Gardening Video Part 1

Here is a gardening video Dad shot while in town about a month ago. Follow the youtube link. There are 3 parts, lasting about 4 minutes each. This video will show you our front porch garden and several of the plants and systems we are using.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0sWhYmCNz4

Jalapenos Hydroponicos

Azalea Bonsai

Blooming!

Color Explosion!

Medusa ornamental pepper.

Turkish Eggplant

Orange you glad these aren't bananas?

Heirloom Tomatoes

Green Zebra and some Cherokee Purples.

Carnival Bell Pepper.

Purple.

Mini Bell Pepper

Bite size.

Volcano Pepper Recipe

This is Carol's recipe: Slice peppers in half, remove seeds and ribs. fill pepper slices with a mixture of cottage cheese, tomato pieces and cucmber pieces. The cottage cheese helps make the peppers not so spicy. Delicious.

Rejects!

Here is a list of things we didn't especially like and will not do again probably:

Volcano peppers-We like these and they grow really well and produce a lot of fruit but we just don't eat them that much. They are a little spicy for my taste and there are so many of them we can't give them all away. Maybe we just planted too many. I don't know why we even plant hot peppers in the first place because we don't really ever eat them.

Carnival bells-We like these bell peppers o.k. but not enough to grow again. They are unique because they are small and colored but the novelty wears off. Also, we didn't like the taste as much as a traditional bell pepper.

Jetsonic tomatoes- We got these as freebies when we ordered seed this year. They have an o.k. flavor but we would rather use the space for something more delicious. The plants act determinate only reaching about 2 feet.

Georgia Streak heirloom tomatoes-We didn't have good luck with these at all. We gave them the same care as all the other tomatoes but only ended up getting a couple tomatoes off of two plants. They seem more prone to rotting than any of the others we grew. Also the taste was good but not exceptional.

Red Velvet okra-I don't know if this is the norm or if something went horribly wrong but our plants only grew about 2 feet tall as opposed to head high for green okra and only produced about 2 pieces per plant. Also the okra was tough and not really good eatin'. Chris says "If you want to serve this for dinner give your guests a hack saw in addition to a fork." Ha Ha.

Turkish Eggplant- We didn't grow any of these here in container pots and our soil garden didn"t do so hot this year so we may be biased based on our own inabilities to grow these. They were smaller than we expected (about golfball size as opposed to softball size). They grew pretty well considering the trouble we had with the soil garden so I think in the right conditions they would probably produce a lot. The taste is pretty good. Not as tough and dry as a normal black eggplant. Overall, we like these but didn't grow them very well so I would not be averse to trying again sometime in the future but maybe not next year.

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Things we for sure want to re-plant next summer because we liked them this year:

Green Zebra heirloom tomatoes-We didn't get a lot of fruit but they are the best tasting of all the tomatoes we have grown. We both agree.

Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes-We got a lot of fruit from the two plants we had and they are really delicious. Second place taste to Green Zebras.

Patio tomatoes-We got tons of fruit from the one plant we had. Tons! They taste pretty good too.

Carolina Gold heirloom tomatoes-We only got a couple of these off the one plant we had but they are really sweet and delicious. We would like to try again next year for a higher yield.

Mini Bells-These are bite-size bell peppers. They have a delicious taste and they are still producing into August.

Preparing for Fall

Getting ready now for the fall growing season. Picked up some squash and broccoli seed and got it planted. Going to take scrupulous notes on all the details of seed starting for record keeping purposes. Planted the squash and broccoli seed today. Will get fall leeks going in a couple of weeks. Using a HPS 150 light to for the seedlings once they get going.

Moon and Stars Watermelon

This is the only edible fruit so far from the moon and stars watermelon patch. This one is about 5 pounds. About 10 watermelon have grown or are growing in the patch now. Taken 3 out so far to eat only to have 2 of them raw in the middle. Ate some for breakfast this morning. Very good fruit, but lots of seeds. The plant is doing well in the garden, but not sure really how to tell when they are ripe. This is an heirloom variety and we will likely not plant this type next year.

Mini Herb Garden

This mini garden is doing quite well. The growing medium is coco. I keep it watered and use nutrient a couple times a week. Chives, parsley and basil.

Front Porch Gardening?

In keeping with the spirit of our home garden, I decided it was time to upgrade the blog to an easy to remember URL, along with promoting how to's on container gardening. We do not have space or enough sunlight in our backyard to create a purposeful garden. Everything we are growing is in container pots on our front porch. I have manufactured them from 5 gallon pickle buckets along with purchased items such as the earthbox and waterfarm hydroponic systems.

By using container pots, the plants are kept off the ground and away from crawling predators. In the pots, the soil can be customized to our particular needs. Compost can be added as well. We are planning on expanding our garden next year. We currently use a relatives back yard for our standard soil garden, but contemplating using only container pots next year along with an array of hydroponics to further control the growing environment.

Homegrown Evolution

I learned a lot of container gardening along with many other great ideas for urban gardening at the homegrown evolution website. I have their book in the library and I highly recommend picking up a copy!

http://www.homegrownevolution.com

Blog - Website Update

Hello everyone,

Maggie and I are going to update the blog slowly with new content and a new format. We have been working a lot lately at our jobs and are running behind getting our fall crops ready.

I pulled up the yellow pear from the topsy turvy and planted a small better boy sapling. The volcano peppers are working overtime, but too hot for my colon to enjoy, so we are giving those away. We had a good run of tomatoes this year. The green zebra and carolina gold tasted the best, but only produced a small run of fruits. The hydroponic tomatoes did not taste as good as the container potted plants, but we had a ton more fruit, with more still ripening on the vine.

Planted 9 fish pepper seed trays and 9 marble (nosegay) ornamental peppers from seed that i picked up at seedsavers exchange online.

Medusa updated!

Here is the medusa pepper in full bloom!