Smokenstein Garden Updates

[Smokenstein]

Since I think I posted this in the wrong forum last week, I'll post this week's update here and follow up on this thread for anyone who's interested. My tomato plants have really flourished this week. The pumpkins are growing like weeds. And overall, my pepper plants continue to grow... although a little slower than I would like. I picked some peppers this morning and pinched a ton of buds and small pods. I think this will be the last pinching I do this summer, aside from maybe pinching a couple of the smaller plants a little more to see if that will help them grow. I also threw in a pic of six Mexican Palms we planted in the backyard a couple of weeks ago because I want to monitor their growth, as that is probably the biggest experiment... you can't see them very well yet, but they seem to be getting pretty plush and growing new branches (they were in bad shape when we got them). Anyway, here you go. Let me know what you think or if you have any tips...

 

[imaguitargod]

THEY LIVE!!!! THEY LIIIIIIVVVVEEEEE!!!!

 

[wordwiz]

Lots of growth in two weeks, Smokenstein! Hopefully, this will be a breakthrough year - the last two ones have been rather crappy here.

Mike

 

[Smokenstein]

Lots of growth in two weeks, Smokenstein! Hopefully, this will be a breakthrough year - the last two ones have been rather crappy here.

Mike

This is our first "hardcore" year. And I think we would be looking a lot better now if we hadn't gotten 3 weeks straight of rain in May... this I'm guessing probably set us back a couple weeks.
Last year was the first year in a place where we could grow a garden, so we started up a little garden (about 1/3 of the section we have now). We planted habs, jalapenos, cayennes, tomatoes and some squash/zucchini/cukes. The squash/zukes/cukes got eaten by rabbits or something, and the tomatoes never produced much. I think it was a combo of planting our plants too close together, not working the soil very well, and we had an extremely dry summer in OK that burnt up a lot of the tomato plants. The only things that did fairly well last year were the pepper plants, and the only peppers that were really prolific were the cayennes.
This year, everything already looks bigger, better and more plush than anything we had last year. So I'm counting on a big year, but it's still an experimental year.

Our neighbor bought a tiller this spring, and I have a "mantis-like" tiller attachment for my Troy-Built weed-eater to help break up the ground every couple weeks through the summer. With my neighbor's tiller, we'll be able to till everything up this fall after the growing season is done and throw in some compost, manure etc., and we will probably work it over again in January as well as March/April when we plant next year. We've had a lot of grass and weeds growing up this year that, from what I've been told, is due in large part to not having worked this soil enough yet. So by next year we should really be up and running.

 

[Smokenstein]

Here's the weekly Smokenstein Garden update. Our tomato plants have started growing fruit. I'll have some pics of some of those following this one. You might notice my potted pepper plants are in a different location and look a little fatigued. The sun was beating up on them pretty bad in the rock garden so I moved them over by the house in the backyard so they just get the morning sun. By late morning they still droop a lot, but by early afternoon after they get an hour or so of shade, they perk back up. It hasn't stopped them from putting off fruit though! We've got a lot of Carribean Reds and lots of Habs too. I'll have some pics of the fruit to follow. The plants that saw the most growth this week were the tomatoes in the garden, the scrawny hanging cherry tomato, and the pumpkins. All the pepper plants continue to grow, but it's hard to see that in these pics. Anyone have an estimate of how long most tomatoes and Carribean Reds take to ripen once the fruit starts growing?

 

[PepperLover]

nice looking garden

 

[Smokenstein]

OK, here's some other pics I took today that show more results than what you might be able to see in the pic above...

Cherry Tomatoes on the big hanging plant:

Cherry Tomatoes on the medium hanging plant:

Biggest tomato fruit. You can see the big one, but there's another one about half it's size right next to it:

Another tomato plant that's getting fruit:

 

[Smokenstein]

Tallest tomato plants. These are the ones you can sort of see right in the middle of the garden. This morning before the sun got them, they were reaching as high as my neck, so they've gotta be at least 5 feet tall!:

Zuke and Squash. Beautiful plants. I don't care much for the fruit though:

Cuke and Pumpkin. We've got about a 10 inch cuke on there, but it's still real skinny. These pumpkin seeds were planted the same time as the ones up above, and as you can probably tell are about twice the size. I guess it's the extra sun they get in the garden:

 

[Smokenstein]

Smaller potted Carribean Red:

Larger potted Carribean Red (biggest pepper is hiding in this pic):

Tabasco. We've been eating peppers off this plant for a few weeks now. I'm going to try to let these turn colors before picking. Got to excited to wait there for awhile because these and my jalapenos have been the only peppers ready to eat so far:

 

[imaguitargod]

Jesus, give some of those peppers some water asap!

 

[Smokenstein]

Jesus, give some of those peppers some water asap!

Yeah, I've been trying not to drown them, but they got soaked good yesterday. As soon as that sun went behind the house, they all perked back up, so I'm just watching them VERY closely and trying not to over-water them as long as they're recovering fine once the shade hits them.

The three pumpkin plants do the same thing, only they're in the afternoon sun, so they look nice and perky until early afternoon and then they sag like crazy by late afternoon.

 

[patrick]

Jesus, give some of those peppers some water asap!

I was thinking the same thing but know what you're talking about with the sun.

It seems like it's rained here every day for the past month. There's a steady stream of water coming out of almost every pot that has a plant in it and yet by six in the afternoon they sag and look like they haven't had a drink in weeks. I'll wake up tomorrow morning and they will be just as perky as if they were being taken care of by Martha Stewart herself. The sun and the 99F temps are kicking their butts. Today I moved all the ones in black pots to the east side of the house, they'll get about six hours of sun but it will be the cooler one.

 

[Smokenstein]

Here's my biggest Caribbean Red. I've never grown these before, but it looks like several are about full size. How long do these usually take to ripen once they get full size?