Garden – 05/24/2010

Once again I got myself into another little side project with the garden. This time it has to do with setting up a makeshift irrigation system as cheaply as possible for the garden.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been thinking about how to run a water line over to the garden area as easily as possible. Since dragging around a 100′ hose in the yard is just too cumbersome. And trenching the yard to put the irrigation line underground is just overkill.

Once again, Menards was having a sale on plumbing/irrigation parts, and while I was looking at the sales flyer the idea hit for running the irrigation piping on the top rail of the fence going around the yard, and just securing it to the fence rail with zip ties. So with a plan in place, it was time to pick up all the parts for this project.

It turns out that this whole project only ran me about $50, and that included the crimping tool which was $9.99. Yeah I could have done this even more cheaply and gone with plastic quick connect fittings which would have been ~$6 total instead of $22 total for all the brass fitting. But for me, the extra $16 was worth the splurge.

I guess we’ll see over time how this set-up hold up to the weather.

Damn Hailstorm! – May 2, 2010

OK, talk about a freak hailstorm. On Saturday night, I finished transplanting almost everything from flat #1 into 10 oz white plastic cups. The only things that I didn’t transplant from the flat into cups were the Aji and the El Jefe, and thank god that I didn’t. Because on Sunday afternoon around 1:30pm, the sky turned dark and hell was than unleashed for about 30 mins. And during that 30 minute downpour of marble sized hail, the hail basically destroyed all the seedlings that I had left outside on a salad table that I had built.

Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll have to go through all the cups to see what is salvageable from all the plants. But so far it looks like the only survivors are some of the cucumbers and zucchini. And maybe some of the bell peppers. Man this sucks!

Seed Starting – 1st flat – Day 13

Amazing what another five days of growing will do, but it looks like I have a mixed bag of results as far as seeds that ended up germinating.

Success:
Aji Limo
El Jefe
1/2 the Bell Peppers
1/3 the Banana style peppers
1/2 the Sage
1/2 the Basil

Failed:
The other 1/2 or 1/3 of all those listed above
all the parsley
all the cilantro
all the oregeno
all the rosemary

I have to say that I’m not 100% sure that the parsley, cilantro, oregeno, and rosemary have failed. Since all those herbs take anywhere from 14 to 21 days to germinate. So before I toss out all the dirt in those flats, I’ll give them another week or so to do their thing.

Seed Starting – 1st flat – Day 8

It’s been a little bit tricky, figuring out how to get the temperature just right on the heating pad. Since when I wrapped the whole flat in a movers blanket, the temperature inside the flat shot up to 95F. So I’m going to test out simulating the heat and light cycle of the sun in the growing area. So last night I set up a make shift growing station with a grow light on a couple of copier boxes, with the heating pad and the grow light both plugged into a timer.

The basil ended up sprouting this past weekend, which was a lot quicker than expected. And when I checked the flat this morning, I started to see some activity on the El Jefe jalapenos and the sage. As it currently stands, it seems like the heating mat is cutting down the germination time almost in half, which is pretty amazing. That is of course, with me assuming that the seeds that I saved from last year are still viable. Which is the big question mark for the garden this year.

Seed Starting – 1st flat – 2010 season

OK, the first flat of seed were sown last night. And here is the breakdown of what is going into the first flat of 72 cells:

9 cells – Aji Limo
9 cells – El Jefe Jalapeno
6 cells – Bell Peppers
3 cells – Jalapeno “M”
3 cells – Banana pepper – green color
3 cells – Banana pepper – yellow color
3 cells – Banana pepper – orange color
6 cells – Sage
6 cells – Basil
6 cells – Parsley
6 cells – Cilantro
6 cells – Oregano
6 cells – Rosemary

Just got my seeds in the mail

Talk about quick turnaround time. When I got home from work last night, I had a little cardboard box in my mailbox from Johnny’s. So now I’ve got to lay out my seed starting calendar for the next couple of months. The plan so far is to start all the herbs and pepper seeds (jalapeno, aji limo, bell, etc) this week, and then some time next week I’ll start the seeds for all the tomatoes. And then in about two weeks, I’ll start the cucumbers & zucchini inside as well as sowing some of the seeds that need direct sowing (carrots, beets, lettuce, corn, peas, beans, etc.)

When I reviewed all the seeds that I ordered, I noticed an interesting trend with a large portion of the seeds that I ordered. In that maybe two thirds of the seeds that I ordered, are seeds that need to be directly sow into the ground. So really the only seed starting that I’ll need to do this year are for the herbs, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini and cucumbers.

One little tool that I picked up this year, are two seedling heater mats. We’ll see if they are any help in germinating my seeds, since I keep my house right around 63F, so any extra heat to get the seeds off to a strong start is a bonus in my book.

Thinking Spring 2010 – Garden pre-planning

Other then the freezing rain coming down the last couple days, I’m trying to think warm. And with spring a couple of months out, its time for me to start some of my garden pre-planning, about what I want to plant this year. One of the first things that I’ve done this week is order myself a 2010 seed catalog from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. Yeah I like jumping on their web site, and surfing around for stuff, but sometimes a hard copy just makes things a little bit easier. Two items that I’m thinking of ordering from Johnny’s are some Lovage seeds and maybe some Stevia seeds.

I’ve already picked up a packet of Burpee Swiss Chard – Fordhook Giant, while I was at Menard’s getting some Miracle Gro potting soil. And I’m also kind of curious if anything will grow out of the seeds that I saved from the Aji Limo peppers that I got from my farmer neighbor. But I guess we’ll see if anything pans out of the Aji Limo this year.

If anyone has any suggestions on what I should grow this year, now is definitely the time to let me know. So just post a comment with your plant ideas, since I’m always looking for suggestions. Thanks.

Canning Aji Limo or Aji Limon Peppers

Oh mother were these some hot peppers. When I got a bag of these aji limo peppers from my farmer neighbor. I tried one in the yard, and they packed some heat, which at the time I thought was around the same level as a jalapeno (they are actually about 3 to 10 times hotter then jalapenos.) So after 24 hours in a brine solution, they turned down right radioactive. Continue reading