First Time Gardener, Mishaps & Exploits

First time gardener here, 9b in Southern California, have around 550-600 square feet of space to use.  Starting a garden this year, because its the first time I've had room for more than one or two plants in the last 6 years and I have hated vegetables outside of a small range since I was a kid.  I'm hoping I can help kick my issue with vegetables this year by growing them.  This all started with a drunken night celebrating and ordering some mystery "Super hot, Pepper Seed mix" off of Ebay.  No clue if the seeds will actually be true to their labels, Reaper, Red and Peach Ghost, Trinidad Scorpion and Orange Habanero.  Since I made this mistake, and didn't realize it until the item had shipped, I figured I would give it a go anyways.  My girlfriend was down (not for the peppers) to grow other assorted veggies and has since become annoyed with all of my pepper stuff that is growing.  I ordered a few types of seeds from White Hot Peppers, Bahamian Beast Peach F3, Sugar Rush Red, Purple UFO, Swamp Thing, Fatalii Chocolate, Bahamian Goat, Satan's Kiss and Aji Pineapple.  I will probably have to ninja those seeds straight into potting mix outside in my garden, because I might be murdered if my girlfriend sees me setting up a mini-greenhouse inside our house again.  I also picked up a few peppers at Cal Poly Pomona's Pepperzania about a month ago, a Carolina Reaper, Chocolate 7-pot, Himo Togarashi and one I am drawing a complete blank on.  Garden also includes your typical garden veggies, tomatoes (few different types), cucumbers, sweet corn, squash (no clue what type), carrots, beets or radishes (drawing a blank) and I am pretty sure I am forgetting something.
 
Most plants are in cloth planter bags (is that what they're called?) and all the seeds will be ninja'ed into 2 gallon cloth bags and put out of direct line of sight from my overseer.  I will take some pictures and post them up when I have time, currently at work and had a few extra minutes to type this up.  I will be enlisting help via pictures of issues I know I will have, currently fighting off a bug infestation of earwigs, neem oil should be at my place tomorrow (diatomaceous earth hasn't helped much).
 
Pepper List:
 
Cal Poly Pomona Plants:
Reaper
Chocolate 7-Pot
Himo Togarashi
One I am going blank on
 
Mystery Seeds:
Reaper
Red and Peach Ghost
Trinidad Scorpion
Orange Habanero
 
Actual Seeds from White Hot Pepper:
Bahamian Beast Peach F3 
Sugar Rush Red 
Purple UFO 
Swamp Thing
Fatalii Chocolate 
Bahamian Goat 
Satan's Kiss 
Aji Pineapple

 

[Mr.joe]

Everything looks great... even the lettuce looks almost good enough to eat

 

[simp3204]

Everything looks great... even the lettuce looks almost good enough to eat

I really hate lettuce, I’ve tried to like it so many times.


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[simp3204]

Pepper plants are doing good, I’m thinking I’m going to put the rest of my plants in ground behind my house. I will have to amend the sandy, shitty soil, but I’m going to give it a try. This part of my backyard will get morning and afternoon sun, but should be shaded from the scorching late afternoon sun.

My pumpkin plant in my Kratky tub developed root rot; I cut off all of the affected root and cut down the vine so the baby roots can hopefully support what’s left of it. I won’t be too upset if I lose it, I did get one pumpkin.

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[simp3204]

So, I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to put in an actual garden behind my house. The bad part is this house sat empty for at least a year or two and the ground is hard as a rock in most places. I’m doing this with hand tools and lots of water to soften up the “dirt”.

I will be mixing around 1/3 to 1/2 the original dirt with garden soil I purchased. I will also be mixing in chicken manure and some coco coir. I do have some leftover perlite I could mix in, not sure I should though.

Current progress:

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[PaulG]

Good job, Simp - that's a work out 

 

[internationalfish]

Nice! Hopefully the outdoor garden works out well for you.
 
Pretty impressive Kratky pumpkin. Have you thought about throwing a bubbler at it? Might help avoid another case of rot. Or I might be totally wrong. It might have happened once or twice.

 

[simp3204]

Good job, Simp - that's a work out 

Thanks Paul! It was definitely a workout.


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[simp3204]

Nice! Hopefully the outdoor garden works out well for you.
 
Pretty impressive Kratky pumpkin. Have you thought about throwing a bubbler at it? Might help avoid another case of rot. Or I might be totally wrong. It might have happened once or twice.

I could try that. So far it’s hanging on after removing most of the root and 3/4 of the vine and the pumpkin.


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[simp3204]

Sorry for the multiple posts, haven’t figured out how to multi-quote on this app and I’m too lazy to copy and paste.

Plants are all looking good, I’ll take some pics this weekend and get them up.

My new little pepper patch seems to be going good so far, all the plants besides two of them look super happy. The other two don’t look crazy mad, just a little perturbed.

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[simp3204]

2/3 of my asshole dogs dug into my fresh garden bed and destroyed at least 1/3 of my plants. I replanted 4 or 5, not sure if they will make it. It must have happened sometime between 5am and 9am while they were in my backyard.

Luckily, I don’t work Fridays during the summer and caught the bastards red handed. Headed to Home Depot to pick up cinder blocks, guess I will have to half bury them to deter the digging. Also going to pick up some ghost chili’s from a small grocery store and make a spray; going to apply it to the blocks and on the ground around the garden (hopefully it will help).


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[PaulG]

I don't really like that last post, Simp.
Good on ya for advancing with a proactive plan.
 
Hope the replants dig in for you. Did you water in
with Transplanter or 'B-1'?

 

[simp3204]

I don't really like that last post, Simp.
Good on ya for advancing with a proactive plan.
 
Hope the replants dig in for you. Did you water in
with Transplanter or 'B-1'?

I sure didn’t *seppuku*


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[PaulG]

I sure didn’t *seppuku*


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No need to commit harakiri  , Simp! It's not too late to add some.
Just helps the plant adjust to transplant with less shock.
 
I hope your garden space is getting back to normal.

 

[simp3204]

No need to commit harakiri  , Simp! It's not too late to add some.
Just helps the plant adjust to transplant with less shock.
 
I hope your garden space is getting back to normal.

I’ll have to bring honor back to my family name and step my game up with one of those!

Just checked and it looks like half of the plants that had to be replanted seem to be ok, one or two not sure yet and two are going to be close to death with it hitting 100 later today.

Luckily, my other plants are doing good and my pumpkin is trying to come back from the near-death root rot!

Lots of new roots coming in:

Serrano is really taking off and has grown a lot in the last couple weeks:

Reaper is going strong, trying to flower with tons of buds:

7pot chocolate is getting wide, might have to move it soon:

Most of these are the mystery seeds I drunkenly bought from eBay, a couple are from White Hot Peppers, with a couple flowers peaking in the frame. Hoping those flowers bloom and bring in some extra pollinators:

I was completely surprised this tiny watermelon has survived, it has tried to die at least 4 or 5 times on me, so I just left it to do its thing:

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[chelicerae]

Plants are looking really good, one happy serrano. First time gardening turning out well so far : )
 "Hitting 100 later in the day.." ..as in ~38 C. Hrm, the balcony greenhouse actually had a peak hour at 25C today, started at 10C;  well I suppose California sun has to be somewhat adapted to.

 

[simp3204]

Plants are looking really good, one happy serrano. First time gardening turning out well so far : )
 "Hitting 100 later in the day.." ..as in ~38 C. Hrm, the balcony greenhouse actually had a peak hour at 25C today, started at 10C;  well I suppose California sun has to be somewhat adapted to.

38C would be correct, luckily, it hit 38C for a few days straight a few weeks ago, so I think the plants are ready for it.


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[Devv]

2/3 of my asshole dogs dug into my fresh garden bed and destroyed at least 1/3 of my plants. I replanted 4 or 5, not sure if they will make it. It must have happened sometime between 5am and 9am while they were in my backyard.

Luckily, I don’t work Fridays during the summer and caught the bastards red handed. Headed to Home Depot to pick up cinder blocks, guess I will have to half bury them to deter the digging. Also going to pick up some ghost chili’s from a small grocery store and make a spray; going to apply it to the blocks and on the ground around the garden (hopefully it will help).


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Congrats on going all in with the dirt. Me, I'm a dirty boy
 
The initial fence around my garden was to keep my 3 dogs from, er, "helping". They decided my Onion crop needed more tilling. That was enough..
 
One thing I do want to mention, the grass by the house at the top of the pics needs to go. It looks like a Bermuda, and it will haunt you if it stays there...just saying from my experiences. I've been pulling it everywhere it comes up for over 15 years. A constant battle...
 

 

[simp3204]

 
Congrats on going all in with the dirt. Me, I'm a dirty boy
 
The initial fence around my garden was to keep my 3 dogs from, er, "helping". They decided my Onion crop needed more tilling. That was enough..
 
One thing I do want to mention, the grass by the house at the top of the pics needs to go. It looks like a Bermuda, and it will haunt you if it stays there...just saying from my experiences. I've been pulling it everywhere it comes up for over 15 years. A constant battle...
 

If only my extra tilling crew didn’t include pepper plant murder.

I think you’re right on the grass species, the homeowners/landlords had just let it run amok in the front and the back yards. It’s on my agenda to murder this summer!


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[Mr.joe]

Sorry to hear about the dogs. I started my garden this year with a 4 foot wire fence held up by t posts. The dog stayed out until the day I planted my first few plants, he jumped the fence and tore everything up. A few plants went straight into compost and I replanted the others. All of the replants are thriving now. I replaced the 4 foot fence with 5 foot and ordered an electric fence charger from Amazon. He dug under the fence one time, I explained to him why I don't want him in there and he's been good since then... I never installed the electric fence.

 

[simp3204]

Sorry to hear about the dogs. I started my garden this year with a 4 foot wire fence held up by t posts. The dog stayed out until the day I planted my first few plants, he jumped the fence and tore everything up. A few plants went straight into compost and I replanted the others. All of the replants are thriving now. I replaced the 4 foot fence with 5 foot and ordered an electric fence charger from Amazon. He dug under the fence one time, I explained to him why I don't want him in there and he's been good since then... I never installed the electric fence.

I have the 4 foot fencing as well, luckily, none of my dogs can jump that high, however, my little terrier mix and basset hound are adept diggers.

Glad to hear the plants are thriving, I’m hoping a couple of the ones that took more damage pull through.


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