Meatfreak's 2017 Glog

meatfreak · Mar 20, 2017

Essegi said:
Good luck!
Bread crust looks wonderful!

Thanks!

It's been a couple of weeks and all seedlings have been transplanted. Last week we suddenly had very warm and sunny weather, I got a bit to excited and overwatered my seedlings. Lost a couple seedlings due to it but so far no big loses. I just hope my few CGN varieties make it as I don't have any seeds of them anymore :o I also bought a couple of led growlights for extra support during the evening, plants seem to respond well to them.

I sowed these earlier in January.

Flat peach flower, hopefully I can harvest the first fruits this year!

Datil · Mar 21, 2017

Plants look great Stefan!
We're experiencing a very warm March too down here, let's hope this spring trend will go on

I've successfully sprouted four Pimenta Lisa F-4 seedlings from your seeds, i'll narrow it to 1-2 plants probably... any trait to look for??

Fab

meatfreak · Mar 21, 2017

Datil said:
Plants look great Stefan!
We're experiencing a very warm March too down here, let's hope this spring trend will go on
I've successfully sprouted four Pimenta Lisa F-4 seedlings from your seeds, i'll narrow it to 1-2 plants probably... any trait to look for??

Fab

Yep, stems should be purple and leaves purple/green, not totally purple. Although during summer the plant does get darker due to sun intensity. Good luck!

Devv · Mar 21, 2017

Looking good Stefan! Plants are nice and healthy

Peach blossoms are a fantastic sign!

stickman · Mar 21, 2017

Nice to see the peach blossoms Stefan! Is this early for them in your area?

Genetikx · Mar 22, 2017

Great to see you back Stefan. Will be following your season and hoping for the best!

OCD Chilehead · Mar 22, 2017

Those starts look amazing. Nice blossom. It's been unusually warm over here in Colorado this year. 70's and even 80 a couple days. All the Peach and Apricots have bloomed. I'm afraid we'll get a bad freeze and not have a good season. This has happened the past couple years.

BBG White is looking healthy.

moruga welder · Mar 22, 2017

All is looking well , my friend , :party:

Trident chilli · Mar 22, 2017

Great looking healthy plants ... BBG7 White especially... keep up the good work Stefan

meatfreak · Mar 30, 2017

Devv said:
Looking good Stefan! Plants are nice and healthy

Peach blossoms are a fantastic sign!

Yeah I really hope I will be able to harvest the first peaches this year. The other tree seem to be flowering a lot more then the other.

stickman said:
Nice to see the peach blossoms Stefan! Is this early for them in your area?

It's not early for our area, Rick. They tend to flower quite early here, often then get destroyed by some frost but so far there's no signs of the frost coming back anytime soon.

Genetikx said:
Great to see you back Stefan. Will be following your season and hoping for the best!

Thanks for following and I hope you can share some more pics of my projects this year

OCD Chilehead said:
Those starts look amazing. Nice blossom. It's been unusually warm over here in Colorado this year. 70's and even 80 a couple days. All the Peach and Apricots have bloomed. I'm afraid we'll get a bad freeze and not have a good season. This has happened the past couple years.

BBG White is looking healthy.

Cheers, Chuck. I know what you mean about the freeze destroying the fruit flowers, happens here often to but I'm confident we're save this season

moruga welder said:
All is looking well , my friend ,

Thanks, buddy!

Trident chilli said:
Great looking healthy plants ... BBG7 White especially... keep up the good work Stefan

Thanks John! If the bbg7 white grows true again this year seeds will be released for everyone to grow, however I plan on renaming it since it doesn't have much bbg genetics besides the bleeding calyx anymore. More about that later this season

Seedlings are starting to some more growth now and haven't been necessary to water them yet. Past few days have been very warm over here, almost summer like.

Something I noticed last season, variation in the leaves. This only seems to occurs with crosses and the early leaves on the plant. Later in season it doesn't show up anymore... curious what the reason of this is?

Also very busy in the garden, since it's gotten this warm plants in the tomato poly have grown to hard so I can't harvest from most anymore. Doesn't matter as I will clear it out soon, digging under the plants as green manure for the tomatoes and other stuff that will get in the poly this summer.

My Oregano has survived the winter again and grown a lot. Need to trim it soon so I can dry it all for cooking later

2 different flowers in the same broad bean variety.... not sure if this is normal but it is or either it crossed last year

Superhot Sim · Mar 30, 2017

Plants are all looking superb Stefan, hope you continue to have great success with your crosses, keep up your good work. Love the size of the poly tunnel dude :dance:

hope you have a great season.

Datil · Mar 31, 2017

Plants look fine Stefan, let's see if the heat streak carries on (23C yesterday down here

).
What a nice poly you've built!

Trident chilli · Mar 31, 2017

A glog which is always a must read ... Stefan as always I am impressed and that includes the poly tunnel. Fingers crossed for some decent sun

Devv · Mar 31, 2017

Hi Stefan,

I like how you created your own climate

The plants all look like they're really happy. That Oregano plant is killer!

Good luck this season. I always enjoy stopping by.

stickman · Apr 1, 2017

Things look really good in your polytunnel Stefan! Are those all greens I see in the third pic? I think I saw Mache in the foreground. Chiles are all looking A-One and rarin' to go! Cheers!

meatfreak · Apr 6, 2017

Superhot Sim said:
Plants are all looking superb Stefan, hope you continue to have great success with your crosses, keep up your good work. Love the size of the poly tunnel dude
hope you have a great season.

Thanks, Sim! Compared to last season it can only go better

hope to get another step closer to achieving my goals for my crosses this year. You have an great season to!

Datil said:
Plants look fine Stefan, let's see if the heat streak carries on (23C yesterday down here ).
What a nice poly you've built!

Yeah weather has been good over here to, some days we almost had 20C but mostly it's around 12C. When the sun shines its perfect to heat up the poly. This will be the fifth year anniversary of the poly. Let's hope for at least another 5 years

Trident chilli said:
A glog which is always a must read ... Stefan as always I am impressed and that includes the poly tunnel. Fingers crossed for some decent sun

Wait till you see them later in season, John. Got big plans this season, if I get to it will be a different story hehe.

Devv said:
Hi Stefan,

I like how you created your own climate The plants all look like they're really happy. That Oregano plant is killer!

Good luck this season. I always enjoy stopping by.

Cheers, Scott. The herbs always get out of hand in the poly. I will move out the Oregano plant this weekend as I wanna clear the space for sweet potato project later this season

Thanks for stopping by!

stickman said:
Things look really good in your polytunnel Stefan! Are those all greens I see in the third pic? I think I saw Mache in the foreground. Chiles are all looking A-One and rarin' to go! Cheers!

Yeah Rick, I only grew greens this winter period as it's the only thing that does grow during this time and don't die. Now that it's gotten so sunny and warmer things have grown to fast so most aren't edible anymore. I've learned a lot again about what I can and can not grow during this time so something to keep in mind for end of season again. At peak we ate like 3-4 days a week from the poly, we still do. Last bit of spinach, Swiss Chard, lettuce, Daikon, scallions. You've got an very good eye, that's indeed Mache or Lambs lettuce. I sowed way to much of it so we ate it like twice a week hehe, now it has grown to much so flowers are coming I dug it under as a green manure this week. The tomatoes can munch on it then.

Weekly update, they are starting to grow a lot faster now.

Also growing a lot of tomatoes again this year, most are in the poly since last week.

Grafted tomato

Also put in some Annuum varieties last week.

These are in the poly since early March, you can see they're behind on growth but still alive and kicking.

Swiss Chard, got a lot of them but they will have to be transplanted again as I'm clearing out the poly soon.

OCD Chilehead · Apr 6, 2017

Chiles looking very good. The rest of the garden is in full swing. I like it.

Congrats on the graft. What varieties are they? Is it because of disease you graft, or production?

How are the CGN varieties doing?

meatfreak · Apr 7, 2017

OCD Chilehead said:
Chiles looking very good. The rest of the garden is in full swing. I like it.

Congrats on the graft. What varieties are they? Is it because of disease you graft, or production?

How are the CGN varieties doing?

Jersey Devil and Piprakujuline Triibuline. I grafted because I was curious about growth and yield differences between regular and graft. Just an experiment. Normally I put 2 plants together at 1 spot but with a graft I can do just 1 and let it grow 2 stems. I do however need to start a lot earlier next time, cause you get set back a lot.

The CGN's are doing good, they are growing but still need to catch up. I'm confident they will be fine and I give them a lot of TLC

the coty's were a lot smaller and more narrow then other varieties, something I've seen before with CGN so they take longer to grow.

Difficult to see but the leaves have dark shades.

Devv · Apr 7, 2017

Plants are looking very nice!

An interesting experiment grafting the tomato. You picked a good plant to test with they are super resilient growers.

I'm curious about the poly you use for the tunnel. I know you've been using it for quite awhile. Is it 6mil?

stickman · Apr 8, 2017

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on your Tomato grafting experiment. Your observation on the time cost is similar to what I noticed when I topped and cropped my first-round C. Chinense varieties. They do have a lot more axillary growth, but they're no taller than the second and third-round seedlings I started later.

Good on ya for tilling in the winter greens crop when it went by. I've had my soil tested, and found that 5+ years of adding compost and manure to my garden plot has raised the levels of Sodium, Potassium, Calcium and Sulfur to the point that I don't dare add more... so I'm looking to growing nutrient-scavanging cover crops and green mulches to add organic matter to my soil rather than importing more compost and/or manure. I will be adding biochar though. It's got a neutral nutrient profile itself, but holds onto the dissolved nutes in the soil like compost would. Even better, one application lasts for at least 10 years, which is a bonus in my sandy soil that tends to break down humus quicker than soils with more clay in them.