Devv's 2015 - 16, Life is good!

stickman · May 23, 2016

Good on ya Scott... I'm glad you don't have to go cold turkey in the chile department.

Fantastic results with those Onions. It really proves the beneficial effect of the green manure. Onions are heavy feeders. Cool snake pic too. It's too bad you have to have the netting up to keep out the birds... otherwise it'd probably be plenty happy to keep the mice down in your garden. Everything's a trade-off I guess.

Peter S · May 24, 2016

That's cool your wife helped with freeing the snake. My wife so afraid of them, if she even thinks she sees a snake skin, she'll go buy out Lowes stock of snake repellent. I don't think that stuff works anyway, but makes her feel better.

Devv · May 24, 2016

OCD Chilehead said:
I most definitely would be interested. Glad to hear your already canning. I was wondering if you've ever canned tomato sauce, with onions, garlic, and spices. Like spaghetti sauce.

Once I have them cured I'll send you some, they should be ready to pick in the next 2-4 weeks. We have yet to try and can spaghetti sauce, it would probably work, but we just make 5 gallons at a time and freeze it. Around here it doesn't last long, especially when the G-kids come to visit. Each one can eat more than I at a setting, I'm like just where do the 3, 5, 8, and 14 year old put it? But you know how it is when you visit the G-parents, their food is the best (according to them)

We already have more Onions than we can safely store so we'll dice 'em and freeze them. We'll also process some Onion rings for the freezer, LB has a recipe to test this weekend.

Devv · May 24, 2016

stickman said:
Good on ya Scott... I'm glad you don't have to go cold turkey in the chile department. Fantastic results with those Onions. It really proves the beneficial effect of the green manure. Onions are heavy feeders. Cool snake pic too. It's too bad you have to have the netting up to keep out the birds... otherwise it'd probably be plenty happy to keep the mice down in your garden. Everything's a trade-off I guess.

This morning I put 5 more pots under the lights, that's 15 out of 18 in 8 or 9 days. I'm wondering why I couldn't get any to germ as well in January or February? I did almost everything the same, even the seeds were the same. Maybe, just maybe the good Lord was looking out for me, knowing they would just have been ratta bait...LOL.

I've never tried to "fast track" peppers before, but with all that are popping, half, I'll push really hard for the September flowering season here.

Yeah, the bird netting has it's draw backs for the snakes, I check it every day for critters in the traps and snakes. We most fear the rattle snakes, which have shown up numerous times. We darn sure know to do a scan before we start rummaging around the tomato plants as they provide way to much cover for them. Even though we trim them low so we can see them if they appear.
&nbs

stickman said:
Good on ya Scott... I'm glad you don't have to go cold turkey in the chile department. Fantastic results with those Onions. It really proves the beneficial effect of the green manure. Onions are heavy feeders. Cool snake pic too. It's too bad you have to have the netting up to keep out the birds... otherwise it'd probably be plenty happy to keep the mice down in your garden. Everything's a trade-off I guess.

This morning I put 5 more pots under the lights, that's 15 out of 18 in 8 or 9 days. I'm wondering why I couldn't get any to germ as well in January or February? I did almost everything the same, even the seeds were the same. Maybe, just maybe the good Lord was looking out for me, knowing they would just have been ratta bait...LOL.

I've never tried to "fast track" peppers before, but with all that are popping, half, I'll push really hard for the September flowering season here.

Yeah, the bird netting has it's draw backs for the snakes, I check it every day for critters in the traps and snakes. We most fear the rattle snakes, which have shown up numerous times. We darn sure know to do a scan before we start rummaging around the tomato plants as they provide way to much cover for them. Even though we trim them low so we can see them if they appear.

Peter S said:
That's cool your wife helped with freeing the snake. My wife so afraid of them, if she even thinks she sees a snake skin, she'll go buy out Lowes stock of snake repellent. I don't think that stuff works anyway, but makes her feel better.

She read this as I quoted it, saying "it wasn't the cool part" LOL. Although she knew I had it firmly in my hands she was very nervous getting close. Me, I don't like the "feel" of a snake without gloves on, which is why I had them on :shh:

But I have no fear of the garter or rat/chicken snakes, but I do take precautions so they don't bite me it they get nervous. I don't need any wild animal infection issues....

tsurrie · May 25, 2016

Nice looking snake. It sure helped with the rats. I see you have things under control. Keep it up and don't forget to take a break now and then.
Onions look very nice! Congrats.

Devv · May 25, 2016

tsurrie said:
Nice looking snake. It sure helped with the rats. I see you have things under control. Keep it up and don't forget to take a break now and then.
Onions look very nice! Congrats.

Thanks!

Yes! we finally are critter free, going on two weeks now. It's nice to see the peppers move forward, well the ones that are left

Mother nature has it's ways, feral cats and snakes showed up around the place doing their share. I don't bother the wild cats, they hunt and keep the rodents in check when they're around. My Mom had neighbors with a few cats, and when they moved she started having issues with her car wiring getting chewed on. I hope that never happens here!

Break? There's never one around here, but we do set a time limit nowadays to force a rest. I'm still playing catch-up from last spring when I was down for a spell. Now that we're starting to harvest and put up the goodies we're about 4 weeks from completion, then it's a short vacation and close out the season for everything but the new peppers I have planted. Those are easy to maintain, it's those darned tomatoes...LOL

OCD Chilehead · May 27, 2016

Rest? Oh yes. That's what my back has been asking for. I suppose, I have selective hearing sometimes.

Pace yourself Scott and don't forget to have fun.

randyp · May 28, 2016

Scott my rabbits that my pup don't run off,leave the plants alone after the wonderful lush green shoots start hardening off.Rabbits like young plants like we do our salads.Once the stalk starts getting woody they will leave them alone.Then it's the deer's turn. :confused:

Devv · May 28, 2016

OCD Chilehead said:
Rest? Oh yes. That's what my back has been asking for. I suppose, I have selective hearing sometimes.

Pace yourself Scott and don't forget to have fun.

Oh yeah! I have fun! Call me crazy, but I love to be outside, just doing anything. I spent 25 years as an auto tech, now I sit at a desk as an IT guy. Getting outside is such a release! I'd rather dig a hole for 3 hours versus sit at that dang desk. And I do pace myself

I still want to be doing this 30 years from now, well maybe 25...LOL

My back only really bothers me when I stand still for more than 15 minutes, probably from leaning over cars all those years. I do 750 crunches a week, they really help! Keeping the core in shape is the key when your back bothers you.

You never slow down you never grow old...(Tom Petty)

randyp said:
Scott my rabbits that my pup don't run off,leave the plants alone after the wonderful lush green shoots start hardening off.Rabbits like young plants like we do our salads.Once the stalk starts getting woody they will leave them alone.Then it's the deer's turn.

I've had my share of young plants go missing due to the waskily wabbits. Now just a young one now and then squeezes through the fence. For some reason we don't have deer here. But I hunt 3 miles from here and the place is overrun. Go figure

Devv · May 29, 2016

Soooooo, Randy, did you wish the Tejas weather on me? LOL

Sometime during the middle of the night I was woke up with the sound of hail pounding on our house. Lucky for us just quarter sized, and the sunshade stopped most (a few holes in it now). It simply poured, this was the baddest storm to date this year. Of course it wasn't forecast. We got 3.7"s! Which is cool as we don't have to water anything

At about 7PM I went outside and no dark clouds overhead, but rumbling from 10 miles north. I'm standing there watching dime sized hail bounce around, without the weather to support it. I guess they blew in from the storm in the next town?

Anyways, we moved LB's Charger into the shop, my ride lives there

Good thing! My pickup took a little hit, but it's already a hail victim :shh:

OCD Chilehead · May 29, 2016

I enjoy the thunder and lightning. Especially if it's in the distance and it's not raining.

Glad you got the rides covered. I've been in Sturgis and seen thousands of bikes destroyed by hail. We don't get much on my side of the Rockies. Denver side gets brutal.

Glad your saving in water. Plus, you get the benifit of the rain water PH.

Datil · May 30, 2016

Devv said:
Oh yeah! I have fun! Call me crazy, but I love to be outside, just doing anything. I spent 25 years as an auto tech, now I sit at a desk as an IT guy. Getting outside is such a release! I'd rather dig a hole for 3 hours versus sit at that dang desk. And I do pace myself

Being an IT guy myself i can not but agree!

Cya

Datil

stickman · May 30, 2016

I'm glad your hail story had a happy ending Scott... no real damage is all we can hope for. We were supposed to get 3/4 of an inch of rain and a thunderstorm last night, but it obviously hung around your place instead.

Devv · May 30, 2016

OCD Chilehead said:
I enjoy the thunder and lightning. Especially if it's in the distance and it's not raining.

Glad you got the rides covered. I've been in Sturgis and seen thousands of bikes destroyed by hail. We don't get much on my side of the Rockies. Denver side gets brutal.

Glad your saving in water. Plus, you get the benifit of the rain water PH.

I just love it when it rains here; what we're experiencing is a flashback to the late 70's & 80's. When I first arrived in Tejas in 1978, it rained almost everyday, and that was at 4PM.

Yes! I had to make room for the new cars in the wood shop. My first new car since 1979, I've been in trucks. LB has a loaded Hemi Charger, her first "decent" car ever. So we're real careful. The 04' truck got hailed on :shh:

What a shame about all those bikes, they put so much love into them. I used to ride, but I got tired of dodging cars that we're paying attention.

And yes watering has been real easy this year, I only hit the garden 5 or 6 times so far. That's a record for me!

Datil said:
Being an IT guy myself i can not but agree!

Cya

Datil

Hi!

Yep! You know just what I'm talking about! The peeps that run the client PC's hurt my head...LOL

stickman said:
I'm glad your hail story had a happy ending Scott... no real damage is all we can hope for. We were supposed to get 3/4 of an inch of rain and a thunderstorm last night, but it obviously hung around your place instead.

Hi Rick!

I've Been here in Devine since March 1989 and only seen real hail twice. Last year it flattened the garden, but it came back as it was early on. Considering what's been going on around us we've really been lucky!

So this morning we were up about 45 minutes before sunrise, normal for us on a day off, and that's sleeping in late being we're up at 4:15AM on work days. It was rumbling out there to the North, and radar showed some serious stuff out there. Just as it got close it slid East and all we got was a light shower and some crazy wind. The nice thing was it brought the temps down into the 60's; for almost June, that's unheard of here.

So I took advantage of that and fired up the shredder. I ground up a yard of leaves and 2/3 of a yard of Oak and Mesquite bark that slipped from firewood I cut. I also mixed in about 10-15 gallons worth of cow pies that I collected during the winter.

Finished product yielded about a yard.

A few pepper pics, yeah very few, as I'm way behind, and not many left after critters...so it's kinda embarrassing to show the one pepper the plant has. But they do have...lol

Large Cayenne, I'll actually get to pick one soon :rolleyes:

Habs are setting, I could say the plant is loaded, but I'd be full of manure..it does have quite a few though :party:

Take a step back! and admire the lone Serrano! I had a nice Jalapeno plant putting on pods but after the storm it's no more, broke off at the base :mope:

Kurt is coming on. For the life of me I can't remember the full name of this pepper. So Kurt it is, seeds originally from Rick.

Evidently the rats didn't go for the Jimmy Nardello's, as I have several putting on nice large pods!

Fall garden cadets

I will have hot peppers this fall. I'm putting them straight into 1# pots when they show the first sign of true leaves. Half will be pushed really hard as an experiment. They need to be semi large and flowering come early September.

The nons, which have been doing really well this season.

To cheat on the 10 pic limit, I condensed some

These are the largest Garlic ever from my garden, as well as the Onions show earlier. So to steel Guru's lingo "feed the soil" really works! As these had just one mild application of Hasta Gro. Note the last pic (bottom right) I had quite a few do this, haven't seen this before, just tons of cloves.

And LB's jewels :party:

She's totally stoked that 3 are putting on fruit.

As for the Maties, canned 10 quarts between yesterday and today, been picking 5 to 7.5 gallons a day.

Thanks for stopping by!

OCD Chilehead · May 30, 2016

You've been busy. Love the shredding.

Pod's look nice and healthy.

Garlic and onions look great.

LB's pineapple's are looking great. Texas Pineapple.

5-7.5 gallons of tomatoes!!! Wow! Tomato, onion, garlic. You have everything to make salsa.

How many tomato plants do you have?

Yes "Feed the Soil". Guru rocks

Thanks for sharing

TXCG · May 30, 2016

That same storm hit here last night but luckily didn't drop any hail. It woke me up with some incredibly loud thunder though. Looks like more rain incoming Wednesday through Saturday too if the forecast is to be believed.

Those Jimmy Nardellos look awesome. Those are supposed to be a sweet pepper with no heat right? Pretty sure I meant to grow those some year but never got around to it. What do you usually use those for?

Also I think your garlic got confused and thinks it's elephant garlic. Those are massive.

That pineapple is really cool too. How long did those take to get to that point?

Glad to see you're finally getting some peppers despite the critters best efforts too.

Sawyer · May 31, 2016

Almost ripe pods already; that just blows my mind. Really great work, Scott, especially given all the critter issues you've had.

I've never grown hardneck garlic. How does it compare to softneck, in your experience? I have more elephant garlic than anything this season. Some softneck in ground. Shallots and potato onions are in pots on the front stoop, trying to rebuild stock after the disaster a couple of winters ago. (Who knew critters would eat alliums?) And surprisingly, I lost most of the walking onions this past winter, I think because I let the patch get too weedy. Plenty to rebuild from, but still a disappointment.

Will those pineapples ripen this season?

Devv · May 31, 2016

OCD Chilehead said:
You've been busy. Love the shredding.

Pod's look nice and healthy.

Garlic and onions look great.

LB's pineapple's are looking great. Texas Pineapple.

5-7.5 gallons of tomatoes!!! Wow! Tomato, onion, garlic. You have everything to make salsa.

How many tomato plants do you have?

Yes "Feed the Soil". Guru rocks

Thanks for sharing

Thanks Chuck!

Aside from the critters this year has been the best garden for nice growth ever, I attribute that to finally getting the soil almost right and all the rain. We have 81 Tomato plants, about 24 are San Marzano, and half are producing cherry tomato sizes fruits. I guess I got some bad seeds, because the regular sized ones are huge.

TXCG said:
That same storm hit here last night but luckily didn't drop any hail. It woke me up with some incredibly loud thunder though. Looks like more rain incoming Wednesday through Saturday too if the forecast is to be believed.

Those Jimmy Nardellos look awesome. Those are supposed to be a sweet pepper with no heat right? Pretty sure I meant to grow those some year but never got around to it. What do you usually use those for?

Also I think your garlic got confused and thinks it's elephant garlic. Those are massive.

That pineapple is really cool too. How long did those take to get to that point?

Glad to see you're finally getting some peppers despite the critters best efforts too.

We did a 5:30-3PM day today and no sooner did we step in the house, it started to rain. Just a 1/2", but north got 4-5"s or more. Bandera got 8-10 Sunday with this on top. They're having all kinds of problems.

Thanks! The Jimmy Nardello's are a sweet that go great as a stir fry with Poblano's and onions when doing Fajitas. Add the guacamole and hot pico de gallo, with a cold one of course.

Those garlic are the 3rd planting output from store bought garlic. I just save the largest heads for the next season. The garlic and Onions were huge this year, they were planted in a part of the garden I've been working on for years but only have planted potatoes in this last year. It's also down hill from the main part, so the runoff is just adding the goodies down there.

If you plant the top of a Pineapple it's two years before you will see a fruit in most cases. They are extremely sensitive to frost and freezes, we lost 10 3 years ago that way, as I planted them in the garden. These too are planted, and I'll make a low budget green house for them this winter. This last winter we never drug them in, but the year before it was every few days.That really gets old, especially when you add 5 or more potted peppers, and 5 or more tropical plants. Some of the pots are really heavy and it takes the two of us to haul them. Your a bit further north from us and they will do fine, but pots or a green house over the winter will be necessary. Once the Pineapples set fruit, they grow a sucker, it's down low on the plant, you can twist it off and plant it, and it will bear fruit sooner than the plant started from the top. Once one is pulled the plant will usually grow a second, leave that one on and cut the plant back after harvest so it's the only thing working on the existing roots and that will produce a faster pineapple too. The suckers that appear just under the fruit are called slips, they are not as good as a sucker, they can be removed to start new plants, but will take more time. They also slow down the fruit production. I'll post pics soon as I have a few of both starting on a few plants.

A few peppers on the horizon, but certainly not like in years past.

here's 2 pics from this time of the year in 2014:

Sawyer said:
Almost ripe pods already; that just blows my mind. Really great work, Scott, especially given all the critter issues you've had.

I've never grown hardneck garlic. How does it compare to softneck, in your experience? I have more elephant garlic than anything this season. Some softneck in ground. Shallots and potato onions are in pots on the front stoop, trying to rebuild stock after the disaster a couple of winters ago. (Who knew critters would eat alliums?) And surprisingly, I lost most of the walking onions this past winter, I think because I let the patch get too weedy. Plenty to rebuild from, but still a disappointment.

Will those pineapples ripen this season?

Thanks John!

They certainly took their toll, and today we went and checked the garden and a rabbit was busy in there munching :shh:

I'm pretty sure the store bought stock I've been growing is soft neck garlic. I do have two hardneck varieties planted the my brother sent me. Georgian and Romanian. They went in 3 weeks late according to my schedule and are still out there. I'm a bit worried they may rot with all the rain, so I may pick a few early just to have seed stock for next year. They both grew well here. My plant day is September 15th. I have never had luck here with elephant garlic for some reason. Shallots grow like crazy but don't keep. I guess it's too hot.
The Pineapples should be ripe in August. We let them turn golden on the plant, and the sweetness can't be matched compared to store bought. I posted more info above on the Pineapples...

OCD Chilehead · May 31, 2016

No wonder your picking so much.

I have 27 tomato plants. They have all kinds of fancy names. Just like the chile's. I think I have Celebrity, Sweet100, Super Fantastic, San Marzano, Champion, Husky Cherry Red, and some mysteries. Don't know what happened to the labels. LoL. I usually always grow a grape, or a cherry of some sort. This year I got a variety. Enough about me, this is your Glog.

Your garden will start shifting gears in no time Scott. Glad your getting just enough rain and not to much. Wish I could say " My plant day is September 15th". Lol

Thanks for sharing Scott. The week is almost over.

bpiela · Jun 1, 2016

Scott,

Any thoughts on setting up an outdoors Surveillance cam? I am just imagining the cool videos you could post, catching the critters in action. Plus, you can use the cams to take stills. Or possibly setup a life feed so we can just go to a website and take a look at your garden... You are in IT. Get this going! :high: