Rookie / Noob from Southern California

Milk With Pulp

Milk With Pulp

Been interested in gardening and now currently in the learning curve process.

Bought a few peppers and tomatoes and starting from seed, as well as watermelon.
Any information / tips / advice for growing in the desert would be appreciated. Palmdale, Calfornia to be exact, always hot, get a lot of wind from time to time, winters aren't very cold, not many below freezing days at all if any.

Currently have - Aji Lemon Drop , Red Savina, Scotch Bonnet, Yellow Bhut Jolokia, Beefstake Tomatoe, Charleston Grey Watermelon, Sugar Baby Watermelon, Hillbilly Tomatoe, Hawaiin Pineapple Tomatoe,

Honestly, my first time ever growing anything and still have a lot to learn, germinating, growing, light cycles. I've been reading and watching many youtube channels just trying to learn and understand, took the chance and started a few and learned so far from a few bad starts on some items but it's all part of learning for gardening.

Look forward to reading all the good posts, get all the information I can and help better myself to grow some tasty new peppers and make some salsa, this year and next.
 
Welcome from............ The other side of the ....... ANTELOPE VALLEY!!! (Antelope Acres)

Yep, wind, heat, sand, tumbleweeds.... extreme gardening conditions :)

Just a bit of personal experience.... get some cherry tomatoes, and maybe plum size tomatoes... I have had better production and quality with those than the bigger fruits. They seem to take the heat better with less splitting/cracking.
 
I will definitely give it a shot, I am building the raised garden bed this week on my day off and getting my soil from California Rock Quarry the compost for now, haven't found many nurseries in the area for a good base compost, Seen they have a potting mix sandy loam mix which I was debating on as well or just a pure compost only.

Completely new to everything gardening and just figuring everything out the hard way and thank you. Will take a look into them and I was debating on cherry tomatoes as well since they are good to toss in salsa, family loves them too.
 
Oh, also, check out my grow log for how I deal with growing here...
But beware, there are a lot of pages in it...lol

http://thehotpepper.com/topic/37813-desertchris-high-desert-extreme-gardening-glog/

Feel free to ask anything you want, and i'll try to help :)

Milk With Pulp said:
I will definitely give it a shot, I am building the raised garden bed this week on my day off and getting my soil from California Rock Quarry the compost for now, haven't found many nurseries in the area for a good base compost, Seen they have a potting mix sandy loam mix which I was debating on as well or just a pure compost only.

Completely new to everything gardening and just figuring everything out the hard way and thank you. Will take a look into them and I was debating on cherry tomatoes as well since they are good to toss in salsa, family loves them too.
Click to expand...
I use cherry tomatoes for salsa, spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce....they grow great here.
For me, Beefsteak types seem to just take up space and produce far smaller volume.... but if you have them in a shaded area they may do better than out in the open here in the acres.

Also, get your pepper seeds germinating quickly, if you haven't already! First frost is around early to mid november, and it'll kill em dead instantly!
 
I started a few, I may have rushed into a few of them just for the excitement, always seems to happen on new hobbies. Currently now taking the time to read, understand, I may have let some get too leggy and had the light too far away, some items got leggy, more so my fault for not having proper setup.

Should of put only hot peppers in to germinate, then other items in a different propigation dome so the peppers would sprout together and the watermelons which I had no idea would germinate so fast would not have to be taken out and put into cups, they should of had light on them the same day but I had to get a new fixture. :rolleyes: 

Anything I got going now will be ready and have proper hangers for the light. Might build a PVC hanger to have lights for the top shelf then daisy chain my next lights.
 
I use peat pellets in a dome... as soon as they pop, I put em in cups of soil under lights.
No lights needed for the germination dome.
So just use the lights for the ones that have sprouted.
This time of year, I give em a couple days under the lights, then put them outside for the real sunshine.

On the leggy ones, just bury them almost up to the cotyledons (seed leaves), and they should be fine :)
I have left em in the dome too long before, when I got too busy to get em in cups quickly, and had a few leggy ones.
That's an easy fix, and the buried stem will grow roots, so no big deal.

Shoot, right now it is warm enough, you can germinate them, then get em in cups of soil and stick them right in the partial (or full) sun, out on the back porch.

Anyways, come check out my glog, and/or start a glog for your garden, and lots of folks will help you out with any questions you have.
Otherwise, I am going to fill your welcome thread with advice... hahahahaha
 
Will do, appreciate some of the help already.
Going to build the garden bed and buy the compost this week hopefully. Need to possibly build a separate bed for the watermelons since they might take up the 4x8 area I have.
Going to buy 2 - 4 foot HO t-5s this week or at least 1 for now. I have a 2ft  2 light t5 and it does alright but need more light for all the seedlings
 
Yeah, melons sprawl out and take some space. And you'll need some room to have those, tomatoes and peppers.

If I was you I would save your money instead of buying lights just yet. (You can get them later, to use next season to start seeds in january for a jumpstart)
It is warm at night, so your seedlings can go straight from the trays into cups of soil and put outside in the sun (which is better than any electric light!)
I use fruit boxes from costco to hold all the cups...there are boxes of seedlings in cups all over our porch right now...lol
And that is after I already planted half of them in the ground.

Like this :)

IMAG1751_zps4b471223.jpg
 
:welcome: from the garden state. I am growing those three tomato plants for the first time as well. Buy a shade cloth they work great.
 
Hey Milk,
I should have said "Kind of like this photo" lol It was late and I was falling asleep :)
I wasn't telling you to hit the "Like This" button. But thank you.

Anyway, Welcome, you can learn anything you want to know here!
There are tons of extremely skilled gardeners here.
And I am super happy to come across someone else brave enough to garden in our area!!
 
Welcome to the best pepper place anywhere! I`m in north county San Diego. so a lot easier growing conditions than you have.
 
You have pretty extreme conditions in Palmdale, but DesertChris grows in very similar conditions, so he can help you a lot. Good luck with growing this year
 
Nigel said:
Welcome to the best pepper place anywhere! I`m in north county San Diego. so a lot easier growing conditions than you have.
 
You have pretty extreme conditions in Palmdale, but DesertChris grows in very similar conditions, so he can help you a lot. Good luck with growing this year
Click to expand...
I was raised in San Diego, All my relatives live down there too.
You guys have awesome conditions for gardening!

Yep, I am just about 15 miles North of Palmdale.... I'll have to check my seeds and see what I have left.
I might have a couple things of interest for Milk :)
I tend to sow every seed I get my hands on but there might be something good left...

I do have a couple (5} Speckled Roman Tomato seedlings ready to go, and could probably spare a couple chinense seedlings too, since I haven't put them in the ground yet. The Annuums Are all planted though.

I'll send a pm and hook Milk up a little bit ;)
 
Milk With Pulp said:
I will definitely give it a shot, I am building the raised garden bed this week on my day off and getting my soil from California Rock Quarry the compost for now, haven't found many nurseries in the area for a good base compost, Seen they have a potting mix sandy loam mix which I was debating on as well or just a pure compost only.

Completely new to everything gardening and just figuring everything out the hard way and thank you. Will take a look into them and I was debating on cherry tomatoes as well since they are good to toss in salsa, family loves them too.
Click to expand...
Hi from N. Cali, 
 
I would mix 50% sandy loam mix with the compost. The compost could be to hot at first so it would be best to fill the beads and water and let sit for two weeks or put a plant in and see how it does for a few days before planting them all.  After that just add more Compost to your soil, that's what I been doing for three, going on 4 years. 
 
:welcome:  from sunny South Florida!  :woohoo:
 
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