Sawyer '14 - Seed Offer

GA Growhead · Aug 20, 2014

Nice spread of plants!

JoeFish · Aug 20, 2014

That's a serious and great looking garden! I want one like that when I grow up.

Sawyer, what/when do you plant in the fall? I need some help.

Devv · Aug 20, 2014

I'm happy to see the plants looking so nice John!

Your F-Reaper from my seed grew out like mine did this season. The seeds I sent Adam grew out just like the mother plant. So some of the seeds are producing pods that have a wider shoulder, and less of the crunched up look. The F-Reaper I grew from your seeds looks just like the ones in your pics.

Keep it green buddy!

Sawyer · Aug 21, 2014

Thanks, guys!

JoeFish said:
That's a serious and great looking garden! I want one like that when I grow up.

Sawyer, what/when do you plant in the fall? I need some help.

Justin, I'm about 2 weeks behind schedule on getting my fall/winter garden planted, but it's not too late yet for most things. If we can get toward the latter part of October without a frost, then we have about 60 days. The deer have eaten all my pole beans, so I'm going to try a fall crop of these bush beans. Likewise with these cucumbers. I've never heard of anyone growing cucumbers in the fall, but I think I'll give it a try. Also going to try this squash. More traditional fall crops include radishes, mustard, beets, carrots, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, turnip, rutabaga, kohl rabi, chard, lettuce, kale, spinach, collards, arugula.

It's getting pretty late for broccoli, Brussel sprouts and cabbage unless you can find some plants. On the other hand, they can tolerate a light frost and especially for Brussel sprouts, a frost improves flavor. I'm going to try a few of each. It's also getting late for carrots, but even if the tops get knocked back by frost, they can sprout out and continue to grow when warmer weather returns. You can plant radishes now (keep them well-watered) and succession sow every couple of weeks right up to the end of September. The last couple of plantings, switch over to winter radishes. These will keep in the ground well into the winter, barring an extremely hard freeze (as will the carrots). Kale and rutabaga, in particular, are very frost hardy. Turnips, too, but to a somewhat lesser extent. I've had years where I harvested those all winter long from an uncovered planting. This chart should help with planting times.

Huh, I just copy/pasted that image and there it is. Do we no longer have to use an image host?

I sampled the peppers last night at my usual watering hole. Had a few others willing to try them, too. What surprised me the most was how mild the MoA was. Pieces from the side wall were so mild even folks that don't care for much heat were able to enjoy them. It set me up, though, because then I tried a (larger) piece with rib/placenta. Ouch. Perhaps because it was a larger piece, that hurt me the most. Triggered drooling, but no hiccups. Other than that, the hottest pepper was a toss up between Scott's FR and Jay's Peach. The Peach was the first I tried and it really kicked me in the pants. Only one other was willing to try it and he concurred. The heat grew gradually from the back of the throat forward and lasted a long time. Scott's FR was an immediate intense punch in the front of the mouth, but faded more quickly. You could tell it was going to hurt just from the continuous layer of placenta in the interior. Mine lacks that. The yellow BJ had the most fruity overtones, but was still dominated by heat. The Devil's Tongue were the mildest overall (expected, I guess), maybe a serrano-level heat? My FRs were probably next up in heat, though I don't think I tried a piece with much rib or placenta. I can't really say much about the flavors, except for the slightly greater fruitiness of the BJY. The DTW was noticeably different (good for stir-fry?), but the others all had the typical chinense flavor, to my uneducated palate.

JoeFish · Aug 21, 2014

Sawyer said:
Thanks, guys!

Justin, I'm about 2 weeks behind schedule on getting my fall/winter garden planted, but it's not too late yet for most things. If we can get toward the latter part of October without a frost, then we have about 60 days. The deer have eaten all my pole beans, so I'm going to try a fall crop of these bush beans. Likewise with these cucumbers. I've never heard of anyone growing cucumbers in the fall, but I think I'll give it a try. Also going to try this squash. More traditional fall crops include radishes, mustard, beets, carrots, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, turnip, rutabaga, kohl rabi, chard, lettuce, kale, spinach, collards, arugula.

It's getting pretty late for broccoli, Brussel sprouts and cabbage unless you can find some plants. On the other hand, they can tolerate a light frost and especially for Brussel sprouts, a frost improves flavor. I'm going to try a few of each. It's also getting late for carrots, but even if the tops get knocked back by frost, they can sprout out and continue to grow when warmer weather returns. You can plant radishes now (keep them well-watered) and succession sow every couple of weeks right up to the end of September. The last couple of plantings, switch over to winter radishes. These will keep in the ground well into the winter, barring an extremely hard freeze (as will the carrots). Kale and rutabaga, in particular, are very frost hardy. Turnips, too, but to a somewhat lesser extent. I've had years where I harvested those all winter long from an uncovered planting. This chart should help with planting times.

Huh, I just copy/pasted that image and there it is. Do we no longer have to use an image host?

I sampled the peppers last night at my usual watering hole. Had a few others willing to try them, too. What surprised me the most was how mild the MoA was. Pieces from the side wall were so mild even folks that don't care for much heat were able to enjoy them. It set me up, though, because then I tried a (larger) piece with rib/placenta. Ouch. Perhaps because it was a larger piece, that hurt me the most. Triggered drooling, but no hiccups. Other than that, the hottest pepper was a toss up between Scott's FR and Jay's Peach. The Peach was the first I tried and it really kicked me in the pants. Only one other was willing to try it and he concurred. The heat grew gradually from the back of the throat forward and lasted a long time. Scott's FR was an immediate intense punch in the front of the mouth, but faded more quickly. You could tell it was going to hurt just from the continuous layer of placenta in the interior. Mine lacks that. The yellow BJ had the most fruity overtones, but was still dominated by heat. The Devil's Tongue were the mildest overall (expected, I guess), maybe a serrano-level heat? My FRs were probably next up in heat, though I don't think I tried a piece with much rib or placenta. I can't really say much about the flavors, except for the slightly greater fruitiness of the BJY. The DTW was noticeably different (good for stir-fry?), but the others all had the typical chinense flavor, to my uneducated palate.

Thanks Sawyer!
I was looking into trying to plant some pole beans, mustard greens, purple hulls, and some cabbage so this is good news. Hopefully I have enough time for the cabbage...

Have you ordered from rareseeds.com before? I think I will give them a try.

Sawyer · Aug 21, 2014

JoeFish said:
Thanks Sawyer!
I was looking into trying to plant some pole beans, mustard greens, purple hulls, and some cabbage so this is good news. Hopefully I have enough time for the cabbage...

Have you ordered from rareseeds.com before? I think I will give them a try.

Yes, Baker Creek is one of my favorite seed suppliers. Trade Winds Fruit is another. I've had good luck with both.

Check the time to maturity for your pole beans. They typically take longer than bush, which is why I'm planting bush for fall. I prefer pole, because you get more production per unit area, but I don't think there is enough time left for them now. If you have a variety that can produce planted now, I'd love to know what it is.

JoeFish · Aug 21, 2014

I ended up with the calima bean instead because the one you wanted was sold out. Also ordered some other goodies!

Sawyer · Aug 21, 2014

Actually, it's just the bulk package that is out of stock. They still have the regular sized package. Both of those have what I'm looking for in a bean, though, long and straight. I want to pickle a bunch with dill and hot peppers. For next year, I'm going to try the Kentucky Blue pole bean. It's a cross between Kentucky Wonder and Blue Lake, and is also supposed to have long straight pods.

Devv · Aug 21, 2014

Hey John,

The farmers here plant cukes August 25th for a fall crop that does better than the spring. Get em in quick

ribbedturtleneck · Aug 21, 2014

Sawyer said:
Actually, it's just the bulk package that is out of stock. They still have the regular sized package. Both of those have what I'm looking for in a bean, though, long and straight. I want to pickle a bunch with dill and hot peppers. For next year, I'm going to try the Kentucky Blue pole bean. It's a cross between Kentucky Wonder and Blue Lake, and is also supposed to have long straight pods.

Love me some dilly beans.

Sawyer · Aug 22, 2014

Devv said:
Hey John,

The farmers here plant cukes August 25th for a fall crop that does better than the spring. Get em in quick

Going in today.

ribbedturtleneck said:
Love me some dilly beans.

LOL, me, too.

gnslngr · Aug 23, 2014

Sawyer said:
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:
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.

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.

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.

Thanks, Kurt!

Thanks, Paul!

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.

What? ....No Monkeys?????Nice "Run Through the Jungle"...

The JPGScorp...I love em.A very "clean" heat , which may be an odd way to describe it,some have that slight sweetness scorps have, but the Bhutness is obvious. I keep thinking cross with a really good Yellow Bhut....like the ones in the bucket....hmmmmm.

Durham Bull · Aug 26, 2014

Beautiful garden, just caught up with your glog.
great pull there.

look like the bamboo is gaining on you.

Sawyer · Aug 26, 2014

gnslngr said:
What? ....No Monkeys?????Nice "Run Through the Jungle"...

The JPGScorp...I love em.A very "clean" heat , which may be an odd way to describe it,some have that slight sweetness scorps have, but the Bhutness is obvious. I keep thinking cross with a really good Yellow Bhut....like the ones in the bucket....hmmmmm.

Hah! Yeah, no monkeys. No feral pigs, either. And the neighbor's goats and chickens are gone, too. (Kind of miss the chickens.) And yet I still complain about the deer. My new plan there is to put out some deer feed off to the side and fatten her up for a fall/cold weather harvest. (Not that she's not already fat; I'm getting my summer vegetables one way or another; processed through venison protein is fine.) PS - It's legal to take deer over bait in Arkansas (on private land). That's just how bad the overpopulation problem has become.

The JPGS is definitely a keeper. Even people that wouldn't dare taste it liked the color.

Durham Bull said:
Beautiful garden, just caught up with your glog.
great pull there.

look like the bamboo is gaining on you.

Thanks, Sy. It's not what I envisioned at the start of the year, but it'll do. Yeah, the bamboo has become a problem. In the picture above, the most eastern row of peppers is only a little more than half way to the East edge of the garden. There used to be a blackberry and raspberry patch there and the bamboo infiltrated before I knew it.

We're finally having real summer weather here. Temps in the mid-90s, no rain in sight. Hope my water well holds up. Oh, wait, that's what the weather has been for the last week or so. Just checked and this is what's predicted for the rest of the week. I hope they're right:

PIC 1 · Aug 26, 2014

John nice plot of plants...they're certainly not starving, ..very healthy looking

Man your back's going to be breaking when the bushels of pods start rolling in. Perfect weather for ripening..

Devv · Aug 26, 2014

Yeah, that well will hang, look who worked on it

I was always worried about the original well running dry with the drought knocking the lakes and aquifers so hard around here, when they put the new one in I realized I'm good. I'm still stingy with the water, but feel better about watering the trees and garden. And I can guarantee, we use less water than people who water the grass.

Hope you get your rain, we sure could use some here too!

We also are allowed to feed deer. Heck if we didn't we would hardly see them unless we hunted a winter feedlot. Our bag limit is 5 deer total. 3 bucks allowed, as well as just 5 does, if that's how you want to use your license. That's how many we have...

Sawyer · Aug 26, 2014

PIC 1 said:
John nice plot of plants...they're certainly not starving, ..very healthy looking

Man your back's going to be breaking when the bushels of pods start rolling in. Perfect weather for ripening..

Thanks, Greg. That part of the garden is pretty fertile. The part to the South of there needs some attention, in the way of a good winter cover crop.

You may be right, but I think my back will be okay. I think the only way I'm going to get in there to pick is on my hands and knees. I planted things way too close together for ease of navigation, but on the plus side, the plants help hold each other up.

Devv said:
Yeah, that well will hang, look who worked on it

I was always worried about the original well running dry with the drought knocking the lakes and aquifers so hard around here, when they put the new one in I realized I'm good. I'm still stingy with the water, but feel better about watering the trees and garden. And I can guarantee, we use less water than people who water the grass.

Hope you get your rain, we sure could use some here too!

We also are allowed to feed deer. Heck if we didn't we would hardly see them unless we hunted a winter feedlot. Our bag limit is 5 deer total. 3 bucks allowed, as well as just 5 does, if that's how you want to use your license. That's how many we have...

I'm a little worried about the well hardware, but mainly I'm concerned about running dry. I've already sucked air once (for only the second time in 17 years), but I did have the pump running non-stop for about 4 hours. (Which reminds me, I need to hook up my extra pump in parallel to this one and switch between them every 15 minutes to a half hour. I'm pretty sure these residential well pumps aren't meant to run non-stop.) I'm like you, though, stingy with where the water goes. I can hardly fathom watering a lawn, only to turn around and cut it. That's one of the benefits of drought in my book... not having to mow.

State-wide the limit here is 6 deer total, of which 2 can be bucks. The zone I'm in has a limit of 4 total/2 bucks.

I noticed a lot of color when watering today. Tomorrow will be a harvest day. Stay tuned for pics.

Does anybody know how long it takes from bloom-set to ripe pod for a typical chinense? Assuming ideal growth and ripening conditions? My plants have a mediocre crop ripening now, but have a massive bloom setting pods now. I don't think they'll have time to ripen, though, unless we get lucky with the weather like last fall.

OCD Chilehead · Aug 26, 2014

The weather is looking John. Good luck with the harvest. I too am wondering on timeline for maturing pods. Still getting pod set here.

Devv · Aug 27, 2014

I don't keep those kind of records, but it seems like 8 weeks to ripen around here. A nice round of 6-12-6 probably wouldn't hurt getting them to move along

Sawyer · Sep 1, 2014

I've apprehended one of the critters using the garden as a salad bar. Not the deer, but this groundhog/woodchuck:

It rubbed its nose raw before I got to the trap and is pretty despondent (but very much alive) in this picture. I took it about three miles away, across a river, for release.

There is a shallow pool of water under a shade tree just to the left of this picture and that's where I left it. Directly behind me is a lake. Hopefully it doesn't come back.

I took this picture a few days ago and have forgotten what it's supposed to be. I think it's not true to type, but the color is nice.

Picked some Black Naga. These pods are beasts.

Have had a lot of tree frogs this year, both green and gray. That's ginger it's sitting on. Bought some last year at the store and planted it in a pot. It grows very well through summer. I brought it in before frost and it went dormant soon after, but sprouted out again this spring.

Also am seeing a lot of recently hatched fence-post lizards, but those little guys won't hold still long enough for a photo.

What I was thinking upthread might be volunteer tomatillos are simply wild Physalis. I'm pretty sure this one is P. virginiana:

I can't tell that it has any particular redeeming features, so will start roguing these out. This next one may P. angulata, cordata, or heterophylla, but not longifolia (though I wouldn't swear to that).

Whatever it is, it is a bee magnet. I've seen honey bees on it when I haven't seen them anywhere else in the garden all year. It also attracts loads of native bees, too. I've tasted the fruit and they taste a lot like a tomatillo, just a lot smaller. I'll save seed for this one and see what it does next year.

OCD Chilehead said:
The weather is looking John. Good luck with the harvest. I too am wondering on timeline for maturing pods. Still getting pod set here.

Devv said:
I don't keep those kind of records, but it seems like 8 weeks to ripen around here. A nice round of 6-12-6 probably wouldn't hurt getting them to move along

I guess we'll see. I've hit them once with some water soluble 10-30-20. I have more pods than I thought that should have a chance to ripen, but a larger number still that likely won't. If it wouldn't be such a chore, I'd start pinching off blooms, but that's not going to happen.

My experiment with letting vetch and wild bean grow among the pepper plants continues. A positive aspect I've discovered is the vines help support the pepper plants, connecting plant to plant and branch to branch within a single plant. I think this will help reduce limb breakage and plants falling over as they load up with heavy pods. The chickweed is doing a good job as a ground cover and suppressing less desirable weed growth, though the pepper plants themselves are doing a good job of that now. I did break down and ordered some wild purslane seeds. It's more drought and heat tolerant than the chickweed, so I hope the two will tag team throughout the year.