JJJ Glog 2014.....in summary

Whew!
2013 Swirling down the Drain of Time.
 
Washing the 10x20s for a New Year.
 

 
 
By last October I was so peppered out  -40 some superhot plants and over twice that many mild and sweets. Didn't think I'd ever see the end of it. But, an early surprise freeze caught me off guard and I lost several mild and sweeties. I did get almost the entire superhot crop, dried, smoked, fermented, frozen or pickled. so I should have no dearth of heat to see me through to 2014 harvest.
 
I owe most of my pepper success in 2013 to YOU.
All the folks here at THP helped me from seed, to advice, to encouragement, to inspiration.  Couldn't have done it without y'all.
 
Some changes for 2014:
 

 
I'm moving my Cappy 1000 Pepper Incubator into my  basement utility room. Last year I had it in a minimally heated out building and the night times often dipped into the 50s or lower. And come to find out, baby peppers don't much care for that. They survived, they were just slow growers.
 
 
Dirt:
 
Fox Farms Ocean Forest will be my potting mix. It's organic and hopefully will be as good as the Miracle Grow Moisture Control and it can't be any worse than my home-brew last year which wasn't horrible but coulda been better.
 
Timing:
 
Instead of putting most of my seed in the ground in early February, I'm going to hold off until later on the Annums. The Chinensis at least some in early - mid January and some Manzano seeds earlier than that if I can find them.
 
How Many for Plant Out?:
 
Not 140.
I'm devoting 2 raised beds -a 4x30 and a 4x16 to Sweet Peppers -Jimmy Nardello, King of the North, Gaint Marconis, Aji Dulce. About 26 plants. 
100' in my row garden. Probably 40 plant's. Haven't decided on the balance, Bhuts, 7 pot, Habs, Bonnets, Jalas, the usual suspects and a few odd balls.
66 plants +/- total. I totally neglected my maters last year(which given the season didn't make much difference), but this year I vow to do better by tomatoes. I hope to do 50 or so -all heirlooms, mostly paste.
I'll start several more of both than needed for selling and give-aways.
 
 
 
In related news....
 
My buddy up in Richmond grew a lot of peppers last year. He has a geodesic dome greenhouse. At the end of season he just dug up several of his pepper plants and moved them in inside.
 

 
They're looking pretty good for late December.
 
My last "harvest" of 2013 was 12/22/13; some Thai Chilis that I'd pulled the whole plants in October and just laid up on a table outside. Most had dried leather-hard.
 
I pulled, cooked, seasoned, ground and strained them into a sauce for Pad Thai for this winter.
 

 
 
Everything subject to change without notice.
(But I'll keep you posted)
 
Thanks for reading,
JJJ
 
 

 

[JJJessee]

A ton of work going on there JJJ! But I know you love it!
 
Those Asparagus plants are simply awesome!
 
I'm really tempted to purchase some worms, I want to make sure they survive in the heat we get here. I'm pretty sure I read about a Texas worm farm...hmm..
 
Impressive update!
 
Keep it green!

I'd think with a big pile of mulch like you have, the worms could avoid the summer heat down in there somewhere.
And those Alabama Jumpers are supposed to be of tropical origin and tolerate heat better than wigglers and nightcrawlers
What I saw advertized were a little pricey, but with some searching you might find a deal. 
 
Yeah, seems like garden work at this point is measured by the ton.
Yesterday, I bought a "yard" of compost but they put all I wanted on my little pickup for the same price.
After topping the old beds, I still had some today for the comfrey
 

 
Which needs to be spread out and about.
 
and a little for the new Big Bad Bhut Bed.
 

 
which is a couple of loads shy of something from being ready for Bhuts next month.
 
The hugel grave got an  icing-on-the-cake of my Jump Start formula  and some of my excess cipollini starts along the edge.
 

 
I covered it to encourage worms to work it until plant-out and to keep the rain from beating it up.
as I think about it, rain falling on bare dirt is probably not optimal and doesn't happen that often in nature.
I really should take more pains to keep the beds in mulch or cover crop.
It also wouldn't hurt to seed this one with some worms since there weren't many to be found as I was stirring it up.
 

 
 
We got a good rain today, which made everything happy.
Onion-wise, I got in all but 2 -3.5 pots of the scallions.
 
The cipollinis raised on hydro in coir

 
 
and in the Ocean Forest
 

 
which were not dramatically different, but the OF were better.
 
With the right formula I think the coir could be as good. I may do some tweaking for a fall plant-out of winter scallions and leeks
I saved my mediums for reuse. 
 
I'm well over half of the early Wave 2 annums  at hooked or better and I potted up a few tonight
 

 

 
Thanks for reading.

 

[Devv]

Nice score on the compost, not sure what size pickup you have but my 6' bed holds close to 3yds. when heaped up high. That's based upon the 3yd. bucket they have at the county where I get mulch. So they did you right! Around here you get 2 scoops with a 1/2 yd loader and you're done. I ran out of compost and bought 1yd. and it smelled of cedar.
 
Thanks for the worm info, I'd really like to have those little workers in my garden. I was hoping they would just show up, but not so far. I guess too hot, dry, and sandy.
 
Beds looking really nice, and congrats on the Onion plant out.
 
Enjoy the weekend!

 

[JJJessee]

Yeah, Scott, I was glad to see those onions outta the hoop house. They got some bright sun over weekend, but a heavy rain at the moment which eases my mind.
Truck is a little Tacoma 4WD, I should measure it to be sure but, I'm thinking the last load was 1.5 cy+ Almost too much really.
 
Weekend at the homestead was pretty steady. I fixed a temporary hanging shelf in my out building to see my Wave 1 peppers to plant-out. I was short some S-hooks, so a trip to town. Might as well take the recycling. Since then I was only a mile then to the greenhouse lady, I thought I'd check for neem oil -gittin aphid-desperate here. She only had pre-mixed on the shelf at 12 bucks a quart. Nope. But she had some in the back that was old so she let me have it half price for 7 bucks,
 

Deal! Makes up to 16 gallons.
 
But when I'd gotten home, the cavalry had arrived
 

 
so I'm on the fence about the neem oil. 
 
Lowe's had the S-hooks loose, but it took 5 minutes to figure out what to charge for them
Needed some Sphagnum Moss, and they had a torn bag already on a trolley. I inquired about a discount. Half price. Deal! -so 5 bucks and change.
 
So I pulled old soil out of 4 planters Sat and Sun for amendment -about 16cf total. 
Here's the first one,
 

 
lot of humus and peat and sand, but no aeration. Others were worse mostly perlite and mountain sand. Who mixed this stuff any ways?

Armed with the S hooks, I finished my  hanging shelf and moved the ladies inside after a day in the sun and a pressure-washing with compost tea.
 

 
They'll get a few hours of direct sun through a south-side skylite.
 

 
I hope that'll get them through the chilly,rainy days ahead sometimes referred to as April.
 
Did another round of pot-ups yesterday so I'm about half way through Wave 2
 

 
While not scientific, I think my Forest Floor(chopped-up almost humus oak leaves) is gonna be a winner.
 

 
Ocean Forest, move over.
 The FF and Coir on the ends have been fed impromptu teas of seabirdsh!t with an occasional shot of CaMG or kelp juice.
 
About the same on some poblanos.
 

 
It may be worth cycling  some of that FF for next year with a bit of perlite, kelp meal, oyster shell flour, and seabird to see if it will do water-only.
 
 
Thanks for reading
 
I might start Wave 3 of Nons this evening. I have plenty of room inside now
 
 

 

[HillBilly Jeff]

Things are looking good.  My onions are going to be so far behind lol. 

 

[Devv]

You sir are certainly on your way!
 
Plants look great!
 
Nice score on the amendments too.
 
I feel I can do the worms under a compost pile, which might be all I can do. I would love for them to thrive throughout the garden. I guess I need to put up or shut up.

 

[Blister]

The plants are looking great. The roots in the coir are brilliantly white to boot! They look like they could have handled multiple waterings per day. Did you put them into the beds with all the others?

Neil

 

[Svetlana]

Your method is excellent ! Yes your Forest Floor is a winner. Yours tomato & poblano plants are really beautiful 

 

[JJJessee]

Things are looking good.  My onions are going to be so far behind lol. 

Thanks, Jeff. Onions do seem to  grow fast once they find their groove. My starts seemed to grow better once I took them out to the mini-hoop house where they got cooler at least in the night.
They like to sprout in warm soil( late summer/fall, but get established in cool temps(Winter), grow like mad as the sun gains strength(spring/early summer), the tops fall without bloom first year and die with bloom second year in mid to late summer. So the cooler hoop house signaled a fake winter for them I guess.
 
The weather turned sunny and relatively warm after lunch. Some of the new transplants were suffering a little.  So I watered by hand and then got my drip lines set up and tested.
It didn't take long, but I ran out of water. My pump's on-off float got trapped in the off position so I didn't catch last much of Sunday's big rain.     
 

 
I may have to water again because we're suppose to have 4 days of 70-80° coming up.
 
 

You sir are certainly on your way!
 
Plants look great!
 
Nice score on the amendments too.
 
I feel I can do the worms under a compost pile, which might be all I can do. I would love for them to thrive throughout the garden. I guess I need to put up or shut up.

 
I'll never get finished amending. I worked up about 60 gal of re-amended homemade potting soil and put it back in the containers to cycle.
 

(Hey, how'd those onions get in there? )
 
 
That spot gets as much sun as any place on my ground at home -probably 4-6hrs of strong sun and high shade the rest of the day. I'm thinking strongly of put a manzano in each one. 
 
 

The plants are looking great. The roots in the coir are brilliantly white to boot! They look like they could have handled multiple waterings per day. Did you put them into the beds with all the others?

Neil

Yes, the onion roots looked really nice and it was super easy to get them out ready to replant, although the OF was easy too. I saved both mediums for re-use.
I'm having good luck with my second round of coir plants (annums and maters) so far, just using the birdsh!t tea with a shot of kelp and CaMg occasionally.
 

 
Those poblanos and maters are about 3 weeks now. That big tomato in coir in the back is sucking that little 2.5" pot dry in less than a day.  I guess I'd better re-pot it, since last of April is as early as I can think on putting it in the ground.  On the other hand...
 

 
I made up some SIP pots to try out. My potting soil won't be totally cycled but, in a week or two I may even put them in here. I could take them in at night and on cold days at least. 
 
 
 
 

Your method is excellent ! Yes your Forest Floor is a winner. Yours tomato & poblano plants are really beautiful 

Thank you!
But sometimes I think madness is my underlying method. As I'm potting up this second wave of peppers I'm leaning more and more to just the plain, old, Forest Floor.
 
I was at the hardware store because I needed some basil seeds and couldn't resist a packet of Jalapeno seeds.
 

 
I sowed them in FF and put them with the few remaining pepper germination pots.
 
If' you grow more than just peppers, you may have heard of a type of pea from your area, Carouby de Mausanne, a large mangetout variety with beautiful pink and purple bloom.
 

 
They have barely broken ground and can't be seen in the photo. I put up bamboo tops woven into  3 horizontal strands of brace wire to support them as they climb. 
In front is some of the lettuce I transplanted today -Mervielles des Quatre Saison, Baquieu, Reine de Mai - familiar?

 

[JJJessee]

 ...?? wonder how that haappeenneedd?

 

[HillBilly Jeff]

I know what you mean about picking up more seed,  Every time I am at HD I am looking at their seeds to see if there is something that perks my interest.
 
Onions in your hoop look amazing.

 

[GA Growhead]

Deja vu!

 

[Helvete]

SIP pots?

 

[stc3248]

I have really been wanting to try the sip buckets for a couple years...just been too damn lazy. Will be watching for progress reports on those...and maybe a diy step by step from master triple J. I happened across some cipollinis at the grocery store a few weeks back and tried the out...very nice, but beach to peel. Worth it once done though. I think they'd be very nice in some fresh salsa! Too bad about the missed opportunity catching the rainwater, but I am certain there'll be more. Everything looking nice and professional, I always learn something here.

 

[JJJessee]

SIP pots?

Sub-Irrigated Pots
Or Sub-Irrigated Pot depending on what you're growing.
 
I think I surfed to Gobalbuckets.org from the Easy Organic Soil thread. I looked at several slightly different approaches on Youtube but none looked as good as Global.
Here's a link directly to the fabrication video.
My photo does not show the solo cup "wickerator" that sits in the big hole of the soil bucket.
 
Their soil recipe could probably be improved upon, but I think the vermiculite  as a wicking component is a good, if not vital, call. No water ever touches the planted pot from above. It is all pulled up through the solo cup. 
 
On the Home page there is a link to a system engineered to link several buckets together on a reservoir feed/constant supply with a float switch -even less maintenance supposedly.
 
Shane, those cipollinis better be good, I must have 600 planted.

 

[Blister]

...?? wonder how that haappeenneedd?

I'm going to go with an itchy trigger finger or too much coffee

 

[Peptacular]

Looking good! Your second batch gives me hope I didn't start too late. Although I don't think many are Annums. I'm going to overwinter beyond my means to compensate I suppose.

That one grow box is hilarious, capsicum disco floor/rave club.

 

[maximumcapsicum]

Amazing updates JJJ! You got a ton going on. Can't wait to hear how your mix performs. Getting close to a month now for that activation. You gonna use that with your peppers?

When you use the AACT, how long does it take for the plants to respond?

 

[JJJessee]

Adam, on the AACT, I can't say I've used it enough or notice a plant response. I guess I garden on faith a lot.
 
 
I amended some more  old homemade planter soil that I'll probably use in all  the nightshade holes when I plant out mid to late May.
 

 
It's about 12 cf or 90 gallons. I ran out of rock dust on this brew. It has 18 gal on partially composted pine bark fines(often sold as "Soil Conditioner" for landscapers mostly I think). They do give the soil some cheap, quick, and dirty aeration/structure at least; giving the roots of the transplant some "light" soil instead of right off the bat having to wander around in heavy clay in the dark. I may add a little more. I'm mainly interested in using it  in the row garden which doesn't get as much attention as the raised beds.That will only do 90-120 plants as a moderately heaping spade-full equals on gallon. Roughly, I think I'll need about twice that much. I'm about out of old homemade medium, I'll have to do some quick thinking because I'd like to give it a month to mellow be before using it.
 
 
Put the ladies out in the sun this morning
 

 
Some of the up-potted ones are starting to put on some quick tender growth I guess in response to the re-potting. There is some aphid damage, but I think the neem product helped and took their number way down. Directions said every 7 days for a heavy infestation. Tonight was going to be 46° so I put them back inside.
They should be good outside tomorrow through Sunday if the rain misses us tomorrow PM.
 
Still a few annums to pop and be potted, but tomatoes are coming front and center on the grow shelves for the next week.
 
Y'all take it easy.
Thanks for reading.

 

[PIC 1]

Man...I could make myself a nice luch out of those spring onions and leaf lettuce.

If I wouldn't know by looking at those photos I'd think it was Summer where you're at. Lots of sunshine and color.

One thing I appreciate about checking this glog out are the variety of photos with the huge detaied captions.

Sounds like a good plan with the manzanos in the planters. From my experience early morning sun with afternoon shade in the higher temps works best.

Healthy looking tomato starts...get the stakes, cages or trellises ready !

 

[cypresshill1973]

JJJ should take special care to PH. Pine wood is resinous and contributes to soil acidity. Only recommended for use in alkaline soil, to give balancel PH to a safe value. 
 
Use a pH-meter in the compost before mixing in soil. Solanaceae displease acid soil