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rhm3769 2015 Glog - few pics....

Some kind of update is needed here....

I started this adventure back in 2012 growing white habs and Butch t's in containers on an 8th floor balcony. Mostly beginner's luck on that season.
2013 didnt work out as good, I moved and ended up with quite a few 4'x4' beds, alot of mystery mixes and dealing with horn worms and gophers.... 2014 was another move and I was reduced to a single 8'x5' raised bed. Transplants and some attempted over winters from 2013, nothing survived, but I had tomatoes growing like weeds from the compost pile. 2014 was cut short by a midyear move. I started a super chili in a solo cup and managed to get a few from it before the so cal "cold" moved in and I moved yet again.

2015, just relocated to North Carolina, got some small areas in the yard for a bit of gardening. Just put seeds in starting mix in a tray.

A mix of mystery sweets, hoping for 2 plants
Datil
7 pot Douglah, red
Rocoto Amarillo
A variety I acquired in Okinawa, Japan
C01225
C04392
TC07246

As a side project, I'm trying to get my son into gardening, so I have some cucumbers and he insisted on some dwarf sunflowers.

I'm looking at getting everything outside either in the ground or in pots sometime early april.
 
Click to expand...
Didn't get the other two in the bed last night.... Had some Forrest Bump storm move through and some odd reason, it missed my neighborhood....
 
srDRsR8.jpg
 
The intention was to make it easily moveable since we're moving in February.... The two halves are not attached so I can just pick up a side and go. When we get somewhere more permanent I'll make it bigger and more sturdy. It works for right now, as it is, so I'm happy....
And, as I found out in my rush to get it together and outside, I didn't have to level the ground, where the two halves meet, there's sort of a dip in the ground and the frame adjusted itself to the ground....

Thats the biggest of the 3 chocolate habs in there. Put it in last night so we'll see how it goes....

From the starting tray, I have 4 visible hooks, more if it poke around and move some of the starting mix....

Right now,the bed gets direct sun from about 9 am to just about an hour before sunset, so about 10 hours.... Last week or so, we've had summer temps, 60s at night and 90s during the day....
 
Lost one to sunburn, possibly a second.... Figured a day or two without sun would not be a reason for hardening off, but I guess it is....
No visible growth with the chocolate habs since they went into the beds, but the roots have been spreading....
Non-pepper related, the cucumbers seem to be working on root growth as well, all 4 have the first set of true leaves and they are slowly slowly slowly working on the second.... Tomatoes are developing the first round of flowers and the basil is strange.... It has the typical basil scent with hints of mint....
 
And I'm back down to only 3 chocolate hab seedlings.... A random thunderstorm came through in the middle of the night, flooded my tray of new starts.... Wasn't supposed to rain, last I checked....
Sowing some more tonight, directly in the bed....
 
So the two survived the flooded tray and they're in the bed now.... 15 minutes and then they were trampled by the four year old thinking it was fun to get dirty and then jump in his pool and the grass just wasn't getting him covered enough so he had to go through the raised bed....

Moved a tomato and cucumber into the bed as well since I'm not getting anything close to what I had hoped pepper-wise when I planned an 8'*4' bed....
 
So, its been awhile.... Not much going on with the peppers, looks like 3 chocolate habs with one not growing and three bells, if they can survive plus one from my random mix of seeds in the tray that popped a few days ago.... Judging by the cotyledons, its not annum or chinense so we'll see.... Tomatoes are fruiting and cucumbers are taking off....
 
Took a few pics the other day, will be getting those up today or tomorrow....

Still only have the three chocolate habs, tomatoes and cucumbers....
 
This record heat around Charlotte, NC is brutal.... Sunburnt leaves on plants that have been outside in full sun for at least a month, weeds are dying, even a sub tropical climate plant I bought the wife isn't liking upper 90s and 100s....
Cucumbers are growing like crazy, as long as I can get out there to water them once it starts cooling off a bit before sunset....

The coolest its been this week was upper 60s over night, its been mid 70s by the time I'm leaving for work at 7 and upper 90s around noon well into sunset.... Wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't all of a sudden, or if there was rain or it cooled down a bit more at night....
 
http://imgur.com/a/MUALP
Chocolate hab with a wasp stealing my cedar....
Same chocolate hab about to flower....
Crazy tomato plant I pulled up, noticed it had a good amount of roots still attached and decided to plant in the raised bed when it was only a foot tall and just started branching and flowering, didn't think it'd make it because the cucumber just in front of it was struggling and I was losing all but two pepper plants at the same time.... Staked it instead of caging it, had a few days with high winds late afternoon, lots of rain, possibly hail from some of the damage to leaves after the storms, it quickly became too bushy to manage.... Loaded with tomatoes, spread covers most of the width of the bed....
 
Made it through the first round of flowers dropping, then something eating through the flowers before they were ready to open, now I have at least one so far with a pod.

Cleaned up the bed a bit over the weekend, pulled the one plant that was beyond recovering, found out why it took them so long to grow once I put they in the bed.... They put everything into spreading the roots, they went pretty deep and were thick.
 
Will be adding a few pics throughout the day. Have about a dozen pods on one chocolate hab plant, a few are starting the waiting to ripen game.

Made a post a bit ago about finding a great golden digger wasp setting up residence in the raised bed, the hole only stayed for a few days, no other sightings of the wasp, either. As soon as the hole closed, I've had frequent sightings of a cow killer, but mostly around the cucumber and tomato on the other end of the bed.
I have seen a different wasp crawling over the Chocolate hab plant and one skinning a caterpillar. Wasps are the major force in pest control in my garden this year, just need something to come in and combat whatever it is attacking the cucumber leaves....
 
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