by A.J. Coltrane

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I harvested all of the remaining peppers after work tonight. It came to eighteen pounds — fourteen pounds of sweet peppers and four pounds of hot peppers. The six sweet pepper plants had a box to themselves this year. The three hot peppers were less than half as productive — they wound up sharing a box with the lemongrass and shiso, each of which got monstrous. To make it even tougher, they were planted on the shadier end of that box. The hot peppers and bell pepper would have done a ton better in their own box, or with short, less “sun demanding” stuff. (The bell pepper was shaded by the lemon cucumber, we got one bell pepper out of that plant.) Live and learn. I’ve been saying that a lot this year.

Did you know earwigs will eat holes into Jalapenos? Who knew? Jalapenos of all things…

 

Today’s pepper harvest. The hot peppers are in the sheet tray. The six sweet peppers are arranged as they were in the box, with the best sun hitting the right side, then the bottom row in the late afternoons:

Left column, bottom to top – Gypsy, Tequila, Banana (yellow, was trapped under the shiso), Anaheim.

Center column – Gourmet, Lipstick (an apt name), Jalapeno

Right column – Cute Stuff, King of the North

The King of the North before harvest:

Continue reading “EarthBox Update — October 7, 2013” →

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

A day late on the update this week. Yesterday was a triple-header of sports:  Seahawks (on tv), Mariners (in person), and Sounders (raining hard in person). I’m still recovering.

This week the weather was cold, windy, and rainy. One day it rained as hard as I’ve ever seen it rain in Seattle. It was blowing sideways and running like waterfalls off of the roof. The temperature dropped down into the 40’s on a couple of nights. The peppers and tomatillos seemed ok with all of that. The tomatoes are finished for the year except for the Sun Gold plant. I believe we’re up over 200 pounds of stuff to date, so no complaints here.

On Friday I pulled all of the semi-ripe Roma tomatoes:

Today I pulled the rest of the tomatoes and almost all of the cucumbers. The cucumber plant is about toast (pic down lower in the post):

Continue reading “EarthBox Update — September 30, 2013” →

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

The tomatillos got pruned earlier in the week. Yesterday the tomatoes and cucumbers received the same treatment. I also trained the cucumber vines towards the “front” — the whole box has been leaning “back”:

The lemon cucumbers are nearly done:

Continue reading “EarthBox Update — September 8, 2013” →

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

I decided that the tomatillos were due for a pruning on Tuesday. There were a lot of yellow leaves in the understory, and a lot of unripe fruit was just dropping off of the yellow vines. I figured pruning off everything that looked sick would leave more sun for the healthy plants, including the tomatoes in the adjacent box. Anything that was yellow was targeted. So I pruned and pulled and pruned and pruned and was left with one healthy plant, and one stump. The weaker of the two plants had basically completely crapped out, but I didn’t realize it until I physically stuck my head into the plants and started cutting.

I also pruned out all of the little runners and new blooms. I don’t think that there’s time for anything totally new to make it all the way to fruition. It really cleaned up the mess, and both the remaining tomatillo and the tomatoes should benefit.

On the bright side, I found another five pounds of tomatillos that had been hiding within the vines.

I had no idea that many tomatillos were in there. It was “Here’s one. And here’s one. Here’s another…”

In retrospect though, it makes sense. The two plants were purchased at basically the same size, but the surviving plant started growing way faster, and the weaker plant started growing, then needed more support because it wouldn’t stand up under it’s own weight. The imbalance was compounded by the fact that the stronger plant was in position to get much more sun, since the weaker one was sandwiched between the strong one, the lemon cucumbers, and the tomatoes.

One winter project is going to be figuring out a layout for next year that maximizes sunlight for everything involved. Live and learn.

 

—–

Late edit:  Today takes it to 112 pounds of stuff for the year!

 

by A.J. Coltrane

Wow! It’s September already! The tomatoes and peppers are still in full swing. The cucumbers and basil are hanging in there. Everything else is at varying stages of calling it a year.

Previous post here.

An overview from the deck.  (Clockwise from bottom left: cucumbers, peppers, basil, (top row) brussels sprouts, lemon cucumbers, tomatillos, three boxes of tomatoes. In the center it’s marigolds and bunch onions.) That light colored blob on the top right is a Brandywine tomato:

The raspberries are now established. Hopefully that’ll be some no-work goodness next year:

Continue reading “EarthBox Update — September 1, 2013” →

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

Both zucchini plants dropped below the Vickie Mendoza Diagonal this week.  The fruits have been molding on the vine, or in the case in the patty pans, falling off before they’re fully grown. I’d give the zucchini a “season grade” of “C” or “C-“, more on that in another post.

I cut out about 15% of the basil today as well — I figure it’s got a maximum of about three weeks before it’s done for the year. For the remaining tomatoes and peppers it’s now a race to ripen before the first frost.

Today was a good day for tomatoes. Pictured below is about six pounds, bringing the total for the week to ten pounds of them:

The Sun Golds “before”:

And “after”. I thinned out the leaves, especially in the interior, at least partly so I could see the fruits:

Continue reading “EarthBox Update — August 25, 2013” →

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

I think I’m staying away from the word “harvest” for the same reason that I avoid the word “pizza” when making flatbreads — everybody has preconceived ideas as to what those words mean..

Anyhows, here’s yesterday’s colorful “harvest”.

The Tequila peppers got grilled and turned pale. Kind of a letdown. The tomatillos are going to become a green salsa really soon.

Bonus boy cat pic:

 

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

I think I’m staying away from the word “harvest” for the same reason that I avoid the word “pizza” when making flatbreads — everybody has preconceived ideas as to what those words mean..

Anyhows, here’s yesterday’s colorful “harvest”.

The Tequila peppers got grilled and turned pale. Kind of a letdown. The tomatillos are going to become a green salsa really soon.

Bonus boy cat pic:

 

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

A very productive week. I’d have to guess at least 15 pounds of stuff. The cucumbers, tomatoes, and basil are all in full swing. The midweek “harvest”:

The lemon cucumbers are going nuts. In a related note, the leaves are starting to look funky. My suspicion is that all of the plants are using their energy to produce fruit and they’re letting their leaves go south. I’m also going to guess that the leaves are going to look awful by the time the first frost rolls around. Here’s the “harvest” from Saturday — four days later. ((L-R) Lemon cucumber, bunch onion, Glacier, Sun Gold, Stupice):

Continue reading “EarthBox Update — August 18, 2013” →

by A.J. Coltrane

All photographs “borrowed”. Each link points to the seed/plant seller website where the photo was obtained, so nobody should get too uptight.

Tomato-

Brandywine

Continue reading “What Is That Vegetable Supposed To Look Like?” →