What you can learnA useful side-by-side crop trial with strong Hatch chile results, weak Orange Hat yield, culling decisions, and a clear final cultivar preference.
I broke down the Orange Hats and gave away what little harvest there was. I just didn't like them, but neighbor does.But the Hatch chiles is another story. I took them down, too, but here's what I got for a final harvest --Fresh Hatch chiles in Kansas in February. I will definitely grow these again.
lol...I live in city of 50,000. We are a very foodie/progressive inner ring suburb of Cleveland. A few years ago I was shopping at my favorite store for buying plantains. I hate the store, but they always have very green plantains and the clerks always charge me for bananas! I put a couple limes on the belt and the cashier asked me "what kind of vegetables is these"? I tried to explain as nicely as possible that they were limes, and limes are citrus fruits...like lemons and oranges. He thanked me and said "Im gonna practice limes".
Hatch chiles and Orange Hat tomatoes update --Hoom-hah!!! We have Hatch chiles. There are about half a dozen on one plant, and the other one . . . well, bless its heart . . . it's trying.And a plenteous bounty of little green Orange Hats.Here's one plant in a Harvest --And here are three in a Bounty -- The Orange Hats have been growing for two months, so I am starting to wonder if I have the patience for 'maters.
Clovis Sangrail Those are looking good. My grow is maybe a week or so ahead of yours and my first ones are just starting to color up. Day 60 something. By day 70 or so I will at least be sampling some. For sure it is worth the wait. I have no idea on the Hatch Peppers time wise. The taste difference between store and home grown is like comparing a Yugo to a Corvette .........
If I recall, I didn't see anything much for harvesting for my AG cherry tomatoes until closer to 3 months. Tomatoes do take some patience, which is why I will only bother with cherry toms anymore.Yours are looking good so far!
Did you plant your Orange Hat in the Harvest in the back left hole? I put mine there and have to keep moving the Aerogarden out since the plant keeps hitting the wall. I made the mistake of planting a Veranda Red in that front right hole. I really need to move it as it is being crowded out by the orange hat.
The Orange Hat in the Harvest is planted in the front left. It started in a Bounty, but was moved as a baby. I had started 4 pods in a Bounty, and they all sprouted, so I moved the one out.Back right had an AG Genovese basil, but it never sprouted.
I wish I had used the front hole. It didn’t realize it was going to be so bushy. It has a ton of tomatoes on it so I hate to move it now. I am going to try and switch up the spot I have it in so it won’t be touching the wall. I will know better next time
Can you just turn it around so it faces the other direction?I have all of my AGs on cafeteria trays so I can easily turn them and harvest from the back. If you sit yours on a tray, it would be easy to slide around and water and feed.
Nov 5, 2024 15:34:01 GMT -5 pfunnyjoy said:When I was living in western ND, I ran into a checkout gal in the grocery store that didn't know what a zucchini was. Vegetables weren't a big thing there. Restaurants used mostly canned green beans or canned corn for a veggie side. It was pretty dire for a fresh veggie/salad lover like myself! Or << shudder >> this stuff --Here's my canned green bean story from back in the seventies in Kansas -- We were catering a dinner for about 70 - 100 people, and the vegetable was to be green beans, which back then meant opening a few #10 cans of green beans and dumping them into a deep steam table pan and sitting it on the flat top to heat up. Aside from the cheap-ass green beans, which were a staple in restaurants in the Midwest back then, the rest of the meal was top-dollar, and there was a hyper eager manager-trainee hovering over everything, fretting. Comes time to bring everything onto the serving table, and one of the line cooks comes up with a foil-covered steam table pan and drops it into a well. "What's that?" asks the manager-trainee."The green beans," says the line cook. "They were kind of bland, so I chopped up some bacon and tossed it in. Lots better now."Did I mention this was a bar mitzvah dinner?Manager-trainee started to throw a little manager tantrum, when the cook said, "Gotcha."He knew better, and I knew he knew better because we had both been there when the rabbi put the bless on the kitchen to make it kosher. Manager-trainee never really recovered, and some time later, after we put him in the dumbwaiter and sent him for a ride, he started to decide that being in the exciting and fast-paced food and beverage industry was not for him.Anthony Bourdain was right. Running a kitchen is a lot like having your very own pirate crew.(And I should probably mention that we did not physically put the manager-trainee into the dumbwaiter. He got into it under his own steam. We just shut the door, then pushed the send button and threw the breaker.)
Oct 21, 2024 21:49:38 GMT -5 slw said: Oct 20, 2024 14:15:07 GMT -5 Clovis Sangrail said:(And a question for the gallery -- Who here has taken a sip of the juice right out of the jar if no one was looking? Be honest, now. No one here will judge you.) I save dill pickle juice in my fridge after the pickles are eaten. It is a miracle for those middle-of-the-night leg/foot cramps that wake me up and have me dancing around and crying like a toddler. If anyone here has the occasional muscle cramp I highly recommend a big swig of pickle juice. (Or a tablespoon of yellow mustard with a water chaser.) In the beginning, there was darkness and void, and then the god of whiskys and whiskeys said 'Let there be Picklebacks, and let them be a shot of whisky/whiskey followed by a shot of pickle juice." (Actually, legend holds it was Reggie Cunningham at the Brookwood Country Club in Brooklyn, but can you ever really know?)Then came the Dickle Pickle, which is a shot of George Dickle whisky followed by a shot of dill pickle juice. If it's not George Dickle, it's just a pickleback.And along the way a profusion of nasty martinis made with un-martini-like additives like chocolate and coffee and watermelon.And of course, the classic Gibson -- a shot of gin garnished with pickled onions, made all the tastier if you dirty it up with just a tiny bit of pickled onion juice.And now Chez Clovis presents the Gosh-a-Mickle Bread and Butter Pickle Gibson -- A shot of gin and a half shot of slw's bread and butter pickle juice. Shake it with some ice and pour into a Nick and Nora glass, then garnish with a slice of B&B pickle.It's nummy. If your preference is for Gibsons over martinis, you'll probably like this. And it ought to take care of those leg cramps.Edited to add: The 'Gosh-a-Mickle' is a doff of the old chapeau to this little guy --Pogo -- Gosh-a-Mickle, Dickle Pickle, Gee Willie Wobbles, Dog my Cats, and Rowrbazzle!
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I read your last post... All I can remember you saying is "a shot of George Dickle"
I just had my first cutting of chives last night on a baked potato and it was delicious. Have you had any germination with the newer chive seeds ? As a connoisseur of greens do you enjoy chives or scallions more ? Is it dish dependent or whatever is on hand ? I wanted to get a bunch of green onions from the store and grow those but I really am out of grow spots at this point. Last time I grew chives they went on for a looooooong time and, I enjoyed them. I could just grow the Scallions in a cup I suppose.
I like chives better than scallions. I like them better on eggs; I like them better on potatoes; and they are my favorite green thing to chop up and add to Chez Clovis House Dressing.But I haven't re-started any yet. Same thing -- space problem, but things are clearing out. You are right -- they do go for a long time once they start.In a lot of ways, scallions are kind of a poor man's chives, what you use when you can't get chives. And shallots -- I can remember when no one in a Kansas grocery store even knew what a shallot was, so the white end of a scallion was a good substitute. But when you grow them in an AG, you don't get the white end, just the greens. Plus, scallions are cheap -- dollar a bunch, buck and a half if you want organic. So I have moved away from growing scallions in the AG. That valuable real estate will go to chives. But if you have some chicken tenders that you don't know what to do with, try dusting them with some flour, then sauteing them in a mixture of clarified butter and EVOO with some chopped scallions, and then finishing them off with a big ol' splash of marsala. Nummy. Feel free to toss in some 'shrooms if you want, and if you don't have marsala, but do have some sherry or tawny port or anything else of the fortified wine ilk, don't let the lack of marsala hold you back. It will still be nummy with that cheap-ass port from the bottom shelf.(Speaking of no one in Kansas knowing what a shallot was -- Years and years ago, the restaurant I worked at was catering wedding reception, and the client wanted fresh guacamole. This being at least a couple of decades pre-internet, I had to go to the library and look up how to make it, then I had to find a produce supplier who could get me a case of avocados, then I had to stuff them all in brown paper bags in hopes they would ripen in time. I am proud to say that they got their guac, and it was good.)
When I was living in western ND, I ran into a checkout gal in the grocery store that didn't know what a zucchini was. Vegetables weren't a big thing there. Restaurants used mostly canned green beans or canned corn for a veggie side. It was pretty dire for a fresh veggie/salad lover like myself!
My experiments with Kratky jars didn't go well, probably because they do not have a little light on them that tells me when they need watering.But did you know that you can use Kratky jars for canning pickles?And it's about time for another batch. (And a question for the gallery -- Who here has taken a sip of the juice right out of the jar if no one was looking? Be honest, now. No one here will judge you.)
I save dill pickle juice in my fridge after the pickles are eaten. It is a miracle for those middle-of-the-night leg/foot cramps that wake me up and have me dancing around and crying like a toddler. If anyone here has the occasional muscle cramp I highly recommend a big swig of pickle juice. (Or a tablespoon of yellow mustard with a water chaser.)
Clovis, I am not a fan of heavy pruning but it seems that each of us has our own method. I like to make mine look like little trees but I don't prune very high up on the main stalk. Plants are very resilient and usually recover from bad "haircuts" if you catch my drift. But the best course it to be a bit cautious and don't overdo it at first. Your plants look beautiful. As for the culled plants from thinning; this is where your Katky jars will come in handy. I have successfully raised a lot of peppers in a quart mason jar, or transplanted them to soil in a sunny window. Kratky jars from last year...
Day 7
UPDATE#2
Grower update
Update #2
🔧Actions taken
✂️PruningCut down the weaker of two tomato seedlings in one pod.
It's pruning time, and I need to call upon the collective wisdom of all you good gentlefolks.I have two Hatch chiles. Here's one --And here's the view underneath --Do I trim off all those horizontal stems underneath that are just leaf stems? Including the big ones that are throwing all the shade?Do I just make it look like a baby tree?And I have four Orange Hat dwarf tomatoes.They all have two or three plants in each pod because every single seed sprouted.Here's one up close -- And here it is after I chopped down the weaker of the two plants --Should I now clean up the 'trunk' and make it look like a little tree as well?I wish I could save all the little baby plants, but there's just no place to put them.
As Far as pruning is concerned Clovis Sangrail I only cut off what is drooping not getting light. We will leave the pruning question to the professional pepper growers here.For your baby Pepper plant You can BOAB. Break out another Bounty. I am going to go back to back with some of mine so why not it will give you more room. I loaded 1 Bounty with 9 sponges and wound up with 17 toms. I did cut 1 the Cherokee Purple cause more than 1 of those and I would need a new room addition. That's why only 17 ,I figured yank them out put them in a neighbor Bounty and most of those wouldn't live cause I yanked them out. No such outcome. Now pretty much the house glows like Chernobyl did. I will be sharing Cherry Toms with the whole neighborhood come November. Your Pepper plants are looking good carry on.
Day 1
UPDATE#1
Grower update
Update #1
🔧Actions taken
🔧EquipmentCleaned both Bounty units before restarting crops.
🌱PlantingPlanted three Hatch chile pods on August 30.
🌱PlantingPlanted four Orange Hat dwarf tomato pods on September 7.
🪴TransplantMoved one Orange Hat pod from a Bounty into a Harvest.
I got my two Bounties cleaned up, and I'm getting back into growing some peppers and tomatoes. Exhibit 1 -- I planted three Hatch chiles on 8/30. One never germinated, but two did. Here they are today. It's about time to figure out where I put the trellis when I broke down the Bounty last summer.Exhibit 2 -- On 9/7, I planted 4 Orange Hat dwarf tomatoes. In this case, all four pods sprouted. In face, every single seed sprouted. I move one pod into a Harvest just to so how it would do because these are only supposed to get 9 inches tall. And I will have to cull those extra plants.