pic 2:

This is actually "Pimentão Cascadura"; it's an "improved" green bell pepper variety here in Brazil, i think it's more resistant to plagues, sickness and all that

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/23224596

More pix first. Then explanation.

So this is going on the fifth year I'll be farming Vanilla. My operation is microscopic but it's a work in progress. I've got maybe 300 vines all in. I got some Vanilla off this planting 2 years ago, and this was the first vines I planted. Which is some what typical for Vanilla. Usually 3-5 years before they really become productive.

I fertilized these back in May/ April. It's a tiny yield but next year I expect to have maybe 5-20x this amount, which means if I can sell some of it, I'll finally be able to cover some of my costs.

Right now I have about five varieties. All from either trade or from hiking to old plantations and looking for feral populations. This one is a variety of Tahitiensis and I made a vanilla bean whip cream a few months ago with it. It's a very distinctly 'bourbon' flavor. Like i ground it up in a mortar and pessle and it straight up smelled like whiskey.

So not close to enough to sell (again) this year. But next year and the following years, maybe this hobby will finally start paying itself off.

Outside garden is asleep til spring, but I still grow a few herbs and lettuce for our pet rabbit

It's tiny but it smells amazing. Can't wait to try it.

I decided to plant some old potatoes and an onion to see if they would grow in the late autumn and early winter. We also take a look at some Christmas cacti, a giant Christmas tree, make some hot sauce, and play with Cam!

Over there at [email protected] I already posted a few updates concerning my saffron.

I originally planned to plant a few bulbs of saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) into my hydroponic setups, but also placed the other half or so into soil outside.

One of the bulbs, and probably the only one this year, started flowering just a few weeks after planting them.

Funnily, it started blooming just when the very first snow hit!

I harvested the only three strands, which is typical, and ate one right away. It tasted like nothing. Maybe they need drying and curing first, I don't know 🤷

Lot of stuff I’ve been reading say to buy around mid December when the seed catalogs come out, but which ones?

I usually just get seeds and plants from Home Depot, it’s done the job, but I want to find some nice heirlooms and/or varieties they don’t carry. Also screw “white label” seeds. But that’s another discussion.

So this last year I got some different seeds from Lee Valley, but I wasn’t a huge fan, still felt like Home Depot just under another name.

So what’s your guys favorite website or place to get seeds. And when do you find the best time to order.

It's their first year of life still so I'm keeping them indoors, under light this winter. I'm cutting back some on light and water until spring though.

Zone 7B.... I think it's been a bit warm out.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/15197450

This is another appreciation-post on how awesome semi-hydro/ LECA can be.

Today, I want to show you how my propagator dome works and how to build one for yourself very easily!

TL;DR

• It uses inorganic media like expanded clay pebbles, Seramis, pon, perlite, or whatever you choose.
• You fill small modified cups with the media and then place your seeds or cuttings in them.
• The media is completely inert and can be sterilized, so you don't have to worry about mold, fungus gnats, or whatever!
• You can't over- or underwater it, it's always moist, but very well aerated.
• This is my personal aerocloner-killer!

Why I build it (backstory)

I've always had trouble getting seeds started, especially for soil plants. They almost always got moldy and the success rate was low, especially due to waterlogging. And because I didn't want to mix soil with hydroponics, I had to search for an alternative.

Some people use rock wool for that, but I always found it too expensive and impractical.

Propagation via cuttings has also been hard for me. Like most people, I started with just a glass of water, but this very often caused rotting due to a lack of oxygen.

So, I built an aerocloner this year. This is basically an aeroponic cloning unit, where cuttings are placed in, which get sprayed with small droplets all the time. It worked really great, but my main issue with it was the noise. It needs an air pump running 24/7, which I found annoying.

I also needed a separate dome just for seeds, which feels redundant.

Many people also just place their cuttings into peat or coco, and they root very well too, as long as they get enough oxygen.

How it works

All semi-hydro substrates have some intrinsic wicking capabilities due to capillary action. This means, that if they stand in water, it gets drawn up all to the top, making the whole medium moist.

In between (and IN) the beads is a lot of empty space. Media like those can only store 30% water or so in their pores, and the rest is air. Air the roots need to breathe!

This means, that the LECA is always wet, but never water logged or compacted like coco, soil or other organic media can be!

Advantages

• Inorganic media are inert, they don't decompose or get eaten by mold or bugs
• As long as you refill the water in the tray once a week or so, you don't have to worry about too dry conditions, both the substrate and the air humidity. And even if you forget to water, it will stay moist for more than a few days after it has run dry.
• No waterlogging (anaerobic conditions due to overwatering) possible.
• Roots are already adapted for both soil AND hydro environments.
• No fungus gnats or other bugs, because they can't eat or live in the hostile substrate.
• Added stabillity for cuttings.
• No spillage, no mess.
• The LECA beads are very easy to remove without harming the roots.

How to build it yourself and use it

What you'll need

• A humidity dome/ seedling starter (available everywhere)
• A bright spot, e.g. your grow tent or windowsill
• (Optional: heating mat)
• A few small cups with lids, optimally made out of HDPE or PP
• A nail, lighter and something for holding
• Destilled water
• LECA or another medium. I like LECA with a small size (4-8 mm) the most for this use case, especially for cuttings.

Preparing the cups

• Separate the lid from the bottom
• Heat a nail and melt a few holes into the bottom. They can be very small, and 4 are sufficient. Try to make the edges as smooth as possible. Too many holes can make removing the roots harder. https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/72fc6f2a-56b0-4f69-afe2-368fb6abf0cc.jpeg
• Burn a hole into the lid and but a section off. Otherwise, it will be hard to remove.
• Fill it up with your medium
• Turn it around, take your cutting and push it into the hole while shaking lightly. That way, the stem will just slide into it without effort. Turn it again and give it another small shake. The medium is now locked up and the cutting can't move.

How to use

• Moisten the LECA with a spray bottle. If they are dry, the wicking won't work as great or will take longer.
• Try to water the tray, not the top of the substrate at first. Fine seeds might get washed out otherwise.
• You can just sow the seeds directly onto the substrate and put the lid on it. As soon as they germinate, the roots will "burrow" themselves very lightly into the pores of the hydroton and be fixed there.
• Some heating from below with a heating mat is beneficial

Here are some pictures of a cactus (right after germination) and some cuttings (Tradescantia, hops, Ctenanthe) I made just a few days before:

2 celsius outside, to my fellow americans thats about one refrigerator outside. hands are still freezing. glad i didn't wait until the snow started this year. about half the pile is carrots.

Pretty gutted, had just started to harvest this year's crop. Just the cherry on top of an already shit day. Even managed to snap the half inch metal stake I put there when I first planted it in February 2021.

[Image description: view of a row of five young fruit trees planted in half wine barrels in a home garden.]

Harder to stand up, but SO much easier to carve!

Previous post for reference: https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d2589c9f-2181-4f5b-8c3e-7686dc4d3673.jpeg

Pretty sad. I have another one going, but this one was a good size and just about ready to harvest. I'm guessing it was a deer. To be honest, I kind of like the idea of a deer running around with a pineapple in it's mouth.

Curious to see if the community has some recommendations

EDIT: The picture didn't upload. Here's an external link: https://ibb.co/q0hmm3S

Harvesting today. It's been cold and shitty out the past few days so it's been wrapped up for a while. Unwrapped it today and started to cut it down when we noticed these weird little growths. Are these seed pods? Is the crop ruined?

Zone 7a, Kentucky USA. I read about over-wintering peppers and tried it out last year, but sadly none of them survived. I pruned them appropriately, and kept them in my garage with infrequent watering once temperatures started getting into the 40s at night. We had wild temperature fluctuations (high 60s F during the day and low 30s F at night) and I’m not sure if that hindered the process.

I would love to try again this year, but I’m wondering what others’ experiences are.

Pros:

• Massive quantities of flowers for about 3 months
• Bees love the blooms
• The plant doesn't need any care to thrive
• We've transplanted a few of the seedlings. They're true to their parent in terms of color, but the parents seems like a double bloom and the children seem like single bloom
• If you want a hedge, this seems like a good option

Cons:

• Seeds! So many seeds. Each of its hundreds (thousands?) of flowers will produce 10+ seeds. They all don't germinate, but it's a numbers game. If you want to avoid pulling volunteers up you're best off pulling the seed pods off the plant before they open on their own

I pulled ~2 gallons of seed pods off a week prior to this picture. My wife dumped them in the compost, so no epic 5+ gallon photo 😭

So I had to pull up some huge rosemary plants in the front yard to have some plumbing work done. I noticed that the rosemary I’ve bought to replace it has completely different leaves. The old plant was more like an evergreen with oily needle-like leaves. The new plant has soft flat leaves but still smells like rosemary.

Are these two plants actually related? Are they both edible? The “evergreen” One was fairly hearty and grew quickly. Will the other variety act the same?

Wrapping up its first season, I think we're supposed to get a harvest starting year three.

I planted a few here last year and I guess they like this spot