Gardening and Plant Thread

[River possum]

Those peppers all look fantastic @Spitz


Here's a few of the pumpkins I picked, I'm bad about taking pictures during harvest. I still have a few rows of larger pumpkins that will be ready closer to Halloween.
View attachment 5384650

I know this is the 'gardening and plants' thread but AFAIK there's no general farming thread so I'll include the 50+ meat chickens that got processed last week
View attachment 5384651

That White pumpkin is so cute! And holy shit that's a lot of chicken, do you vacuum seal at all or just deep freeze? With venison in hunting season after getting it cut up we always freeze it then vacuum seal. Then deep freeze.

 

[Rakovnik]

That White pumpkin is so cute! And holy shit that's a lot of chicken, do you vacuum seal at all or just deep freeze? With venison in hunting season after getting it cut up we always freeze it then vacuum seal. Then deep freeze.

All of the meat chickens are processed at a USDA inspected facility a few hours away, from the way the packaging looks they aren't vacuum sealed. They kill, defeather, gut, and then package them and put them through a fast freezer where they have to hit a certain temp before they can be transported or moved to their deep freezer overnight for pickup the next day

 

[Bassomatic]

Shistios. Probably why the habernos got weaker. Bit spicier than normal super tasty. Made a garlic ginger soy to dip.

Edit: what the fuck is parsing fail mean? Keeps eating my picture.

 

[Spitz]

Those peppers all look fantastic @Spitz


Here's a few of the pumpkins I picked, I'm bad about taking pictures during harvest. I still have a few rows of larger pumpkins that will be ready closer to Halloween.
View attachment 5384650

I know this is the 'gardening and plants' thread but AFAIK there's no general farming thread so I'll include the 50+ meat chickens that got processed last week
View attachment 5384651

Those are some great pumpkins and some big birds! I meant to compliment you on your squash snd corn as well but I got really busy the last two months. I had some 68 and 85 day sweet corn this year but had some troubles with lodging and earwigs/beetles/worms/slugs because of the wet weather. I still had quite a few decent ears to eat and give away but nothing like how yours look. Great videos and pictures, I look forward to seeing more of them in the future.

 

[Rakovnik]

Those are some great pumpkins and some big birds! I meant to compliment you on your squash snd corn as well but I got really busy the last two months. I had some 68 and 85 day sweet corn this year but had some troubles with lodging and earwigs/beetles/worms/slugs because of the wet weather. I still had quite a few decent ears to eat and give away but nothing like how yours look. Great videos and pictures, I look forward to seeing more of them in the future.

Thank you the sweet corn turned out great I was very happy with it! I wish I grabbed a picture of a shucked ear, the kernels looked like little glass beads. The only problem was an infestation of corn earworm / armyworm so I'll have to rework my pesticide schedule on the corn next year. From what I read, other people were spraying every 4 days which was way more often than I did.

The squash yield was much lower than I expected, I think they were shaded too much by the popcorn rows. Other than that they were good

Oh speaking of the wet weather, I had dry days and then tons of rain which led to powdery mildew on the pumpkin vines. I'm not bothering with it since I'm waiting to take the last bunch off the vines and it won't hurt the gourds themselves but if this had happened earlier in the season I'd be pissed.

 

[Spitz]

Oh speaking of the wet weather, I had dry days and then tons of rain which led to powdery mildew on the pumpkin vines. I'm not bothering with it since I'm waiting to take the last bunch off the vines and it won't hurt the gourds themselves but if this had happened earlier in the season I'd be pissed.

Yeah I've had mildew on the squash for a while now but the leaves had senesced so much in the past 45 days that I didn't worry about it. All that mattered was the fruit maturing. I didn't even hook up water to them after mid August because I only saw male blooms, and they still ended up putting on a few more little bulbs late in the season. I harvested the Butternut today and ended up with 15 off of four plants. They still have some green stripes coming from the stem so I'll let them sit for a while before eating them. Still waiting on the three acorn I have, the orange spots haven't grown much in the past month.

It's amazing how much mildew and other disease I saw this year. I saw a lot of verticillium in the sunflowers and had rust on a number of ornamental flowers. I'm going to go scorched earth on the soil next year to try to kill it, while praying for a dry and hot season. I'd rather pump 60,000 gallons a month than have three times the precipitation and three times the disease/pests.

 

[Rakovnik]

I harvested more pumpkins and decorative gourds this weekend. This will probably be my last batch from the garden unless the last few green ones ripen before Halloween.

 

[ChaosReignsOnSomeSaturday]

I really want to try the different types of edible mushrooms like beefsteak, but I don't think I have the capability to grow them.

 

[WanderingFarmer]

Well this past year's garden was nothing to post about. Sad, tiny plants all starving because I dumbly did not test the soil to see what I needed to add.

That said I have amended that and have a decent stand of wheat sprouted and one bee hive left to over winter!

 

[WanderingFarmer]

I really want to try the different types of edible mushrooms like beefsteak, but I don't think I have the capability to grow them.

You'd be surprised! Try an oyster starter kit, you can get 2 flushes from those usually

 

[Rakovnik]

Well this past year's garden was nothing to post about. Sad, tiny plants all starving because I dumbly did not test the soil to see what I needed to add.

That said I have amended that and have a decent stand of wheat sprouted and one bee hive left to over winter!View attachment 5418886

So that's winter wheat in its current state and not a summer wheat picture from spring right? I assume you hand reap and thresh that patch, how long does it take you?

I was supposed to get a bunch of hay pasture tilled and seeded before fall but the timing of my last cutting and the weather didn't cooperate. Now it's far too late so I have a pallet rack full of grass seed in my way all winter.

 

[WanderingFarmer]

So that's winter wheat in its current state and not a summer wheat picture from spring right? I assume you hand reap and thresh that patch, how long does it take you?

I was supposed to get a bunch of hay pasture tilled and seeded before fall but the timing of my last cutting and the weather didn't cooperate. Now it's far too late so I have a pallet rack full of grass seed in my way all winter.

It's winter wheat in it's current state. As for time, stay tuned! It hasn't produced a crop yet so I'll be giving it a shot next spring for the first time.
I do plan to hand reap and thresh though.

 

[Rakovnik]

It's winter wheat in it's current state. As for time, stay tuned! It hasn't produced a crop yet so I'll be giving it a shot next spring for the first time.
I do plan to hand reap and thresh though.

Very cool, I'm excited to see it in the spring! I commend you on being ready to do it all by hand.

I've looked into doing grains but I couldn't do it without at least an old pto reaper-binder to save labor/time. Or the Chinese make small walk behind versions like this

Although I'm not sure what they mean by the text on there

 

[Bassomatic]

They are small but I still have eggplants!! Not sure if I take em off now or wait. It's low 40s (f) at night and from 70-50 in days.

 

[Spitz]

Although I'm not sure what they mean by the text on there

The last thing that would ever come to mind in regard to peppers. Chinese no type Engrish good.

They are small but I still have eggplants!! Not sure if I take em off now or wait. It's low 40s (f) at night and from 70-50 in days.

You could cover them with blankets or trash bags before the temperature drops below 50 at night. I've been covering some things at night to keep the frost off of them. I've never dealt with eggplants so I don't know what their exposure limit is. Beets and carrots are low, something around 26F, some of my peppers can handle 40F, while the super-hots get stunted below 55F. Onions turn into mush if they get a hard frost.

 

[skekChuck]

I think this year was probably the most challenging year I’ve had for gardening.

Had a do’oh moment when we planted way too late. June was super dry, like weather you’d expect to see in August. Then when August came around it was rainy like it should in June.

Battled tomato blight and tomato worms.
Thankfully no powdery mildew made an appearance.

We managed to get some corn, lots of tomatoes, peppers, and did successfully grow one watermelon. Rhubarb is doing quite well too.

It’s was definitely a learning year.

 

[Spitz]

The aphid infestation is in full swing, and I'm honestly surprised it took them this long. They're confined to the super-hot pepper plants right now, which is good because pest infestation this late in the game raises capsaicin concentration, and the Scorpion and Reaper peppers just started turning fully red throughout most of each plant. There are still some green peppers as well as new blossoms, so I'll start fighting them off with a neem oil and organic soap solution once they've showed up on half of the stems and leaves of each plant. I also have some fine sand to fill the pots up in order to suffocate future spawn, if need be.

Here they are on the Reaper plants.

 

[Spitz]

The peppers are moving along well in the ripening process. The bananas are starting to turn orange, while remaining crisp. I'll ferment these once they've changed completely.


These Ausilio thin skin Italian peppers have a good flavor and a decent amount of heat, comparable to a habanero. I've put together some half-gallon ferments with them and some other peppers for hot sauce. That's still a month away from being ready, though.


The Reapers that set when the plants were outside are ripening well, many wrinkles. The newer ones that budded inside haven't grown very much, but they'll make nice snacks when they're ready. I'll ferment these with the Scorpions to make a super hot sauce.


The Scorpions are the biggest of the plants, one is over three feet tall now. They've ripened well, but I did see some serious blossom end rot in one of the peppers, That's rarer for the super-hot peppers, it's usually contained to the seeds, with the pith being protected by the capsaicin. Full rot like this does occur, though. We gotta take our losses with grace, and try to be more diligent with prevention and mitigation in the future.


They sting, even when they don't have a stinger!

It fell off when I bumped into the plant. Poor feller.


I was accosted by a billion bugs while snapping these photos. I found some peppermint oil to mix with neem and soap, in order to fight the aphids. The genocide will begin soon(of the aphids, aphid genocide).

 

[Spitz]

I stripped and cut the Savina and Trinidad Scorpion plants. They were done producing any new blossoms, and the peppers that had set were ripe enough to pull. I have 14 plants left, the three cayenne plants and the two Tabasco plants are drying out so that I can make powder out of them, and I'll put that in a different thread at a later date. I didn't end up fighting the aphids because of a special ecosystem that has emerged due to their presence. This ecosystem is handling things well enough.

Here are the plants that are under the grow light. You can see the impact of the aphids. The leaves are shiny and there are white specks on them. Most of these peppers set over a month ago and didn't increase in size very much, mostly due to the transition from outside to inside.


I'd never seen banana peppers like this before. No store or farmer's market around here ever carries ripened ones. I'm excited to ferment these in the next couple weeks to see if there's a noticeable difference between yellow and red.


These plants had started wilting and overall looked terrible, so I stripped them and cut them down. The habanero plants grow wider than they do tall, which can make them a pain for staking. Luckily, I didn't lose any branches off of these habanero plants. I did lose two lower branches off of one of the Scorpion plants due to downdrafts.

Savina habanero


Trinidad Scorpion


These were what I got for the final harvest. I ate the tiny Scorpion peppers with some feta cheese and cranberries. Even they are up there around a million Scoville units. The habaneros were pretty week, but that might be more my tolerance to the capsaicin.


I've been saving the seeds as I go. I didn't get as many super-hot seeds, because the peppers weren't big enough, but the ones I did get look viable. The things that look like mouse droppings are seeds that were affected by blossom end rot. They'll be discarded.


Here are the stems of the Savina and Scorpion plants. The bark-like streaks happen from wind exposure. They are extremely tough, like bamboo. It's actually pretty surprising. You can see where I had two branches break off on the Scorpion2 stem. I want to say that was around June or July.


These little ones have been feasting. That's why I didn't go genocidal on the aphids. This was the only picture I could get, dammit. They want no part of my shenanigans, screwing with their home and all.


I've got three gallons going and a lot more pictures to take, but here is a preview of some Louisiana-style hot sauce fermentation. Reapers, Scorpions, habaneros, Long cayenne, garlic, and onion. Lactobacillus ferment, salt and distilled water. This is ten days in. There were still some air bubbles to suck out. I've gotten rid of those and had to raise the brine level a few times. It smells good and I haven't seen any molds or even any kahm yeast. There'll be some kahm yeast in the papaya hot sauce ferments for sure though. I'll post that all later in the hot sauce thread when everything is done.

Edit: forgot to insert one picture

 

[Hecate]

So what are everyone's plans for this next season? I finally got myself a tractor so my garden plans have just about doubled.
Think I might also be planting some fodder crops for my chickens, geese, and rabbits so I'm not paying as much in feed.

My list so far is:
Tomato
Eggplant
Corn
Wine cap mushrooms
Beans
Potato
Squash
Onion
Cabbage
Carrot
Turnip
Spinach