Indulged one of my many hobbies this weekend... 72 peppers went into the starting pods on Sunday afternoon... 3 varieties of habaneros (orange, caribean red, and white) and a pile of cayennes... i tried the infamous bhut jolokia last year (the hottest pepper on earth) but growing conditions in Nebraska are apparently much different than India, the Bhut's native soil.... I planted a wide variety of peppers last year too, jalapenos, hot wax, casa bellas, serranos, and a few others, but i still havent used 'em... peppers that dont burn just seem like a waste to me i guess....

so anyway... its a sign that warmer weather is bound to show up if seeds are goin down!
:singing:

We start our tomatoes pumkins and peppers in March in the green house. Good luck with the hot peppers. I have no tollorance for such things! But we do about a one acre garden and can and freeze most for the winter. No pestesides and all natural fertilizers.
What do you use to fertilize? We do compost and cow manuer. Also compost tea.

to fertilize i use fish emulsion and bonemeal on the peppers... and a little epsom salt if they look like they need it... they go in a 50/50 mix of good ol' nebraska soil and compost from the local tree dump... i dont have enough room to run my own compost... yet... a little peat moss helps drain off the excess water if the compost is really dense... peppers like to be well drained...
my other peppers did really well last year, i bet i had a solid 15 oz of knock your socks off hot pepper powder from the assorted peppers that did grow... and i'm about out of it lol

my tomatoes didnt do so hot last year tho... the weather was funny, and everyone i talked to had the same blossom rot issues i had... man i tried everything to get them to ripen but they wouldnt take... so i pickled a literal s**t load of green tomatoes... they are always good...

I usually do corn, carrots, radishes, cucumbers (mmm pickles), spaghetti squash, and tried watermelons last year, and they actually did pretty good. i have access to tons of horse manure for free, so i usually just till in a truckload of that in the garden... horses can digest weed seeds, cows cant, so with the horse manure i get way fewer weeds... which is good, cuz i hate weeding... with a passion...

Not sure how the garden is going to pan out this year tho, we are trying to buy a house, so i may be moving about the time i need to get planting... but all my peppers go in pots (easier to control temp, moisture and nutrients... and weeds) so i can move them if need be

Wish I had the time and the knowledge for all that.

Quote:

Originally posted by Hardrock Wish I had the time and the knowledge for all that.

Oh yea, we been seeing some wind but the field never has time to dry out. Mud just aint where its at.

We use cow manure that we compost for at least a year under tarps. It cooks all the seeds and brakes all other solids down well. We also mix in wood chips in the begining. Also as I said lots of compost. All the grass clippings that get piled up and other plant matter. Plus we add worms to the piles on occation when our worm bins get to thickly populated. OH yeah we have compost worms (red wigglers) in the house. That is a realy cool way to compost all your house hold compostable waste.
We do not till the garden, We do eurepian raised bed style gardens. It is a no dig system. Just a small hole to plant the seeds or seedlings. We have very few weeds because we do not mix any into the soil. So maybe we weed every two weeks. And it takes less then a couple hours. We also do dense planting with certain plants. And most of the climbing verieties are in hanging pots on trellises.

always thought about raising worms... as weird as that sounds... worm casings are useful in growing mushrooms... ive had good luck growing oyster mushrooms, always wanted to try #@%$#!ake, but i hear they are kind of difficult... oysters are really easy tho... give it a shot... they are a trip to see, such an interesting form of life...





ps... roc, post some pics of your garden, sounds really cool!