Peppers Flowering

So I noticed a few days ago that a number of my pepper plants are starting to flower.  When I looked this morning there must have been one I missed because it has a full flower on it.  Looking online I found that a number of people recommend pinching off the flowers, until after the plants have been transplanted outside.  I haven’t pinched any off yet but am planning on doing that tonight.  Now the internet did recommend waiting until there was an actual flower to pinch off to make sure you didn’t damage the plant.

Last year I actually had a pepper start indoors, but that plant only grew that one pepper and stayed small until the start of August.  It bore a couple more later on in September but overall was my least productive plant.

My pepper plants are currently around 6 inches tall and look like they are ready for the garden.  In a couple weeks I will not have room for them under the lights anymore and will have to start hardening them off.  By the time I plant on May 19^th –May 26^th they will be 11-12 weeks old depending on when they are planted.  Most sources recommend starting seeds 8-10 weeks before you transplant outside.  This is something I intend to do next year because right now they are just huge and I am afraid a few of them may become root bound. Next year I am going to try starting seeds 8-9 weeks before they need to be transplanted.

The tomato plants aren’t any better, well they are doing great but with regards to me planting early.  By the time that they are transplanted it will have been 10-11 weeks since the seeds were started.  The tomatoes are currently around 7 inches tall and are running out of room faster than the peppers.  They haven’t been thinned out yet because I am hoping that might keep their growth down, which is a little ironic.  I am thinking a 7-8 week time between seed starting and transplants next year might work out a little better.

More Seeds

Although I wasn’t originally planning on it, I just started some kale in the basement.  The original plan was to just direct seed outside in a few weeks but decided I might as well start some now to get a jump on it.  I seeded 18 cells with Red Russian Kale.  The dwarf curled scotch can remain a direct seeded crop mainly because I don’t have anywhere to put the seeds indoors.

The broccoli has started to come up!  When I went down to water I noticed that 2 seeds have sprouted so far.  This is another plant that I wasn’t even going to grow….but I figured why not.  It will be another plant that I can decide it is worth growing, or something that is taking up unnecessary space.

Barnyard Garden

Today was the divvying up of the allotments at the barnyard garden.  We all picked numbers to decide which plot we would end up with.  I actually picked 3 times, the first 2 times I picked the shadiest spots (and are actually plots that may not even be used, no one is in them right now) and then I ended up with the number 3 plot.  It is against the fence and is 19x10, of which I am going to be using a 2” path through the center and a 1’ path only on the one side.  I want to maximize the space I am using.  The soil is a medium to heavier loam.  My plot is a little sticky but it has been rototilled and it was a mass of thick grass before, so it should decompose over the summer and loosen up.

Today I staked out my path and placed a couple of 9’ TV antenna sections on the 2 front corners of my plot.  This is to mark the boundary as well as a trellis for my Capucijner Peas.  I planted 7 seeds around each trellis.  I am hoping that they will climb up the antennas, but if they for whatever reason do not germinate I will plant beans instead.

Peas

The first of the peas have been planted.  I planted a double row of Mammoth Melting snow peas yesterday in the corner bed.  I also finished putting up the trellis for them to grow on.  There are 3 trellis’s, they all have netting to 6 ½’ above ground and are 10’, 10’, 7’ long respectively.  My plan is to plant the rest the second week of May.

I have also been working on the bottom garden bed where the tomatoes and peppers are going to be planted.  It is being expanded from 10’x12’ to 16’x25’ a significant increase.  I am digging and turning all of the sod under and then will re dig in a month when I plant.  I did the same thing last year and only pulled out a little bit of grass.  For the most part the rest of it decomposed pretty well.  Below is a picture of the garden that I'm working on along with my helper. 

This is a picture of the garlic.  There are 7 different kinds planted in that bed and all are doing pretty well.  I did have something eating the tops of them a little bit but figured out that it was the neighbour’s cat.  The damage shouldn't be anything that will affect the size of the bulbs though.

This is a close up of the rhubarb.  It came up a couple weeks ago.





More Transplants

The rest of the peppers were transplanted today.  They were getting a little big and with a month to go before they go outside I thought it was necessary.  I put them all in larger cell packs the same as the previous peppers.  Because of the lack of space under the lights I planted 15 of my peppers into individual 3” pots.  I sent 6 home with my aunt and the rest are going to a teacher at my mother’s school.

The plants don’t fit entirely under the lights, so I will have to rotate the flats every day, so that they all receive the same amount of light and I don’t end up with any twisty ones.

A few of my peppers in the last couple days have appeared with curled leaves and small bumps on the underside of the leaves.  However it is only on the Hungarian, chocolate and 1 medusa pepper.  I think it could be edema after reading the following info.  The leaves in the pictures look exactly like mine.  I am going to not water those affected and heat the room up a little more to help eliminate any cold soil.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pepper/msg0317181726509.html

Broccoli Started

I just planted some broccoli seeds in the basement today.  It is Italian sprouting broccoli that I picked up on Saturday at that seed exchange.  I planted 24 seeds in a 12 cell pack hoping that at least one of the 2 seeds in each cell germinates. The only difference is that I am not using miracle grow soil to start these seeds, I’m using just some generic brand I picked up at the TSC Villager.  It seems to be of a slightly finer particle so it matted down a bit after I watered it.  I guess we will see it it’s any good because I plan on using it to repot the rest of the peppers.

Asparagus

The first asparagus spears are up!  They are the plants that are at the bottom bed.  They are in a shady spot all year long except in the spring before the trees get their leaves.  I will most likely be moving them either to the field this fall or selling them to someone if they want them.

Transplanting

The peppers that I started in the basement have been growing for approximately a month.  Of the 141 seeds planted 120 germinated and are growing.  There are 2 that only had partial leaves but it looks like they are coming back and one that is yellow (I'm fairly sure it is going to die at any time now). Overall, looking at just over an 84% success rate, this far succeeded my expectations when planting.   Due to the increased heat and light this year over last, the peppers are thriving and in the 72 cell pack a couple of the larger ones are starting to shade out the others.

As you can see in this picture the peppers are really startling to get crowded. In the back the tomatoes are just getting started.

 This led to the “growing tower” idea or seeding shelf that I built.  Before today I had 2 flats of peppers and 2 flats of tomatoes sitting on card tables with 2 shop lights overhead for light.  By transplanting into additional flats my horizontal light space was gone so I had to a more vertical structure.

The room is only 59” high with limited space so the shelf is 54” high, 52” long and 17” wide.  It has 3 shelves spaced 17 inches apart.  The sides are made of 2x4 and the shelves are 1 1/4” x5 ½”.  All of the wood came from skids that I tore apart to reuse.  The shelf is screwed together so that after spring is over the shelves can be taken off and it can be moved.  The lights are all 4’ hanging shop lights with cool white bulbs.  They are hanging on hooks with 75lb. chain so that the heights can be adjusted as the plants grow. 

For the pepper transplanting I used 4 small flats each with 12 cells.  The cells are 2”x2 ½”, not as large as I would have liked but they were from a bunch I picked up for free at the end of last year.  I picked 48 of my best plants while still getting some from each variety.  The distribution is as follows King of the North (12), Alma Paprika (8), Hungarian Banana (4), Medusa (6), Jimmy Nardello (6), Chocolate (6) and Purple Beauty (6).  They were planted in the same miracle grow potting soil and will be getting significantly more light as well as water.