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Anyone doing a garden?

LHorn said:
What peppers are you planting? Some germinate pretty fast except for the really hot ones I understand. I just finished transferring about 14 more seeds from the baggies to the seedling tray...so 6 types have started in 4 days.

I hope the weather doesnt pull any surprises this year. I was out in tshirt and shorts a few days ago then yesterday woke up to snow on the ground again. :rolleyes:
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Nothing special, just some sweet bell peppers. I'll be using the heat mat to germinate them quickly.
 
LHorn said:
Nice. Expensive tomatoes how? Seeds...process?

I'm gonna catch up to ya. The Trident's and Baron's are the only ones lagging so far. All others have at least one in the dirt.

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Been using a space heater to not let the temps get below 50 degrees at night so let's do the math, So far it has cost me a few bills to keep the greenhouse going so if I only get 2 tomatoes from 3 plants it would be the most expensive tomato sandwiches that I have ever had LOL:rflmao:
 
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Smitty43 said:
Been using a space heater to not let the temps get below 50 degrees at night so let's do the math, So far it has cost me a few bills to keep the greenhouse going so if I only get 2 tomatoes from 3 plants it would be the most expensive tomato sandwiches that I have ever had LOL:rflmao:
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Ah...I see. Yeah running lights and a heat mat for 6-7 weeks adds to my bill here too but not space heater kind of increase.
 
My name is LHorn and this IS NOT my first meeting! :rolleyes:

Last year was bad but I've lost total control this year. I was doing great to start with. I had a plan for about 50 final plants...looked good on paper. But somewhere in the last couple weeks things again spiraled out of control. I now have 83 seedling growing in trays. I need an intervention. But in my defense I still have a lot of seeds in the baggies that have germinated but haven't been planted. :rflmao:

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RickeyM said:
Some hard choices ahead my friend.
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Yeah some will have to go. I have 30 7 gallon pots and 20 5 gallon. The 7g I can put two plants in but even with that its too many. The Lesya is supposed to be a very bushy plant and are one of my main focuses this year...so each will go in 5g pots. Same with the Trident's. But all of it will be determined once I get my soil amended and see how many I can fill. I was trying to figure it out earlier and the least amount I came up with is 52 pots all together...2 more than I have. :rolleyes:

Last year I had 30-7g and 7-5g going and that was a lot for my ole backbone...and space. The seedlings I left outside to die but ended up bringing them in and planted them anyway turned out to be the biggest producers of peppers (Mulato). So I may purposely stress some to see how they turn out.

:dunno: Decisions decisions.
 
Narrowed it down to 66 solo cups now. Some are just in case something happens before heading outside. So I should end up with 20 5gal pots with single plants and 22-24 7gal pots with two plants each. We will see.

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IMG_0539.jpegIMG_0538.jpegI also used the solo cups for tomatoes and peppers. This year experiment with two peppers per 7g or 10g pot is to see if there is a difference with two separate plants vs two plants in the same solo cup. Only difference then is the distance between plants, but the pot volume is still available for the root balls. Because I only have 10 pepper plants, this test is limited to bell peppers, although I do have Banana peppers two in a pot.
Here in eastern NC everything is in the ground and going well. Four days after I put the tomatoes in the ground we had one of our spring wind/rain storms with 45 mph gusts; I lost 4 tomatoes and 2 are struggling. I should have put in a bamboo stake and clipped the plants to it, that would have saved the damaged ones. They were caged but still got knocked around.
 
Looking good Jim...and yeah the wind has become a nightmare anymore.

I tested the two plants per solo cup in 2021 and found they didnt do well at all. The roots combined and one became very dominant. They did not grow as big and the rootball was half the size as the ones below. I didnt get a pic back then unfortunately. YMMV

This was from last year. Left one was a single plant in a 7gal pot. The two on the right were in a 7gal pot together...but started in separate solo cups. One of the two did become slightly more dominant in the root structure but both plants produced about the same. When I do doubles I put them as far away from each other as possible but leave about an inch or two from the side of the pot.

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@LHorn
sounds like I should cut one away now for the ones that were two to a cup, and just keep one? I can see how the rootball could be a problem.
They have only been in the big pots for a week.
 
CT Jim said:
@LHorn
sounds like I should cut one away now for the ones that were two to a cup, and just keep one? I can see how the rootball could be a problem.
They have only been in the big pots for a week.
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The doubles I have in the solo cups I wait and see which one is doing better then snip the other one off at the ground. At that point if they are an inch or so apart I've even gently transplanted one of them to another cup. But if they are at the end of the solo cup time it could get problematic as shown in the pic...and that's just one plant.

Up to you really and it's stage of growth. Again...I'm far from being an expert...just an old farmboy from my early years.

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All but two or three onion starts have sprouted. I sowed bush beans, pole beans and radishes last weekend. I've gotten off to a late start on the tomatoes though. I direct sowed some old Romaine lettuce seeds I had so I'll see what happens. I blew it with some bare-root strawberries I ordered. I waited too long to plant them after they arrived. The Alpine strawberries that I left out and neglected all winter have risen from the dead and even have a few flowers budding.
 
Growing onions is a PIA. I ordered Starts from a Georgia onion grower, and waited 3+ months for the right time to ship. Popped about 65 onions in a trough setup per the instructions, and watered diligently. So we had a cold snap, and yep, the onions have bolted and at least half are useless. I pulled maybe 20, and a couple days later just cut the flower bulb off another 15, nothing to lose, although I expect them to just stay dormant.
I’ll probably just leave them till fall, or maybe even overwinter, and won’t bother again.
 
Onion starts sprouted and Bell peppers seeds under the cloches. Onions starts sprouting in the other raised bed. My replacement bare root strawberries came today.

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My peppers seem to be lagging behind for being started two weeks earlier this year. But comparing them to this time last year they are still a little bigger.

That's fine by me though...temps here the last few days have been dropping to low 30's at night and high 60's in the daytime. We have a frost warning for tonight at 30°. With supposedly the last frost date of 4/30 I just don't see that happening...or trust it.

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I took a flyer sowing some seeds for peppers (Bell) outside. I checked yesterday and spotted the teeniest bit of green poking through the soil. I've deployed a heater a few times this week to try and keep the nighttime temps in the (covered) raised bed over 60 degrees. This years version uses pillar candles instead of votives.
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I'v got tomato seedling started. In a few weeks it should be mild enough and they should be big enough to he hardened off and go outside full time.
 
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