Melissa77754 2012 Glog

RocketMan · Apr 10, 2012

Gardens looking good. Can't wait to see those plots when the peppers are standing tall and looking full of pods. If you want to leave the weed cloth down but dont like the look you could cover it with some cheap mulch. Some cities even have yards where they give it away for free. Never know what types of woods, etc are in it but you just have to back up a truck and load the back end up. San Antonio had a place where we got a load of mulch once. Funny thing was it was all mesquite and more went into the smoker than on the ground. What a problem that was.

Take Care,
RM

Blinky · Apr 12, 2012

Hey Melissa!

Your gardens look amazing! I am very impressed in the grow list you have there!
This is definitely a glog i will keep an eye on. Can't wait when you get all your plants in the garden, and they all really get going!

Melissa77754 · Apr 12, 2012

RocketMan said:
Gardens looking good. Can't wait to see those plots when the peppers are standing tall and looking full of pods. If you want to leave the weed cloth down but dont like the look you could cover it with some cheap mulch. Some cities even have yards where they give it away for free. Never know what types of woods, etc are in it but you just have to back up a truck and load the back end up. San Antonio had a place where we got a load of mulch once. Funny thing was it was all mesquite and more went into the smoker than on the ground. What a problem that was.

Take Care,
RM

Thanks as always for stopping in RocketMan!

I actually found a place for bulk supplies, including mulch. Once this darn cold front goes away and I get everything planted in the ground, I will be picking up a load of mulch to add to the top of all my beds.

Saw your veggie garden with the kiddos in "growing other", looking good!

Blinky said:
Hey Melissa!

Your gardens look amazing! I am very impressed in the grow list you have there!
This is definitely a glog i will keep an eye on. Can't wait when you get all your plants in the garden, and they all really get going!

Thanks a ton Blinky!

More updates to follow after the cold front leaves souther Cali, wet and cold right now! Peppers in ground seem ok, will be happier next week when weather hits the 80's again.

Good luck with your grow!

Beelzeboss · Apr 12, 2012

good growing melissa

Melissa77754 · Apr 13, 2012

Ok well I wasn't going to update till next week with the cold weather we are having in SoCal. The heavy rain has not made it's way to Corona yet, and while outside checking on the babies I had to snap some pics! Enjoy! :cheers:

One of my tents packed in due to the rain, even my older babies deserve some protection from time to time!

This Queen Laurie is doing great in the ground, even with the recent cold and rain!

Doughlah x Butch T, one of the many plants I have going for this cross. Starting to flower too! Will be interesting to see what kind of pods each plant produces.

Padron also loving the ground!

Jimmy Nardello exploding with new growth since being put in the ground!

Biker Billy and Padron sharing a 18gal tote!

My Cascabella out front pushing out pods! Same goes for my 1ga Cascabella's in the greenhouse, just no stopping those guys from flowering!

A mystery chinense out front starting to flower, doing well despite the cold and rain.

I had this guy labeled as a bhut but not so sure that's what it is, was root bound for quite awhile before going in the ground. Every day it gets greener as it acclimates to my ground!

This is one of the larger plants I put in the ground out front, it is exploding with new growth!

smokemaster · Apr 13, 2012

KiNGDeNNiZ said:
finally we meet... again glad to see a local grower in my neck of the woods, so now i dont have to rely on Ebay and get some random pods.. im scared to transplant these guys in the ground as last years crops were consumed by GRUBS... since going on THP.. ive definately tripled my interest in growing peppers. feel bad for my other plants as some never made it to the ground due to my focus with the peppers... summers just around the corner and you are about 45 mins aways from me.. ill be that one person that goes close enough to raid your plants.. i mean.. ill go there with the others and will help you harvest... today i started my 16/8 hope to get better results...thanks for getting me started with the live plants and ill give others heads up if you have other plants to sell..

denniz

Get some nematodes for the grubs.
I had a Japanese beetle problem,big grubs in my pots.
They used to sell a mix of a couple kinds that worked great for me.

Nematodes took care of them.The nematodes last several years too and eat lots of other stuff including termites and cutworms.
I get mine local from tip top bio.

http://www.tiptopbio.com/tech_bulletins.html

order from here

http://gardeningzone.com/

Heterorhabditis marilatus

Heterorhabditis bacteriophora

MisterNo · Apr 13, 2012

Well Melissa, I thought it never rains in southern california

Guess Albert lied

Your babies will be fine, they look great, hard enough to take some beating, but I'm sure they will not have to

Keep up the good work

Melissa77754 · Apr 13, 2012

Thanks for posting Smoke, now I can add more pics!

This mystery plant is exploding with flowers, likes the ground!

A shot of my large bed, plants are doing quite well. Some of the smaller guys aren't liking the cold too much. But come next week when it heats up again I am sure everything will grow like weeds!

This is my newest bed, those are 8foot redwood landscape timbers I picked up at home depot for $1.99/ea. I used this last year to grow toms, but once they hit a certain level in the ground they weren't all that happy. So this year I tilled the ground and added the timbers, will fill this bed up with the bulk potting soil I picked up by the yard. So far the plants love the stuff!

Indoor Purple Bhut transferred to a 5ga root pouch in Roots organic soil, my bro got me to try this out. So far so good! Starting to flower indoors!

Yellow Habalokia transferred to a 3ga root pouch in roots organic soil, also starting to flower.

MisterNo said:
Well Melissa, I thought it never rains in southern california
Guess Albert lied

Your babies will be fine, they look great, hard enough to take some beating, but I'm sure they will not have to

Keep up the good work

He sure did lie!!

It has sprinkled a couple times today, but the sun is shining bright right now, only a matter of time before it gets here. But I think all the babies will be fine, next week is going to be in the high 70's low 80's, ground will dry out in no time.

Thanks for stopping by!

Melissa

smokemaster · Apr 13, 2012

Pouring rain,lots if thunder and lightning here right now.
Batten down the hatches.

Melissa77754 · Apr 13, 2012

smokemaster said:
Pouring rain,lots if thunder and lightning here right now.
Batten down the hatches.

Not looking forward to it making its way out here Smoke! Let's hope it passes Corona altogether! lol

stc3248 · Apr 13, 2012

Hey, Melissa! Great job on the new addition! Look at you! Getting your gardening in and showing off some carpentry skills to boot! How's the rain treating you? Pouring here now. Everything's soaked for me anyway, so the more rain we get, the less chlorine will be left in my beds from the "incident." Those timbers would do better for you it you cut one of the middle boards in half then centered an 8' piece and put a 4' section on each end...that way the 3 seams don't line up in the middle, and you could also stagger the length of the end pieces so that they interlock. (like bricks are laid) Should hold up for you though! I apologize for the critique, I was a carpenter once upon a time and on top of that I am more than just a little OCD.

Melissa77754 · Apr 13, 2012

stc3248 said:
Hey, Melissa! Great job on the new addition! Look at you! Getting your gardening in and showing off some carpentry skills to boot! How's the rain treating you? Pouring here now. Everything's soaked for me anyway, so the more rain we get, the less chlorine will be left in my beds from the "incident." Those timbers would do better for you it you cut one of the middle boards in half then centered an 8' piece and put a 4' section on each end...that way the 3 seams don't line up in the middle, and you could also stagger the length of the end pieces so that they interlock. (like bricks are laid) Should hold up for you though! I apologize for the critique, I was a carpenter once upon a time and on top of that I am more than just a little OCD.

Hi Shane!

It is pouring now!!! I want to cry looking at all my babies being pounded by the rain and wind! :tear:

BUT I have faith that I raised them strong enough to endure this beating....I hope. This rain is insane, my ground dried up quite a bit since the other small storm a day ago, but man it will be nice and WET now!!

I hope this crazy rain is exactly what you're babies need to pull through the chlorine soak! Luckily for us, as soon as the storm passes we have great weather headed our way. As for the critique, by all means critique away!! lol. I am no carpenter, as you can see by my sawzaw skills. When I did this I got so frustrated about how to secure everything together that I tasked my hubby with that job. Well as you can see he is no carpenter either, but it's pretty damn secure, kicked it in a whole lotta places to make sure!! haha! I can kinda envision what you are saying, carpentry goes over my head and I can't say I am all that good at building things. I will stick to gardening

Crusher · Apr 13, 2012

I was supposed to start planting on Wednesday. Luckily for my plants I started a new job that day so it got postponed to tomorrow. Don't think my babies would have liked this rain a bit.

Good thing is yours look a lot older and more sturdy.

PaulG · Apr 13, 2012

Always fun to stop by and see what's going on in Melissa's world!
That mystery plant looks like a real producer!

Good growin' to ya, M!

KiNGDeNNiZ · Apr 14, 2012

How'd your plants inside and outside do. It was like a monsoon here yesterday. Glad I haven't planted much. My dome tent made it through the wind and rain. Now getting some much. Wedged sun

Melissa77754 · Apr 14, 2012

KiNGDeNNiZ said:
How'd your plants inside and outside do. It was like a monsoon here yesterday. Glad I haven't planted much. My dome tent made it through the wind and rain. Now getting some much. Wedged sun

I couldn't believe that all of my plants looked ok, and my ground was not a sloppy mess like I thought it would be! A few of the smaller ones lost a couple leaves and obviously didn't like get slammed by rain, but they will be fine. Some of my older plants looked greener today, all that rain made a compost tea in the ground I guess!

My greenhouses are champs, it sounded like they were getting beat up from inside but this morning all was well, no plants fell off the rack either.

The ground was perfect for planting in today, not too wet at all. And with the sun shining and a light breeze, the plants were loving it. It's only going to get warmer for the rest of the week, perfect weather for the babies!

Chocolate Scotch Bonnet - this is a growout for a friend

Yellow Habalokia from Aji Joe

Datil

Morouga Yellow

Yellow Bhut

Trinidad Seasoning

Biker Billy

Cantina Yellow Flower

stc3248 · Apr 14, 2012

Glad your drainage is better than mine! Looking really good Melissa. Mine really did take a beating. 2 violent hail storms here last night and they all look like they were hit by buckshot. :mope:

They'll be fine. You have any bug issues up there? Every time I think I am finally ahead of the game they spring back up. Ughhh...Looking forward to a few weeks of sunny 70-80 degree weather for us!

Melissa77754 · Apr 14, 2012

stc3248 said:
Glad your drainage is better than mine! Looking really good Melissa. Mine really did take a beating. 2 violent hail storms here last night and they all look like they were hit by buckshot. They'll be fine. You have any bug issues up there? Every time I think I am finally ahead of the game they spring back up. Ughhh...Looking forward to a few weeks of sunny 70-80 degree weather for us!

Oh man Shane, TWO hailstorms?! So sorry, I would have been crying this morning if that happened! Luckily the weather is going to be good to us, it will give them a chance to bounce back. I have been noticing a few chewed up leaves, we get tons of grasshoppers and I almost smashed this big one the other day! Stupid punk got away, and I have no idea what predators to use for them except maybe my mantis babies when they get adult size? HATE grasshoppers!!

Here is my bed after the storm, I swear these guys look greener today! Same goes for my front planter, although I didn't snap a picture of it today.

This is the large planter that made it pretty well through the storm, a couple small guys took a beating but they aren't sitting in a muddy mess so I know they will be ok.

This is a shot of the stuff I planted today.

Enjoy the weather headed our way, WE and the plants deserve it! lol

highalt · Apr 14, 2012

Everything looks great, Melissa! Your plants are so healthy, and full!

We get grasshoppers in plague proportions here, so I started using Semaspore Bait each spring. It's rated for organic use, has some sort of disease in it that is specific to grasshoppers. The timing of the application can be a little tricky. Can't be windy, or wet, so needs to be done in between waterings when the ground is fairly dry. Also, it has to be applied when the grasshopper nymphs are 1/2" - 3/4" long. It definitely has decreased the number of early season grasshoppers on my property. Once the empty fields surrounding my home dry out in the summer, they do tend to migrate over to my little oasis in the desert. At that point I use the flip flop method of defense ... or cut them in half with my snippers. :lol:

The best predator for grasshoppers though are chickens. Of course, they will also eat anything growing in your garden if given the chance, but you'd also have fresh eggs, and free fertilizer. Trying my best to talk my husband into getting some, but he says we don't have enough space for them.

stc3248 · Apr 14, 2012

Mantis will do it too...there are vids of them taking trying to eat mice and snakes. Crazy! 7 dust will deter them as well. Luckily I don't have a grasshopper issue. I will get some tomato horn worms later in the season, but for now its snails, slugs, earwigs, mites and aphids....ughhhhhhh. Them plus the hail storm has almost none of my plants picture worthy. I may prune all the ugly off tomorrow and let the 2 weeks of sun fill them back in with some better looking growth. May set them back a bit...but damn it they'll look good!