The Pepper Guy's Garden

Tomato Harvest Update!

2011-08-23T22:11:00.000-04:00

Right now I am in peak of my tomato harvest. Below are some pics of the tomatoes I have harvested. The first pic is of my holding the huge heirloom tomatoes I picked. The second pic is of those same tomatoes on the table. The biggest Kellogg's Breakfast heirloom tomato weighed 1.77lbs! The third pic is our table covered with mostly hybrid tomatoes, and some Romas. There are also, Better Boy, Juliet, Early Girl, and Sungold Hybrid. The last two pics were taken after slicing the Kellogg's Breakfast (orange) heirloom tomato and the Dixie Golden Giant (yellow) heirloom tomato. The were delicious!

Costoluto Genovese Heirloom Tomato Harvest

2011-08-06T02:33:00.000-04:00

The tomato that I knew I wanted to grow the first time I ever saw it. The Costoluto Genovese. It is an Italian heirloom that has an amazing sweet flavor. The pics below are of the tomatoes in a cluster on the vine, of the tomato itself, and of the tomato after slicing. Enjoy!

Vertical Growing Cucumbers, Watermelons, Pumpkins, and Canteloupe

2011-07-19T18:25:00.000-04:00

This year, we are growing our vine crops up a cage. This is a great space saving idea. Basically, the way my cages are built, the vine of any plant can get to be 8-10' before it ever hits the ground if trellised properly and supported. Even then, you can just feed the vines bag inside the cage. Below are some pics of our vertical grown crops.

Vertically Grown Cucumbers Caged

Vertically Grown Watermelon Caged

Squash grown up a garden trellis.

Vertically Grown Giant Pumpkins Caged

Vertically Grown Canteloupe Caged

Pepper Update and Tomato Worm Tragedy!

2011-07-19T18:17:00.000-04:00

The peppers are also doing great. The only exception is my favorite plant, the one that I have been babying all year, the Bhut Jolokia, has met its demise. It was eaten by a tomato worm overnight. I have more in the garden, so not a huge loss. Biggest issue is that the Bhut only have a 10% germination rate, so they are hard to come by.

Sweet Pepper plants planted 12" apart.

Sweet Banana

Bhut Jolokia with isolation bag to keep from cross polination.

Bhut Jolokia planted in 5 gallon bucket.

Bhut Jolokia meet Tomato Worm!

Tomato worm vs Bhut Jolokia

Pepperoncini Pepper

Orange Sun Bell Pepper

Single Stem Heirloom Tomato Garden Update 7/19/2011

2011-07-19T18:06:00.001-04:00

The heirloom tomatoes are doing great. Tallest plant is over 8 foot tall!

Yellow Pear Tomato

Tigerella Heirloom Tomato

Red Oxheart Heirloom Tomato

Red Cherry Heirloom Tomato

Kellogg's Breakfast Heirloom Tomato

Costoluto Genovese Heirloom Tomato

Big Red Heirloom Tomato

Single Stem Heirloom Tomato Garden Update 6/29/2011

2011-06-29T23:12:00.001-04:00

The first pic is of one of the heirloom tomato beds before removing more of the suckers.

This pic was taken from the front of the tomato bed. You can see the plant almost looks bare compared to the first pic. This is my first year for trying this, so we will see for ourselves. I have heard so many good things about his method.

This last pic was taken from the back of the heirloom tomato bed. I had to install bamboo stakes to help the plants go up the trellis. The plants are massive and heavy so they need lots of support.

Hot & Sweet Pepper Garden Update 6/29/2011

2011-06-29T18:38:00.002-04:00

The first pic is of the hot peppers we are growing this year in our vegetable garden.

The next few pics are of my sweet peppers that are grow in a raised bed and planted using the square foot gardening method.

Here are some pics of my Bhut Jolokia's. They are the best looking plants I have. Maybe it is because I baby them so much.

I have taken a lot of pictures in the last week or so. I will be posting pics of our market garden which has 300+ pepper and 300+ tomato plants. I will be posting updates in the next couple of days.

Ornamental Pepper Plants Used In Flower Beds!

2011-06-28T22:56:00.000-04:00

If you're looking for something "different" to do in your flower bed, plant pepper plants instead of traditional flowers. They look amazing. Most ornamental peppers are just that, ornamentals. Some are hot, but most have no flavor at all. They are edible, just not flavorful. They do, however, look absolutely gorgeous in front of the house. Once you get some ornamental peppers planted, be ready to talk about them, because everyone that sees them will be asking questions. Below are some pics I took of our flower bed in the front of the house. It is not the sunniest location, so the plants are still kind of small. They are already looking good. I have added some pics of my favorite ornamental pepper plants.

Filius Blue

Marbles

NuMex Twilight

Black Pearl

Poinsettia

Thai Hot

It is best to plant them where you have all day sun. My spot gets shaded from about 1pm on. If you want to do something that no one else has, this is for you. You can view pics and descriptions of each variety of peppers we grow at www.ThePepperGuy.net

The last 2 pics are of my flower bed in front of my house filled up with ornamental pepper plants.

Market Garden 2011 - Tomato Update

2011-06-08T18:26:00.002-04:00

The rain has finally stopped so we were able to get some tomato plants in the ground for the market garden. Definitely later in the season than what I wanted, but better late than never. This year, we are trying out using landscape fabric to control weeds and moisture. I didnt really want to get into doing drip irrigation so that is why I chose landscape fabric over plastic.

In the first pic you can see how we laid out the landscape fabric and planted a double row of tomato plants spaced 12" apart. We will be using the "single stem" method of growing tomatoes which involves removing all suckers and letting the plant concentrate on only one main stem instead of 10-15.

After the landscape fabric was laid and the plants planted, we installed 2x4's as trellis supports. Next time we will install the supports before planting. We hammered nails into the supports so we have something to secure the twine to.

This pic shows all of the supports installed.

This is of the completed trellis. Well, almost complete. We still have to run more twine further up the supports, but I will do that as the plants grow.

Single Stem Heirloom Tomato Garden Trellis DIY

2011-06-02T23:52:00.008-04:00

The success of the heirloom tomato plant sales have been outstanding. I am so excited to grow 1 of every variety I sold this year, which comes out to be 26 different kinds of tomatoes. I think 20 are heirloom and the rest are hybrid. I went to my moms house and pulled some 4x4 posts off the burn pile. They are about 8 ft long, so they will be nice posts for the trellis.

I will be growing my heirloom tomatoes in a raised box 3' wide and 30' long and using the SFG concept.

I used the recycled 4x4 posts for the main supports. I dug two holes, 2ft deep and then screwed the 4x4 posts to the bed frame.

After getting the posts set and screwed to the base. I hammered some nails 6 inches apart all the way to the top. Next time I will do the nailing before I set it in the ground.

I wrapped twine around the nails from one end to the other and back again making a trellis all the way to the top. Well, almost to the top. I ran out of twine.

As you can see from the pics, the tomato plants are planted about 12" apart. I am borrowing the concept from the SFG(Square Foot Gardening)idea. What I am doing is removing all suckers from the plant so it keeps only its main stem receiving nutrients. The idea is that the plants have the same size root ball. With removing all the extra suckers, all the nutrients go to the 1 stem, not the 10-20 sucker stems and grow as main stems. That is why a tomato plant can get out of control and take up a lot of space.

I use tomato cages made out of old field fence. It works great. I cut about a 8-10 foot piece and attach the two pieces and make it round. Works WAY better than traditional tomato cages. Not to mention it is WAY CHEAPER!

I also took the concept on the tomato cages and made a cage for cucumbers. I will eventually put cages around the watermelon, pumpkin, and cantaloupe.

And since we are talking about using a trellis, we installed a trellis my wife bought at a rummage sale in the garden for the squash to grow on. I had to re-enforce the sides with twine to help with the vining. Other than that, it looks good.

I think that's it for today. Big day tomorrow. Going to the market garden plot we have outside of town. We have 300 tomato plants to plant and 300 pepper plants to plant. Going to be a good day. I am hoping for nice "working in the garden" weather.

Pepper & Tomato Garden Update 5/25/2011

2011-05-25T20:54:00.003-04:00

SOLD OUT OF TOMATO PLANTS FOR 2011! Thanks to everyone who purchased tomato plants this year. The response was AMAZING! As most of you know, this was our first year selling heirloom tomato plants. The following pics are the last of the tomato platns before they were sold. Oh I think there is 10-20 extras somewhere, but who knows. Basically everything left is getting planted.

The peppers are still going strong. The sales have been more than any other year before. We still have 500 or so left, so we are definitely getting low. Hoping the rain will stop so I can get out and work in the garden. I always plant my garden Memorial Day weekend, so hopefully the rain allows for that. We have had rain almost everyday for the last couple of weeks. I love spring, but I hate rain!

Greenhouse, Peppers, and Tomato Update 5/17/2011

2011-05-17T02:20:00.003-04:00

The season is really moving right along. I have not even had time to post an update in the last week or so. The pepper plant and tomato plant sales have been excellent so far this year, which is great, because I was running out of greenhouse space. Below are some pics of what has been going on.

You can see in this pic that I am out of room in the greenhouse. Well, I guess I can start putting trays on the ground!

The next pics are of the pepper plants. You can see how well they are doing. The close up pic of the pepper plant is a Purple Beauty. It is the niceest looking plant so far. The Bhut Jolokia's are also looking great. I will post pics of them in the next couple of days.

Next u p is the tomato plants. You can see by the pics that they are growing extremely well.

We will be setting up at the Tractor Supply Co. Farmers Market May 20th in Marion, IN from 4pm-8pm. We will be selling pepper and tomato plants. Stop by and check us out! I will be sure to take pics of the market.

Pepper & Tomato Plant Update 5/9/2011

2011-05-09T20:34:00.002-04:00

So we have finally gotten all the tomatoes transplanted and 85% of the peppers are transplanted. I am completely out of room in the greenhouse so plants are comming out of the greenhouse during the day and stored on the floor of the greenhouse at night. No big deal though. The outdoors will be good for them. Anyways, as you can see in the pics, the plants are doing amazing. Plant sales have been higher than ever and the season is still early. This year is my first for selling heirloom tomato plants. I have already sold out of 10+ varieties. I never knew they would be so popular. I will definitely grow more next year. The main focus has always been and always will be peppers though. Anyways, just wanted to share a quick update. The season is starting great and I hope that it continues.

Update 4/15/2011

2011-04-15T01:49:00.002-04:00

Just a quick update on what's been going on. As you can see from my last post, I have moved the greenhouse, modified it, and put it back up. No much in there right now, just some lettuce and onions. The peppers are still inside under the lights.

This years pepper lineup is as follows:

Anaheim
Bhut Jolokia
Big Jim
Black Pearl
California Wonder
Caribbean Red
Cayenne
Chile de Arbol
Corno di Toro
Cubanelle
Filus Blue
Fooled You Hybrid
Golden Calwonder
Golden Marconi
Guajillo
Habanero
Jalapeno
Joe E Parker
Marbles
Medusa
New Mexico Chile
New Mexico Green Chile
NuMex 6-4
NuMex Sandia
NuMex Twilight
Orange Bell
Orange Sun Bell
Pepperoncini
Poinsettia
Purple Beauty
Serrano
Sunny Yellow Bell
Sweet Banana
Tepin
Thai Hot
Tobasco
Yellow Peter Pepper

This year I have also taken interest in heirloom tomatoes. I will be growing the following types of tomato. Most are heirloom. Only a few are hybrids.

Abe Lincoln
Amana Orange
Aunt Rubys German
Better Boy
Big Rainbow
Big Red
Black Krim
Box Car Willie
Brandywine Red
Cherokee Purple
Costoluto Genovese
Dixie Golden Giant
Early Girl
Juliet Hybrid
Kelloggs Breakfast
Mexico
Mule Team
Opalka
Red Cherry
Red Oxheart
Roma
Rutgers
Sun Gold Hybrid
Tigerella
Virginia Sweets
Yellow Pear

I also started some yellow, red, and white onions. I am using sets again this year, but by research shows that growing onions from seed is the best way to grow. I may try that next year. I also started some lettuce, canteloupe, water melon, and pumpkins. My son Kalon has planted a variety of things including pumpkins in which he wants to grow and then sell the pumpkins to the neighborhood kids.

How To Build a PVC Greenhouse DIY Plans

2011-04-14T00:13:00.002-04:00

Building a greenhouse does not have to be expensive and difficult. I designed this greenhouse with the intention of taking it down each year even though I don't. I designed it to come apart very easily. For those of you who follow my blog you will notice that this greenhouse is similar to the one I built a couple of eyars ago. Actually it is the same greenhouse just modified to be more sturdy, utilize more space, and simpler. I will try to hit the major points of building this greenhouse. Most measurements that I give are approximint not exact. If you have any questions, fell free to post a comment or email me directly.

Step 1

Take 4 2"x6"x12' boards and place them in a square. Nail the boards together like in the pic.

Next, pick which end the sides will be. When you have chosen the sides, hammer 3-4ft rebar in the ground 1.5-2ft deep. Space them roughly 3 feet apart. You will need 10 pieces of rebar for this greenhouse.

Next, over each piece of rebar, install a 24" piece of 1" PVC pipe. If it is an end piece, then use a "Tee" connector and if it is a middle piece then use a 4 way "Cross" connector like in the pic. In between each connector, install a 36" piece of 1" PVC. Basically you are building a wall out of PVC for the base layer. Use pipe clamp brackets to secure the 24" pieces of PVC pipe to the 2x6x12's. As you can see in the last pic, I had to kind of bend the bracket so it would work on the corner piece.

So now you have a base structure and the 2ft side walls complete. Next you want to add the hoops. Each side of the hoops are 8ft long. You could use 10ft pieces and eliminate the small 2ft tall wall. Just run the 10ft all the way to the ground and secure with pipe clamps. Anyways, I found it best to install each arch separately. I first get my 2 8ft pieces of PVC and connect them together with the proper connector. The proper connector is just like the sidewalls. If it is an end arch, then use a "Tee" connector. If it is a middle arch then use a 4-way "Cross" connector. Once you have all the arches installed, connect each arch to the others by installing a 3ft piece of PVC pipe. The other thing I di is make sure I secure each connector with self tapping screws. They work great and hold wonderfully.

Step 3

So now we have our base, our sidewalls, and out hoops. It is now looking more like a greenhouse. The next step is building endwalls for the greenhouse. What I did was use 3-2x4x6 and 2-2x4x4 and made an endwall like the one in the pic. I then cut 2 8ft 2x4's so they would fit snug to the frame I built. The 8ft boards are screwed to the frame and to the base of the greenhouse. To really square up the greenhouse I took a 2x6x12' board and ran it from one endwall frame to the other. This will also be used to secure the arches to. I used plastic pipe hanger to attch the arches on the ends to the endwall frame. This stuff is sold in the plumbing section and comes in a roll. It is just a couple of dollars.

If you look at the pics you will see a top view and bottom view of the arches that are screwed to the 2x6 to is running along the top. Now when I did this, I pulled down the the arches as I screwed it to the 2x6. The reason I did this is to cut down on the tension at the peak where the connectors are screwed to the 8ft pipes. I hope this does not sound confusing. We will come back to that part when we are all done.

Step 4

Not much to explain about putting plastic on the greenhouse. I used self tapping screws where I had to use small pieces of wood on the PVC pipe itself. I used nails and screws attaching plastic ot the endwalls and base. I just used the this strips of wood like in the pic.

Step 5

Remember when we used the plastic pipe hanger to "pull down" on the arches to relieve stress? So this is the last step and this I came up with on my own. Works great. If you are like me, then your plastic is not going to be perfect. It will have some loose spots, etc. Now that it is all up and the plastic is all attached, what you want to do is pull down on the arch that is tied down to the 2x6 along the top, and cut the pipe hanger. Do this slowly and when you do, the arches will want to bend more. Basically it willbow a bit and since the plastic is holding it on, it just tightens the plastic up around the greenhouse. Look at the before and after pics below and you will see in the first pic that the peek of the greenhouse is more pointed than round. That puts a lot of pressure on the main connectors at the peak.

Well, I hope this helps some of you out there. Post comments and let me know what you think, or poast questions you may have.

Garden Update 4/4/2011

2011-04-04T22:13:00.003-04:00

So it's been a very busy year so far and a fourth of it is already gone. Garden season is upon us and it feels great. As most of you know, last year was a horrible year for The Pepper Guy. Had some tomato plants that made it the whole year, but no peppers. I was working so many ours at my job that I was not able to spend the time I wanted to on the garden. This year, though, I have started early indoors. I think there is like 1500+ pepper plants and 400+ tomato plants total so far. Once they get too big for indoors and it warms up just a bit, they can go into the greenhouse (which needs put back up). I did however get a new greenhouse frame from someone of craigslist. It is a 20'x60' and will most likely be used as a high tunnel for growing heirloom tomatoes. Try to at least extend the season a bit. Dont know if that is going to happen this year or not. I would like to get it put up this year and be able to use it next year. Baby steps...

Freezing some extra corn on the cob.

2010-07-09T12:49:00.002-04:00

We went to the Amish produce auction outsid eof Williamsburg, IN. We purchased 30 dozen ears of corn for our 4th of July celebration. We did not need 30 dozen, but we got a pretty good deal on it. Well, we had about 4 dozen left so we decided to freeze it off the cob. Here is a quick video of the process.

Getting ready for the 4th of July!

2010-06-18T00:01:00.004-04:00

Just watned to show a quick pic of some banner flags I put up today. I also installed some flag style solar lights. If you click on the pic, you can zoom in on photobucket.They are located around the flowers. We have had so much rain in the past week that parts of the garden are flooded. I now have this thing in my garden. I was told it's called a mud monster.

Flowers and Bird Feeders

2010-06-13T12:21:00.008-04:00

Just a quick post today of the bird feeder area I built for my wife. The bird feeder hangers are actually recycled hospital IV holders. They are great because they have a very heavy base that has been buried about 12 inches or so deep. The units height can be changed, as well as they are free to spin. Best of all is that they are stainless steel. They will never rust! I had no idea they would look as good as what they do. My wife has planted some petunias and a hummingbird mix. The hanging baskets are also petunias.

Pepper Lineup 2010

2010-05-24T21:55:00.003-04:00

This years peppers will be grown in 5 gallon buckets. I have been wanting to try this for awhile now. Here is the lineup!

Anaheim
Banana
Bell Orange
Bell Red
Bell Yellow
Bhut Jolokia
Black pearl
Calico
Cayenne
Cubanelle
Habanero Orange
Habanero Paper Lantern
Habanero Red Caribbean
Hungarian Wax Yellow
Jalapeno
Jalapeno M
Joe E Parker
Marconi Golden
Medusa
New Mexico 64
New Mexico Chile
NuMex Big Jim
NuMex Twilight
Pepperoncini
Peter Pepper Yellow
Poblano
Pretty in Purple
Purple Beauty
Serrano
Super Chile
Tepin
Thai Dragon
Thai Hot
Tobasco

Garden 2010

2010-05-24T20:21:00.004-04:00

We have had a bit of a late start this year with the garden. We recently moved, so things have been a bit bumpy. Anyways, we finally got the greenhouse put back up, the new garden plot tilled, and some seeds started. Our pepper seeds were started about amonth later than what I had wanted, so this year, we will be growing out peppers in 5 gallon buckets. We are doing this so that we can extend the season by putting the plants in the greenhouse. I worry that I started too late to get a harvest from the garden. This is just playing it safe.

I have posted some pics that I just took of the garden today.

Greenhouse

Petunias, marigolds, and tomato plants.

Pepper seedings.

2 week old corn.

2 week old peas.

2 week old green beans. I have replanted the ones that did not make it for whatever reason(dogs!).

2 week old potatoes.

2 week old onions.

Tomato plants.

Our newest Dog

2010-03-31T23:45:00.006-04:00

This is Fester. He is a 9 month ol hairless Chinese Crested. It is a very friendly and UGLY dog. I don't know how much this has to do with peppers, but just thought I would share.

More to come with the blog. We have already began starting pepper seeds.

Final Harvest Pictures

2009-10-21T00:03:00.002-04:00

I have not posted in a while, but have been meaning to. My father passed away a few weeks ago, and there has been a lot going on. I wanted to jump on here real quick and post some pics of my final harvest. I had to cover my plants a few nights in a row due to frost, but I was able to harvest all but some super chiles and cayenne, which I have more than enough to last me til next harvest season. There are more peppers that were harvested, but I really have not taken any pics of the ones that are still ripening. I have all of the peppers that are ripening in brown paper bags sitting on my desk(8ft table).

Something I have learned and works very well, is stick your unripe peppers in a brown paper bag and put in either some almost ripe peppers or some almost rip tomatoes. Something with whatever the ripening fruit puts off, helps the unripe fruit to ripen(Peter Piper Picked a Pack of Pickled Peppers...HAHAHAHAHAHA).

Update Chile Roaster Video

2009-09-07T13:32:00.003-04:00

This is the newest video of of the roaster after being updated. It is working out great. I do want to add a propane burner to the bottom of te roaster so that I do not have to build a fire to roast pepeprs. The one nice thing about an open fire is that you can add some apple wood chips to add to the flavor. In the second video, the flame is awfully high, but it still roasted them fine!

New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger

2009-09-07T01:18:00.004-04:00

I have to do an emergency post on this topic. OK, so I wanted to try a green chile cheeseburger today. My friend from new Mexico is always talking about the famous "Bob's Burgers" in New Mexico. He says that they have the best green chile cheeseburgers anywhere around. I made some up this evening. Nothig special, just some lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, and green chile. Served them with homemade salsa and chips. It was by far the best burger I have ever eaten!

UPDATED Home Made Chile Pepper Roaster

2009-09-05T00:47:00.004-04:00

I made some modifications to the roaster today. I did away with the wood legs and made steel legs out of an old basketball goal. I attached a shelf to the top and added a hinged door with handle for opening the roaster. I am ready for the big roast tomorrow. I think we are also going to cook steak on the same fire we roast on. The steak has been marinating in the fridge for the last 12 hours or so.

Today's Green Chile Harvest

2009-09-04T21:28:00.001-04:00

Just a few pics of today's green chile harvest. We will be roasting them tomorow, so I will try to post pics or a video of the roasting activities.

Tonights Dinner

2009-08-25T22:50:00.004-04:00

Just wanted to post of pituce of tonights dinner. Nothing real fancy. Porkloin cooked with jalapenos, green bell, orange bell, yellow bell, red bell, and some New Mexico green chiles. That with some fresh corn on the cob and some mashed potatoes(no, not the box kind). It turned out really really good!

Today's Harvest

2009-08-24T20:44:00.004-04:00

These are a few pics of today's harvest. Nothing major, but I only had a small amount of time. My son helped me this time. He is a GREAT HARVESTER!!!

Building a Chile Roaster

2009-08-20T21:44:00.003-04:00

Pics from this morning.

2009-08-20T00:25:00.010-04:00

I took these pics this morning, well, it is 12:25am, so I guess I took them YESTERDAY morning. I have a a few varieties of flowers planted in the flower bed in front of the house along with some medusa pepper plants. I only get to enjoy the morning glory flowers before I go to work...hence the name "morning" glory. The flowers are closed by the time I get home from work.

Roaster Videos

2009-08-19T23:55:00.001-04:00

There are a few kinks that need ironed out with the roaster, but I am very pleased with the way it turned out. I see lots of people here on my blog, but not comments?? Comon...post those comments!

NEW Roaster takes it maiden VOYAGE!

2009-08-19T01:03:00.004-04:00

OK, so in an earlier post I showed my prototype for the roaster I was wanting to build. Honestly, there was no way I was going to use that to roast chiles. It would take too much work to make it work properly. I used the same concept and built the roaster pictured.

My wife just happened to have a rotisserie motor in the trunk of her car (doesn't everyone have one in their truck?). Her mother bought it at a garage sale for $1 and thought we might need it! SHE WAS RIGHT!!! We used the roaster today on some new mexico green chile and it works wonderfully. The only problem was the legs caught on fire! I will make new legs out of galvanized pipe. If anyone is interested in how I built it, let me know. I will be more than glad to help you out. It was very cheap and simple. I will post a video of its voyage soon.

Roasting New Mexico Green Chile

2009-08-18T00:12:00.005-04:00

This is today's green chile roast. I wish I had a lot more to roast at a time, but some roasted green chile is better than NO GREEN CHILE!!! I did however, roast these peppers in the rain. The things I will do for some green chile.........

And NO, I did not use the roaster I built. I still have some modifications (rust removal) before it will be ready to use.

Just some pics from the garden

2009-08-17T12:45:00.009-04:00

This is one of my 3 pumpkins. Almost ready to make a pie.

Can we say SALSA???????

This is a pic of the main pepper garden. Doing very well.

This is a pic of my peter pepper.

This is another pic of the peter pepper.
This is a pic of my paper lantern habaneros.
This is a NuMex Mirasol plant. Very interesting plant.

Unfortunate Accident

2009-08-16T21:08:00.003-04:00

I came home today and asked my wife in our son had gotten his bath yet. She said yes, and I asked where he was. She said that he said he had to go outside into the backyard for a minute. I looked out the window and there he was. In the garden picking my peppers. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The peppers on the top left were banana peppers, which as you can see, are not ready. The ones on the top right are new mexico green chiles, which were ready for picking. The ones on the bottom are super chiles and should have been red before picking. He asked me if I was mad at him and I told him that I wasn't, I knew he was just trying to help. He was so proud of his 3 different bowls of peppers. The will not go to waste thats for sure!

Roasted New Mexico Green Chile

2009-08-16T21:05:00.005-04:00

OK, so I could not wait any longer. I picked about 6 green chiles today and built a small fire. I roasted the peppers, removed the skins and chopped them up. This is the finished product. These were given to a friend of mine and used to live in New Mexico and he said it was the best green chile he had ever had.

Watering time!

2009-08-15T21:54:00.004-04:00

Time to water the garden. I bought this fancy sprinkler this year that has a timer on it. I absolutely love it. I set it for 1 hour on both gardens and forget about it. I have to regulate the pressure or I will be watering the neighbors yard also.

Pictures from the pepper garden

2009-08-15T21:46:00.008-04:00

This is a pic of one of my Naga Jolokia plants. I need to pull a few weeds as they are starting to get out of hand.
These are my Turkish Cayenne peppers. I hope they will be ready in the next few weeks.

Super chiles are one of my favorite to grow. Hot and very plentiful. I have a total of 8 plants and they are all doing great.

f course we cant forget about the Jalapeno. Again, I have 8 of these plants. It wont be long before the next Jalepeno harvest.

Oh I love my cayenne. Most of my cayenne will be dried and made into powder. I have 8 of these plants, so I should have enough powder to last me until next harvest season.

I received these seeds in trade from a fellow chile head. I was told they were banana peppers, but they seem awful big for banana peppers. I have not tasted one yet, so I will know soon enough. If this is a banana pepper, then this is the biggest banana pepper I have ever grown, heck, the biggest I HAVE EVER SEEN!

All of these pics were taken on Aug 15th, 2009.

Before and after Tomatoes

2009-08-15T21:25:00.004-04:00

The before pic were taken June 20th, 2009 and the after pic was taken Aug 8th, 2009. We have had one red tomato so far, but there are hundreds if not a thousand green tomatoes on the plants now.

Before and After Pepper Garden

2009-08-15T21:16:00.009-04:00

Here are some before and after pics of my peppers. The first 2 pics are of the big garden and te other 4 pics are of the pepper beds I made out of 2x6's which are 4' x 4'. Each bed holds 16 plants. The before pics were taken June 20th, 2009 and the after pics were taken on Aug 8th, 2009.

Before and After Flower Bed

2009-08-15T21:09:00.007-04:00

These are the before and after pics of the flower bed.

1st Pepper Harvest

2009-08-15T21:04:00.005-04:00

These Hungarian Yellow Wax peppers were picked Aug 15th, 2009. They are the biggest wax peppers I have ever grown.

These peppers were picked Aug 8th, 2009. The peppers on the left are mini sweet peppers and Jalapenos on the right. This was the first pepper harvest of the year.

New Hydroponics system complete!

2009-06-26T22:08:00.003-04:00

OK, so I completed my new hydroponics system today. It is currently only half full. The system is using the drip method. Gets watered for 30 minutes then off for 1 hour when the sun is out. It also gets watered twice throughout the night. This is completely experimental and my method will change as I learn. I am not using hydroponics nutrients at this point since we do not have anywhere around here that I can buy it. I built this in 1 day and did not want to wait for the nutrients to come in the mail. So, I am using miracle grow and epsom salt as the nutrients. I do not know if this will work or not, but I will keep you posted. I am leaving for Tennessee tomorrow and this will be unattended for the next 7 days, so hopefully they are still alive when I get back. More will be posted then.

Tomato Garden

2009-06-22T00:49:00.003-04:00

So I moved my tomatoes this year. We don't use our clothes line anymore, so I figured this to be a good spot for my tomatoes. I like this section because it will allow me to walk around and harvest tomatoes, which will make it easier. Again, this year, I have my trusty fence cages for my tomatoes. I need to make some more, but have been busy. I have planted 6 Big Boy, 6 Roma, and 4 Early Girl vareities. I should have plenty of tomatoes for making salsa, and everything else I would want a tomato for. These plants were also started in the greenhouse.

Backyard Chicken

2009-06-22T00:43:00.003-04:00

This is our backyard chicken. We have family in Tennessee, so when we are down there, we pick us up a baby chicken. We bring them home, raise them until our next trip to Tennessee. Then we take the grown chicken and swap it for a new baby one. It is nice to be able to raise them. The main reason for taking them back down to Tennessee is in case we get a rooster. We live in town and our neighbors would hang us if we had a rooster.

My Completed Greenhouse

2009-06-22T00:40:00.003-04:00

OK, so this is the greenhouse I was talking about building in an earlier post. I could not have asked for it to turn out better. It has served me so well this season. It is a 12x12 and was fairly cheap to build. I had started about 1000 pepper plants, some flowers, tomatoes, pumpkin, cantaloupe, etc also. If you have any questions about building your own, please feel free to message me or email me.

My Pepper Garden

2009-06-22T00:30:00.004-04:00

Ok, so again, it has been a long time since I have posted. I say that I will try better at posting, but it seems like I always forget. Anyways, as you can see, my pepper garden is looking very nice. In the first pic I have 9 rows of peppers. They are Jalapeno, Cayenne, NuMex Chile, Super Chile, Banana, Big Dipper, Mini Sweet, Habanero, and Naga Jolokia. They were all started from see in my new greenhouse that I built from PVC pipe. The second and third pics are of the beds I had to build for my peppers. I did not want to till up my entire back yard so I built these. Between the 2 planters, there is 23 different peppers planted in them. I still have at least 2-3 more to build in order to plant the rest of what I want to.

Building a greenhouse

2009-01-10T16:02:00.004-05:00

Ok, so I kind of lost focus on my blog. I have not posted here in almost a year. Last years crop of 80+ varieties with 1500+ plants did not survive. My job forced me to work in a different part of the country for almost the entire summer. Unfortunately, most of my plants were not put in the ground and ultimately died. This year will not be the same. I am building a 12'x12' greenhouse of of PVC pipe this year. I have a plan that I found on the web at http://www.pvcplans.com/ArchGrnHouse.pdf

Seed Starting

2008-02-12T19:50:00.001-05:00

I am getting the spring fever so I decided to go ahead and start some of my pepper seeds, since some of them take so long to germinate. To help the process around, I do not start my seeds directly into soil. Below I will show the process I use to start my seeds.

First of all you need a few things:
Paper Towel
Zip-Lock Bags

Marker

Water

First of all, get 1 sheet of paper towel. Fold it in half and dampen it with water. Not sopping wet, but moist. Place seeds as seen in the pic. You can use more/less depending on how many plants you are going to start. I do not mix seeds on the paper towel. I plant all the same seed in each setup.

Next, fold over the paper towel.

Second, Roll up the paper towel.

Thirdly, place the rolled up paper towel in a zip-lock bag and use the marker to label the contents of the bag.

Lastly, place your baggie on top of your hot water heater, or some other warm place. It a couple of weeks, you will have 2-3" roots starting.

My garden layout

2008-01-20T01:14:00.000-05:00

Ok, so this is the layout I am going with this year. I was so impressed by the square foot gardening method, that I am converting my whole garden to SFG this year. I will be buying a 5 tier shelving unit for my seed starting which will be taking place real soon. I will post pics as I take them.

Square Foot Gardening

2008-01-16T23:31:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I read this book today concerning square foot gardening by Mel Bartholomew. It is a completely different concept of gardening. If you all get a chance to read this book, it is worth every minute it takes you to read it. It has a lot of helpful hints with regards to composting, seed starting, and general gardening. More on this to come. I have really thought about trying this method this year, but have not made up my mind yet.

Tomato Cages

2008-01-15T02:05:00.000-05:00

OK, so I know I have really been jumping the gun on this whole garden thing, but this is an exciting time of year for me. I spend a lot of time planning my garden before doing anything. I have pulled out the tomato cages and am getting ready to make some more. I thought about using them around my pepper plants also.

Pumpkins...To Be Or Not To Be

2008-01-15T01:39:00.000-05:00

Ok, so my wife wants to plant pumpkins again this year, but the problem is that they took up at least a third of the garden last year, mixed with cucumbers. If I can keep from planting pumpkins this year and grow my cucumbers vertically, then I should have more room for hot peppers. The pic is of one of the pumpkins that I grew last year. It was pretty big. I put a 2-Liter of Coke in the pic so you can get an idea of how big it was.

Vertical or Horizontal Cucumbers???

2008-01-15T01:10:00.000-05:00

I am trying to figure out weather I will plant my cucumbers on the ground, or try them vertically on a trellis. I think I will save space by growing them vertically. I had 4 cucumber plants vine on the ground last year and yielded at least 25 cucumbers per plant. I was thinking about something similar to the pic, but not as big. I think growing them on a structure like this would be awsome, but it is a bit big for my yard. I will keep you posted on what end up building if I go the vertical route. Let me know what you think or if you have ever grown cucumbers vertically.

My Garden Helper aka "Cho" My English Bulldog

2008-01-15T00:42:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I guess the next thing will be to introduce you to my helper. Her name is Cho and she is a 3 year old English Bulldog. She sleeps most of the day and is the laziest dog I have ever owned. She is a good, very well natured dog. I have posted a small video of her below.

Pepper Garden 2008

2008-01-14T23:49:00.000-05:00

Ok, so first things first. I guess the place to begin would be a plan of attack for this years pepper garden. Mostly hot peppers will be grown. Other plants will include: Sweet peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro, most likely some garlic, and other misc herbs. My wife wants to plant pumpkins again this year, but I dunno. They grew so big last year that they took alot of the nutrients from the ground and the other plants suffered.

Anyways, back to the plan. I have roughly 80 different kinds of pepper seeds, so I need to pick 20-30 different kinds to plant. It is important to start pepper plants early since some take as long as 120 days til harvest. My frozen peppers stash is getting smaller, so I am eagar to the process started.

I will also be planting ornamental peppers in the front of the house (where normal people plant flowers). I have about 15 different kinds of ornamental peppers.

I will make sure to post pics with every post. Below I have posted some pics of the last of the pepper stash. Let me know what you think!

Let me know if you would be interested in cayenne seeds. I have lots of them, and will send them to you with SASE!

The mighty cayenne powder! This is the final bottle of powder. I think I will be ok til next harvest.

I liked growing the Hungarian Hot Wax peppers. They were my heaviest producers next to the cayenne peppers. I still have 2 of these bags left.

And last, but certainly not least, the Habanero. I really only had one plant that produced real good. I think I started them too late last year. Oh well, I learned. I will make sure I start tese babies earlier this year.

topic: garden

topic: peppers