Today's harvest

[pepperhead212]

As Marlingardener noted, two of the main causes of BER are lack of Ca, or stress, often from irregular watering. And another main problem is with certain varieties that are prone to it, while others growing next to them, in similar soil and watering, have no sign of it at all! Plum tomatoes, like Roma, are particularly prone to it.

 

[dragnlaw]

Understood, yep I only put in 2 plants - one Roma and one cherry - cherry is not affected at all.

3 Eggplants, one doing really well, another sort'a producing 1 or 2 eggplants but really just wilting, and the 3 wilting - no flowers no eggplants.

All 5 plants are in the same bed but well spaced apart.
The tomatoes went crazy and were hard to keep apart but with the Roma's doesn't matter as half of them fall and/or rot.
I'm thinking of just tearing it out. Except every once in a while I find one good one.

 

[dragnlaw]

A question, years ago I was told one of the reasons tomatoes got tough skins was from too much water. Is this true? or partially?

 

[blissful]

Blossom end rot, we might, maybe only, not for sure, have one or two tomatoes out of thousands. Knock on wood. Usually it is the first tomatoes, while the plant (I've read) is immature and not metabolizing calcium correctly yet. This has happened for the past 30 years for us, we don't treat it or correct it. Our tomato plants haven't had one ripe tomato yet, and they are 2 months in the ground (normal for us in WI), and another month earlier from seed. Honestly, to this point, I've ignored blossom end rot.

 

[dragnlaw]

I've cut a couple of the tomatoes with the black ends. Insides are OK. but usually they are shriveled and fall to the ground.
This was not a good spring for me - will try to be more organized and on the ball next year.

 

[pepperhead212]

A question, years ago I was told one of the reasons tomatoes got tough skins was from too much water. Is this true? or partially?

The tough skins are more a varietal thing - if the skin gets tough with more rain, you wouldn't have these varieties that get split skins from heavy rain on a regular basis, while others (the thick skinned ones) rarely split at all.

And on another question you asked before, I do buy those individual chemicals by themselves; as a rule, the nurseries (few and far between these days) don't have any of them. I used to get them from ebay cheaper, but it seems Amazon is cheaper for most of them now. And if you don't use too much, some things you can use some cheap substitutes for. Baking soda can be used instead of the potassium bicarbonate - I use that because I don't want to put too much sodium into the soil, but if you only use it occasionally, the baking soda makes a good fungicide, esp. when mixed with oil, though not when it gets over 90°. And a cheap calcium spray for tomatoes is calcium chloride - the stuff used for melting ice - as long as it's not the stuff mixed with salt!

Another thing I noticed with 3 of the varieties of tomatoes I grew, that seemed to be causing many of the tomatoes getting BER - the tomatoes were growing in clusters, some 8-10, like cherries, yet these are NOT small tomatoes! So I started pulling many off, leaving 3 or 4 per stem, and it seemed none got BER, when there were so few per stem. It's like the stems just couldn't support that many large fruits.

 

[pepperhead212]

I picked a bunch more peppers today, and would have had more, but it was getting very sunny on the side there. Maybe tomorrow...
More peppers, 8-11. A bunch more larger, green ones out there, but it got too sunny. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[dragnlaw]

I've come to the conclusion your name is not Dave. It must be Peter, last name Piper?

 

[pepperhead212]

A couple of days ago I harvested a few tomatoes, plus some eggplant and a bitter melon, which all seem to be coming back from the heat wave, when most of them dropped all their blossoms. I also got some okra, and beans started producing (finally!), and a bunch of these veggies went into that curry I made.
Tomatoes harvested, 8-12 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

More eggplants, a bitter melon, and a couple of cucumbers underneath. 8-12 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

And a funny looking eggplant in the green ones that day.
3 of the eggplants harvested on 8-12. Two used for dinner. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

More peppers today. I would have done this early, but everything was soaked with dew until fairly late in the morning.
Datil and Aruna peppers, 8-14 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Various jalapeños, plus the Big Mic and Joe E Parker peppers, 8-14 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[Kathleen]

My sister and I decided to grow "Rattlesnake Pole Beans." My beans are growing up the corn stalks here at Notta-Acre Farms. I've prepped them and plan to cook them in the morning with some of my new potatoes.

I continue to pick cucumbers. Today, I harvested six of them and saw this new vine spinning off the old vine. Six little cukes front and forward and two that can be seen that will be harvested tomorrow hiding in this pic.

 

[pepperhead212]

More peppers!

That one Datil pepper plant is incredibly productive, and delicious, fresh and dried. As I said before, it does not look or taste like a chinense pepper, which it is listed as, but has a really strong regular pepper flavor. It is maybe 80-100k heat units, so it's not mild, but still not as hot as a normal habanero. I'm going to try some crushed ones - crushed yellow pepper flakes!
more Arunas and Datil peppers, 8-19 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The red savinas are late this year, only because the Chocolate Habaneros did not germinate, so I planted some again, plus some red savinas, in case that happened again, which did happen. So the red savinas are my hot habaneros this season. Aji Dulce is starting to ripen now, for my almost no heat hab.
Red Savina peppers ripening, 8-19 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

A few Thai peppers ripening, 8-19 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[pepperhead212]

And more peppers, just 4 days later!

The Maui Purple are a little later than most, but a little earlier than the ones I had before, which were about a week later. I left most on the front plants, just for appearance, and this bowl came all from the side plant.
One Maui Purple plant, with a bunch of ripe peppers. 8-23 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Ripe Maui Purple peppers, picked from just one plant. 8-23 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Ripening Arunas, picked from 3 plants. 8-23 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Datil, Aji Dulce (red, almost no heat habanero), and misc. Thai peppers. 8-23 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Misc. larger peppers, including a few jalapeños, which aren't doing much. 8-23 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

And a few tomatoes, as well. A lot of cherries on the bottom.
Misc. tomatoes ripening, from the blossoms after the bad blossom drop from the heat. 8-23 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[Kathleen]

@pepperhead212 I would use that first picture as my background screen!

 

[pepperhead212]

@Kathleen I've been meaning to change that background screen, and those ones with the yellow datil are coming out really good! That one 3 above here I liked, with that weird thing in the middle that looks like an eye! I have no idea what that is.

I now know what that "eye" is - that bowl is an old container from a spin-dryer, and that's the post in the middle the dryer spins on. I have 2 of those old ones from broken dryers, that I use for collecting veggies!

 

[blissful]

@pepperhead212 have you ever had a year where you felt you were suffering a pepper shortage? (serious question)

 

[Rascal]

6 days of winter left then spring. I've started propagating new stuff for wifes garden. Shes the gardener. I just start them
I have about 20 peas poking through . We will be eating these xmas lunch. We have new potatoes almost ready to plant for xmas also.
Wifes faves are chillies. Hundreds of them.

Russ

 

[pepperhead212]

@blissful - never have had a shortage, at least since I started growing from seed, back in the 80s. And with peppers, I have about a dozen must grow varieties - another after that Datil, this year! - that will produce for me every time. Tomatoes, only a few must grow, leaving more space for experimental varieties, while with peppers there are only a few new varieties every year. And believe it or not, I do buy some peppers! Those are many of those Mexican varieties, some of which I have tried growing, and they just didn't do well for me. Not to mention the chipotles and moritas, which I have tried to do at home, but smoking peppers didn't result in the same flavors for me.

Update - and something I learned, early on, was that I would freeze far more than I needed, so one year I weighed what I froze of all the ones I use - red and green Thai, other misc green chiles, Hanoi Market, the hot habaneros (red savinas, chocolate, and any new ones), the Aji Dulce, and maybe any new ones. Then, when the next harvest season starts, I weigh the leftovers, and see how many I actually used of each, then added 20% to that, for the amounts to freeze from then on. The rest get dried.

And leftovers from the freezer dehydrate well!

 

[blissful]

That's excellent @pepperhead212 the weighing them and then planting 20% more than what you need.

Growing from seed is the way to go.

When I was cleaning out the freezer last month I took all the diced red peppers (left from last year) and mixed them with diced onion in the freezer and some fresh, then pressure canned them. We like that a lot. I was surprised how much we like them canned together.

We're growing serranos with our bell peppers this year. They just flowered a week ago.

We harvested our first two tomatoes, one san marzano and one roma. They'll be coming in soon.

6 days of winter left then spring.

We just have a few days of summer left and then autumn. If you have pictures it would sure be nice to see them. Today was our hottest day, almost to 100 deg F and humid (WI of USA). I'm looking forward to cooler days while you're probably looking forward to warmer days.

 

[Rascal]

That's excellent @pepperhead212 the weighing them and then planting 20% more than what you need.

Growing from seed is the way to go.

When I was cleaning out the freezer last month I took all the diced red peppers (left from last year) and mixed them with diced onion in the freezer and some fresh, then pressure canned them. We like that a lot. I was surprised how much we like them canned together.

We're growing serranos with our bell peppers this year. They just flowered a week ago.

We harvested our first two tomatoes, one san marzano and one roma. They'll be coming in soon.


We just have a few days of summer left and then autumn. If you have pictures it would sure be nice to see them. Today was our hottest day, almost to 100 deg F and humid (WI of USA). I'm looking forward to cooler days while you're probably looking forward to warmer days.

Yes I'm on a few murican sites.
We recently had 5 days of frosts. -5 is dam cold.
Wife harvested 100s of chillies I made a hot chilly sauce my kids love.
I grow from seed.

Russ

 

[larry_stewart]

Decent popcorn year ( both pink and black varieties) and a way above average string/ pole bean year.