stubbed toes and mud pies

[Vanalpaca]

I keep getting waylaid by lack of energy... day of work, day off. We did a feed run this morning and are sitting down since. Still need to drag myself up and go heat up some soup...

 

[flowerbug]

i got half the peppers planted. the 2nd half will be easier when i can get back to planting as the garden soil is better and it is a single row i just have to get it done - but that won't likely be tomorrow. have to mow and then something else for the afternoon, but i really want to get these planted so perhaps i will manage it.

 

[flowerbug]

i did not get peppers planted but we'll see if i can get them done in the morning... pretty hot and humid out there today and i did have to stop and take a break and cool off before finishing.

mosquitoes are starting to appear in numbers. it's ok, i don't enjoy getting bit but they are a part of nature and feed frogs, toads, bats, etc. so far i haven't been bit at all.

 

[Decoy1]

plants got picked up. onions got planted and watered.

i have an entire tray of Beaver Dam pepper plants. if i grow all of these plants i'm going to have to give a lot of them away!

I’m growing Beaver Dam peppers this year. I’d never heard of them before I got some seed, but have read their interesting history.
My two plants are quite small and delicate still. Is that typical for the variety? I’d love to know a bit more about them. Are they favourites for you? I believe they’re quite mild?

 

[flowerbug]

...My two plants are quite small and delicate still. Is that typical for the variety? I’d love to know a bit more about them. Are they favourites for you? I believe they’re quite mild?

the starts i have are usually about 15-20cm tall and already have some flower buds starting to appear. they usually end up getting to be about 50-60cm tall by the end of the season - i've never put supports in for them but they might do better if you do.

the fruits are not thick walled, but are what i'd consider medium thickness, about 8cm wide and 15-20cm long with a ridge around the top so if you get frequent rains you may have some water collect on the top.

quantiity in our heavy clay soil is plenty with two to three crops.

heat level is about the same as a jalalpeno.

flavor is different than jalapeno but good to me but they are certainly not hatch chilis or red pepper or green pepper flavor - unique to them i guess i'd say. if you want them to be milder (as usual with some hot peppers) you can remove the seeds and veins when prepping them.

as for a favorite, i like that they are productive in our garden soils when jalapenos are usually not very good for us.

the downsides are the above mentioned ridge and then with the long fruits and how deep i plant them they often are dragging fruits on the ground (they might do better with bigger starts but so far i'm not getting those from the greenhouse - since they are doing these as a favor to me i'm glad to get the plants at all - i don't have good pepper starting conditions here at home). to get bigger starts get them going a month or more earlier than usual?

 

[flowerbug]

i'd mentioned to Mom that until i was done planting beans that i wasn't really available to help her with projects until the gardens were planted. i've already been pulled away from planting about a week extra due to the glass being blown out of the lighthouse and other things she's needed help with, which is fine and it is what i'm here for, but they are not emergencies and so the gardens are not getting planted...

yesterday Mom came back from her caretaking and said that she hired someone to come help her with her project that she's started (which i had no plans on doing at all) that she never said she was going to do up until the day she decided to do it (which was also the day we picked up the garden starts for onions, tomatoes and peppers).

the front gardens have a few rows of lavender plants that are old and woody so she wanted to take all of them out and replace them with some other plants. we picked up ten plants for that and now we need to have wood chips brought in for those to be replaced. i think we may just end up having a pallet of bags delivered because she can handle those a lot easier than having to shovel them from a pile into the wheelbarrow. so that's likely the plan for the woodchips, but first the lavender plants need to be removed and she's not able to do it all so the person she got ahold of will be here to help her out with the rest of it.

i would get to doing it eventually but it won't be for a few weeks yet at the soonest.

it is pretty humid and wet out at the moment from the rains we've had but i hope i can get out today and get the last of the peppers planted.

 

[flowerbug]

peppers all planted, on to the rest of the gardens, all need to be weeded in some ways but they're not too bad.

 

[Decoy1]

the starts i have are usually about 15-20cm tall and already have some flower buds starting to appear. they usually end up getting to be about 50-60cm tall by the end of the season - i've never put supports in for them but they might do better if you do.

the fruits are not thick walled, but are what i'd consider medium thickness, about 8cm wide and 15-20cm long with a ridge around the top so if you get frequent rains you may have some water collect on the top.

quantiity in our heavy clay soil is plenty with two to three crops.

heat level is about the same as a jalalpeno.

flavor is different than jalapeno but good to me but they are certainly not hatch chilis or red pepper or green pepper flavor - unique to them i guess i'd say. if you want them to be milder (as usual with some hot peppers) you can remove the seeds and veins when prepping them.

as for a favorite, i like that they are productive in our garden soils when jalapenos are usually not very good for us.

the downsides are the above mentioned ridge and then with the long fruits and how deep i plant them they often are dragging fruits on the ground (they might do better with bigger starts but so far i'm not getting those from the greenhouse - since they are doing these as a favor to me i'm glad to get the plants at all - i don't have good pepper starting conditions here at home). to get bigger starts get them going a month or more earlier than usual?

Thank you for your detailed description. That’s very helpful and I’ll add it to my notes. When I said mine were delicate and spreading I was actually mixing them up with another variety. My plants are still quite small, about 30cm I’d say, but they have quite meaty-looking peppers forming -

upwards for the moment. Hopefully, they will just be clear of trailing on the ground. Do these look right for the variety?

 

[flowerbug]

... Hopefully, they will just be clear of trailing on the ground. Do these look right for the variety?

they look ok, if a bit bumpy which i've not seen here - normally they are smooth. the walls are not as thick like a bell pepper so meaty is not a word i'd use to describe them, but they are not a thin walled pepper either (i don't tend to like those other than the small hot ones used for flavor in some dishes but not usually eaten because they are too hot).

 

[flowerbug]

yesterday was the annual running of the worms finale and over the past several months i've been thinking of retiring from worm keeping and so i have not restarted the worm buckets yet and i may not until the fall or perhaps never.

i did learn a lot about them from keeping them and taking care of them, they were not that much effort but with my most recent mistakes and Mom's change of her routine i wasn't getting enough of the right kind of food scraps to keep them going very well and the bulk of the worm buckets did not support worms very well at the end. they all did need to be refreshed and i did need to get some different worms and i am not getting out much to look around and i don't want to order them to be shipped to me either. just not what i have time to do these days. so it was time to let the worms go that i did have and to regain that space in my room (it looks very strange now to not have those buckets there).

instead i will be doing the bury in the garden kind of food scrap composting and then the worms will have a more natural setting out there and when it gets colder in the fall and i can't do that i'll return to drying things out as usual and then i can store it in a bucket until i can bury it in the spring. any spoiled and messy stuff can go on the weed pile out back as usual, the birds pick through it looking for bugs and other treats...

14 years and it will be a change in routine and scenery and i'll have to get used to it.