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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. :rolleyes:
 
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
 
 
 
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Always a lesson here JJJ! I say you need to write a book ;)
 
The ladies are looking fine and ready to dine!
 
Keep it green and have a great weekend! I know what you'll be a doin' :party:
 
PIC 1 said:
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 !
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Thanks, Greg. I must say your glog photos from last year have been inspiring for my this year.
Winter browned things pretty solid this year, but it has greened up nice and quick.
On that lettuce and onions, the favorite spring treat of the old time hillbillys in these parts was to chop up a big bowl of leaf lettuce with a few green onions, and drizzle it (kill it) with a little hot bacon grease. Spring had arrived then.
 
I did make up about 25 or so tomato markers from arm's length or better sections of bamboo split once or twice. I never been a good tomato trellis-er, I used to just grow bush Romas in wove-wire fence cages but the cages  got away from me. I only had 8 or 10. In my row garden this year,  I'm gonna set some steel posts and stretch 4-5 runs of 14g brace wire  with ratchets for a 100'. Then put two plants in an amended hole every 4'. I'll improvise on the ones in my raised beds.  I'd like to get those holes put in next week if it dries back up. Good spring showers here today with some snow mixed in :shame: . I'm glad I got my taters planted last Friday.
 

 
Also got my first handful of asparagus
 

 
 
 
which, along with the spinach and onions, I turned into a quiche
 
 

 
And my first shitake popped
 

 
Much whiter than normal ( maybe something to do with the eclipse  :rofl: )
 
 
cypresshill1973 said:
 
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
 
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That is a good point, Cypress. 
I have put dolomite in  to balance it, but as I think about it,  it still could go too low. A pH check is a good idea.
 
Devv said:
 

Always a lesson here JJJ! I say you need to write a book  ;)
 
The ladies are looking fine and ready to dine!
 
Keep it green and have a great weekend! I know what you'll be a doin'  :party:

 
 
Click to expand...
 
 
Scott, I used to write often a few years back when I was still trail running and rambling around in the mountains at length -more so than these days. 
I may get back to it. A book, I don't know. ;)
 
I didn't seem to accomplish a lot this weekend, some how more treading water than swimming. :D
 
My big mater plant, a volunteer from way back in January, kept drinking so much water I finally up potted it from a half gal milk jug of coco coir
 

 
to an old 3 gal nursery pot of coir and forest floor mixed.
 

 
And gave it a stick to lean on.
Maybe that'll hold it until I figure out what to do with it.
I think it's a Purple Cherkoee, maybe even a Thessaloniki, or a Kosovo.
 
I started transplanting the tomato cotys -over a hundred so far.
Should have plenty of basil to go with them  :D
 

 
I dug out my rain coat to work on prepping the garden for a hard freeze tonight. and found a packet of Jalapeno seeds I'd lost and sorely missed
 

 
and planted a half dozen.
:dance:
 
Thanks for reading.
 
That's quite a bit of taters there JJJ! And maters! I used to have two pups named tater and mater..LOL
 
You don't cut up the seed taters?
 
I'm hoping this was the last of any wind out of the North and we all warm up!
 
Yeah, I cut up the big ones, even a smallish one if if has good eye distribution. I dusted them with Azomite too.
Can't hurt. 
Or at least  it didn't last year.
 
HillBilly Jeff said:
Everything is looking really good.
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Thanks, Jeff!
 
GA Growhead said:
Awesome re-score on the MIA biker seeds!
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Yeah, a big, hot, Jalapeno, just like God intended.
 
maximumcapsicum said:
That is a ton of tomatoes! And grats on the asparagus! Getting hungry.

Did you show the tomato bed or are they destined for pots?
Click to expand...
 
That is potentially a ton of tomatoes. :D
Maybe 2-3 dozen will go in the beds and the 50 in a 100' row planted as doubles.
I can't envision using more than 90 plants out of what looks like will be ~160 pot ups.
I might haul plants to the farmer's market mid-May if they look good, and I can surely give a  few away. 
My next pot-up will be tomato  #125, and I only have 4-5 pots of sprouts left to pot up.
 
My big ladies in the out building with a little heater only got down to 55° last night so we're OK 
 
Thanks guys and gals.
 
I "finished" my last raised bed of "2014".
 
The Big Bad Bhut Bed. I'm gonna try to squeeze 10-12 in it.
 
It's 4' x 11'+  and deep -partly because it's on a steeper part of the hill, and partly because I had a pallet about the right size, so I went with it.
 
Yesterday I pretty well finished topping it off with a yard of compost and some local, ubiquitous  clay, but I didn't have my chainsaw to cut some boards for the end.
 

 
That's just the compost showing but there's a lot of clay mixed in.
 
Today I brought along my little box of amending goodies: alfalfa pellets, kelp meal, rock dust, azomite, Tomato Tone, seabird guano, eye of newt, toad toes, chicken teeth, dried snake spit, and so on.
 

 
I sprinkled some of each on the top and chopped it in with a rake a little, leaning heavily on the alfalfa and Tomato Tone.
 
Then I wet it down with a couple of watering cans of rainwater plus an anaerobic tea of alfalfa I've been steeping for several days.
 

 
This batch made a few bubbles, but didn't smell bad like one batch I made.  
 
 
Then I covered it with pasteboard to keep it moist and let it "simmer".
 

 
Sorta like in the the hugelculture bed, I had put a top dressing of similar ingredients. Today I pulled back the pasteboard and it's got some goodies growing in there mostly visible on the alfalfa.
 

 
I'm thinking of sticking one or two of my early tomato plants  in there next week if the weather looks OK and I can rig a little protection for them. Probably these two that are about 1 month old with buds forming.
 

 
Black Vernissage
 
 
Last thing today, I finished tilling in rows of the oats and peas for the peppers and tomatoes.
 

 
The lower row is the potatoes I planted -not up yet.
I think I'll go with 2 rows of peppers, 2' apart, and stagger the bigger varieties 3'  between plants and 12-18" on the smaller annums.
Or sumthin' like that.
 
Thanks for reading.
 
 
 
Everything is looking good.  I sure hope you used pulverized rattlesnake rattles and just forgot to post it.  Nothing is going to grow if you didn't use at least a little of that.
 
:rofl:  :banghead:  Rattle Meal. I knew I was fergitin' somethin'. Well, they're crawlin' now at least. Another DIY garden project I guess.
 
Love the updates JJJ! It looks like your garden space is really where it needs to be. Mine want to put some flame retardant on the lower planks of the Big Bad Bhut Bed... JJJ's BBBB. 
 
90 tomato plants is going to look beautiful. What varieties do you have picked out?
 
Thanks, guys.
 
Adam,  I feel like I'm a little ahead of where I was last year on infrastructure and organization at least.
I set some tomato numbers down and  it looks  closer to  70 and a few than 90 after all. That will probably keep me busy enough. :)
 
The tomato/quantity  list as of now...
 

 
 
 
I planted my first tomato of the year on Saturday in a sip bucket, .
 

 
I am still growing peppers. :D
These are a hodge-podge of annums mostly
 

 

 

 

 
 
These poblanos actually need some water, but even watered, they have been droopy no matter what.
 

 
The ladies have been outside all weekend and that seems to work best against the aphids.
 

 
When the temps get up to 60, the wasps, hoverflies, and a ladybug or two go to town on them.
 
Tomorrow we may get rain afterall.  :dance:
We can use it.
 
Thanks for reading.
 
Did a bit more reading on the hempy buckets. Seems like a simpler version of the SIP bucket (although there's a fair amount of debate on who came up with the idea first). From the little bit of experimenting with leaving my plants in a shallow dish of nutrient while out of town for a few days, the hempy/SIP bucket's should really do the trick for my peppers. I don't think I'll be going as big as a 5g bucket, but I will be giving the idea a shot!

Neil
 
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