Pulpiteer 2014 Grow log - Prepping for next year!

Sawyer · Aug 6, 2014

Toads are great. I've seen a few more than usual around here this year. They are great insect predators, if somewhat indiscriminate. They are also a good sign you don't have an overload of toxic pesticide residue.

How is the comfrey doing? If you're having troubles with soil fertility, I'm guessing maybe not all that well. My #4 never did come up, but the #14 is doing well, in spite of rabbit chomping. It takes a lot of water and ferts, though.

Are you planning a winter cover crop for your garden? A combination of cold-hardy legume and grain would give you a big boost for next year.

gnslngr · Aug 6, 2014

"I didn't get any of the Tobago or Trinidad treasures - but I seem to remember looking at them at pepperlover. How were they?"

Very good!

PaulG · Aug 6, 2014

Great idea, John.

Get right on it, Andy

Pulpiteer · Aug 7, 2014

Sawyer said:
Toads are great. I've seen a few more than usual around here this year. They are great insect predators, if somewhat indiscriminate. They are also a good sign you don't have an overload of toxic pesticide residue.

How is the comfrey doing? If you're having troubles with soil fertility, I'm guessing maybe not all that well. My #4 never did come up, but the #14 is doing well, in spite of rabbit chomping. It takes a lot of water and ferts, though.

Are you planning a winter cover crop for your garden? A combination of cold-hardy legume and grain would give you a big boost for next year.

Good point about the toads and pesticide residue. I hadn't thought of that, but that is encouraging.
My comfrey is actually doing very well, but that's in a different part of the yard. I put it in the front with the fruit trees and bushes. It had been suffering a bit from the transplant, but it is rooted in and going full on now, which is awesome. Also, a friend gave me one of the bockings, I am not sure which one, but I've got the regular comfrey and a bocking now.
I am not planning a cover crop. Instead I'm planning on laying down a ton of manure, compost, leaves, and any organic material I can get and then putting mulch on the top of it. I want it there through the winter so it just composts in place, and then I'll plant into it next spring.

gnslngr said:
"I didn't get any of the Tobago or Trinidad treasures - but I seem to remember looking at them at pepperlover. How were they?"

Very good!

I may have to try those then!

PaulG said:
Great idea, John.

Get right on it, Andy

PaulG · Aug 7, 2014

Your garden bed plan sounds like a good one, Andy.

It will take a lot of organic material to amend 2' of sand!

Pulpiteer · Aug 29, 2014

Hello again!

We got back this week from a much needed family vacation to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. For those of you unfamiliar with the state, it's absolutely beautiful, peaceful, and relaxing. As relaxing as it can be with 4 young children that is. I loved it.

Here's a picture of the entire Pulpiteer family with the amazing Mackinaw Bridge in the background:

So... good news and bad news of various sorts in the Pulpiteer gardening world.

Bad news first.

Our Nikon DSLR is not working. We have to find a good camera repair shop, then decide if it's worth it to fix and what we can afford. That's part of why the updates have been slow this year - moving and a breaking down camera. These pictures were taken with a point and click. It'll work.

The grasses and weeds have loved my garden. I didn't have time to weed - with the move. Although, massive weeding is not really in my gameplan. I'd rather massively mulch. However, this year I don't have a woodchip source yet and the space was significantly larger than my previous space, and with moving my time has been short, so... the grasses and weeds are going nuts. In some spots it's almost waist high.

So, with sandy soil, and weeds that are sucking the few nutrients I do have, most of my plants are a similar size as when I put them in the ground. They could not out compete the weeds and shade them out. They look hideous and yellowish. This documentation will hopefully provide the "before" photos to a wonderful turnaround. I hope.

It's so bad, I'm out there picking peppers and I think mice are skittering around my feet. I can't quite see them, but something little is running around in the tall grass. I kept thinking about some of you guys' comments on the really solid grows, things like, "looks great! Very nice, clean grow! Not a leaf out of place - those look like lettuce leaves they are so huge!" And I thought to myself - this is whatever the exact opposite of that is. :lol:

The good news.

The perennial garden in the front yard is holding its own.

The trees and shrubs will grow and fill in - they survived transplant! And this yard really should look drastically different in a few years.

Here is a giant comfrey by a peach tree:

These are wild (read: thorny) gooseberries from the farm that is in my family. It was settled by my dad's family prior to the Civil War and looks to be soon passing from our family, so it's cool to have these plants.

Here is my grafted dwarf Asian Pear - 3 varieties of pear on this. Plus Purple Coneflower, some horseradish right by it, some catnip, and a volunteer Nasturtium that is doing awesome. This just shows the difference in soil in the front yard, and how the mulching worked better.

Here's my third child with a Persimmon tree, butterfly bush, and some strawberry yarrow:

And here's something cool - a few plants did produce. Now keep in mind, I had like 100 pepper plants out there and this will be my big harvest. It's super small considering that, but it's something.

Something else important tonight as well. Probably the best news on the pepper front, actually. Here are two varieties of Scotch Bonnets and two funky Reapers. Now the Bonnets were isolated a bit because I am out of seed for them. The seed was a gift from Greg (Pic1), so it's something I can't just go out and replace. One of the things that sucked about the garden tanking was losing these two lines of seed. I still have peppers in the freezer, so I'm not totally at a loss on pod supply. But those seeds were important. Well, since they were isolated and most other stuff didn't pollinate, I'm pretty confident these pods will replenish my seed for those varieties enough to keep that line in tact. I'm actually very pleased about that.

And so there you go.

I am going to mail it in early this year in order to build towards next. I plan on documenting it as best I can, because I think it'll be interesting to try to transform a plot and show how I did it or how I failed. I'll pick a few pubescens, like the Giant Mexican Rocoto, to over winter. I'll dig those up and then probably either till it all under or mow it down and cover it with cardboard then manure. If I close up shop early, it will give me more prep time before it's too cold.

Alright - thanks for stopping by!

PIC 1 · Aug 29, 2014

Andy it looks like you enjoyed a nice getaway with the family. We did many weekend ski trips to "u.p" ...and, Mackinaw island is a nice and relaxing place in the summer.

Dam weeds....its difficult to maintain them when there is extra time for the garden. Hopefully next season you can get an early start with the outside prep. Although the pepper plants are fighters....and that is a solid harvest. The two Bhuts on the right side of the photo look scary !
Hope all is well...

Have a great weekend !

beerbreath81 · Aug 29, 2014

Andy,

So glad you were able to get away with the fam for a while for some much needed R&R. It is always a pain in the neck starting over from scratch, even more when your late, even more when you just dont have the time to maintian like you want too. Nevertheless, I'm sure we can look at these pictures next year as a night and day transformation now that you will be settled in and have more time to tend to the gardens needs. Still a very generous harvest given the circumstance....more than I got this year..lol. The perinial garden is coming along great and the fruit trees look very happy in their new homes all good stuff.

Take care!

romy6 · Aug 29, 2014

Looks like you had a great vacation . Nothing compares to quality time with the ones you love .

You know I am still amazed at how you were able to get any harvest at all with all the curve balls thrown your way this year . Most , including I would have scrapped the season( take the easy way out) .

I am confident next year will be a break out season for ya .

Sawyer · Aug 29, 2014

That's a pretty decent harvest, in spite of all the obstacles. It's more than I've gotten from two and half times as many plants and I'm in the garden almost every day. I do expect to get bigger pulls going forward, but I can tell most of my pods aren't going to have time to mature. (Unless we get lucky with a late first frost and I don't expect that this year.)

Your comfrey looks happy. You could already divide that one for many more plants. My #14 is growing well, but the rabbits keep it trimmed back about as fast as it grows.

Devv · Aug 29, 2014

Andy,

For jumping in mid season and planting in unknown ~~soil~~ sand, anything harvested is a bonus. One thing I can say is for this season your skills didn't count. You never had a chance to apply them!

Even next season will be a challenge, sand is tough to get working right. And I have the right to say that considering my ~~soil~~ sand. If I can offer one bit of advise, if you can till the goodies in as early as you can. So they can mature over the winter. I know it gets way colder there, but the sooner they enter your garden the better the results!

Keep on a growing!

Pulpiteer · Sep 1, 2014

PIC 1 said:
Andy it looks like you enjoyed a nice getaway with the family. We did many weekend ski trips to "u.p" ...and, Mackinaw island is a nice and relaxing place in the summer.

Dam weeds....its difficult to maintain them when there is extra time for the garden. Hopefully next season you can get an early start with the outside prep. Although the pepper plants are fighters....and that is a solid harvest. The two Bhuts on the right side of the photo look scary !
Hope all is well...

Have a great weekend !

The pods I did harvest had plenty of heat. I figure it has to be because they were so tough to make it through all the weeds and stuff.
And yeah, hopefully next year will look totally different!

beerbreath81 said:
Andy,

So glad you were able to get away with the fam for a while for some much needed R&R. It is always a pain in the neck starting over from scratch, even more when your late, even more when you just dont have the time to maintian like you want too. Nevertheless, I'm sure we can look at these pictures next year as a night and day transformation now that you will be settled in and have more time to tend to the gardens needs. Still a very generous harvest given the circumstance....more than I got this year..lol. The perinial garden is coming along great and the fruit trees look very happy in their new homes all good stuff.

Take care!

I do hope the pictures will just go to show the transformation - even if it takes a few years. As long as we move in the right direction.

romy6 said:
Looks like you had a great vacation . Nothing compares to quality time with the ones you love .

You know I am still amazed at how you were able to get any harvest at all with all the curve balls thrown your way this year . Most , including I would have scrapped the season( take the easy way out) .

I am confident next year will be a break out season for ya .

Vacation was wonderful! It was busy with 4 little ones, but really good family time.

Sawyer said:
That's a pretty decent harvest, in spite of all the obstacles. It's more than I've gotten from two and half times as many plants and I'm in the garden almost every day. I do expect to get bigger pulls going forward, but I can tell most of my pods aren't going to have time to mature. (Unless we get lucky with a late first frost and I don't expect that this year.)

Your comfrey looks happy. You could already divide that one for many more plants. My #14 is growing well, but the rabbits keep it trimmed back about as fast as it grows.

You'll be bringing in some monster harvests in a bit, I expect, but you put out a ridiculous amount to plants! It is hard to have green pods killed off by a frost when just a little longer would have let them ripen. The comfrey is doing great. All my comfrey transplants are doing well, and I do have a bocking (not sure which one) now that is doing well. I've fed some comfrey to our pet rabbits and they do think it's tasty! Better to do it with pet rabbits though, than wild ones ripping you off!

Devv said:
Andy,

For jumping in mid season and planting in unknown ~~soil~~ sand, anything harvested is a bonus. One thing I can say is for this season your skills didn't count. You never had a chance to apply them!

Even next season will be a challenge, sand is tough to get working right. And I have the right to say that considering my ~~soil~~ sand. If I can offer one bit of advise, if you can till the goodies in as early as you can. So they can mature over the winter. I know it gets way colder there, but the sooner they enter your garden the better the results!

Keep on a growing!

Thanks! Yeah, it's all about adding organic material at this point. I'm trying to figure out exactly when to pull the plug on this season. It'll be coming soon so that I can just start working on the soil for next spring.

Thanks for all the replies everyone!

Devv · Sep 1, 2014

I pulled the plug this weekend, ready to till most of it, but the ground is too hard.

I have the woblers running, hoping a few hours makes a difference.

Pulpiteer · Sep 9, 2014

A quick update before bed:

A couple of bad shots with our backup camera of some of the peppers.

First, a birgit locoto (Tradewinds)

Second, Tobago Seasoning (pepperlover). I'll definitely grow these again.

And some good news. Tonight was pepper jelly making night.
First, the Bahamian Peach.

I bought some peaches at one of our favorite local spots to get cider. Luckily, we actually moved closer to this place, which is cool.

I decided to go with Bahamian Goat peppers for this one. I love their flavor. I got a few peppers from those plants this year. Not many, but enough for this, barely. And I wanted the peach to be a little milder on the heat scale. It's good to have some scorchers and some milder ones for people to try. Note the awesome pepper cutting board my good friend made for me.

The finished product. It was a big batch.

Recipe:
1 quart of peaches, peeled and food processed
9 Bahamian Goat peppers (I take out most of the seeds)
1/4 cup lemon juice
7 1/2 cups sugar (I use cane sugar)
1 1/2 pouch liquid pectin.

heat peaches, peppers, lemon juice, and sugar to a boil.
add pectin. Bring back to a boil for 1 minute.
ladle hot into jars.
Water bath for 10 minutes.

The peach was mild. The next was a scorcher. It had my wife and I coughing as I cleaned up the pots and dishes just from the hot water and steam putting the capsaicin in the air. She was two rooms over and it still got her.

Anyway - "wild berry fire"

I've saved the various berries I picked around here in the freezer, then added some extra blueberries and raspberries I bought from the store to fill it out so I had enough. I have raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries, mulberries, ground cherries, and I think just a couple currants.

The fire portion of the jelly is from some frozen peppers from last season. 7 Pot Congo SR.

And the finished product:

Recipe:
1 quart various mixed berries
6 of the 7 Pot Congos
1/4 cup lemon juice
6 1/2 cups sugar
1 pouch liquid pectin.

The process is the same as I did for the peach jelly above.

Alright, bed time.

Thanks for stopping by!

ribbedturtleneck · Sep 9, 2014

Thanks for the jelly recipes. Looks like good stuff.

That reminds me, I'm going to try your lemon drop jelly recipe soon.

Devv · Sep 9, 2014

The jelly's look great Andy!

Thanks for sharing the recipes!

Pulpiteer · Nov 3, 2014

Alright, so this has been a very difficult garden year. It frosted here October 20th, with a hard frost and the remaining plants were toast. So I began to put into action my gameplan to improve the soil.

Just to catch you up to speed - we were moved by the denomination this year. In our new place we have more space for a garden, but the soil is the edge of a farmer's field that is sandy and seems to be lacking nutrients. It is not lacking in weeds. So my pepper plants were small and yellow. I am now trying to rebuild the soil, which will take a few years, but I'm laying a foundation.

First, I had it tilled. This will, hopefully, be the last time I till it. I did this to turn in all the old plants and weeds into the dirt.

Next, I got a friend, one of my new parishioners, Dave, to bring some awesome organic material. He ended up bringing me piles and piles of compost, horse manure, and wood chip mulch, all from the city.

I rounded up some boxes that I just happened to have on hand, and tore all the tape off and laid them down. Then we put a thin layer of compost over the top of it. The boxes will act as a barrier to keep the weeds from growing back.

Here is a shot from just a bit further back, where you can see my new raspberry patch, asparagus and horseradish patch, as well as the new compost site for our house waste.

For the next step, I completely threw out my back. Totally toasted my sciatic nerve. I actually missed two days of work. I went to the chiropractor for the second time today, and am doing a bit better, but now I'm behind. Here is what I have left:
-first, some more boxes and compost. Maybe add another few feet to the garden space. Right now I'm at about 47' x 25'. Not a bad amount of space, but my grow list is looking to be out of control for next year.
-second, spread some horse manure (there are two huge piles here, one in the foreground, the black compost, then more manure).

I'm not sure how many yards of manure that is, but it's a lot. I need to put a layer of that down. After that I'll throw on the leaves I raked up. I may "shred" them with the riding mower first. Then finally, the wood chip mulch:

Three large piles of that.

This lasagna method will compost in place, add nutrients to the soil, and kickstart the microbiotic life that is necessary for healthy plant growth. Now, if my back will only hold out.

This evening, since I was doing a bit better, I decided to take the plants that were potted in the garage and prep them for overwintering. The process and keeping them going through the winter is a pain, but worth it. I have found especially with pubescens it has helped.

Step one: here are the 7 plants - 2 Red Rocotos, 2 Yellow Manzanos, 2 Giant Mexican Rocotos, 1 Bhut Orange Copenhagen

Step two: trim all leaves off, thoroughly clean the roots off, dip for 30 seconds in a bucket of water and dish soap, then brief dip in water and small amount of bleech. Then repot with fresh dirt and pot cleaned out. Spray with your favorite organic insecticide.

The finished products, all labeled:

Finally, I hope everyone had a happy Halloween. My week off came a week before Halloween, so I worked on costumes for the kids, who are 8, 6, 4, and 1 1/2 now. They were all characters from the Lego Movie.

Ok, this may be may last entry here, not sure. I'll do another glog next year which will hopefully feature the renewal of the land and a much better year of production.

Oh, and part of the reason my grow list is out of control is 2fold - first Coheed196 sent me a package of some amazing varieties of seed and I have to grow some of them out. Second, Judy at Pepperlover.com has a bunch of really cool new strains she is selling and I found myself ordering a bunch of them. So if you are in search of seeds, check it out.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by!

Devv · Nov 4, 2014

Garden prep looks great Andy!

You're lucky to have a buddy bring you all those goodies!

And sorry about the back injury. That's just not fun. I hurt mine 29 years ago being stupid; the wife told me stop "you'll hurt yourself". But I was 27 and indestructible...or so I thought

I still do 600 crunches a week to keep in shape.

OW's look good. I'm glad you get some mileage out of them, I had no luck this season with mine. They grew but no production.

Just love the pic of the kids. Halloween was one of my favorites as a kid.

Can't wait to see how the soil does next season!

RocketMan · Nov 5, 2014

Really great what your doing with the soil, hope it really kick's in next season for you. Are you going to get any worms to put out there?

Pulpiteer · Nov 6, 2014

Devv said:
Garden prep looks great Andy!

You're lucky to have a buddy bring you all those goodies!

And sorry about the back injury. That's just not fun. I hurt mine 29 years ago being stupid; the wife told me stop "you'll hurt yourself". But I was 27 and indestructible...or so I thought I still do 600 crunches a week to keep in shape.

OW's look good. I'm glad you get some mileage out of them, I had no luck this season with mine. They grew but no production.

Just love the pic of the kids. Halloween was one of my favorites as a kid.

Can't wait to see how the soil does next season!

Thanks! Yeah, I'm lucky to have connected with a few folks who are willing to help. My back was getting pretty good and I went out and threw some more mulch on tonight and now it's hurting again, but hopefully not as bad. I'll know more tomorrow. Once I get it straight, I've got to figure out some sort of exercise or something to keep me right.

For the manzanos, overwintering is the way to go, I think. Made a huge difference this year.

RocketMan said:
Really great what your doing with the soil, hope it really kick's in next season for you. Are you going to get any worms to put out there?

I hope it turns out - I think it will. It'll be a multi year process anyway, so hopefully in a few years it'll be great.

The soil in the yard is great and full of worms, so I don't think they'll be a problem to get into the garden as it's right off the edge of the yard. In fact, one of the benefits of doing the soil this way is to attract the worms, so I hope that happens.