Gardening: the beets must go on

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Gardening: the beets must go on

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

SpannerX posted:

Here's one: http://www.globalresearch.ca/death-of-the-bees-genetically-modified-crops-and-the-decline-of-bee-colonies-in-north-america/25950

Globalresearch.ca also advocates for various 9/11 conspiracy theories (e.g., typical 9/11 truther nonsense about the mechanics of the collapse), links between vaccines and autism, various New World Order conspiracies, and so on.

They're cranks. You shouldn't cite them as a source.

SpannerX posted:

Here's another one, from Der Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/collapsing-colonies-are-gm-crops-killing-bees-a-473166.html

...which quotes a guy that says that GMOs might be related, in some undisclosed way, to bee dieoffs. But gives no references or data to support the claim, and searching for it on the net appears to indicate that the data he might be alluding to was never published. And the article isn't about it anyway.

On the other hand, there have been studies (e.g. this peer-reviewed paper) which find no link.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2013 21:58

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 10:25

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

SpannerX posted:

Welp, looks like there is no link according to that. Most of the time I'm pretty good about digging deeper into issues like this, but this one seems plausible, so I guess I jumped on it too quick.

Well, there's no data supporting that there is a link, which isn't exactly the same thing as saying there isn't a link. I really don't think there's enough data either way to say that there's consensus.

Anyway, bees are cool. I had a swarm hanging out in a tree in my backyard a couple days ago:

I just moved and I'm still working on setting up a garden and so on, or I would've considered trying to get an apiary and transfer them to it.

But I really didn't come here to talk about bees. Just set up the first (hopefully of many) raised bed planters in the backyard:

That's about half peppers, with some basil, Italian parsley, and a couple kinds of cucumber. Not pictured is the okra and is going in the ground soon. I'm planning on leaving some space since it's so late and use it for fall planting.

Anyone have experience with potato/multiplier onions? Planning on putting in several, some for immediate consumption and some to keep for subsequent planting. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information about them out there, and most of it is geared toward `conventional' growing, instead of the high density raised bed growing I'm planning on doing.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2013 22:33

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Anyone have experience with pequin peppers? I've been trying to get some going from seeds and haven't been having much luck. I've actually tried multiple approaches---direct sowing, germinating in a damp paper towel, and using peat pellets---and have gotten plenty of seedlings sprouting, but after they come up and spread their seed leaves they seem to just sorta stall there for a couple days and then collapse. After they spread their seed leaves I've started hardening them off by putting them outside in the shade and bringing them in at night. They seem to get around a week into this and then just give up and fall over without having grown appreciably.

For whatever its worth I've got other seedlings that I'm handling the same way---okra and bitter melon---and they seem happy enough. I've got some arbols in the same soil that are really loving happy, two varieties of habanero that are pretty happy, and thai hot and bhut jolokias that are doing okay.

Just wondering if there's some weird peculiarity of pequins that I don't know about or something like that. For whatever its worth, the best looking seedlings seem to have come out of the seeds that I germinated in peat pellets. The received wisdom seems to be that peppers sowed this way don't do well, but the only seedling that I currently have going (out of about a dozen) looks like it is going to make it started out that way.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2013 02:43

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Anubis posted:

Uck, potatoes are too much drat digging. 3 hours this weekend harvesting them from my little 8x8 raised garden. Got ~27lbs all said and done. Though, a couple pounds are really too small to use they will work well as seed potatoes next year, though. Still, that was way too much digging for my taste and this might be the last year I do potatoes... no clue what else I would put there though, and they did do awfully well for how much I neglected them.... uck.

Grow your potatoes in potato towers instead. Higher yield per square foot, and less of a pain in the rear end to harvest.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2013 02:07

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

dangittj posted:

Just had powdery mildew attack my zucchini plants, seemed to spring up overnight. I treated them with a milk spray per some googling. Anybody have any experience with this? Anybody have any recommendations about something stronger if the milk doesn't work?

My cucurbits all seem to have all broken out in powdery mildew in the past couple days after producing like crazy for a couple weeks.

Does anyone have a tried-and-true approach to pickling Armenian cucumbers? I tried making some bread and butter pickles per my usual approach (which involves briefly simmering the chips in brine) and they seem to get soft really loving fast (compared to, say, my Bostons).

# ¿ Aug 9, 2013 01:46

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Anyone got a tried and true approach to getting Szechuan peppercorns to germinate?

# ¿ Sep 24, 2013 23:19

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Molten Llama posted:

Gotta share this morning's discovery:

While trying to replace a Japanese pepper the cold finally killed, I stumbled onto Kitazawa Seed. They specialize in heirloom Asian produce and have everything from adzuki beans to wax gourds.

As someone in love with growing strange things, I'm sold.

I'm not a master gardener, but I've bought seeds from Kitazawa and had good luck with them. I had a bunch of bitter melons grown from their seeds, until frost killed them all.

TheMightyHandful posted:

Sticks pointing up out of the ground stopped the cats nearby making GBS threads in my veggie patch.

I've been using disposable chopsticks from Chinese takeout. Stuck 'em in at irregular intervals. Seems to be keeping the neighbourhood cats from using my raised bed garden as a litter box.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2014 09:28

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

AxeBreaker posted:

Anybody ever tried multiplying or top set onions? I'm thinking about buying some bulbs online but they are a little pricey at heirloomonions.com. Any experiences?

This is from a while back, but I'm just catching up on the thread. Anyway, I've got some potato onions in one of the raised beds right now:

The darker green guys to the left are the potato onions (the lighter ones to the right are garlic). I don't know about multiplier onions in general, but potato onions are dead loving simple to cultivate. They keep really well, and don't seem to be particularly sensitive to temperature fluctuations (which can make other kinds of onion go to seed).

Those there are yellow potato onions. The mature bulbs tend to be around six or seven cm across (around three inches). They've got a somewhat punchier flavour than standard yellow onions. Definitely still an onion flavour, but with with a little more bite and a little less sweet.

If that doesn't answer your question, what kind of information are you looking for?

# ¿ Apr 15, 2014 23:02

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Peristalsis posted:

They are copious and can be hard (but fun) to find among the leaves. The ones you lose track of and don't pick until the seeds really start to bulge don't taste as good.

One solution to this is to grow long beans/yardlong beans. They're a different genus than green beans, but their culinary uses are essentially identical (about the only thing you can't do with a long bean that you can with a green bean is serve them whole). The pods are usually harvested when they're between 12" and 18", but they'll keep going until they're over two feet long. The seeds develop fairly slowly, so there's less worry about letting them stay too long on the vine.

Peristalsis posted:

1) If you don't like green beans, that's fine, but if all you've ever had is frozen or canned beans, you might be surprised at how much better fresh beans taste. It's almost as remarkable of a difference as store bought tomatoes vs homegrown.

If you think you don't like green beans, find a good Chinese restaurant (like the kind that has a separate menu in Chinese, not a strip mall Mr. Chopsticks place), and get some dry braised green beans (gan bian si ji dou). Or you can make it yourself---it's a pretty simple dish. It's one of those dishes that people who don't normally like green beans seem to love.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2014 21:37

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

AxeBreaker posted:

I'm growing some yardlong beans on an arbor this year that gives them about 8' of room. I did some last year on a ghetto trellis and they went to 8 to 10' easy, but no further. One author recommends pinching off the leader early so they spread out more. Personally, I've noticed that they really like to vine up vertical elements (poles, strings) and basically ignore horizontal ones. Just some food for thought.

I'm trying to get my long beans to go up an inclined trellis so they'll shade some lettuces as the get bigger through the season. They're not quite tall enough yet to see if they're going to be happy about that.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2014 00:39

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

ixo posted:

He's probably one of those defective people who hate the taste of cilantro. Go ahead and try some more seeds, but in my experience cilantro is a finicky bitch.

Really? A few years back I had a couple flowerbeds growing peppers and cilantro, and damned if that cilantro didn't spread like a weed trying to choke everything else out.

# ¿ May 3, 2014 21:29

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Trebuchet King posted:

One of the most delicious things I've ever eaten was quail in a haba�ero jelly glaze.

Habanero, not haba�ero. But yeah, habanero jelly rocks. I regularly make smoked pork loin with a finishing sauce of about 5:1 habanero jelly and maple syrup.

# ¿ May 5, 2014 21:47

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Cimber posted:

Ok, what the hell should i do with these bean seedlings s that have a huge stock (4 inches long)and only two leaves? It can't support its own weight and is falling. SHould i put a really tiny stick in the planter and prop them up?

If they can't support their own weight and they're still on their seed leaves your solution is probably to plant more beans.

Where do you have them? My first guess would be that they're not getting enough sun, which will make beans leggy like that.

Trebuchet King posted:

Now I'm thinking I should grow either some habaneros for jelly or jalapenos to make chipotles for my chipotle slaw recipe--which is what I'm growing the cilantro for, incidentally.

Jalape�o, not jalapeno. Not really trying to give you a hard time here, just making the point that jalape�o and habanero have different N sounds in 'em, because it's one of those things that a lot of people get wrong (I said `haba�ero' for years myself).

# ¿ May 5, 2014 22:34

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Gerbil_Pen posted:

I just set up an herb garden for my wife (pots).

Basil, rosemary, oregano, cilantro, parsley, and thyme.

Can anyone point me to a reliable resource for properly harvesting herbs without taking too much, or damaging the plants unnecessarily?

Unless they're tiny plants or you're cooking for an army all of those will produce (or at least are capable of producing) more herb than you can use.

Basil and parsley really like being cut back. Parsley is biennial and will get leggy as gently caress and go to seed the second year, and you won't get much out of it then (although it should come back the following year). Most basil will try to flower like loving crazy, but you should pinch off the buds to keep it from going to seed if you just want it for the leaves. Basil'll start to get huge and woody as it gets older. If it's potted you can take it indoors when it gets cold to slow this down. In the end you'll want to just take a cutting and start over.

Thyme seems to start slow and then take off. Every time I've put in some thyme for the first growing season it just sorta sits there and I start thinking maybe it isn't happy, then the following season you blink it's carpeted everything.

Rosemary is just about a loving weed. A wonderful, aromatic, delicious weed, but a loving weed nonetheless. About the only problems I've ever had cultivating it is keeping it hacked back to a manageable size.

Remember cilantro is also coriander, so in addition to the leaves you can let it go to seed and collect and dry the fruit as well.

Fozzy The Bear posted:

The leaves of my pepper plants curl up from the sides and are slightly yellow. I just fertilized 2 days ago, so I am hoping that greens up, but what does the curling mean? Should I not worry about it?

Every time I've ever grown �rbol peppers they seem to go through a phase where they want to do this---look kinda sad and wilty during the day, perk up at night, and a couple of the lower leaves yellow. I've tried treating individual plants differently (feeding, shade, watering) but never got anything that I felt was obviously the cause/solution to the problem. It doesn't seem to stunt the plants and they always seem to turn out productive as hell.

What kind of climate are you in? I've been tentatively attributing it to the plants not quite liking the day/night temperature balance here (9b). Resources on the web seem to diagnose the symptoms as everything from being completely normal and nothing to worry about to holy poo poo deadly fungus in the soil salt the earth.

SubG fucked around with this message at 22:41 on May 12, 2014

# ¿ May 12, 2014 22:28

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Fozzy The Bear posted:

Northern California, its been 70-80 during the day and in the 50's at night. I'll just be patient and see what happens, thanks :-)

Yeah, so pretty much the same. For whatever it's worth here's one of my �rbol plants right now. The leaves are all droopy (while every other pepper in the garden has their leaves angled up and are all looking perky as poo poo) and there's a little yellowing. But the plant is growing like a motherfucker and is starting to put out a bunch of flower buds.

# ¿ May 12, 2014 22:58

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

jvick posted:

I am in northern CA too, this is what many of my plants look like during the heat of the day (lunch), from butternut, to peppers, to pumpkins. By the time I get home in the evening, the leaves have all perked up and look healthy.

What's funny is that most of the other peppers, much less other plants, don't seem to do this. Like here are the sickliest two pepper plants I currently have in the garden. The first's a Thai bird and the second a habanero:

Neither is doing the droopy wilty thing the �rbols seem to like doing, but neither is growing as well as the �rbol is.

# ¿ May 14, 2014 00:45

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Flipperwaldt posted:

What the gently caress is up with loving pigeons eating the loving leaves off my loving pepper plants?

For gently caress's sake, gently caress the gently caress off already, loving rats! gently caress! Plenty of leaves anywhere else, dipshits.

I haven't had trouble with birds going after my peppers, but holy poo poo they love okra seedlings. Last year I lost a half dozen or so to birds just biting the stem off. And then leaving it. I built a chicken wire cage-thing to contain the seedlings while I was hardening them off, and ended up watching as a bird swooped down to poke its beak through the chicken wire to snap off one stem that was too close to the wire.

# ¿ May 16, 2014 23:25

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Grand Fromage posted:

A couple little spiders seem to have moved in as well, I'm trying not to scare them off. Last year I had a mantis chilling out in my herbs for weeks, it'd be nice if another one of those showed up.

What kind of spider? I've currently got a momma oxyopid sitting on an egg sac in the trellis I built for my Chinese longbeans:

There are a lot of Oxyopidae and Salticidae around, which are pretty aggressive visual hunters that hop around the leaves, so they're presumably killing garden pests. There are also a fair number of small Araneidae, which are orb weavers and so presumably are mostly catching flying insects.

# ¿ May 31, 2014 07:57

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Anyone know a cultivar of okra that's reasonably tolerant of cool evenings? Past couple of years all I've managed is a bunch of runty and unproductive plants. This is somewhat counter to my experience with okra in south Texas, where it grew like a loving weed and wouldn't break a sweat hitting two metres. I assume the problem is that the temperature can get down in the '50s some nights.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2014 12:42

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

fine-tune posted:

From everything I've read, okra just isn't cold tolerant (much like tomatoes or peppers).

No problems with tomatoes or peppers. I currently have a poblano that's threatening to take over the space where I have the okra, and I've got a couple habaneros that seem to want to be hedges. About the only peppers that I've got this year that seem to be struggling are some Trinidad scorpions, but they're just a couple feet away from some bhut jolokias that are happy as hell.

loving okra come up fine, but then seem to just stall when they get to be about 40 cm or so, and only ever produce a couple of pods.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2014 18:30

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Motronic posted:

If I were to do something like that in my climate it would be things like blackberries, raspberries, a few grape species, chestnut trees, and (best of all but short harvest season) ramps (wild garlic).

What do grape root systems look like? I've got some built-in flower bed type things along one side of the house that I've thought about putting grapes into and keeping them pruned down to a manageable size, but I'm vaguely concerned about the roots loving with the foundation.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2014 23:41

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Shifty Pony posted:

I was worried about what I was seeing in many recipes (especially with sugar content, I want a pickle not candy!) so I went really simple and used this recipe, doubled, and it had enough liquid for 6 well packed pints.

Sugar in a pickling recipe doesn't necessarily lead to candy-sweet pickles. Sugar is a classic pairing with acidity not to provide sweetness in the sense you mean, but because it accents the acidity---like adding a pinch of salt to some greens won't make them taste salty but it will make the `green' flavours more vivid.

Also, bread and butter pickles, which are usually on the sweet side, own.

If you want super simple you can just mix up a 5% brine and submerge your cucumbers in it until they ferment. I usually transfer the fermented pickles into a flavoured brine before packing, but you can also eat them straight---salty and tart, and it's pretty much the definition of really simple.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 20:48

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Hummingbirds posted:

Nope. The fruits are produced according to the plant's genes. Since the seeds are the "child" of the plant, that's the only part that will have combined DNA from the plant and whatever it was fertilized with. At least that's my layperson's understanding of it.

I don't know about squash specifically but pollination source and frequency matter for some crops. Or at least there's a substantial body of research on commercial crops (a quick google search turns up results for a couple kinds of citrus and figs, for example) and how pollen source and pollination frequency influences fruit set and fruit quality.

Without knowing more, my guess would be it is something that varies with the structure/kind of fruit (that is, a pome versus pericarp or whatever) but that's just a guess.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2014 22:50

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Breaky posted:

Collard greens, broccoli?

I'm about to put in some gai lan, so I'm going to suggest gai lan. It's the same species as common broccoli (Brassica oleraea), but is leafier and has a punchier taste. Most sources say it works well for late Summer planting.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2014 00:18

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Peristalsis posted:

For what it's worth, I asked the same question of the local extension office, and they confirmed Hummingbirds' assessment (which is what made sense to me, but I wanted to be sure). In fact, they sent a link.

I have to reiterate that while it is true that different species won't cross-pollinate and different cultivars that cross-pollinate won't produce hybrid fruit in the first season, cross-pollination does affect fruit set and quality (specifically, fruit set and quality are improved by cross-pollination over self-pollination). More generally, pollination quantity and quality affect fruit set and quality, in addition to affecting seed production and progeny quality.

Or at least this is true in the general case. If there's data which suggests it's not true specifically of cucurbits I haven't seen it (but would love to).

# ¿ Jul 24, 2014 01:57

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Peristalsis posted:

I've read that, of the 4 species of squash, 2 of them can cross pollinate, though only in one direction. The improved fruit setting is interesting - I'll have to encourage cross-pollination next time around.

According to the Cornell paper I linked, the best fruit size was obtained from just letting bees pollinate the plants so you're probably already doing everything you need to. The exact mechanism(s) aren't known, but pollination frequency and (less strongly) pollen diversity are both positively correlated with fruit size.

The reason I bring it up at all is just to make the point that most sources that discuss the issue seem to approach it like it's just a question of whether or not you'd get hybrid fruit the first season (you won't), but there are other factors.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 01:02

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Marchegiana posted:

When a carrot bolts they're no good for eating anymore- the roots get real woody and bitter. I'd pull them unless they're an open pollinated variety you can save seed from.

I haven't seen any carrots bolt their first year, but I have had that happen with parsley. Sometimes if you have a cold snap hit at just the right time after they've sprouted it tricks them into thinking it's now "winter" and they'll bolt when it warms because it thinks it's the second year now.

Onions and other alliums loving love to do this too. It's convenient if you're growing chives, for example, because you can just let them self-propagate and pretty soon you'll end up with more than you know what to do with and who cares if a couple are inedible due to bolting. Otherwise, pain in the rear end.

I don't know about carrots, but with onions pretty much any environmental stress seems to be apt to trigger bolting---a sudden warm spell, a particularly rainy period, whatever the gently caress.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2014 22:59

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Every time I try to direct sow okra something comes along and cleanly takes off the seed leaves right after they emerge. Is there some kind of insect or similar pest that's known to do this? The gai lan and eggplant seedlings, about the same size, in the same location weren't molested. In the past I've seen birds going after larger okra seedlings (or some goddamn reason---they don't eat them or cart them off, just tear them up) but I don't think that's what's happened here.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 02:29

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

mischief posted:

Sounds like bunnies. They do the same thing to bean plant seedlings here.

Pretty sure it isn't rabbits. Don't have any other signs, and there's a bunch of other poo poo I'd expect rabbits to lay into (lettuces and other greens, beans, and so on) if they were bothering with a couple just-sprouted okra seedlings.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 04:22

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

coyo7e posted:

The bhut joloka plant is starting to put on blossoms finally, crossing my fingers that I can still have a chance at hurting myself trying to eat one.

My bhut jolokas have been growing like crazy but haven't been setting many fruit. I've got two habanero plants that I just pulled around a pound of peppers off of, but the bhuts (right next to them) have only produced like a half a dozen. Don't know what the deal is.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 00:43

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Pulled my off-season potato onions---started them late due to a cold Spring. Common wisdom is to harvest them when it gets hot in Summer, but they were too loving tiny then. They're still small, but the greens had mostly already died off and a couple of the small ones were wanting to sprout and gently caress that. Here's a little one (guy in the lower right resprouting, rest of the greens from the past season):

The bigger individual bulbs are only golfball-sized (potato onions are small, but they'll get up to around 7 cm (two or three inches). On the small side, but I got an average of about 10, 12 bulbs harvested for every one I put in the ground.

And holy gently caress do they smell good.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2014 05:37

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

ashez2ashes posted:

Anyone ever try to plant any hybridized seeds? I planted lemon cucumbers and straight eights next to each other and got a few green spheres and one orange lemon shaped cucumber. I saved the seeds from the orange cucumber.

The orange cucumber just sounds like an overripe lemon cuke. The green ones, under-ripe.

I mean if you have two cultivars of cuke planted next to each other cross pollination may well have occurred. Both of the cultivars you mention are the same species (Cucumis sativus) so that's certainly plausible. But the fruit won't be visibly different as a result of cross pollination. Some plants produce more or less robustly depending on pollen source and pollination frequency, but you're not going to get genetically/morphologically different cucumbers in the first season.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 22:44

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

ashez2ashes posted:

I didn't take a very good photo of the cuke that was growing on the straight eight plant that looked orange/yellow:

The colour looks like an overripe cuke to me. If it came off a straight eight plant, it could be the result of an underfertilised flower setting fruit and then being allowed to over-ripen.

ashez2ashes posted:

This is the one that really seemed weird that was growing on the lemon cucumber plant:

I planted straight eights, lemon cucumbers, and suyo longs in the same bed. The nub at the top kinda looks like a suyo long?

hosed up looking cukes like that are almost always due to poor pollination. I've never seen a lemon cuke produce anything with spines like that. But you should be able to see that on the existing female flowers on the plant before they even open, much less before they're pollinated.

Are the plants also producing normal fruit? Could just be an environmental problem of some kind---soil, disease, watering, or whatever.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 21:16

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

ashez2ashes posted:

The growing season is pretty much over in Southern Ohio now, and I've started to clean up and winterize, but when the plant was producing it made a lot of normal healthy lemon cucumbers. I'm sure my soil could be improved (I'm working on that as I winterize) but my lemon cucumbers were quite healthy.

Probably just pollination problems then.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 21:49

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Dilettante. posted:

Picked the rest of my starter chillies yesterday. Holy hell I actually managed to grow something edible!

A few had been bored into by caterpillars or something, but mostly all good. Thanks for all the tips over the last few months guys!

Still got the rest of the ones I grew from seeds to go yet, and a buncha new recipes to try.

Harvested some peppers today:

Clockwise from the upper left that's Thai birds, habaneros, bhut jolokias, and Hungarian wax.

I've been continuously harvesting the Thais and they keep producing more. This is the second or third batch of habs, and there's about half that many green peppers still on the plants. The bhuts just now started setting fruit. I've taken two or three others, but there are another half-dozen or so fruit still on the plants and a bunch of flowers. The Hungarians I've been pulling one or two at a time as I use them. They've been pretty productive, but produce peppers much slower than everyone else but the bhuts.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2014 02:44

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Dilettante. posted:

I've still got a bunch growing but as I left them in small pots they are all dinky. I tried to grow some Mustard Habaneros but they seem to require a bit more TLC than the other chillies as all of them died/ are in a terrible state.

My Hungarians have very tough skins, like they are made of plastic or something, are yours the same?

Not particularly. No more so than, say, something like a bell pepper.

And most of my pepper plants are the opposite of dinky:

That's about half of a 4' x 8' raised bed. Habs in the corner closest to the camera, bhuts to the right, Thai birds to the left. You can kinda see all the wee white flowers on the habs. There's a bunch of green peppers still in there as well, although they're hard as hell to make out. Here's some green Thais along with some just coming ripe:

Most peppers seem to like being crowded like this. Every time I've tried to give them more space, the plants set off by themselves have never taken off like the ones bunched together. I've got a couple Trinidad scorpions in another bed with all kinds of room, and they're only like a foot tall or so and haven't set any fruit.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2014 04:03

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Dr. Gitmo Moneyson posted:

Does anybody know how long it normally takes for Moruga scorpion and Carolina reaper peppers to produce flowers, starting from seeds?

I've got some plants that've been growing about 8 weeks and are almost a foot tall right now. They have no flowers on them, but are otherwise healthy.

Trinidad scorpions and bhut jolokias seem to produce very late. My scorpions haven't set any fruit yet and my bhuts have just started in the past couple weeks, and they're around three feet tall.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 01:21

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

ghetto wormhole posted:

I believe most of the heat is in the seeds/ovaries so if you take out the center they should be a lot more palatable. I think?

It's not the seeds themselves, it's the mucilage and pith around them that holds most of the capsaicin. If you want to remove most of the heat, slice the peppers open and scrape out all of the whitish ribs on the inside.

Flipperwaldt posted:

I have a question that is vaguely related. I have some peppers that are very spicy. Not as much as those mentioned above, but they vaguely irritate the skin and everything. I have been making sambal ulek and sriracha from them and I get the feedback -from seasoned spicy sauce eaters- that it's all just too hot for anything but novelty. I've tried adding a bell pepper to the mix to dilute it and it doesn't seem to help much. Is there anything else I can add or alternatively any other suggestions of what to do with those peppers apart from making my own pepper spray?

What kind of peppers? Instead of trying to dilute the sambal, just use less of it in a dish and use something else if you need to add more flavour. Like I just made some sambal using about 8:1 habaneros to bhuts and it was loving hot, but about a tsp added to a batch of queso (1/4 cup water, 1/2 tsp of sodium citrate, around 75 g of cheese) and it's not overpowering. Or about a Tbsp added to around 325 g of stir-fried beef (along with garlic, onions, broccoli, whatever the gently caress, and some pan-fried noodles). Whatever. Point being that I'm using less than I would out of a jar of store-bought sambal, but that's it.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 03:12

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

mrmcd posted:

Honestly the only seeds I could never get to sprout indoors were Datura seeds, but those were pilfered from a National Park out west last fall when all the wild plants had pods breaking open, so they might've not been viable or I was giving them the wrong conditions / soil.

Try growing some Zanthoxylum simulans, one of the common forms of Szechuan peppercorn. I haven't been able to successfully germinate a single goddamn seed.

There are plenty of plants that I've germinated then killed on transplant, or got a sprout but it got destroyed by pests or just never grew, or grew but never produced. But Z. simulans is the one one I haven't been able to get to germinate at all.

coyo7e posted:

I've begun to get rain and chilly nights here so I think my bhut joloka is never going to fruit.

My bhuts are going hog wild all the sudden, but my Trinidad scorpions look like they're not going to go anywhere. One of them is healthy enough but isn't even putting out flowers, and the other one is alive but all sad and wilty.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 22:13

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 10:25

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Who are these guys? Found a shitload of 'em on some lettuces today:

# ¿ Oct 26, 2014 11:53

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Gardening: the beets must go on

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