2022 Garden Thread

[begreen]

I doubt it. I have to baby mine.

They will take some below freezing temps for a short while. I think somewhere around 23º is the cutoff temp for our Bearss lime. I move them into the greenhouse for the winter and they have made it for several years now.

Note that lemons and limes, like apples, will not match the mother plant because they are hybrids. You may get fruit, but it could be different. Key limes are the exception.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Its hard to believe they are not all grafted like apples are. It must be profitable to find root stocks with certain traits and then pick tops for tast/production/color, etc.

 

[Dix]

They will take some below freezing temps for a short while. I think somewhere around 23º is the cutoff temp for our Bearss lime. I move them into the greenhouse for the winter and they have made it for several years now.

Note that lemons and limes, like apples, will not match the mother plant because they are hybrids. You may get fruit, but it could be different. Key limes are the exception.

I did it as a goof, never it expected it to become 4' tall. I'll take what I get, if anything. Sure smells good

 

[begreen]

Yes, I love walking by our citrus. They smell wonderful.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I believe that we lost our Bearss lime tree this year because of a sudden temperature change at the New Year. We had a really warm December, and suddenly on January 1st, the temperature plummeted to 24 degrees. That was far colder than predicted, and I hadn’t tried to protect anything. I realize now that the plants hadn’t even built up their cold defenses because of the warm December, but it was really disappointing to have the lime completely freeze. There is green growing from the base now, but I believe it’s probably from below the graft. I have a jungle of sweet potato foliage around it at the moment, so I haven’t dug through to look, but I’ll investigate it when the sweet potatoes are gone. For its first several winters, we always wrapped it in remay when temperatures would drop. During the long freeze in February 2021, we managed to keep the trunk and some branches alive by tenting it with a large incandescent lightbulb going when we had power (which we had most of the time thankfully). It was really disappointing to lose it this year because of freezing weather no one predicted.

We have two Meyer lemons we planted at the same time. One is taller than I am and quite wide (though the very tips of some branches did freeze this year at the same time as the lime). The other died to the ground during February 2021 because it didn’t have a lightbulb. It is growing back, and we don’t know if it was grafted or not. There’s no obvious graft point about the growth. The foliage looks identical to what’s on the big one, so we’re just letting it grow to see what happens. It’s probably no bigger than a foot at this point.

Our Satsuma mandarin orange that lost all its branches during the freeze of 2021 is getting big again. It may bear 2 oranges this year, a big change from 800 or so in 2020, but we’re just very thankful that it’s alive and well.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I cut our second Beaver Dam Pepper fruit yesterday, and today I gave the plant a major size reduction. I took off most of the growth down to the very base, leaving a growing point on the main stem and a side shoot that has numerous buds. This should help me protect it in cold weather, though our extended forecast is looking free from freezes through November. That can change fast, of course, so I try to keep a close eye on things.



I cut the very tip of this pepper before I seeded it just to taste test. It was very sweet with a mild heat that grew. It was much more like what I had been expecting from the other one, so I’m hopeful that the two together will give us a nice paprika with a good flavor and not too much heat. We’ll see.

 

[begreen]

I cut the very tip of this pepper before I seeded it just to taste test. It was very sweet with a mild heat that grew. It was much more like what I had been expecting from the other one, so I’m hopeful that the two together will give us a nice paprika with a good flavor and not too much heat. We’ll see.

That is what ours tasted like. Delightful flavor. So much so that my wife put the whole pepper in a dish and was surprised how spicy it turned out. We checked the next pepper more carefully. At the tip, sweet and mild. Up near the stem was still tasty but very hot.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I noticed I’m running low on plant food.

I’m going to try this system. It looks like I can adapt food to the stage of the plant a bit better.

Amazon product ASIN B09M942WYB

 

[begreen]

I noticed I’m running low on plant food.

I’m going to try this system. It looks like I can adapt food to the stage of the plant a bit better.

Amazon product ASIN B09M942WYB

I am currently using what came with the iDoo. I need to learn more about feeding, the interval, etc. If say, 1 liter of water is needed after 1 week, do you just add the water and fertilizer for the added 1 liter, or more? Do you test your solution for pH, TDS, and EC?

.A monthly cycle for cleaning is suggested. Does one just toss out the gallon of the remaining solution and start with freshly fertilized water? I see the Flora products suggest a 13 week growth cycle before flushing.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I’m going into the feeding kind of blind.

I’ve previously used the food that came with the Aerogarden. This has been fine for starting seeds, but I’m not sure how well it’ll work for long term growing. The tomatoes have been growing so much and drinking so much that I’m sure they are absorbing a crazy amount of nutrients. I can tell you the water is staying much cleaner than I thought indicating heavy feeding. Soil does so much of the work naturally.

 

[begreen]

I’m going into the feeding kind of blind.

Well, at least you have company. Our seeds are just starting to sprout. I'm going to jump on the Reddit groups and get more info.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

That is what ours tasted like. Delightful flavor. So much so that my wife put the whole pepper in a dish and was surprised how spicy it turned out. We checked the next pepper more carefully. At the tip, sweet and mild. Up near the stem was still tasty but very hot.

I can see how a whole pepper could add a great deal of spice to a meal. I ground our Beaver Dam Peppers into paprika. The powder is very fragrant and spicy. My daughter and I are excited by the fruitiness of it. I don’t think we’ll be using it for paprikash as we’d need sweeter paprika for that, but we’ll have no problem using it, I’m sure.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Do you grind the seeds up too?

 

[Dan Freeman]

The rainwater tank arrived today. It weighs about 175lbs, and since the delivery was "curbside", I was planning to roll it down the driveway. Obviously, with my fractured ribs, that was out of the question. A little "greasing of the wheels" got the delivery guy to unload and bring it down the driveway for me. I probably won't get it hooked up until next Spring, but I don't need it now anyway, so no big deal.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Getting it there is half the battle!

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I keep bringing in green tomatoes and letting their ethylene turn them on the kitchen table.

I think I’m going to be leaving green tomatoes on the vine this winter.

Just too many tomatoes…

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Do you grind the seeds up too?

Often I do grind seeds in pepper powders, but in this case I did not. I wanted to save seeds to grow a larger quantity in the future, so I seeded these peppers and cut them before drying them. For smaller peppers like fish peppers I dry them whole and grind the seeds. I can see myself seeding future Beaver Dam peppers as well just because of the size. My kids also have hopes that I will grow more in the future and ferment them. In that case I would seed them and slice them into rings.

@Dan Freeman, glad you were able to get your rain tank mostly where you’ll need it. How are you feeling these days?

@EatenByLimestone , too many tomatoes? I wish I had that problem.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I finally got around to lawn maintenance at the rental and there was what I thought was a watermelon that was a bit odd looking. We’ll, it’s not. I have no idea what it is. Does anybody recognize this?

 

[DuaeGuttae]

It looks like an immature winter squash or an over mature summer squash. I don’t know that it’s an exact match, but “Tatume” was the first thing that popped to mind. If it’s still soft, I’d cook it up like zucchini. I’ve been doing that with my immature Seminole pumpkin, and they do kind of look like that inside. Yours looks like it may be beyond the tender eating stage, though.

 

[Dan Freeman]

@Dan Freeman, glad you were able to get your rain tank mostly where you’ll need it. How are you feeling these days?

Today, marks two weeks since my fall. I can see this is going to take quite a while to recover. Generally, better, but pain comes and goes with severity, depending on how much I move around. Pain also dependent on how faithful I am to my breathing therapy. I am supposed to do the exercises once per hour. The exercising causes a lot of coughing, which creates pain, but helps to keep my left lung clear which they tell me is essential, so I don't develop pneumonia or some other kind of lung problem while recovering.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

You have all winter to get better and plan for next year!


One of my employees thinks it’s a hybrid of some sort.

 

[begreen]

I keep bringing in green tomatoes and letting their ethylene turn them on the kitchen table.

I think I’m going to be leaving green tomatoes on the vine this winter.

Just too many tomatoes…

Here are some ideas. I am going to try the green tomato pickles.
(broken link removed)

 

[begreen]

Today, marks two weeks since my fall. I can see this is going to take quite a while to recover. Generally, better, but pain comes and goes with severity, depending on how much I move around. Pain also dependent on how faithful I am to my breathing therapy. I am supposed to do the exercises once per hour. The exercising causes a lot of coughing, which creates pain, but helps to keep my left lung clear which they tell me is essential, so I don't develop pneumonia or some other kind of lung problem while recovering.

Thanks for the update Dan. So sorry you have had this setback, but it will heal with patience. Time to relax more and read some good books.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

You’ve got me thinking… very dangerous, lol. I just suggested a stir fry with some green tomatoes.

It can’t hurt, maybe we’ll like it!

 

[EatenByLimestone]

The salsa verde sounds interesting too!