|
|
Post by steev on May 31, 2012 11:10:28 GMT -5
No clues here.
|
|
|
|
Post by bunkie on Jun 1, 2012 11:58:58 GMT -5
great thread holly. i'm experimenting with direct seeding this year. we have a greenhouse, but the plants in it are growing slower than plants i have on the porch?! have had a very cold spring...the greenhouse is not heated and the porch is more protected.
i usually pot up almost everything in paper pots i make, and lately, with soil blockers. experimented with the peppers in the tiny blocks and then moved them into the 2" ones. worked great, and they germinated extremely fast which was a wonderful surprize.
corn and the grains i have usually started in trays filled with soil...no cells...and then transfered to the garden. this year i'm direct seeding all, including the squashes. even with the cold spring, the soil temps are just right.
i haven't planted the rice yet that you sent from alan, but thanks for the advice. a couple years ago i planted rice in flats. they were gorgeous plants. i finally put them out late due to a cold spring. they did well till June 19th, i think it was, when it snowed all day and the temp was 32F aall day. ricee plants do not like any type of COLD!!!
|
|
|
|
Post by 12540dumont on Jun 1, 2012 18:37:18 GMT -5
Gardner & Bloome, Blue Ribbon Premium Potting Soil. The other was the Home Despot White and Green Bag. My DS tested the pH and said it was whacked. I tried everything to bring those peppers around. That's why I transplanted them so small. I will never try to save that 2 bucks again.
I live in the Pepper Capital of the World. That's right, San Martin is the Pepper Capital. Every other farmer grows peppers. They love those long days of even heat. Last year, even I grew worried as there were hardly any days over 85 and far to many under 75. Really glorious weather for farming and I never complained once. The eggplant and peppers were miserable though. I finally got them in very late September. I think heat in peppers is totally a genetic thing. I'm not sure the weather makes a Habanero more tame. But peppers cross easily and well, I had an Ancho once that removed the skin in my mouth. My take away from that was peppers in separate beds if I'm saving seeds. Hot with Hot if I'm saving seeds. And those Habaneros/Scotch Bonnets....banished to left field....way out in left field. Further.
That's why I think this is going to be a great season for melons and all those heat loving eggplant...It's already in the 90's and it's only June! I got tomatillos on! Salsa's around the corner.
Maybe I should try okra again? How can I have Texas Pickled Okra, when I only have one okra plant? I saved the seed from that one plant. What'dya Southern folks think? Too small a Gene Pool?
|
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 1, 2012 18:51:11 GMT -5
Maybe I should try okra again? How can I have Texas Pickled Okra, when I only have one okra plant? I saved the seed from that one plant. What'dya Southern folks think? Too small a Gene Pool? Last year one plant and a wimpy produced seed for me, I figure that they were the most well adapted to my garden out of all 150 seeds that I put into the ground. I'd much rather replant that seed with a narrow gene-pool than start over with unadapted seed. I'm planting more unadapted landrace seed also, so perhaps something will survive from that as well. So grow it out, and if you get anything from your okra let's swap: We'll double the gene-pool slick as anything. |
|
|
|
Post by 12540dumont on Jun 1, 2012 22:11:37 GMT -5
Okay, I'll throw it in. Leo says I should have stuck with Clemson Spineless that going with Giant Burmese Okra was really reaching. Well, in my own defense, I have a Giant Burmese Honeysuckle and it's all that and more....talk about biomass (shh....) Okay, I'll put it in a tray tomorrow and see what it does. Lord knows I left that lonely okra in the field till it was dry as a bone. Leo wants pickled okra, and as we all know, the boss gets what he wants, so if I have to order a jar from Texas, you'll all know I was a failure. And no slick gene pool to share with Joseph  |
|
|
|
Post by steev on Jun 1, 2012 23:27:07 GMT -5
I planted out two kinds of okra yesterday; I have hope of more okra than I'll eat in the garden. Could happen, though it never has yet.
Also got the eggplants in, and a lot of melons, squash, corn, and peppers.
So much yet to pot up, let alone set out; I so need an on-site greenhouse; I just don't have the space to do this efficiently now.
|
|
|
|
Post by bunkie on Jun 2, 2012 10:53:26 GMT -5
same here steve. getting a lot seeded and much of it is still sitting there...too chilly a night me thinks. putting in plants today with blankets handy for nights.
okra has always done well up here...i figured it liked the cold???! ;D
holly, i agree on the separation of the sweet and oot peppers. i've noticed, tho, that hot peppers get hotter with dryness! customers up here like really hot jalapenoes and seranos and such, so i grow them on the dry side. makes them 'wicked' hot in taste!
|
|
|
|
Post by raymondo on Jun 6, 2012 3:18:54 GMT -5
Grew two varieties of okra last season - Dwarf Long Green Pod and Jing Orange. Got seed from one plant of each. Nothing to eat. Hoping for better things this season with those saved seeds. Might cross them deliberately too to add a bit of zing to the mix!
Just sowed a heap of onion seeds in the garden. I usually do them in trays.
|
|
|
|
Post by steev on Jun 7, 2012 22:14:18 GMT -5
I'd really like a good crop of okra for frying, pickling, and stewing, but it's such a tasty munch in the garden.
|
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 24, 2012 0:51:15 GMT -5
Holly: Thanks for the article.
I've been playing around with growing seedlings for transplant. The plugs I am using are approximately 3/4" in diameter, and come 128 to a flat. I have been growing in a foil lined box in the basement, under fluorescent lights, with and without natural light, and then moving the flats outside to harden off for about 4 days under 4 mil white plastic. After I started using the plastic only as an open sided sunscreen and not as a frost protector, I didn't lose plants to overheating.
I've decided that planting into plug trays works really well for me with crops that are not highly susceptible to flea beetles. With cucurbitaceae it has worked really well with plants much smaller than what I'd typically see at a nursery. I have avoided nursery transplants of squashy types because they seem to take transplanting very hard and take longer to get going than direct seeded. But if I plant seedlings out early in the first true leaf stage they grow great.
I planted peppers in plug trays and then planted the plugs with a tube seeder. Wow!!! That was the slickest pepper planting operation ever. ;D The time to plant each pepper was around 5 seconds!!!
Potato seedlings in plug trays were very susceptible to flee beetles. They should have been bigger before I planted them out, but because I killed most of the first batch I get what I get.
Some varieties of tomatoes succumbed to the beetles, others did great. They could have also benefited from being bigger when they went into the ground. That was also a matter of timing, not a problem with the plugs being too small.
It's great that the seedlings don't get lost among the weeds.
|
|
|
|
Post by bunkie on Jun 24, 2012 11:45:14 GMT -5
after the experiences we've had this year, i will be doing less direct seeding and much more transplanting. the weather has been so unpredictable and every torrential rain, we have to recover the planted seed with soil, plus germination is going very very slow. perhaps i should've mulched after seeding...then again, i'm going with mostly transplants!
|
|
|
|
Post by 12540dumont on Jun 24, 2012 12:31:57 GMT -5
Leo loves corn from transplants as it's 2 weeks ahead of the weeds.
Right now I'm direct seeding.
My neighbor direct seeds tomatoes!
Here's her method.
She gets old hay that is still baled, but not good for any animals.
She has a guy till between two rows of baled hay. She lays in a 50 ft. stretch of leaky pipe and sprinkles tomato seeds. She puts plastic on top, but not on the sides and walks away. She does this in March.
In April she rolled up the plastic and pushed away the bales of hay and proudly showed me a row of tomatoes that was 1 foot tall.
Certainly one of the strangest direct seeding projects I have ever seen.
I'm not ready to go there.
The only thing that I cannot get to go from transplant is Zukes. I have to direct seed them or the squash bugs come for them....I don't know why.
|
|
|
|
Post by Leenstar on Jun 24, 2012 22:00:15 GMT -5
Several of the strongest tomatoes in my garden are volunteers from the compost I mixed in. I started my planned tomatoes back in February in the basment under lights. I felt proud of getting many of the plants up to a foot tall. Nonetheless the strongest two in the garden are volunteer Reisentraubes with big thick limbs and stems almost an inch in diameter.
Definitely saving seeds from those two. It does make me wonder if some sort of winter sown direct seeding operation might not be better than my months of codling in the basement under lights and with a warming mat.
|
|
|
|
Post by Drahkk on Jun 24, 2012 22:39:03 GMT -5
It does make me wonder if some sort of winter sown direct seeding operation might not be better than my months of codling in the basement under lights and with a warming mat. I've been wondering the same thing myself. I've never seen as many volunteer tomatoes as I had this year. And some of them were outpacing my transplants early on. I think next year I'm going to hedge my bets and try both ways. I'll start transplants as usual, and direct seed as well. If the direct seeded ones take, I'll just give away the unneeded transplants. MB |
|
|
|
Post by raymondo on Jul 12, 2012 17:59:06 GMT -5
In our 2006/07 season we had a devastating hail storm on the summer solstice. The garden was wiped out, everything mashed to bits and under a few inches of ice for a day or so. Many birds were killed as was a cow in the field across the road! Needless to say all the tomatoes were wiped out. Once the ice had cleared and warm weather had returned I got out a couple of packets of tomato seed and scattered them over a few beds. I raked the beds over and waited. I had one of the best tomato crops I've ever had, very late, but fantastically productive. I haven't direct seeded before or since. Perhaps I should!
|
|
