Building a greenhouse

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

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

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

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

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

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???

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

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

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