Memorial Day Gardening

With all the irons in the fire that I have going on I've been a longtime user of black plastic mulch.  After reading about all the benefits such as early warming of the soil, weed suppression. & water conservation I felt the benefits outweighed the plastic controversy about landfill and petro production to make the stuff. Every year I recycle the previous seasons plastic by putting in the pathways and using a new layer for the current seasons garden beds.

With that out of the way, for the past couple of weeks I amended the soil with some fast acting lime, compost, soilless mix from  last years  containers, composted manure and a small amount of time release 10-10-10.

Now, armed and ready to put the plastic down,  I felt like I'm all dressed up with no where to go waiting for some natural rainfall before putting the plastic down.  I was getting concerned with the water deficit that we were having in CT this year until this weekend. Wow, what a godsend. The water fell from the chilly sky's on Friday evening  into Saturday and soaked the ground with upwards of 3" of rain. Down went the plastic and in went a variety of  tomatoes  including,  Cherokee Chocolate, Brandywine, Yaki (a new hybrid plum) Roma, Big Raspberry, Better Boy, and 1st Prize. As far as cucurbit family goes, in went Pic n Pic yellow squash, Black beauty zucchini,  Early Bush and Marketmore cucumbers. I'm holding off on eggplant and peppers until sometime in June. I find it better to wait nighttime temps consistently in the 60's before setting these plants.

Until  next post- Happy Gardening and keep checking back on my super hot pepper progress.

2013 A new beginning-The greenhouse and Peppers

Well, well, well, it's been a while. After a long historical winter and a record maple sugaring season here in Connecticut, it's time to get down and dirty.

A couple of days after the 36-38" snow fall from February 8-9th the snow on the greenhouse proved to be to much for the house to handle. Yes, much to my disappointment the greenhouse collapsed do to the wait of the melting snow.

With the maple season behind me I now had time to assess the damage. Bad, but not so bad to end my long endearing relationship with the greenhouse. I was able to use some lumber and 6 mil greenhouse plastic and cover her up. Ventilation is the biggest issue since the two solar rooftop vents are gone (for now). I moved the louver window from the side and placed it a the highest point in the rear of the house opposite the front door. Sure does get very warm in there but it's doing the job.

inside view



2013 seedlings and wintered over Collards & Kale

Sowing seeds has been going on since late March and the time has come to transplant into individual containters or cell packs. As you can see I start seeds in a 4" round pot using soiless mix (usually ProMix ) and covering with a baggie to create a moist environment. Then they go underT5  flourescent lights, which I believe is 6500k spectrum and onto the heat mat. This practice usallly yields me seedlings in a week or so depending on the plant variety. Some take less and some take longer.

Each year I get all fired up up about a particular varity of vegetable. This year it's the soon to be crowned "the worlds hottest" pepper, the Carolina Reaper also known as  HP22B which is consistently coming in at 1.4 MILLION scovilles. To give some perspective a jalepeno is around 5000 scovilles and habaneros come in at a blazing 250,000-400,000 scovilles. This is one amazing and frightening looking pepper. The seeds of the super hots take longer to germinate, some up to a month. To hasten germation I soaked the seeds overnight in warm water. Some say soaking in chamomile tea is even better. My 1st Reapers germinated in 9 days.

Carolina Reaper seedlings



Carolina Reaper seedlings -Day 22

I want to give a shout out to Pepper Joe's as one of the two reliable sources for authentic HP22B  Reaper seeds. Ed Currie from Pucker Butt Pepper Co. is the other. The Carolina reaper was developed by Ed.  Like everything " It has to be true, I read it on the internet" You know, the place you can find French models. But seriously, I did a lot of research and Pepper Joe's  and The Pucker Butt Pepper Co. seem to be the real deal.

Some more hot pepper varities I'm growing are the Congo Trinidad which is described as a plumper habanero type coming in at 2"x2"



 

Congo Trinidad-Day 33

Also in the mix are Takanotsume which is a small thin 2"-3" chile from Japan and Pasillo Bajio which is a mild chile popular for use as an ingredient in mole sauce.