Update on the Garden Update

In the ongoing saga of the garden upgrade:

We're getting ready for the largest, and second-to-last raised bed. The others so far are 8' x 3' x 2' high (more or less; they ship them in nested sets, so some are slightly smaller).

This one will be 8' in diameter: round. I calculate that as needing about five yards of soil. We'll use mostly garden mix, with some mushroom fertilizer added in, maybe in the middle layers.

Once this bed is in place, there are only two steps to go: we'll replace the bed that formerly held the raspberries and rhubarb (more about them shortly) with a 10' x 3' x24" high bed.  This will be the last purchase.

And finally, there's one bed in the back that has just been holding extra dirt. That will go in where the garlic is now, but not until I have opportunity to harvest the garlic. We can't do without garlic! 

I plan to cut the bottom out of this one as well.

I've been cutting the bottoms out of most of the beds (with the exception of the first one, up against the fence with the espaliered apple tree). It turns out that some plants (notably asparagus and sunflowers) like deep roots, up to 9' deep with asparagus. Plus it gives the worms a clear path in and out.

The main motivation for the change is that the original wooden raised beds are rotting. They need to be replaced, and this is actually no more expensive than using cedar wood or planks made from recycled plastics, or any other option I could find.

Plus these give a higher bed. Easier to keep working the garden.

And we've added cinder blocks under them to get them another eight inches up. Strictly a convenience thing.

Then we'll shovel sixty-eleven loads of wood chips in between all the beds. That'll be fun!

February First: Starting Some Garden Greens

Planted Parsley, Swiss chard, feldsalat & corn salad (going to compare those!), and spinach.

Indoors. Starting pots.

Documenting stuff: I needed Google Translate to read the (German) instructions on the feldsalat package. Google translated feldsalat as "corn salad."

On the other hand, the seeds were very different. The fledsalat seeds were tiny and oblong. The corn salad seeds were larger, like radish seeds, and round.

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Next evening, I added some coriander and some Romaine lettuce.

Re-Started Hot Peppers

When I started the "super-hot peppers" three weeks ago, I started them like I start normal peppers: in soil, on a warming pad, with a plastic cover.


Additional research suggests that may not work for super-hots. But since they take 4 - 6 weeks to germinate, we won't know for another month.

So I started some more seeds: Ghost, Carolina Reaper, Orange Habanero, Lemon Drop. I started them in moist paper towels, in baggies, on the warming pads, under the trays.

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Note that several things have germinated:

• Red bell peppers.
• Fresno peppers (I'm growing these for my son).
• Cayenne peppers.
• Tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes. Looks like every single tomato seed sprouted.

January 2018: First Two Weeks.

I've been told that when you're growing peppers, the hotter they are, the earlier you need to start them.

I was given some pepper seeds. They’re for fairly hot varieties:

• Cayenne Pepper (30,000 – 50,000 Scoville Heat Units)
• Carolina Reaper (2,000,000 – 2,200,000 SHUs)
• Yellow Reaper  (1,569,383 – 2,200,000 SHUs)
• Bhut Jolokia (Ghost Pepper) (970,000 SHUs)
• Trinidad Scorpion, (1,200,000+ SHUs)
• Orange Habanero (325,000 SCUs

They’re very hot peppers. So I started them very early: they’re in dirt before January 15^th.

Then – because I’m very eager I can’t help myself, and as an experiment – I also  planted a few other things.

•     Lemon Drop Peppers x2 (30,000 SCUs)

•     Fresno Peppers (10,000 SCUs)

•     Felicity Peppers (1,000 SCUs: these are a mild jalapeno pepper)

•     Paprika Peppers (8,000 SCUs)

And as long as I was planting seeds, I planted a batch of sweet peppers as well, of various small fruit sizes.

I have more of all of these seeds if it doesn't work out.

And just to round out the night, I started some tomatoes, too.

• Legend (determinate, slicing)
• Chocolate Cherry x2 (indeterminate, large cherry)
• Unknown purple tomato seeds (from 2013)
• Brandywine (slicing, from 2013) and again, 
• Brandywine (slicing, from 2016)

None of these are real critical seeds for this year.


These are mostly "65 - 80 days" from seed to fruit. I don't actually believe that in the case of the hot peppers, but if it was true, then I'd have fruit ripening the last week of March.

That might be really interesting, harvesting peppers or tomatoes in March. I don't expect it. 

Polliwog Grows Up!

A month or two ago, I gathered a bucketful of polliwogs for our pond. I thought that the fish had eaten them all. Apparently not.

It appears that at least one grew up.

My Simon & Garfunkel Hanging Planter

I'm making a few hanging herb planters this year, just to see how they work on my patio.

This one has Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme. And some basil.

Impatiens Experiment

I was warned that it's a real bear to grow Impatiens from seeds. Someone told me you could keep cuttings over the winter, but I couldn't. So the options were: pay through the nose for plants. or grow my own.

Well, that one is easy. What can go wrong?

I found a package of 500 seeds online for three bucks delivered. And I set up for it.

Instructions call for warm soil: 60 - 75 degrees, but don't ever go above 85 or you'll kill 'em.

I got a larger heating mat (20x20), and it turned out to be warmer in the middle. With a little juggling of the cover, we could keep it in the range.

I set the seed package in there overnight, waiting for the moist soil to warm up: I wanted to plant into warm soil.

But condensation soaked the package, so I spread the seeds on the surface in a hurry and left to mow the lawn and help a friend build a gate.

No problem. It takes a couple of weeks to germinate. I'll check 'em in a week.

I couldn't wait. Four days later, I found this: They were sprouting!

I could see which side was warmer, so I flipped 'em around. A few days later, we had this: this was getting out of hand.

For several days, I watched the temperature and marveled!

A week later it looked like this:

Now they were getting real crowded. And if I looked closely, more seeds were just now germinating.

So I grabbed some small tools and some small pots and began transplanting the ones that were forming their first pair of real leaves.

I had a small tray with sixteen pockets, so I planted one or two impatiens starts in each pocket.

And I decided I wanted a flower pot this year.

I hooked chains on one of my larger (3 gallon?) greenhouse pots, drilled some holes in the sides, and planted impatiens!

I also planted some marigold starts, and some seeds for some black-eyed susan vines, and left room for some schizanthus later on.

That reduced the crowding on the impatiens for about two days.

I needed to transplant them to real pots, starter pots, but real pots. Fortunately, a friend gave me a bunch recently.

I got busy.

I only transplanted the bigger plants.

But the more I transplanted out, the more seeds germinated. The tray stayed full.

After all this, the tray remained as full of impatiens starts as it ever was.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with so many flowers.