Good Eve-ning, and Welcome to my bog...glog !
Hey folks sorry for the late glog-up I'm a month behind last years startup,......
...... I still have 12+ weeks (plenty of time) before I can start think about hardening off the plants outdoors.
First off I'd like to give a shout out to those who followed my grow last season. Thanks for all the comments, thoughts and ideas. The chuckles we shared......there were some good laughs...(and especially all the criticisms........
: .......hah)
To those who are new, I try to follow a "weekend update" format with photos and captions. Although if anyone has questions or replies that needs and answer or response I'll get back during the week. I hope to keep this interesting and entertaining...
and away we go!
Garden Rewind
Here's my 1st garden (1986)...it was modest but what we grew we used in our kitchen. I had a couple of dual bulb 4ft T12 fixtures in my basement. A couple grow-lux and daylight color temp bulbs. The indoor grow was far superior to the vegetable starts sold at the local nurseries.
My Italian neighbor couldn't understand why his bell pepper starts only had flowers while mine had golfball size peppers very early in the season.....The hot varieties I grew back then were the cayennes, orange habaneros, and a few different type or thai-birds. Things have changed but I still grow those varities.
Here's a shot from last season. I grew around 150+ pepper plants in two different sections of the garden. Plants were grown in raised beds and containers from 5 gal up to 20 gal
A typical weekend harvest shot from later in the season when the gardens at full swing.
This is one of my seed catalogs, the c.chinense....the seeds that invade our gardens every year...
This book and other seed catalogs are kept in a tupperware container container on a shelve in the corner of the basement.
No elaborate system needed, The seeds are kept in 1.5" zip backs. I have seeds that are as far back as 2007, and still germinating without a hitch....theres no need to pitch. Speaking of pitching theres some old baseball card to display the size of the pages used.
These are what I use to get the seeds on their way. I take 1/4 bag of each, mix that into a 5 gal bucket and moisten with water. The spagnum peat give fluff to the texture also helps indicate when the mix need to be re-moistened but the lighter color it displays. The vermiclite helps with water retension while letting the air and moisture through. The seed starting mix also has fine grain perlite to keep drainage and airflow moving.
Ha..........I knew this chop stick would come in handy someday. Once the seed medium is moistened I'll make a hole with the stick 1/4" down .
The seeds will be planted at the same depth. That helps when misting the top with water. Seeds that are planted too high may dry out or seeds planted to deep may rot.
I use two 2ft x 4ft germinating mats. Enough area to warm 8 seed flats at once...
I don't bother with a thermostat for the mats. I run them through a timer, 2 hrs on, 1 hr off...continous. The average temp of the soil stays at +/-85 deg
This is the main grow room. I built the 2 tier shelving units 8ft long x 2ft wide. 8 flats fit underneath the lighting units. Here we have four narrow spaced T8 4 bulb fixtures with 6500k bulbs and one 8ft TF twin bulb tight spaced fixture with 4100k bulbs. I have 4 identical systems in the room with an addition of three 400w mh fixtures with 7200k lamps. The room has 2- 20a dedicated circuits and 1-15a to split the current draw..
more photos in a few minutes....thanks for looking!
PIC 1's......Pod Pornage.............2012
.
Hey folks sorry for the late glog-up I'm a month behind last years startup,......
...... I still have 12+ weeks (plenty of time) before I can start think about hardening off the plants outdoors.First off I'd like to give a shout out to those who followed my grow last season. Thanks for all the comments, thoughts and ideas. The chuckles we shared......there were some good laughs...(and especially all the criticisms........
: .......hah)To those who are new, I try to follow a "weekend update" format with photos and captions. Although if anyone has questions or replies that needs and answer or response I'll get back during the week. I hope to keep this interesting and entertaining...
and away we go!
Garden Rewind
Here's my 1st garden (1986)...it was modest but what we grew we used in our kitchen. I had a couple of dual bulb 4ft T12 fixtures in my basement. A couple grow-lux and daylight color temp bulbs. The indoor grow was far superior to the vegetable starts sold at the local nurseries.
My Italian neighbor couldn't understand why his bell pepper starts only had flowers while mine had golfball size peppers very early in the season.....The hot varieties I grew back then were the cayennes, orange habaneros, and a few different type or thai-birds. Things have changed but I still grow those varities.
Here's a shot from last season. I grew around 150+ pepper plants in two different sections of the garden. Plants were grown in raised beds and containers from 5 gal up to 20 gal
A typical weekend harvest shot from later in the season when the gardens at full swing.
This is one of my seed catalogs, the c.chinense....the seeds that invade our gardens every year...
This book and other seed catalogs are kept in a tupperware container container on a shelve in the corner of the basement.
No elaborate system needed, The seeds are kept in 1.5" zip backs. I have seeds that are as far back as 2007, and still germinating without a hitch....theres no need to pitch. Speaking of pitching theres some old baseball card to display the size of the pages used.
These are what I use to get the seeds on their way. I take 1/4 bag of each, mix that into a 5 gal bucket and moisten with water. The spagnum peat give fluff to the texture also helps indicate when the mix need to be re-moistened but the lighter color it displays. The vermiclite helps with water retension while letting the air and moisture through. The seed starting mix also has fine grain perlite to keep drainage and airflow moving.
Ha..........I knew this chop stick would come in handy someday. Once the seed medium is moistened I'll make a hole with the stick 1/4" down .
The seeds will be planted at the same depth. That helps when misting the top with water. Seeds that are planted too high may dry out or seeds planted to deep may rot.
I use two 2ft x 4ft germinating mats. Enough area to warm 8 seed flats at once...
I don't bother with a thermostat for the mats. I run them through a timer, 2 hrs on, 1 hr off...continous. The average temp of the soil stays at +/-85 deg
This is the main grow room. I built the 2 tier shelving units 8ft long x 2ft wide. 8 flats fit underneath the lighting units. Here we have four narrow spaced T8 4 bulb fixtures with 6500k bulbs and one 8ft TF twin bulb tight spaced fixture with 4100k bulbs. I have 4 identical systems in the room with an addition of three 400w mh fixtures with 7200k lamps. The room has 2- 20a dedicated circuits and 1-15a to split the current draw..
more photos in a few minutes....thanks for looking!
PIC 1's......Pod Pornage.............2012
.
Am afraid gonna have to do some that myself this year. Can't decide 15 gal root pouches for peppers, 20 gal for some maters, marzanos too, or the trad way . . . I say both and see. And BER is just something that happens first of year esp. on the pastes. Goes away. Did soil tests on big garden/field after my "cure stomach bug with insanely hot Duval Crawl hot sauce on omelet" treatment yest. afternoon (worked!) and pH LOW--lotta rain this winter, figured, so I was out until dark o'clock digging dol lime in. Always think I'll beat BER but not on the pastes! Mostly didn't want nute lock-out. But again, BER goes away after first flush fruits.
I always have BER on the first tomatoes to set, I've read it's a Calcium issue, but why one just the first ones?I've added Calmag to their nutrition this year hoping it will help.Thanks,Scott
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Don't worry about the rant, it's very informative! Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us