What Did You Do In The Garden?

[flowerbug]

Went back out to pick peppers today, and thought I'd post something interesting. I've mentioned the great amount of diversity in the PI 315008 seed I was sent, which I'm trying to stabilize for red color, large size, the "red lantern" shape, short DTM, and a decent yield. This plant didn't make the cut, due to small fruit size... and the plant itself is diminutive, only 6" tall.
View attachment 37089
But good things sometimes come in small packages.
View attachment 37090
PI 315008, dwarf segregation - there are 50+ peppers on this one plant, all ripe!

The first generation of PI 315008 had some plants with orange, Habanero-type peppers... they were super hot, but thin walled, dry, and IMO low on flavor. I selected for the red, and the orange appears to have been eliminated in the second generation (although it may still be present as a recessive). Even selected to red only, there is still an incredible amount of diversity in this cultivar, to the point where I think it could be taken in many different directions by the simple act of selection. This particular plant could have easily succeeded where summers are even shorter than mine, and the yield for such a small plant is incredible. I'd really like to get seed for PI 315008 - with or without my chosen selection - into as many hands as possible. I think hot pepper fans could have a lot of fun with this.

if i had more of the right kind of soil and space for them i'd take some, but since i'm not cooking that much the past few years it is kinda pointless for me to be growing hot peppers. Mom won't touch 'em.

besides they do look a lot like a habinero derivative and the flavor of those doesn't usually work for me.

if i could find a reasonably good tasting pepper that would finish here that gave me some good chili flavors for roasting and making green chili and then later dried red pepper flakes and powder i'd eventually want to give it a go, but that won't be happening any time soon that i can tell. once in a while we get a box of hatch chilis in the family since my SIL's family is from NM and she likes to have those roasted and then packed in the freezer for her cooking. once in a great while i get a cheeseburger off the grill at his place with some of that on there and it's worth the drive.

as a weak substitute i can be happy with a roasted red pepper and then put some sriracha sauce on it.

 

[catjac1975]

Went back out to pick peppers today, and thought I'd post something interesting. I've mentioned the great amount of diversity in the PI 315008 seed I was sent, which I'm trying to stabilize for red color, large size, the "red lantern" shape, short DTM, and a decent yield. This plant didn't make the cut, due to small fruit size... and the plant itself is diminutive, only 6" tall.
View attachment 37089
But good things sometimes come in small packages.
View attachment 37090
PI 315008, dwarf segregation - there are 50+ peppers on this one plant, all ripe!

The first generation of PI 315008 had some plants with orange, Habanero-type peppers... they were super hot, but thin walled, dry, and IMO low on flavor. I selected for the red, and the orange appears to have been eliminated in the second generation (although it may still be present as a recessive). Even selected to red only, there is still an incredible amount of diversity in this cultivar, to the point where I think it could be taken in many different directions by the simple act of selection. This particular plant could have easily succeeded where summers are even shorter than mine, and the yield for such a small plant is incredible. I'd really like to get seed for PI 315008 - with or without my chosen selection - into as many hands as possible. I think hot pepper fans could have a lot of fun with this.

They sell peppers like that around here as decorative house plats. They are extremely hot and very pretty.

 

[flowerbug]

shelled beans in the morning, rested and had lunch, went out and picked beans for the afternoon. got them in a large box top to dry out for a few hours before it got cool and the dew started to fall. i put them in the garage overnight and they'll go back outside for today to dry down some more.

mostly i put them in the large box top outside to dry, but to also let some of the bugs crawl away. which is funny because at times crickets and other bugs will manage to find their way in the box tops too so i can have some good times trying to find the crickets making the noises when i bring them into my room for shelling out and sorting.

after my most recent round i'm going to do more transfers into a different box top out there because then i can avoid some of that... while i may miss the humor of the situation, i'm really not wanting to look under my futons at this point in time...

today is likely to be much the same, but better...

 

[digitS']

Harvesting. I should take a photo of the Utah Sweet onions on some boards & sawhorses now in the backyard. Honestly, the Walla Walla did just as well this year. In fact, this was the best year for Candy onions that I've had in about 5 or 6 years of growing them. I think that my garden may be a little too far north for Candy, they have always had smaller bulbs than this year.

I killed a few weeds during and after digging the Russet potatoes with the spading fork. They didn't do well this year - bug pressure and, I think that they had some problems with getting enough water.

Oh, not the weeds! This has turned out to be a good/bad! year for weeds! This recent smoke problem kept me out of the big veggie garden for over a week. My lame don't-let-em-flower approach to weeding finally went off the rails. Honestly, for the low growing weeds it already had. Only my don't-walk-past-em rule for morning glory and Italian thistle has been adhered to strictly. (The tractor guy will be back to spread-em-around from beyond my garden, regardless.)

The peas were a late crop and the obvious and taller weeds were pulled out of them. When the vines themselves could be pulled, I never really got back to that bed. It was too late for bush beans to replace them and there was plenty of Asian greens, elsewhere. The vines must have caught lots of airborn dandelion seeds. The dandelion plants exploded in growth!

Boom! I have a crop of dandelion roots if'n I want them. Really, they are just dandy toasted in a cast iron skillet, ground and used about 50:50 in coffee. They are a good way for me to reduce caffeine, on those days when afternoon tummy upsets become common. Yep. Right up there with ground chicory root .

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

Harvesting. I should take a photo of the Utah Sweet onions on some boards & sawhorses now in the backyard. Honestly, the Walla Walla did just as well this year. In fact, this was the best year for Candy onions that I've had in about 5 or 6 years of growing them. I think that my garden may be a little too far north for Candy, they have always had smaller bulbs than this year.

I killed a few weeds during and after digging the Russet potatoes with the spading fork. They didn't do well this year - bug pressure and, I think that they had some problems with getting enough water.

Oh, not the weeds! This has turned out to be a good/bad! year for weeds! This recent smoke problem kept me out of the big veggie garden for over a week. My lame don't-let-em-flower approach to weeding finally went off the rails. Honestly, for the low growing weeds it already had. Only my don't-walk-past-em rule for morning glory and Italian thistle has been adhered to strictly. (The tractor guy will be back to spread-em-around from beyond my garden, regardless.)

The peas were a late crop and the obvious and taller weeds were pulled out of them. When the vines themselves could be pulled, I never really got back to that bed. It was too late for bush beans to replace them and there was plenty of Asian greens, elsewhere. The vines must have caught lots of airborn dandelion seeds. The dandelion plants exploded in growth!

Boom! I have a crop of dandelion roots if'n I want them. Really, they are just dandy toasted in a cast iron skillet, ground and used about 50:50 in coffee. They are a good way for me to reduce caffeine, on those days when afternoon tummy upsets become common. Yep. Right up there with ground chicory root .

Steve

my first and only exposure to roasted dandelion root was in a product called Dandy Blend, which some kind person gave to me to try. yes it was good, but i used so little of it that by the time i used up the package it was years later.

i've never done it myself, how much work does it involve and how goes it?

and for chicory, you are speaking of the cultured sort right and not the more generic wild version we find along the roadsides?

 

[digitS']

I wanted to try Witloof chicory one year and grew quite a lot of it so that I could harvest the roots and "force" them in the basement for winter salads. By the time they should be harvested and carried down, I realized that I was not in the least interested in eating the greens. I should have known better since the radicchio that I was served in restaurants was waaay too bitter for me to enjoy. Anyway, what was I to do with the roots? I roasted them.

I have bought the chicory/coffee blend at the soopermarket and enjoyed that well enuf. And both my chicory and dandelion roots are comparable. Yep .

Here's a TEG thread that I started years ago Think you might need a cup of recession-proof coffee? LINK. Hell yes, we may be right back to those days ... dang!

If the old Photobucket pictures don't come through, here's a couple of them:

~ dandelion roots ~


Steve

 

[Zeedman]

The raised bed for the garlic is nearly done. It was harder than I anticipated, due to soil issues. When we went to pick up some of the topsoil DD offered us, it turned out to be full of perennial grass roots. It was good topsoil, but sorting out the roots was taking too long, so we decided to stop using it after the 2nd load. So I ordered 5 yards of "garden soil" mix from a landscape supply, to be delivered next day between 8:00 AM & noon. My intent was to remove one fence pole & fold back the fence just prior, so the load could be dumped straight into the garden. (We couldn't open the fence the day before, too much still growing to risk it becoming a deer buffet.)

So imagine my surprise when the driver called me at 7:00 AM the next day, stating that he was there, and where did I want it? I hustled out to the rural garden (its 6 miles away) but there was no time to pull the fence, so the soil had to be dropped in the lawn outside the fence. Fortunately for us, a friend of the property owner stopped by - who stores a tractor with a bucket in their garage. He was kind enough to move most of the pile to where it was needed. The bed is almost complete, I'm waiting on the arrival of the garlic stock to see if the last segment will be needed.

The Garafal Oro, Schwarz Witwe, and Berta Talaska pole beans have all begun to dry. Garafal Oro, though, has thus far produced only pods with undeveloped seed, only 5 good seeds out of about 20 pods. The other two have good seed, I hope the long period of rainfall in the forecast doesn't destroy the ripening pods. Something tells me DW & I will be donning our rain boots.

4 of the 6 remaining soybean varieties have dried down enough to harvest. I cut all the plants of Ohozyu & brought them indoors to finish drying, but was too busy with the raised bed to cut the other 3. Weather permitting, I'll try to get out to the rural garden in time to harvest those plants too.

Several weeks ago, I planted a Fall garden in one of the open spaces at the rural site. I purchased 2 shell pea varieties, 2 snap pea varieties, beets, and kohlrabi. The kohlrabi came up strong, but something ate about 1/2 of the seedlings. Of the 4 pea varieties, only one variety (Alaska) had good germination; the other shell pea had maybe 10% germination. The two snap pea varieties had 6 plants between them - from 3 20' rows. Pretty sorry performance for (supposedly) fresh commercial seed. Only the beets are doing well.

 

[Marie2020]

my first and only exposure to roasted dandelion root was in a product called Dandy Blend, which some kind person gave to me to try. yes it was good, but i used so little of it that by the time i used up the package it was years later.

i've never done it myself, how much work does it involve and how goes it?

and for chicory, you are speaking of the cultured sort right and not the more generic wild version we find along the roadsides?

Really interested to have this answer.

 

[Marie2020]

Really interested to have this answer.

Got that answer thanks @digitS'

 

[flowerbug]

The raised bed for the garlic is nearly done. It was harder than I anticipated, due to soil issues. When we went to pick up some of the topsoil DD offered us, it turned out to be full of perennial grass roots. It was good topsoil, but sorting out the roots was taking too long, so we decided to stop using it after the 2nd load. So I ordered 5 yards of "garden soil" mix from a landscape supply, to be delivered next day between 8:00 AM & noon. My intent was to remove one fence pole & fold back the fence just prior, so the load could be dumped straight into the garden. (We couldn't open the fence the day before, too much still growing to risk it becoming a deer buffet.)

So imagine my surprise when the driver called me at 7:00 AM the next day, stating that he was there, and where did I want it? I hustled out to the rural garden (its 6 miles away) but there was no time to pull the fence, so the soil had to be dropped in the lawn outside the fence. Fortunately for us, a friend of the property owner stopped by - who stores a tractor with a bucket in their garage. He was kind enough to move most of the pile to where it was needed. The bed is almost complete, I'm waiting on the arrival of the garlic stock to see if the last segment will be needed.

The Garafal Oro, Schwarz Witwe, and Berta Talaska pole beans have all begun to dry. Garafal Oro, though, has thus far produced only pods with undeveloped seed, only 5 good seeds out of about 20 pods. The other two have good seed, I hope the long period of rainfall in the forecast doesn't destroy the ripening pods. Something tells me DW & I will be donning our rain boots.

4 of the 6 remaining soybean varieties have dried down enough to harvest. I cut all the plants of Ohozyu & brought them indoors to finish drying, but was too busy with the raised bed to cut the other 3. Weather permitting, I'll try to get out to the rural garden in time to harvest those plants too.

Several weeks ago, I planted a Fall garden in one of the open spaces at the rural site. I purchased 2 shell pea varieties, 2 snap pea varieties, beets, and kohlrabi. The kohlrabi came up strong, but something ate about 1/2 of the seedlings. Of the 4 pea varieties, only one variety (Alaska) had good germination; the other shell pea had maybe 10% germination. The two snap pea varieties had 6 plants between them - from 3 20' rows. Pretty sorry performance for (supposedly) fresh commercial seed. Only the beets are doing well.

a lesson i learned years ago the hard way, to never accept fill/compost without inspecting it first. once they deliver they have no easy way to pick it back up and take it back so they hope that people will just suck up whatever they deliver. always go to their site to inspect what they are bringing. i'm still picking pieces of trash out of my gardens from compost that must have come from a recycled garbage dump, it was that bad. glass, metals, plastics, chunks of chewed up diapers, etc. they must have just put it all through a shredder/grinder to deal with it and then composted what they could, but much of just did not belong in there at all.

my experience with pea germination rates here is that certain varieties just hate my soil and gardens. i've tried multiple times with different packages from different companies and they didn't do well no matter what i did. that is why i was very thrilled this past spring to get some large podded variety that actually would grow.

the recent frost took out the buckwheat that was just starting to flower but the peas in that same patch are still going strong. it all needs to be weeded now as the purselane is sprouting. i'll probably not let the peas go very far as they were volunteers that fell off the plants from this summer when i was harvesting. i always like the flowers even if i don't get pods from them.