Pulpiteer's grow log 2012

PaulG · May 21, 2012

Take the night off, bro - you deserve it! Was it nice planting into the
double dug beds? 148 plants, holy moly, man! I'm whining because
I have 50! But you have a much larger flock to tend than I : )

Good growing to you, Andy! Hope those babies really take off for you.

P.S. You are an integral part of the THP community, so we miss you when
you are busy!

Sethsquatch · May 22, 2012

Wow. Pulp. Wow. How did I miss this GLOG for this long? You have mad skills. I am completely jealous. Plant out is harder than you think! Or at least that was my impression when I did it a few weeks ago. You are doing an excellent job up there. EXCELLENT. I'll be watching from now on so I don't miss anything!

Chili cheers!

Melissa77754 · May 22, 2012

Another grow log that I can't believe I missed for so long, and I have two of those greenhouse's! They are great huh? Perfect for mass pepper growing!

I know how hard it is to manage and plant out that many plants, you are doing something right, the plants are beautiful! Best of luck to you this season.

MGOLD86 · May 22, 2012

It's tomorrow....

:waiting:

Pulpiteer · May 22, 2012

PaulG said:
Take the night off, bro - you deserve it! Was it nice planting into the
double dug beds? 148 plants, holy moly, man! I'm whining because
I have 50! But you have a much larger flock to tend than I : )

Good growing to you, Andy! Hope those babies really take off for you.

P.S. You are an integral part of the THP community, so we miss you when
you are busy!

Thanks Paul. The double dig beds... well, I'm glad you have not ever forgotten that I kind of committed to that Paul. It hung over my head and I couldn't pull it off and then thought, "geeze, I'm letting Paul down," but I just did not have the time and am still waiting to get my wheelbarrow in that I ordered. So, in the hopes of not disappointing too much, I took the garden fork and worked up each hole that I dug for the pepper plants, so it's kind of like they are double dug there...

Anyway - glad to be missed!

Sethsquatch said:
Wow. Pulp. Wow. How did I miss this GLOG for this long? You have mad skills. I am completely jealous. Plant out is harder than you think! Or at least that was my impression when I did it a few weeks ago. You are doing an excellent job up there. EXCELLENT. I'll be watching from now on so I don't miss anything!

Chili cheers!

Thanks Seth, I'm new to this much pepper growing, but have been gardening for several years and love it. I have a lot more luck once they are in the ground, hopefully this year is no exception. I'm not sure about the mad skills, but thanks. Thanks for dropping in!

Melissa77754 said:
Another grow log that I can't believe I missed for so long, and I have two of those greenhouse's! They are great huh? Perfect for mass pepper growing! I know how hard it is to manage and plant out that many plants, you are doing something right, the plants are beautiful! Best of luck to you this season.

Thanks very much Melissa! Two of the greenhouses, wow, nice. They are great. I'm very happy to have mine. Thanks for stopping in!

MGOLD86 said:
It's tomorrow....

:waiting:

Just like I waited for Matt's dad to come over and double dig my garden. He never came. My wife even baked cookies to take out as a snack.

Ok, your wait is over

Ok, it has been forever, and a lot has happened. Mainly hardening off the plants, which happened fairly drastically, and trying to water everything. The plants in the pots did better, but the ones in the 3x3 cells were so big it felt like I was constantly watering and constantly missing some. I'd find them completely shriveled up, soak them with water, and watch them bounce back. I lost a lot of leaves due to the ones in the 3x3's being packed in so close. I also have a bit of sun scalding on some plants. They lived though and are in the ground. Another issue I had was wildlife getting into the greenhouse when I left the door open all day. The yellow jackets were the size of small birds. Speaking of small birds, two baby doves found their way in. They were too dumb to figure a way out. So they flew around, running into pepper plants, hitting the walls, and never getting out. One of the pepper draft guys stopped by and he ended up just grabbing them and setting them free.

One lesson I've learned in this whole gardening thing: make friends. I've gotten composted cow manure and composted turkey manure, both delivered. I also was able to grab a few bags of wood shavings from a guy in the church who has a business with woodworking. I mixed this in with about equal parts sphagnum peat moss and some peat and put that in each hole that I dug up. I also put in a bit of the worm compost I bought awhile back. My soil has a lot of clay, so I'm hoping this helps.

Speaking of making friends. I've discovered that I really like manzanos. I tried to get some started from seeds from the peppers I bought, but no luck. Hooda found out and sent me some yellow manzano seeds - free of charge, just sent them off. Awesome. +1 Hooda. Good people here on the THP. Anyway, here they are sprouting.

So, for my plot I did not have time to double dig, and as I mentioned, Matt's father did not stop by and dig it for me, so I ended up digging a hole the depth of the shovel head, loosening the dirt beneath with the spading fork, then throwing in the wood, peat mix, and for some I also added some mykos from xtreme gardening. It turns out that when you want to plant 148 peppers you have to dig 148 holes. Oh, to mark where to dig the holes I bought a spool of ribbon at the dollar store and tied my marks on a string. Here is the progress in photos:

And here is another shot of the finished product. This time from a different angle so you can see the rows. I made the columns 4 peppers wide, 18 inches between plants and 2 feet between rows. The columns are 3 1/2 feet apart, which will hopefully give me room to walk.

All in all I actually ended up with 152 peppers. I added 6 more bells tonight in an empty spot between the peppers and tomatoes. We can't have empty spots now can we?
Here is a shot of a regal black which has a pepper, and the mighty douglah which has taken to its new home just fine.

Finally, another thing I just tried tonight, I've been listening to some stuff on permaculture and homesteading and they use a lot of seed mixes for their stuff for bio diversity and to just throw down a mix and see what grows. Also, the empty space is taken up - if you don't fill it, nature will (ie weeds). So, I made a mix of dill, oregano, basil, catnip, chamomile, and cilantro and scattered them between my tomato plants and between a few pepper plants. Those are all decent companion plants for peppers and tomatoes, except the dill, which apparently attracts tomato worms. But some of the other stuff attracts bugs that kill those worms anyway, so I thought I'd try it. I'm curious how that will work out.

Ok, I have more, but I am not sure that I'll be allowed to post more pics, so maybe later.

Thanks for reading, sorry for the novel length update, but it's been awhile...

PaulG · May 23, 2012

Great update, Andy - your garden beds are right on, great to
have room for 154 pepper plants plus 'normal' stuff! And you have a pod shot :dance:

You're rollin', now, my friend! Just stand back and watch them grow!
Enjoy your 'new' garden, Andy!

romy6 · May 23, 2012

Wow Andy great stuff man. With all that tender love and care,your plants are gonna give you more pods than you know what to do with.

Thanks for the update!

Pr0digal_son · May 23, 2012

I usually only hit my knees once in the am and once in the pm,but somdays it feels like I need to 152 times! Hope your hard work pays off. Much deserved.

jsschrstrcks · May 23, 2012

I'm definitely going to be watching to see how the quadruple row turns out, I did double rows IE PPxxPPxxPPxxPP with the x's being a walk way and P's being plants. PPPPxxPPPP would give me more room for plants. I'm wondering how much more difficult it will be come harvest time. Mine are a bit closer together at 1' north/south, and 18 inches east west. They did as I hoped and grew into each others way making a solid row of peppers. The theory being that if I get hit by a hurricane, the plants will help support each other.

Although, if a hurricane comes, I may defoliate them, pick all the pods, and let nature take its course. I think they can come back from having their leaves plucked out, but they are less likely to survive having their stem broken off at the ground, or being pulled up by the roots.

MGOLD86 · May 23, 2012

Now THAT is an UPDATE! Great looking plot and I am waiting for the post that starts..."So a neighbor knocked on my door today and said, my son took one of your vegetables off a plant and now he is in the fetal position on the bathroom floor covered in milk, hard candy, bread, water, and tears...So I told her to take a picture and email it to the rest of the neighborhood so they know not to mess with the Pulpiteer!"

Also, I called my dad to see if he got lost on the way over (I gave directions) and he said he must have double dug your NEIGHBOR'S garden by accident....sry!

mygrassisblue · May 23, 2012

Great Glog glad I dropped by !

Pulpiteer · May 24, 2012

PaulG said:
Great update, Andy - your garden beds are right on, great to
have room for 154 pepper plants plus 'normal' stuff! And you have a pod shot

You're rollin', now, my friend! Just stand back and watch them grow!
Enjoy your 'new' garden, Andy!

Thanks Paul! I am thankful for the room I have, although, I think I've pushed my yard space to its limit. I do hope I didn't disappoint you too much with my lack of double digging, but I did try to do it for each hole individually

And I will be enjoying watching them grow!

romy6 said:
Wow Andy great stuff man. With all that tender love and care,your plants are gonna give you more pods than you know what to do with.

Thanks for the update!

Thanks Jamie, I appreciate it. And yeah, I am not sure what I'm going to do with all the pods.

Pr0digal_son said:
I usually only hit my knees once in the am and once in the pm,but somdays it feels like I need to 152 times! Hope your hard work pays off. Much deserved.

I hope it pays off too. Although should that much prayer result in more burning :neutral:

jsschrstrcks said:
I'm definitely going to be watching to see how the quadruple row turns out, I did double rows IE PPxxPPxxPPxxPP with the x's being a walk way and P's being plants. PPPPxxPPPP would give me more room for plants. I'm wondering how much more difficult it will be come harvest time. Mine are a bit closer together at 1' north/south, and 18 inches east west. They did as I hoped and grew into each others way making a solid row of peppers. The theory being that if I get hit by a hurricane, the plants will help support each other.

Although, if a hurricane comes, I may defoliate them, pick all the pods, and let nature take its course. I think they can come back from having their leaves plucked out, but they are less likely to survive having their stem broken off at the ground, or being pulled up by the roots.

Man I'm glad I don't have to worry about hurricanes... Yeah, the quadruple row was basically an effort to squeeze as many peppers in as possible and still have a chance at walking in between some rows. Although, if things go well, I may have trouble getting in there at all. I had them 4 across last year and harvest could be a bit challenging, but overall it was doable. We'll see this year. Thanks for checking in!

MGOLD86 said:
Now THAT is an UPDATE! Great looking plot and I am waiting for the post that starts..."So a neighbor knocked on my door today and said, my son took one of your vegetables off a plant and now he is in the fetal position on the bathroom floor covered in milk, hard candy, bread, water, and tears...So I told her to take a picture and email it to the rest of the neighborhood so they know not to mess with the Pulpiteer!"

Also, I called my dad to see if he got lost on the way over (I gave directions) and he said he must have double dug your NEIGHBOR'S garden by accident....sry!

I'm glad it was up to snuff Matt, I was afraid of more threats if I did it wrong :lol:

. If a neighbor kid takes a pepper I just want to see it, really really bad. I wondered who that was digging out a garden at my neighbors. Dang it. He's a machine.

mygrassisblue said:
Great Glog glad I dropped by !

Thanks blue grass! I'm glad you dropped by as well!

Ok, so I got some more pics. I was in the garden tonight as I normally am in the evening now, and I was taking pictures when the neighbor kid, he's in college, asked me if I lost my mind. I told him I had a long time ago. He then gave me some good natured grief about taking pictures of my pepper plants because he kind of does think I'm a bit off. Keep in mind, I'm in a small rural town, a pastor that basically looks like a hippy, who has been growing *something* inside this winter as evidenced by the grow lights emanating from the house, illuminating part of the street on one side, so when I'm out in the yard I've almost completely tilled up, all the way to the sidewalk, wearing a do-rag, well... there's a bit of a case built against me. So my only real defense was to challenge him to eat some peppers when they came in and he said he was game. To be continued...

Here are some pod pics:

This is either an aji lemon or aji pineapple, couldn't remember

Here's the douglah

Red Mushroom

Red Scotch Bonnet

Chinese 5 Color flower and tiny pod

And here is a different shot of the garden - here you can see the tomato section on the right, and the pepper plot on the left

Finally, it's not all been smooth sailing. We had wind today and lots of sun and heat, so some plants are wilting and sun scorched. I've lost several leaves. But once the roots take hold I think I'll be set. Just a matter of keeping them alive while they adjust.

Thanks for reading!

PaulG · May 24, 2012

Hey, Andy, I really like the corner shot of the garden; really gives
a good idea of what a ~~riduculously large~~ nice sized garden with
a~~n insane amount~~ great variety of peppers you've got going!

Keep us posted on the neighbor story. Good for you for shaking up
the community a little. I grew up in ruralsville, and one thing they
can use is a little breath of fresh air once in a while. You go, hippy pastor!

Good growing, bud!

Pulpiteer · May 31, 2012

Ok, a quick update since it's been several days. First off, we are hurting for rain. I've been watering quite a bit just to get everything acclimated. The peppers are doing well for the most part, but there are several plants that are looking worse for the wear after a sudden hardening off and now being in full sun for much of the day. Tonight's low is supposed to be 37, so hopefully it won't go below that... I'm just fretting until they all get settled into their new digs. Once those roots take hold and new growth is exploding out I'll feel much better.

Ok, first in the category of "not peppers"

Here is my herb garden in the front of the house. Many of them are perennials from last year, which is cool because they got off to a great start this year.
Left to right: stevia, lemon balm, taragon, lemon thyme, garlic chives, sage, chamomile, rosemary, thyme, peppermint, fennel, some sort of red bush that was there when I moved in and that you can't eat.

Here are some Asiatic Lilies that are from one of the first churches I served. I always kind of liked them so one sweet lady from that church sent me some bulbs in the mail.

Here is a shot of one of the three Yellow Manzanos I am growing (thanks again Hooda!)

Here is a Chinese 5 Color (Aji Joe) and you can see two things: the pepper and the scorched leaves from adjusting to the outside. Overall that plant is doing well.

I'm pretty excited about this one - the Red Rocoto put out a ton of flowers right after I planted it. They bloomed, but I wasn't sure if any would take. Well, some did. Here's a baby Rocoto. I hope it grows decent. I'm excited.

And now for a rough shot. Like I mentioned, some plants are struggling with the shock of the whole adjustment. The worst few tend to look like this Naga Morich. It's lost a lot of leaves. Others are scorched. But it's still standing tall and hanging in there. I have faith that these plants will bounce back once they adjust. So I watch them very closely, every day, on my way to work and back, so see how they are doing, because a watched pot always boils... right?

Alright, I've gotta go to bed.

Thanks for reading!

Andy

romy6 · May 31, 2012

Love your Garden Andy! I need to show my wife it. She may be a little easier on me about mine. You are a very lucky man!! :dance:

jsschrstrcks · May 31, 2012

well brother, the only problem I see with your garden... Too many tomatoes

think of all the extra peppers you could squeeze in there next year in their place

You can always tell your wife that tomatoes are freely available at the grocery store. Not so with Butch T and so forth. IF she gives you too much of a hard time, mention your deep seated desire to move to florida - there are parts of florida that rank up there with the 10/40 window in terms of being reached (I live in one them actually).

I'm joking of course. But the unreached part is true

acc to a SBC report I read a year or two ago, Miami, followed by parts of the bay area are something like .5% reached.

Sethsquatch · May 31, 2012

Looking good. I would pluck those (and any) leaves that are touching the ground. Get all the damaged stuff off so the plants can focus on new growth. It worked for me here. Just a thought. I'm digging your grow, keep it up!

Pepper-Guru · May 31, 2012

Hell yea! Yard o Peppers! Thats what Im talking about! Grass!? We don't need no stinking grass! lol Good job man. Thats gonna be a jungle in a month or two!

Pulpiteer · May 31, 2012

romy6 said:
Love your Garden Andy! I need to show my wife it. She may be a little easier on me about mine. You are a very lucky man!!

Thanks Jamie. Yeah my wife is wonderfully supportive (and honestly she's great anyway). Plus she likes the stuffed bell peppers and fresh tomatoes as well as the canning I do. Nothing like fresh veggies from the garden! Another thing is there isn't really a spot in the yard for the kids to play too much - and that's really the real problem we'd have is if I wanted to till up a play area. And hey, if a pic of my garden can help you expand yours, I'm all for it!

jsschrstrcks said:
well brother, the only problem I see with your garden... Too many tomatoes think of all the extra peppers you could squeeze in there next year in their place

You can always tell your wife that tomatoes are freely available at the grocery store. Not so with Butch T and so forth. IF she gives you too much of a hard time, mention your deep seated desire to move to florida - there are parts of florida that rank up there with the 10/40 window in terms of being reached (I live in one them actually).

I'm joking of course. But the unreached part is true acc to a SBC report I read a year or two ago, Miami, followed by parts of the bay area are something like .5% reached.

Nice. I do love the tomatoes though. I mean salsa from stuff from the garden, can't beat it. So what I really need is a couple of acres, then it won't matter, right? Ahh maybe someday. Hey, if I remember right you've got quite a spread with a large variety as well, right? The move to Florida, you see, even though the growing season would be awesome, you have so many stinkin poisonous things down there, snakes and what not. Plus no autumn. Crazy stats about Miami though. Interesting. I think there's a shift nationally anyway where it's increasingly post-Christian, which will provide some interesting opportunities for ministry that adapts and meets people where they're at.

Sethsquatch said:
Looking good. I would pluck those (and any) leaves that are touching the ground. Get all the damaged stuff off so the plants can focus on new growth. It worked for me here. Just a thought. I'm digging your grow, keep it up!

I did some pruning just a bit ago, following the advice of the mighty Squatch

It was easier to do because I could see some new growth on most of the nodes, so I knew how it could look in a few weeks. Thanks for stopping in!

Pepper-Guru said:
Hell yea! Yard o Peppers! Thats what Im talking about! Grass!? We don't need no stinking grass! lol Good job man. Thats gonna be a jungle in a month or two!

Thanks Guru! Yeah, it should be a yard o' peppers when it all grows out. And a garden always beats grass. I mean, you just mow and then it grows, then you mow, and you get nothing out of the whole deal. Thanks for stopping in!

MGOLD86 · Jun 1, 2012

I wish I could give the rain we have been getting to you! It has been crazy for us here on the East Coast. Tropical Storms, High Winds, you name it!

But I wouldn't worry much about the reaction and the weather. I had about a week of sub 40 night temps, and mine were much smaller than yours were when they went out. Give em a few weeks and then all of a sudden they will break out. Some of mine are actually STILL coming around, but I wouldn't worry, they are gonna start to love the ground!