Sawyer '14 - Seed Offer

JoeFish · Jul 21, 2014

Going to get warmer soon. You ready Sawyer?

Sawyer · Jul 22, 2014

I think so. Today looks to be the hottest day of the year here, and at that, it's only supposed to get to the lower 90s. I can handle that. As long as the nighttime temperatures continue to get down into the upper 60s/lower 70s, I think the peppers will do well, too. Hopefully, the predicted rain will come through tomorrow.

One good thing about the deer eating all my other vegetables is that she's been leaving the peppers alone. I also sprayed everything with a super-concentrated pepper spray and at least for the time being, she's left everything alone. (Too little, too late for some of the winter squash.)

Edit: corrected subject-verb number error

Devv · Jul 22, 2014

Playing catch up here John. Sorry to read about the critters. I plant more as I have to share with rabbits, birds and bugs

. One thing I'm lucky about is no deer enter the garden.

Hope the weather hangs for ya!

HillBilly Jeff · Jul 22, 2014

You know your bugs!!! I don't think my black berries are going to make. Not sure why unless it was the winter. Raspberries did well. Good luck on your grow...white DT are looking great.

Sawyer · Jul 29, 2014

Devv said:
Playing catch up here John. Sorry to read about the critters. I plant more as I have to share with rabbits, birds and bugs . One thing I'm lucky about is no deer enter the garden.

Hope the weather hangs for ya!

Thanks, Scott. I guess I'm going to have to take out the deer. She has absolutely destroyed the pole beans, winter squash, carrots, beets, cucumbers, tomatoes, and sunflowers. Parts of the garden look and smell like a stock yard from all the deer droppings. By not making the pepper spray strong enough at times, I think I've acclimated her to the heat. This deer is a chilihead!

Here's the forecast for the next 7 days:

Couldn't ask for much better. I really need the rain, so hopefully the forecast is right about that.

HillBilly Jeff said:
You know your bugs!!! I don't think my black berries are going to make. Not sure why unless it was the winter. Raspberries did well. Good luck on your grow...white DT are looking great.

Thanks, Jeff, not as well as I should, though. I've been killing those pink spotted ladybugs for years and years, never realizing they were good guys. Better late than never, I guess. I have more of them than the regular orange spotted ladybugs. I got a couple of gallons of blackberries, but other than stuffing my face with them, I didn't do anything with them. I gave a bunch away. Never found a blackberry pepper jelly recipe I really liked.

Finally! I'm starting to get pods. I'll have more pictures to post later, but here's a pic of some MoA pods:

A couple of those look pretty close to "A" shape, too, but I can't tell for sure from this photo. I have 5 of these plants in-ground; this one is the most advanced.

The plant pictured in a previous post that I was musing might be a volunteer tomatillo is simply a native Physalis (ground cherry). I'm not yet sure of the species and I may have two different species.

The window in the husk wasn't my doing, but I like it.

Here's a pic comparing potato onions (left) to shallots (right):

The onions should be larger, but I didn't fertilize them adequately. The onions are single bulbs whereas the shallots have multiple cloves per bulb.

I dug my elephant garlic. I'll have more pics later, but I wanted to show this now:

A tine of the digging fork pierced a bulb. Sometimes elephant garlic doesn't form a normal multi-clove bulb, but a large, single bulb/clove. This is one of the latter, with no onion-like layering, just a solid mass of delicious garlic.

I finally got some half-way decent apples from one of my relatively new trees.

Might be Liberty, but I need to look up the plat to be sure. I had, from East to West, Gala, (Liberty or something), William's Pride, (something or Liberty), Fuji. The Gala died and the Fuji is too close to a silver maple canopy to do well.

HillBilly Jeff · Jul 29, 2014

Love the pics and the little window into the husk. Apples sure look nice. Your MoA are looking really nice too. Some classic pods in there.

Devv · Jul 29, 2014

Things are looking good John!

The MoA's are going to turn out well.

I grew Elephant Garlic when I lived in Magnolia, Texas, and they did really well. That was close to 30 years ago. I think I planted them in the spring if I'm not mistaken. I tried growing them here and treated them like "regular garlic" planting in late Sept. and they failed. Do you treat them differently from regular garlic? I would really like to make them work here...

Keep it green!

stickman · Jul 29, 2014

You've got some good looking pods John! And the onions and Elephant Garlic aren't shabby either.

Hope the weather has steadied down to where you need it to set more pods...

GA Growhead · Jul 29, 2014

Yeah John! What little you have shown looks good. Sorry to hear about your deer adoption. Sound like you have really been taking care of her though.

I really need some rain too! I have to water daily. The opposite side of the yard is rock hard. The wild weeds off the roads are wilting.
We had a few good rain blast hit the Atlanta area, but they all scooted right below or above me. Only a sprinkle or two here at the house. Adam has gotten plenty though.

OCD Chilehead · Jul 29, 2014

Good looking pods John. Love the garlic. Planning on growing it for the first time. Might sound like a dumb question but, do you plant garlic in the Fall?

Sawyer · Jul 30, 2014

HillBilly Jeff said:
Love the pics and the little window into the husk. Apples sure look nice. Your MoA are looking really nice too. Some classic pods in there.

Thanks, Jeff. I gotta look up what those apples are. They have a very delicious flavor that reminds me of something, but unlike any store-bought apples I can think of. Firm, crisp, and very sweet, the flesh is almost translucent.

Devv said:
Things are looking good John!

The MoA's are going to turn out well.

I grew Elephant Garlic when I lived in Magnolia, Texas, and they did really well. That was close to 30 years ago. I think I planted them in the spring if I'm not mistaken. I tried growing them here and treated them like "regular garlic" planting in late Sept. and they failed. Do you treat them differently from regular garlic? I would really like to make them work here...

Keep it green!

Thanks, Scott. I didn't mention before, but those MoAs are from seed I saved from my own plants last year. I noticed today one of the other plants has similarly shaped pods. The other three don't have pods, yet.

Up until the severe drought of '11-'12, the elephant garlic sort of took care of itself. I'd leave it in the ground and it would come back the next year on its own. I almost lost it during the drought years (and did lose my regular garlic), and barely stabilized it last year. I treat it more or less like regular garlic... meaning I try to plant some in the fall and some in the late winter/early spring. It does have some quirks, though (the large single bulb pictured above being one). Once I get some pictures of the harvest, I'll post them and say more. (Oh, and I honestly don't remember when I planted it this time... mid-winter, I think.)

stickman said:
You've got some good looking pods John! And the onions and Elephant Garlic aren't shabby either.

Hope the weather has steadied down to where you need it to set more pods...

Hi, Rick, thanks. I guess there's a front headed this way, because the high for tomorrow is predicted to be 73, with lows around 60 over the next couple of nights, along with rain. With lows in the low to mid 60s and highs creeping back up to the mid 80s, I don't think I could ask for better pepper weather.

GA Growhead said:
Yeah John! What little you have shown looks good. Sorry to hear about your deer adoption. Sound like you have really been taking care of her though.
I really need some rain too! I have to water daily. The opposite side of the yard is rock hard. The wild weeds off the roads are wilting.
We had a few good rain blast hit the Atlanta area, but they all scooted right below or above me. Only a sprinkle or two here at the house. Adam has gotten plenty though.

Yeah, Jason, she's a demanding little... doe. She likes to snort at me when I'm spraying the pepper/garlic spray. I missed spraying one squash plant yesterday; it was gone today.

I've been watering something every day for a week or so now. My rows are raised up and I flood the middles (sort of the inverse of Scott's method). I imagine the water sinks in deep, spreads under the row, and encourages the plants in the raised rows to send roots deep to where the moisture is. Seems to work. I was weeding one row today that hadn't received that treatment and some of the grass was dead. You know it's dry when the weeds start dying.

I see the same thing here, rain to the north, rain to the south, but no rain for me. I've seen storms headed straight for me split and go by on both sides of me. Sometimes that's a good thing. This is not one of those times.

OCD Chilehead said:
Good looking pods John. Love the garlic. Planning on growing it for the first time. Might sound like a dumb question but, do you plant garlic in the Fall?

Hey, Chuck, thanks for stopping in. You'll hear some people swear up and down you have to plant garlic in the fall; a smaller number will swear up and down you have to wait for spring. I've tried both and which works best depends on the weather. Around here we'll often get a warm spell in the winter, and fall-planted garlic will start growing. If there's a hard freeze soon after, it can kill back the new growth. If that happens often enough, the bulbs lose their energy and the garlic dies. On the other hand, if spring is short and summer comes more or less on the heels of winter, late winter-/early spring-planted garlic won't have time to make before the summer heat sets in. These days, I like to split my stock and plant some in the fall and some in the early spring, and maybe some in mid-winter, if I think of it. Always leaving the best-keeping bulbs for the later plantings.

annie57 · Jul 31, 2014

Ditto on the EE garlic, John. I've got the wood, reclaimed pallets, just have to kill some Maple root for larger garlic bed. Plant fall and winter, dividing and where I did live (and left them because moved in spring) EE multiplied like Irises. Plant a few once, cover with mulch and it "just happens." Gorgeous shots of MoA and nons, man! Beautiful apples!

Devv · Aug 1, 2014

I like the way 'yall double up on the garlic planting, this way crop failure is less likely. Here, I put them in the dirt around 9-25, they have time to get established to handle a freeze if that even happens. It seems like you leave some in the ground to regenerate for the following season? Can't do that here, I pull them in June, so they have around a 9 month grow, and start a new batch in the fall. Which seems to be quickly approaching!

Pulpiteer · Aug 4, 2014

I was just able to look over the last few pages, but wow, what a cool read. I like the ways you are approaching things! The weeds as living mulch - I'm kind of reduced to that this year since I couldn't get enough wood mulch in. I think the living mulch, encouraging the good plants, etc is a great way to go. What benefits does vetch bring? I've heard about people using it a lot, but not sure exactly why. I must have missed it - are you growing your own bamboo? I think using that stuff for stakes and trellises is a great idea too. There is all sorts of need for stuff like that in a garden. Those blackberries... yum.

kgetpeppers · Aug 4, 2014

Nice looking plants!

PaulG · Aug 4, 2014

+1 everybody! Nice grow going threw, John!

gnslngr · Aug 4, 2014

Sawman!
Nice peruse the happenings.....how are the NWYBhuts? Despite a high casualty rate , I have 2 in the ground , and a reservist still in a gallon pot.I stuck to agenda of no closer spacing than 24", and a few at 30". I can say that makes em bigger targets for the eatie crawlies. I didn't get plant out till mid June , and the garden gets full sun from 11ish to 1630, the dead over head kind.Even after hardening off a good bit ....that sun was a mofo, dead in 2 hours in some cases!! Plenty of reinforcements , then ofcourse , as they say, "The Rains Came...", the aphids emerged from the earth that was drowning them ,along with their overseers , ants.So, supposedly its drying up a bit...we'll see come Friday, when I see how fast Houston can shrink in rear view.
I don't think that plant is a Black Naga(the pic), the leaves would be bigger and pods different.Unless it was cheating on me with a Bhut Cardi Scorp Cross :mope:

.
I'm do an update before I shag off homeward bound.....fingers crossed.
Have a good one-
Dave

Sawyer · Aug 20, 2014

Thanks to all who have been checking in here, and apologies for being such a slacker. I finally have something to show! I'll get that in a minute, but first a few responses:

annie57 said:
Ditto on the EE garlic, John. I've got the wood, reclaimed pallets, just have to kill some Maple root for larger garlic bed. Plant fall and winter, dividing and where I did live (and left them because moved in spring) EE multiplied like Irises. Plant a few once, cover with mulch and it "just happens." Gorgeous shots of MoA and nons, man! Beautiful apples!

Hi, Annie. Thanks! Yeah, when it's happy, the elephant garlic is amazing. I harvested barely enough to plant for next year. May plant it all this fall and roll the dice. I wish I still had the regular garlic that would return on its own year after year. I got my start from my neighbor's garden, so maybe I can get a restart from there, too.

Devv said:
I like the way 'yall double up on the garlic planting, this way crop failure is less likely. Here, I put them in the dirt around 9-25, they have time to get established to handle a freeze if that even happens. It seems like you leave some in the ground to regenerate for the following season? Can't do that here, I pull them in June, so they have around a 9 month grow, and start a new batch in the fall. Which seems to be quickly approaching!

Hi, Scott. Leaving them in the ground started out more due to procrastination than intent. Once I discovered they would keep/reproduce that way, it became easier to justify. I dug everything this year, though. That part of the garden needs some serious winter cover-cropping to build it back up.

Pulpiteer said:
I was just able to look over the last few pages, but wow, what a cool read. I like the ways you are approaching things! The weeds as living mulch - I'm kind of reduced to that this year since I couldn't get enough wood mulch in. I think the living mulch, encouraging the good plants, etc is a great way to go. What benefits does vetch bring? I've heard about people using it a lot, but not sure exactly why. I must have missed it - are you growing your own bamboo? I think using that stuff for stakes and trellises is a great idea too. There is all sorts of need for stuff like that in a garden. Those blackberries... yum.

Hi, Andy, thanks for looking in. "Weeds as mulch" started out as a rationalization for not keeping on top of things as much as anything else, but it does have its advantages. Vetch is a legume, so it fixes nitrogen into the soil. The common garden vetch is also a very sparse grower this time of year, so it doesn't overwhelm the other plants. The chickweed has turned out to be a very good ground cover, not only for shading the soil and conserving moisture, but also for suppressing other weeds. The wild bean, another nitrogen-fixer, is more tolerant of summer weather than the vetch and I can tell it could overwhelm its support plants. I'll just snip the vines below the canopy if/when that happens and leave them in place. I learned the hard way not to try to pull them out; they twine tightly and will break limbs if pulled.

I do grow my own bamboo, as you can see in the following the pictures. It wasn't really intentional. My neighbor, from whom I bought this property, had started a small patch and I was under the mistaken impression it was one of our native river canes, so I encouraged it. It was only after it was very well established that I discovered it is the highly invasive golden bamboo. As you note, it is good for a lot of things, stakes, trellises, fishing poles, pan pipes, bamboo charcoal/biochar, concrete reinforcing rods, more.

kgetpeppers said:
Nice looking plants!

Thanks, Kurt!

PaulG said:
+1 everybody! Nice grow going threw, John!

Thanks, Paul!

gnslngr said:
Sawman!
Nice peruse the happenings.....how are the NWYBhuts? Despite a high casualty rate , I have 2 in the ground , and a reservist still in a gallon pot.I stuck to agenda of no closer spacing than 24", and a few at 30". I can say that makes em bigger targets for the eatie crawlies. I didn't get plant out till mid June , and the garden gets full sun from 11ish to 1630, the dead over head kind.Even after hardening off a good bit ....that sun was a mofo, dead in 2 hours in some cases!! Plenty of reinforcements , then ofcourse , as they say, "The Rains Came...", the aphids emerged from the earth that was drowning them ,along with their overseers , ants.So, supposedly its drying up a bit...we'll see come Friday, when I see how fast Houston can shrink in rear view.
I don't think that plant is a Black Naga(the pic), the leaves would be bigger and pods different.Unless it was cheating on me with a Bhut Cardi Scorp Cross .
I'm do an update before I shag off homeward bound.....fingers crossed.
Have a good one-
Dave

Thanks, Dave. I have, I think, seven NWYBs in the garden. Two of them have pods and neither are what we're looking for. I think at least a couple of folks have the correct pheno, though, so there is hope. These were the first plants I put out this year, along with Mike's EOB and some Brown Moruga from Judy. That whole row has been the poorest performer of all the chinenses. They just never recovered from the extended cool, wet spring. They're looking better now, so I have hope for a late crop.

On to some pictures. Here is my first pull of chinense:

Clockwise from 12:00, MoA, Scott's Funky Reaper, my Funky Reaper, Jay's Peach GS (from Jason, I have other plants from Dave), White Devil's Tongue (from both Jason and Dave), BJ Yellow, random knocked off green pods. The MoAs aren't very well shaped, but these are the first to ripen. Some of the green ones look better. Comparing Scott's and my FRs side by side only reinforces my opinion I should come up with something else to call mine. Scott is right about the productivity of his; these plants are just loaded up with pods. I haven't tasted any of these, yet, but I think the Jay's Peach will be the first. I just love that peach color. The DTW plants are short and squatty, but are very prolific, and very consistent. All the plants (5 each) and all the pods have the same phenotype. The BJ Yellow are from seeds saved last year from regular BJY from Judy. These look much more like the NWYBJ than the regular ones did last year, though. Last year, these were smoother, narrower and shorter. They were in pots last year, so maybe that's the difference. I haven't cut one open yet to see if it has the banana fragrance of the NWYB.

Here's an overview of the chinense patch looking toward the NE. I'm standing with my back to the blackberry patch, no more than 10' or so from the geometric center of the garden.

Same position looking almost due North:

And looking East:

Ten rows, 25 plants each row, to start. Due to various causes, I've lost about 10%. Not nearly what I had hoped to plant, but still better than last year for in-grounds. I have only a handful in pots. I have another 75 annuums in-ground, but they need more weeding before posing for pics.

capsidadburn · Aug 20, 2014

Great looking pods and spread of plants John! Look forward to more!

OCD Chilehead · Aug 20, 2014

Great looking pods. Awesome garden.

Thanks for sharing John