it, depending on how long. I'd think at least every 3 feet.

Will transplant my tomato seedlings this weekend into bigger pots. 

[aigheadish]

@trapper not yet, other than edges being extremely sharp, I just kept the panels a little shorter than the frame. My walls are quite bowed and I'm a bit nervous of if it gets real wet and heavy, but so far so good, I'm not sure I could effectively add more framing without starting over, so I may just wait to see what happens. If I get ambitious, once the growing season is over, I may redo them a bit, but I'm guessing I'll just let it go. Mine are as bareboned as I think is possible and if the bottoms weren't very full of sticks I'd guess that wet dirt would be heavy enough to break the 2x4s. I would suggest, if you have the wood around to cross-brace as Swamp mentions.

I'm still not sure about the soaker hose. I reoriented it a bit to do long straight rows close to the plants, but it still doesn't do great. My next try will be to zig-zag it between plants in the narrow direction and see how that does.

[aigheadish]

Garden update! Soaker hose is now zigzagged and I'm still not sure about it. I ran it for a couple hours Saturday and upon checking a few inches away it still felt dry. I've got 2 hoses in line connected to one output, and the second hose in the line doesn't seem to be getting as much water through it. I can try using a splitter so theoretically both hoses get the same amount of water but I'm thinking the soaker hose may just not be right for my setup. I've got to use a normal sprayer for some stuff anyway, so I may chalk this up to a loss... This may give me the opportunity to build a custom sprinkler, not sure if I will but with this big of beds I feel like I'll have to come up with something that isn't standing there for an hour.

Plants are looking ok, if a bit yellow, which I don't like. It's gotten pretty cold for the past two weeks and we're just now getting into the warmer weather this week, so hopefully it goes gangbusters. 

I planted what I think is some more snap peas. I think but I'm not positive that I already put some in a couple weeks ago, but don't see any growth where they'd be, so I added a few more. I also planted some horseradish root, we'll see what happens there too...





Garlic is stretching out! 

[doc henderson]

We flood the top of our beds, so the water goes all over, then soaks in.  If you planted horseradish, stand back or it may knock you over, it grows like crazy.

you can do the emitter type sprinkler and put one at each plant.  better for a few larger plants not things like leaf lettuce or radishes.

[SwampDonkey]

Probably the cool weather caused some yellowing. I would think you'd be in warm weather by now. I don't see consistent warm here until mid June. 50's all day ain't warm, it's been that for 3 days here. First of June is always wet and cool here. Ain't looking no different , the odd day or 2 in low 80's this week, but 60's and 70's after that. Nothing gets set out here until we are 10-15 days into June.

[thecfarm]

Soaker hose?
Is that the one that the water seeps out of the hose?
I've used them before. 
The down fall was they don't last much more then 2 seasons because they tend to break off where the connections are.
Now I use a sprinkler hose,the ones that shoots out a stream of water. I don't run those wide open. Water comes out and shoot out about 2-3 feet away. Takes a few tries to get the water to come out slowly.

[aigheadish]

I'm hoping the yellowing is the cool. We are starting a streak of high 80s today, so that should help, though it appears to be back in the high 70s low 80s Thursday for at least a week or so. 

Yeah the soaker hose fills up and isn't very flexible, meaning I can't get it as close as I want to all the plants that are in a variety of spots. I just used the hand sprinkler last night and I watered for about half an hour and felt pretty good about it. We'll see how it goes. 

[doc henderson]

may need to turn it it on very slow or poke a hole where the plants are.  sounds like the stiffness and movement is from the water pressure building up.

[SwampDonkey]

Could even be the cold well water making the hose stiff to. So called rubber hose these days is more plastic than rubber.

[Otis1]

I use some drip emitters and some spray nozzles. I have some probably 1/2" or 5/8" tubing running around the edge of the garden and 1/4" tubing coming off of that, the 5/8 has an adapter to garden hose. Everything is fairly cheap online or available at the local big box. Each spray nozzle covers about 2-3' circle depending on water pressure and such. Pretty easy to modify or change where I need water.

I also splurged this year and got a hose timer that connects to WiFi because I'll be working out of town during the week this summer. I can control the programming from an app anywhere I have internet. It also came with some flood sensors that I put in my laundry, boiler/ water heater, and sump pump rooms.

[aigheadish]

I like that setup Otis! I'll have to check into it, thanks for sharing!

[SwampDonkey]

I've got to start some vine seeds in the grow tent tomorrow. I set them out when they have there first leaves. Cukes, cantaloupe, squash. 

[aigheadish]

I've got a snap pea plant coming up! 

Still some yellowish leaves on a lot of my plants. But I think it's getting better? We had a couple of warmer days but it doesn't feel like there is tons of growth yet. I'll continue to be patient. I did add some fertilizer last week, I think. I don't know if it's helped or not. 

[doc henderson]

could do a soil test if it does not improve.  check nitrogen.  start a compost pile to add over time.

[aigheadish]

My horseradish is coming up! I didn't get a picture but it's nice to see it's working. I got a cheap drip line set up that should be showing up today. The hose watering isn't taking too long but we'll see how the drip line works. Of course, it's supposed to start raining tomorrow, with a half chance every day for the foreseeable forecast.