MiLK_MaN grow season 2011/2012

Another year.... Last year I used garden beds for the first time, growth was phenomenal, not so good with the pods. I'm going to put this down to having too much chicken manure and also having the plants too close together. This year, I am aiming for 10 plants per bed versus the 18 I went with last year, so we'll see how it all turns out.

A bed full of TS Butch T's, started first week of July, been in the beds for about a month now.


A bed of overwintered Asian Birdseye. I think I lost 6 of the 18 plants to the cold, but most have sprouted. I will replace the dead plants with replacement Asian Birdseye when they are ready to go.


The row closest to the footpath are all Bhut's, all Assam Bhut's I think. All but 1 survived the winter, the one on the left is a new plant from this year. The second row will be misc plants of various kinds.


Here's a closer pic of one of the overwintered Assam Bhuts. I just completely left them alone over winter, then it got to the start of October and I chopped them all back.

 

[chilliover]

omg your plants look amazing. Mines nowhere close to yours. Where do you source those black pots from.

 

[MiLK_MaN]

Black pots are just standard tomato pots. Funnily enough, those pots were actually donated to me by a RACV emergency assist dude who saved my bacon once, so I gave him some of my hot sauce, and he gave me the pots for free after spotting them on the side of the road. Obviously one mans rubbish is another mans treasure!

 

[Wildfire Chilli Australia]

love your garden beds. if i remember right they are made from plastic?
How much did those big beds cost you?
What have you topped them up with this year?

 

[MiLK_MaN]

Yep, made from recycled printer cartridges. Close The Loop make them, they used to sell direct to public, but now they wholesale to someone else and the price has gone through the roof.

Each bed measures @ 2.4m x 1.2m x 0.38m. This year I topped them up composted materials (generally comprising of rabbit manure and wood shavings, grass clippings, bokashi contents, shredded newspaper), Dynamic Lifter or more recently Organic Fertiliser by Grow Better, worm castings, about 6 bags of soil and of course topped up with the sugar cane mulch.

 

[BigCedar]

Lookin good!
You'll have quite the story if somebody walking down the sidewalk decides to grab a free sample

 

[MiLK_MaN]

That's why I purposely by all the ultra hot stuff closest to the foot path!

 

[chilliover]

That's why I purposely by all the ultra hot stuff closest to the foot path!

Damn that's smart. I wish to see someone still a naga morich and eat that. I suggest you live a bucket of water there saying "drink this"

 

[talas]

MiLK_MaN your beds and spaceing are perfect will look forward to your plants progress

 

[S.S.Tupperware]

Lookin good, hope ya have a killer year...

 

[MiLK_MaN]

Rocoto anyone? This is a 3 year old Rocoto. I took a peak over the neighbours fence, I think it's almost touching the ground on the other side!

 

[PIC 1]

Nice Rocoto plant, where do you keep it in the off season?

Greg

 

[MiLK_MaN]

Nowhere, stays exactly where it is. The pot hasn't been moved for 3 years.

Actually I lie, we needed to move the temporarily move the pots to fit the 2 x 5000L water tanks, but they were put straight back!

 

[MiLK_MaN]

Has anyone ever seen a plant fork so early as this Barrackpore 7 Pot? It's been sitting under a 90W LED light in the garage, sitting in a tray full of expanded clay pellets soaking in water to create humidity, and then the tray is sitting on a cheap heating mat. Temp in the tent in the garage before taking this photo was about 32C and 80% humidity.

 

[PIC 1]

Has anyone ever seen a plant fork so early as this Barrackpore 7 Pot? It's been sitting under a 90W LED light in the garage, sitting in a tray full of expanded clay pellets soaking in water to create humidity, and then the tray is sitting on a cheap heating mat. Temp in the tent in the garage before taking this photo was about 32C and 80% humidity.

Thats pretty early, how many pairs of leaf sets prior to branching.?
And on your Rocoto (tree) That's one beauty, Can you also plant other sunmmer season vegetables year-round outdoors.?

Greg

 

[MiLK_MaN]

I have bananas and coffee growing that are now into their second year, I didn't move them anywhere over winter as well.

In Melbourne, we get down to about 0C in winter, with the old light to mild frost from time to time. I find that planting the plants in dark pots, situating them near brickwork and being north facing, means they generally can survive our winter.

For example, here's a pic of some bananas I'm growing. Pic on the left is from mid June, and the right is a few days ago:



Some people wrap their bananas in hessian over winter to protect them, I just left mine to fend for themselves. The coffee looks pretty good, probably won't get anything from them for another year or so, but that's not a problem. Introduced tea plants to the garden this year as well, and I have some Cacao in the garage under a 400w CMH light.

 

[Wildfire Chilli Australia]

Has anyone ever seen a plant fork so early as this Barrackpore 7 Pot? It's been sitting under a 90W LED light in the garage, sitting in a tray full of expanded clay pellets soaking in water to create humidity, and then the tray is sitting on a cheap heating mat. Temp in the tent in the garage before taking this photo was about 32C and 80% humidity.

yeah ive seen it with a few of my chinenses that I have grown for sale, they are about 15cm tall