Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Peppers and Such

Last week I made some more soil bl . . . What? Why am I talking about last week? Well I'm a bit behind. I did the gardening but have neglected the blog. Yes I'm so sorry, but I so don't promise that it won't happen again when things get crazy with the move again.

No more interruptions. I have to get this out before I forget what happened. Hmm I was planting things. Oh yeah. I made some soil blocks. I really wasn't sure at this point how many to make. My new garden hadn't even been put to paper at all yet. Just random ideas for a few things and where the garden will be. Will I need a lot of plants to fill it up? Will I need just a few? Will I need to plant both gardens up with my plants? Not knowing made it really hard. I stick with my original plan. I sowed some zinnias, some flat leafed parsley, borage, basil and New Zealand spinach. I forgot to label them . I know the zinnias are on the end and have lots of rows. Each of the others have one row. Or did I do two rows of basil? When I say row I mean a line of 6 x 1 1/2" soil blocks. They fit perfectly across a flat. I guess when they come up I'll be able to tell what went where. I didn't even write down what day I planted them. Tuesday? Thursday? Your guess is as good as mine.

Which reminds me. I forgot to plant the marigolds. My tomatoes won't grow well without them. I need to get them in soon.

I forgot. No interruptions. So they got in. Then I decided not to plant my peppers in the little annoying 3/4" blocks. They need to be in the 2" blocks, but instead I started them in paper towels, just like I do for my spinach. For each variety I took a part of a paper towel and put twice as many seeds as I needed into it. I folded it over and moistened it. Then stuck it into a ziplock with a label. When they start to germinate like in the photo below, I pot them up. I started Early Jalapeno, Serrano, Big Jim II (from Dan), Sweet Cherry, and Cayenne. I also did my tomatillos this way. I made 2" blocks for all of them right away so they would be ready when their roots came out.

Now the 2" blocks have different inserts that can be changed depending upon what you want to do. Currently I have the insert that makes space for the 3/4" block to be put inside. I really didn't want to switch it because they are such a pain to switch. So I didn't. I'm just going to plant the seed into the little square. It will work. I hope.

I made a lot of blocks. 8 for the jalapeno, 4 for the cayenne, 4 for the tomatillos, 4 for the sweet cherry, 6 for the serrano and 6 for Big Jim. I put the blocks on the heat mat and the ziplocks on the dome above that. As the seeds have started to germinate I've put them into the blocks and covered soil or vermiculite. The tomatillos went crazy. They germinated fast and already have two coming out of the soil. Big Jim and the serranos are being obstreperous. Hopefully they will get with the program and start to germinate already. All the others have their seeds out of the bags and planted. Big Jim only has one and the serranos only have two.

11 comments:

  1. Peppers sure do take their time, don't they? I'm glad everything else germinates pretty fast, because it would be quite annoying!

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  2. Last year the slowest germinator was my pineapple tomatillos. At least the regular green ones that I'm growing this year aren't slow as molasses. I did have two more Big Jims send out roots and one more serrano so they are getting there. If I do it this way with the tomatoes I bet they take two days and all start to germinate at once.

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  3. Hey, the important thing is that you got the thoughts out of your brain, regardless of them being a week behind hehe...

    I think I'm going to invest in a soil block maker this fall. Everyone blogging about them this season seems to be happy with them. They look so much easier and like a time saver compared to my newspaper pots too.

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  4. Hope the obstreperous ones get germinating! Peppers can be such a pain.

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  5. Good look with those Big Jims and those serranos. They'll reward your patience with abundant crops. At least in my garden those are heavy producers.

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  6. Momma_s, lol yes I finally got it down on paper. I think my record keeping this year is suffering with the time pressure. Well I certainly love my soil blocks. I really like the 1 1/2" one the best. It is a good size. Most plants work well in it as long as you don't keep them in too long (four weeks seems about good for a lot of things). It isn't big enough for the final size of tomatoes or peppers because they are kept longer. I don't know yet if the 2" size is big enough for them. I guess I'll find out this year.

    Dan, they can. But they seem to be slowly germinating.

    Angela, I can't wait to try Big Jim. I hope it produces well here. Our climate is not very friendly to pepper growing, but you have to try.

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  7. Hey Daphne, I noticed that some of the leaves on my peppers and chilies have started to curl and arew growing very slowly. Any advice?

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  8. Leaf rolling in the solanaceae plants is usually caused by to much water and/or too much fertilizer especially if they are in cool conditions. If they are too wet the roots can be rotting out. Pepper prefer drier conditions. I try to let the blocks dry out as much as possible, but not let them wilt. The bottom of the blocks shouldn't get dry with that, but the top should. I'm sure there are other stressers that might do it, but those are the most common.

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  9. Peppers always give me fits. Always incredibly slow to germinate and often don't germinate fully. Then once they are up it seems to take them forever to get their first true leaves and start really growing.

    The soil blocks look great. I think I would just make a big mess with them!

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  10. Record keeping is a real challenge. I love rereading my old stuff, but haven't remembered to get stuff down on paper. I'm just swamped, as I'm sure you are!

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  11. Glad you're starting a new garden, too! Makes me feel like I've got a companion in all this :)

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