Must be nice to be able to space your plants out haha. I’m jealous of all your peppers, they take so long to grow…
I notice you prune a lot once they start producing, I’m wondering if I should prune my 2 year old cayenne plant. I’m just letting it grow wildly and picking the peppers just before they ripen.
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I do prune, but not as much as it looks… The leaves on the ones in the pails fall off, which is why I think they potting soil isn’t the greatest for peppers. The leaves also get a LOT smaller once they start producing… I just don’t get it.
But it does help to prune them. The plant will be able to focus on the pods, and make them better, and give better seeds to harvest. There’s a couple plants I have been picking buds off of because I want the plant to grow still.
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I’ve been keeping an eye out for cheap fabric pots for ages, but they’re usually quite pricey. Saw this on reddit. The guy said he doubles them up and still gets good drainage.
https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/k6i30l/check_out_my_woolies_little_weed_garden/ for the comments.
I’ve got one of these bags. Gonna give it a shot! With peppers though.
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I have 3 or 4 nice big beetroots ready for harvest. Since I’m growing a few things I’ve had no experience with before, do any of you green-thumbs know what to do when it comes to harvesting and probably pickling beetroot?
I also have an absolutely mental pumpkin vine that’s turning the left side of my garden into a pumpkin patch. It already consumed 2 small potato plants I was trying to save from a different spot, and if I let it keep going, it would have been half way up the cannabis trees by now.
I’ll post some more pics later.
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I will get my mums pickling recipe for you tonight - she does this every couple of months.
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Our garden update:
We eat at least a bunch of spinach once a week, and I use it daily in my smoothies!
The Lemon Thyme and fennel, as well as the spinach, is growing like mad
Lettuce is growing nicely as well as the spring onions. We are leaving the grass that comes up in between and transplant it into the lawn where we have patches.
The beans are growing like mad - had to put in poles for them to grow up on (hopefully they are tall enough)
The latest addition is potatoes -hopefully, this works - the last time we planted them they had weird worms.
Not pictured is the random tomato plant that has come up behind this garden
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Looking nice and healthy. Your lettuce looks a lot greener than mine, could just be a different type.
I’m still trying to make space for an actual potato patch…
Here’s the crazy pumpkin vine
RIP potatoes 2020-2020
That’s way too many flowers
Apparently this plant is an engineer too. Impressive.
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@SlinX Sorry, don’t have any experience with squash or root veggies…
@Wyvern How much spinach do you grow to be able to eat it so often? I’m still hoping mine comes in… Seems to be getting a bit of action on them though.
Here’s some of my updates
Seeds
So colourful
But alas,
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To be honest mum just shakes the seed packet over the ground and what you see is what you get - you can see that is all our spinach - enough for 3 people once a week plus I harvest 4 leaves a day for my smoothie - big ones, we harvest the biggest leaves each week. And let the smaller ones grow in, water once a day nothing else.
We found that as long as its a semi sunny spot aka 1/2 day full sun, spinach flourishes
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Oh cool. The big leaves thing makes sense. I did the same thing with my seeds in a bed I’m actually not sure I want to eat anything out of… I’ve also got a container in my greenhouse that seems to be sprouting a little. Thing is, I’m not 100% sure which are spinach yet. I’ve got a few different kinds of weeds going too lol
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@SlinX
Beetroot recipe :
+/- 5kg Beetroot
1 cup sugar
1 cup vinegar (mum uses white normally but brown works as well)
2 cups of water
1 teaspoon salt
Cook the beet till soft but firm (in pot of water that covers the beet)
peel the beet and cut into 1/4’s or grate it
Mix the other ingredients and bring to the boil, add the beet and just warm it up so that the beet is warm when you jar it.
Warm up your jars as well (we normally just put it thru the dishwasher!)
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I’ve heard planting beans, peas and a bunch of other things can help re-add nitrogen to soil, so I’m giving it a shot with old potting mix.
And I’ve got a jigsaw pepper almost ready to go. These are rumoured to have a mix/max scoville the same as the average/max of a Carolina Reaper
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So I’ve started dabbling in microgreens. I should hopefully have a small crop of basil and rocket by the end of the weekend, and coriander, thyme, lentils and peas next week.
Gonna pull a few out with the roots and plant so I can start getting more seeds.
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Anyone have any idea how I can keep the monkeys from sampling my peppers? I’m losing about 70% of my pods…
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That I cannot help with at all - not an issue we have. I just have dogs eating strawberries
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Too bad I don’t have/can’t afford a dog. They like chasing monkeys away. The neighbours have, but they’re fenced in.
I’m thinking of using dishsoap and cayenne (which I’ve used for other pests) but I need a new sprayer bottle. And I need more cayenne (I’m not using my good stuff)
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I’m surprised they go after your peppers, are they not already spicy at that stage?
I’ve just been getting green stink bugs on everything.
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Yup, they only go after the ones that are ripe. There’s a lot of new babies in the area and they’re becoming a real nuisance. The 1st and 3rd picture you can see they’re trying a tiny bit. The middle picture is the one that shocks me, as the pod is half gone! I’m wondering if one of the younglings likes the spiciness (where’s Anakin when you need him).
At my last residence, whenever there were new young ones, they’d try one, learn their lesson, and never touch them again. Here, they keep trying, and trying, and trying.
I actually realized why they don’t go after the peppers in my front yard… The neighbours dogs probably scare them off.
I’ve read using stale urine helps, so I’m considering using my collection of urine bottles that I’ve been saving over the past 10 years. I’m kidding, relax! But I am considering starting now…
Have you tried soapy water for the stink bugs?
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