Update on Starts and Things.

Because super-hot peppers need a very long time to germinate, I started those seeds the second week of January. I've since learned that this was kind of late for those peppers. Live and learn.

These are the super-hot peppers. At the bottom are Cayenne peppers. The others that are starting are Yellow Reapers, from which Carolina Reapers were bred.

But we're still early. It would be unusual if there were many up yet.

And I still have some growing in plastic starting bags.

These are the medium hot peppers. Fresno peppers are up. Lemon Drops are not (they were slow last year, too); neither are Felicity or Paprika peppers.

Bell peppers are inconsistent, too. Yellow bells are iffy. Red bells are great. Purple bells, also iffy. But these are pretty early.

It's habit for me: I always start peppers and tomatoes at the same time. (I'm beginning to catch on that maybe that needs to change.)

These are the tomatoes that I started at the same time. They're all doing varying degrees of really great.

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)
Theoretically, I should begin harvesting fruit off of these late March. I think that's overly optimistic, but mid April makes some sense. And if nothing else, I'll have some really fairly mature plants to put into the new raised beds.


As long as my hands were dirty, I dug out much of the herb garden this year. looks like the oregano and the tarragon didn't make it. But I may still be surprised. I still need to find a home for garlic chives and licorice mint. Maybe this is the answer I'm looking for.

Transplanting Rhubarb & Raspberries

Spring seems to be coming early this year. That may just be because I'm paying attention. The bulbs are poking their heads up, the trees and shrubs are budding.

And the raspberries are budding. Even the rhubarb is beginning to think about leaves.

In the ongoing update of the vegetable garden's raised beds, we accomplished an important milestone today.

We decided what to do with the raspberries and rhubarb! We've been really uncertain about that for a long time.

At issue: we're replacing all the low, wooden (rotting) raised beds with taller ones that bring the dirt up to counter high.

This is much easier for these knees, for this back. And we're using galvanized steel, so it shouldn't rot for a hundred years or more.

We decided on downsizing both, though that wasn't a surprise. The rhubarb is going in one of the galvanized bins. It's only getting half a bin, though I'm sure it would like more. I'll have some to give away.

And the raspberries will be at the very front of the garden in front of the very first raised bed.

We "graze" the berries, we don't harvest them. And this way, the berries are:

a) at ground level (not at counter height) for easy reaching, and
b) the very front of the garden, in easy grazing range.

That raised bed will be challenging to reach from the front, but it will be easy enough to reach from behind.  

Before I was done, I mulched the rhubarb (and the asparagus) with mushroom compost.

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.