2019 Hay Bale Pepper Patch

I've been a member for a while but never posted a grow log. My usual garden is too boring for that. I use 20-30 pots and overwinter my mama plants in a hillbilly winter shelter. Our ground here isn't good for in soil gardening and I've not been enthused enough to undertake the work and expense to build raised beds.
 
Now I have my peppers working the way I want and have the need for a much larger grow to supply a project. The main peppers I'll grow will be reaper, douglah and fatalii. For a couple of years I'll do hay bale gardens and heap tons of organic trash into the area. I have monumental amounts of pine straw, oak leaves and bonfire ash every year to dump in the walkways. I think this will do a world of good to make this new garden area mo'betta for eventual in ground growing.
 
I closed off a 38x38 patch in the NE field that gets full sun. This is the area I chose. The big painted guy is my fertilizer supplier.
 
The little painted guy is my running buddy and load inspector.
 
 

 

[DWB]

Thanks Eric. I'm amazed your gardens have never been hit but aerial applicators can't get away with the crap the ground sprayers do. You have dedicated operators up there if they're still spraying that kind of acreage with an AGwagon.
 
Yep, my neighborly industrial farmer also calls himself a "family farm". I guess he and his farmer brothers and father that all work together running the operation make it so.
 
Edit: Oh damn, I guess I need me one of those pt ducks. I think I did it twice in a row now.

 

[Devv]

In trying to catch up here....I abandoned the peat pellets after several 14" tall plants fell over with a rot at ground level. The peat never really dried out. I switched to germing in 3.5" pots with the top 3/4 to 1" in coco. It's just not as dense down the road.
 
The plant with the white at the lower stem looks like some toms I had do the same many years back. I had purchased the seedlings locally, and half died. Look up Southern Blight, that's what we came up with. The garden had a few issues over the next few years but it went away. I now start all my plants from seed and things do much better. One last thing. If you get as much rain or as close to it every season like last year, lose the mulch so the soil dries some. I only mulch when the desert weather kicks in here. Not happening at the moment! Right now I'm worrying about split maters...BTW we picked the first 2 yesterday. And the Peaches are ready to kill us again...LOL
 
Keep it green buddy! The garden is looking great!

 

[stc3248]

Looking great! Digging the cattle panel and pipe fence section trellises...my hay bales are producing some healthy plants so far as well. Wish I would have done another dozen or two bales,

 

[DWB]

In trying to catch up here....I abandoned the peat pellets after several 14" tall plants fell over with a rot at ground level. The peat never really dried out. I switched to germing in 3.5" pots with the top 3/4 to 1" in coco. It's just not as dense down the road.
 
The plant with the white at the lower stem looks like some toms I had do the same many years back. I had purchased the seedlings locally, and half died. Look up Southern Blight, that's what we came up with. The garden had a few issues over the next few years but it went away. I now start all my plants from seed and things do much better. One last thing. If you get as much rain or as close to it every season like last year, lose the mulch so the soil dries some. I only mulch when the desert weather kicks in here. Not happening at the moment! Right now I'm worrying about split maters...BTW we picked the first 2 yesterday. And the Peaches are ready to kill us again...LOL
 
Keep it green buddy! The garden is looking great!

 
Thanks. Could be. This didn't happen until it got hot and then it hit hard. Still looks to be six plants lost. I have a couple more to unplug soon. I'll leave them go a while to see if the white mold develops.
 
I've used a bunch of peat pellets for germination over the years. Never a problem but I never have planted them into anything but my potting soil.
 
I kinda saw all this coming in mid-March when the soil temp under the bales was over 70° already and then again in early April when I came to the conclusion I wouldn't need to install drip. We've dried out a little bit. Even got to the point I see a puff of dust once in a while. So now we get a few inches of rain today. So much for dried out. I may have to build a carport over the garden
 
I've got everything pulled away from the stems of all the pepper plants but it's kinda hard to get rid of all the mulch when the growing media is kinda like mulch.
 
Yum maters. I've go a lot of them but none are turning red yet. Soon come, I hope.
 

 

 

[PaulG]

DW, sorry to hear about your issues with the blight
or the overspray, whichever it is. Nothing like getting
a great season underway, and then having some external
force drop the other shoe on ya.
 
Other than that, your hay bale grow is looking good.
Some healthy specimens on display.
 
Good luck getting a handle on things and moving forward.

 

[DWB]

The last thing any of my plants needed is more rain but we've been getting it. I took advantage of it today by following the phosphorus acid systemic fungicide treatment on Thursday with another good dose of biofungicide today. I used Monterey Complete Disease Control this time. 15 ml per gallon @ a minimum of 1x10[SIZE=5pt]10 [/SIZE]colony-forming units (cfu) per milliliter. 3 gallons sprayed directly over the roots. Enough to do a triple strength treatment of 1000 ft² if lucky and done right. The thing with this type of application is it must be washed in immediately by irrigation or a cooperative thunderstorm. I watched the radar on my phone, mixed my stuff and hit the pepper patch just as the rain was beginning. An hour later we had gotten a half-inch. Mission accomplished.

 

[DWB]

Interesting observation. My tomatoes seem to love the shade. This is the west wall of the garden. I planted south end of the bean ditch April 6 with sock pot starts that were already shooting a bunch of beanstalks. I planted the north half with seeds the next day.
 
The older part of the bean wall has been shading the tomatoes behind from the hot afternoon sun for a while now and now I'm training the beans to fill in the gaps not covered with the 30% shade cloth.
 

 
Now looking at it from the other side, check out the difference in the size of the plants that have been getting all the extra shade. They're all in the same growing media, get the same water and the same food and both sections are planted with the same mix of the same varieties.
 

 
This is crazy. Maters are supposed to love the full sun.
 

 
 
 
 

 

[dragonsfire]

The UV nowadays is much higher then it used to be, so far more pounding on the plants now.

 

[DWB]

I know the sun down here on the coast is brutal but I've never seen such vivid evidence. Kinda scary, really.
 
The more shaded tomatoes are not only ridiculously far ahead in veg but also in flowering and fruiting.

 

[CDNmatt]

I have always found that any fruit that is tucked under the foliage ends up doing much better then anything getting alot of direct sunlight, sun scald is for realz.
 
Okies well all caught up after away from the forum most of the week, sounds like you have had an interesting time yourself Dee. Set backs are booo-urns but this year is a huge test imo and will set you up better in the coming years. Is no point in telling you how good it all looks but I will anyways eh...Every update is fantastic and can't believe how much of a burst everything has gotten in a few short weeks.

 

[DWB]

It looks like this fatalii MAY survive the wilt/rot/whatever has been taking out my bale plants which is a different disease than what got three of my garden plants. Everything has had two biofungicide and one systemic fungicide treatments in little more than a week. This one has new growth that's looking fairly healthy.
 
The garden Douglah I've been sweet-talking is looking much better too. I sure wish it would quit raining.
 

 

 

[DontPanic]

I sure wish it would quit raining.
 

 
The weather forecast looks really good for the next week.  You may get your wish if the forecast holds up.

 

[dragonsfire]

We have a forecast of seven days of rain LOl. Pouring right now, one extream to another.
 

 

[PtMD989]

It seems like North America is one big mud hole,eh. [emoji15]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DWB]

We have a forecast of seven days of rain LOl. Pouring right now, one extream to another.
 

 
Man, that's bad news. I saw the "puddle" picture of the big rain last month.
 
 

It seems like North America is one big mud hole,eh. [emoji15]
 

 
Mud hole? Didn't somebody say it was a shi... oh I remember now, that was North Africa, not North America

 

[DWB]

These peppers are getting too big, too fast. Too floppity. They need more wood. Even with being tied up, they're sprawling out everywhere. I can't keep up with them.
 
They've had very little fertilizer. A little bit of the 18-7-11 downhole at planting and a tablespoon side dressed on the older rows. I haven't started a regular feeding program yet but I'm cutting back on the nitrogen and bringing everything else up. The new mix is 9.0-9.2-13.75. I'll hope to slow down the growth a bit while adding strength and roots.
 

 
 

 

[Devv]

Wow! You're killing it!
 
Very interesting about the maters liking the shade, but I can see why. They just have to be getting all the sun they need.
 
I struggle with the peppers here, maters grow like crazy. I'm 6'3" and cut them back 12"s 10 days ago because they were eye level. Now they're even higher. For me that extra growth never offers any return so I clip now. My peppers don't look near as good as yours...I've been fighting high soil PH, which I'm sure is locking out the nutes. It's in the mid eights. I added elemental sulfur last spring, so another soil test is needed. I'm sure 40"s of rain leached that all out..
 
Those peepers sure do look fantastic!

 

[skullbiker]

These peppers are getting too big, too fast. Too floppity. They need more wood. Even with being tied up, they're sprawling out everywhere. I can't keep up with them.
 
They've had very little fertilizer. A little bit of the 18-7-11 downhole at planting and a tablespoon side dressed on the older rows. I haven't started a regular feeding program yet but I'm cutting back on the nitrogen and bringing everything else up. The new mix is 9.0-9.2-13.75. I'll hope to slow down the growth a bit while adding strength and roots.
 

 
 

I have never had any luck tying up or staking pepper plants. I find the only thing that really works(especially once they have pods hanging on them) is my reinforcement wire cages. I try to get them on early enough so the plant can grow through them.

 

[stc3248]

Aside from those few sick ones your grow is looking awesome!  Hopefully the bad weather and sickness is all in your rear view! Those shady tomatoes look really good! Your hay bales are getting harder to identify...all just looks like well composted soil.

 

[BigCedar]

DW, thanks for all the information. That's pretty insane about the farming and "family farms" in other areas of the US I guess I'm sheltered living here in western WA my whole life.. Small family farm means an upscale XL backyard grow around here, no planes, herbicides, etc. It's a bit mind bending for me to know that in this day and age practices like that are still acceptable.
 
Glad to see most of your plants are doing very well, your dedication to the sick ones is respectable to say the least. The tomatoes shade vs sun is so nuts, if I tried to grow tomatoes in WA shade I would see little growth if I was lucky, and very little fruit! Climates are crazy. I hope everything continues to do well for you. You seem like you have it all under control!