The Gardening Thread

Yeah, the frozen tomatoes I put down were very thick and almost concentrated, not watery, and have made for some incredibly tasty sauces so far. Noticeably tastier than store bought.

 

That's how my neighbor used to store tomatoes when she grew them. She said it's a lot less effort than processing and canning a huge batch and they are perfect for cooking. She said they almost pop out of their skins when you thaw them.

I'll stick with my kitchenaid attachment for processing though. It makes it so incredibly easy to process gobs of tomatoes in minutes.

 

I blanch them and peel them before freezing... it's surprisingly easy to do. I also use freezer bags laid flat on an aluminum baking sheet I have in the freezer to keep them thin and flat, and they stack really well.

It's become my new go-to means of storing home grown tomatoes that we don't end up eating fresh.

 

There's snow on the ground and I can't wait for the weather to start trending upward so we can get this gardening thing going. This was our 3rd winter here in this climate. I'm finally getting the hang of the change of seasons here. I have typed up a list, basically on a monthly basis, of what I should be doing in the garden so I don't get caught unaware, which happened last season pretty badly. I have what plant, whether I'm direct sowing, starting indoors, transplanting it outside, plus any particular notes for reminders to myself about temperature requirements. This way my indoor starts are growing in waves and my space hopefully doesn't get too crowded. I also have a couple spots in the garden planned that will have early season plants that are replaced by summer plants once the early stuff is done, making the most of my space.

Hopefully by late Feb/early March I can get started outside. Today I'm germinating pepper seeds. They are always the slowest plant to get up to size and become productive for me.

It's kind of weird, but I might hang my lights over the shower stall in the laundry room that we never use. It would be warmer than the shed I had them in last time and allow drainage of the water without any issues. There's a sink in there I can refill a watering can with.

Anybody else fiddling with seeds yet?

 

Meanwhile it’ll be a good 6 months before I’ll plant here.

I’ve already been thinking about what I’ll be planting though, including a permanent spot for mint. I dried it out this year and it is amazing with pork or chicken. I even used it with stir fry, just to give it a little something different.

 

I've heard that mint likes it wet and under a spigot that leaks is good permanent. Careful though, in some climates it is invasive.

 

I'm hoping to get to that in the next couple of weeks... still trying to stay on target and focused with my home office reno that's been going on for more than a year.

This year I'm focusing on growing full-sized plants indoors, not just seedlings. Last year my seedlings had to wait too long to be transplanted due to shit weather, and I think that killed them off or stunted them. This year, I'm going straight to full sized pots with the expectation that I could almost harvest stuff indoors before they go out. I'm really going to focus in on tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. Had great success with my romaine, spinach, and CRAZY robust swiss chard. Hell, it was still green as of last week before we got a foot of snow dumped on us. That being said, I'll be planting all of those outside in the box when the weather is good enough... just too much work to do them indoors and transplant them... unless I come up with some easier way to do the transplanting... don't know. Maybe some sort of shallow tray that comes apart so I can just move the whole row/tray outside, then take apart the tray, leaving all the dirt and seedlings? Something to ponder while drunk later, I think...

For my herb garden, I'm starting over. A few years ago I built out a staggered step planter setup for them, but I've rethought that and will be doing a rack that I can just drop large pots into. That way I can start them inside super easily, transplant them just by moving, they'll get the automatic watering outside, and then when the weather hits, I can bring them in and try and keep them going inside.

I've also ordered the aluminum for my new "indoor seedling box" v2.0 that I should be able to pick up next week. At the bare minimum, I should be able to get the waterproof base fabbed up quickly and replace the rotting wooden one I have now.

So yeah, lots of plans

 

Yep. Here it will grow completely apeshit if allowed. Last year I was culling it from the herb bed and throwing it out. That won’t be happening again. I should have been drying and using it.

When dried, it packs a sweet, minty punch that’s hard to beat. It offsets herbs like oregano and rosemary nicely.

 

You raving about swiss chard has me pumped to try it out myself. I want to start as early as possible with kale, swiss chard, then some spinach, radishes. Once it is slightly warmer I'll put in some of the new Jericho lettuce seeds I picked up with bok choy and snap peas.

I'm usually pretty good about my summer garden but it's the cool parts on either side that I don't have a feel for yet. I'm looking forward to trying some new things out!

Sounds like you have a lot of projects in the works. Let us know how they progress.

I got my pepper seeds in my germinator (old chicken rotisserie container on a germination mat) a couple days ago and saw a root popping already yesterday. Gotta love fresh seeds. I'm growing Red Mercury and CA Wonder bell peppers, banana peppers, Anaheim chiles, jalafuego jalapenos, and ghost peppers. People snapped my peppers up last year at $4 each so I will probably sell for $5 or $6 a pop this time, depending on how big they end up. Maybe even more if they are huge. I was shocked at how expensive the vegetable plants at Lowes were when I walked around their selection last year. And I think the ghost peppers, if I end up with any extra to sell, can go for more $$ since they are a specialty pepper.

I ended up making about $250 on plants last season. Hopefully it works out better with my indoor set up. I think the cool temps outside stunted their growth a little, plus it was an absolute pain to maintain.

 

So, I planned to start my season with kale and swiss chard in a couple months. It looks like we are having a more typical spring here (compared to my first one here, good god so much snow). We had a cold period the 2nd half of Dec with 1 day of snow on Christmas, and it's currently above freezing at night with highs around 50F. There is a cold snap predicted 2nd half of this month and late Feb with temps right around freezing, maybe a small amount of snow, but mostly cold rain from what I can tell (yay farmer's almanac).

Assuming the predictions are correct on the general weather trends, would I be too early to try to start some kale and swiss chard and just cover it during the cold snaps? Will the cool temps stunt growth? I don't want to get into a frustrating endeavor if the weather isn't right, but on the other hand, I've read that these plants do ok with occasional freezing temps and actually taste sweeter. Anyone grown these plants who can give me some input?

Anyone grown carrots?

 

I was thinking about using some big sack pots for these vegetables. They will hold zuchinni and squash later in the summer. What's the closest safe spacing for carrots in your opinion?

 

Zone 7a/7b . Last frost is supposed to be April 29.

I guess I should use the almanac for more than just weather predictions!

 

Tip to those of you starting seeds for your garden. Hot peppers like it hot but mild peppers do not.

I thought I'd be clever and use 2 germination mats (one on top, one wrapped around the container) to help the ghost peppers germinate. I've heard they like it hot and it can take awhile for them to pop.

Well, I killed off most of my mild peppers which had already germinated. All the bell peppers are dead, and all but 1 banana pepper died. The jalafuego jalapenos and Anaheim chiles were ok so I went ahead and potted them up.

So I need to have 2 germination containers, and probably a thermometer in the hot one to keep an eye on the temp. I'm going to start a whole new batch of bell peppers and try to start some arbol chiles from the bag of chiles in my cabinet. I think chile de arbol is what our favorite Mexican place uses for their red taco salsa.

Also, the germination mat is a great place to put my container of dough when I'm proofing it.