my hot peppers are hot and I didn't even use chicken shit!

6/27/2009 9:17:55 PM

I wish I knew about the calcium thing, one of out mater plants have about 15 maters and they're all rotting on the bottoms.

The other plant is doing great!

How often does a cucumber plant blossom? We got three cucumbers so far but that's all of the blooms, it's huge and still growing. Will it bloom again this season?

6/27/2009 9:56:44 PM

yeah, it'll produce as long as it stays warm

6/27/2009 10:44:56 PM

got 3 new leaves on this bitch...longest leaf is prolly 7 milimeters

6/27/2009 11:31:12 PM

Okay, so I made sure all my tomatoes have enough calcium. I just got my first red cherry tomatoes off the plant, and they were great. But they were very small, about the size of marbles.

Anyone know how I can get bigger tomatoes? Besides the size, they seemed perfect.

6/28/2009 6:59:28 PM

what variety are they?

6/28/2009 7:04:26 PM

I'm not sure, some kind of cherry tomatoes.

6/28/2009 9:38:03 PM

maybe they are inherently smaller for some reason

you could try to thin out some of the flowers, maybe cut off the terminal ends once a few of the initial flowers are pollinated

6/28/2009 9:40:29 PM

morning glory...currently about 7.5' from each end meeting. i currently guestimate about a week if the vines go straight and not every which way




fiber optic plant. looks worse than its doing


rose bush...looks worse than its doing. i upped the water like a mf cause the sun was just zapping the shit out of it. i noticed it looking better quick



some plant i got that can literally live underater...i keep it in my old beta fish tank

thanks to ryan b for hooking me up with some kickass plants. he told me he wanted to see updates. hope he sees this no homo

7/1/2009 3:41:46 AM

One of our bigger tomatoes has started to change! Yay! Looking forward to the fresh taste!!

7/1/2009 4:24:49 PM

my girlfriend got me a cactus that grows into a heart shape! too cool!

7/1/2009 11:43:44 PM

they do bamboo like that too

7/1/2009 11:46:57 PM

dnl that last plant you posted is an invasive aquatic weed in NC. when you get bored with the plant, make sure you destroy it and dont let it get into any creeks or ponds.

7/2/2009 12:13:46 AM

i saw it at lake mackintosh(sp?) in alamance co on mothers day

7/2/2009 12:41:27 AM

question about my tomatos... my plants are probably 5' tall, beautiful looking plants. I've ridden of most insects (still some red looking beatles in the soil).... the plants are producing lots of yellow flowers. Is there a reason I dont have any tomato's forming yet? Over time the yellow flower just kinda dries up. I water usually every evening around 6 (skipped 2 days to see if I was overwatering... plants still looked pretty good, but not as good).

7/2/2009 8:29:55 AM

i have a similar problem. i had one tomato come up in early may and it ripened a couple of weeks ago. no trace of another tomato though. the yellow flowers come up and then they appear to dry up.

i might just need to have some patience, my thai chilli plant was growing like crazy but no sign of the chillies. till this morning, when i spotted 4 or 5 coming up all at once!

[Edited on July 2, 2009 at 9:42 AM. Reason : ]

7/2/2009 9:23:29 AM

^ did some research on my own... hearing a little about pollination on this thread. Here is what I found, sounds like us to a tee:

TAP YOUR TOMATOES
Tomato gardeners (perhaps the same folks as squash growers) sometimes have plenty of flowers in July but few fruit result from them. Again, pollination is the key.

Tomatoes, in contrast to squash, have perfect flowers. The bloom has both male and female parts inside. For this reason, insects aren’t necessary for pollination. Most times the pollen will naturally drop from the stamen onto the pistil and a baby tomato will result.

Hot or humid weather, though, makes the pollen sticky. It won’t disperse of its own accord. This is easy for a gardener to remedy. Just tap the flower cluster a few times each day with a twig or chopstick. The loosened pollen will then go about its preordained mission.

7/2/2009 10:27:42 AM

I've been lurking in this thread lately

but I'll just say that my lavender and my cucumbers seem to be doing very well. I have noticed having to up the water since it's been so hot and dry lately. But I'm pretty proud of my cukes! Can't wait it starts to give me some produce!

7/2/2009 12:13:31 PM

^^ thanks for the tip! would've never imagined it to be as quick a fix as that. i'll see if it works and report back.

7/2/2009 12:20:36 PM

Do I need to pollinate my green peppers myself? I've got some hot and jalapeno peppers and they are finally growing peppers, but the green peppers haven't shown shit yet. Any ideas?

7/2/2009 1:51:22 PM

How tall is your plant? Mine has done squat as well. Mine is maybe 2' tall.

7/2/2009 2:17:34 PM

My banana peppers are about 2 ft tall, my bonnie bells about 3, my cherry tomatos about 6ft

7/2/2009 2:43:53 PM

Yeah, my bell pepper plants are about 1.5 feet tall. I believe some flowers have come and gone, but nothing....

My hot and jalapenos plants are coming along nice. Moved them from the containers they were in to a nice flower bed because of their size. Can't eat flowers anyways

7/2/2009 4:51:27 PM

my red hot chili pepper pepper plants are approaching 4' tall and blossom on a regular basis. so far i've only got one plant with 3 peppers about 6 inches long but seemed to have stopped growing. i also have 1 cayenne pepper plant about the same size, but its only got one pepper about the size of your pinky toe. it also seems to have stalled out. I'm just happy the aphids don't seem terribly interested in them.

i replaced the cucumbers with rose bushes. so far they are doing wonderfully. the lower leaves are yellowing, but I'm still trying to figure out the best watering schedule for them, so no real worries so far. the flowers are beautiful, if short lived (no homo).

i think my marigolds will be the next aphid victims. i swear guys these must be some super mutant alien bugs, they are seemingly impervious to anything short of nuking from outer space.

[Edited on July 2, 2009 at 6:28 PM. Reason : .]

7/2/2009 6:27:34 PM

Not container gardening, but I had to share this picture of our sunflowers. We started them from seed back in March.

Just as a point of reference, the gutter is about 12 feet from the ground



[Edited on July 2, 2009 at 8:06 PM. Reason : a]

7/2/2009 7:53:07 PM

The fucking rabbits got to my sun flowers as well as my squash and zuccinni

7/2/2009 10:33:54 PM

I haven't posted pics in a while! remember this little cutie eggplant in the front?



look at it now all growed up!!!



here's my tomato, pimento, and flower barrel







doing great!!! I've been eating cherry tomatoes aplenty for snacks

7/3/2009 12:56:20 PM

^^ deer keep getting our tomatoes. I've tried just about every method to keep them out, but nothing has worked. I might just have to shoot one and let his rotting carcass lay by the garden. That should send the message.

7/3/2009 1:18:18 PM

Quote :

"TAP YOUR TOMATOES Tomato gardeners (perhaps the same folks as squash growers) sometimes have plenty of flowers in July but few fruit result from them. Again, pollination is the key. Tomatoes, in contrast to squash, have perfect flowers. The bloom has both male and female parts inside. For this reason, insects aren’t necessary for pollination. Most times the pollen will naturally drop from the stamen onto the pistil and a baby tomato will result. Hot or humid weather, though, makes the pollen sticky. It won’t disperse of its own accord. This is easy for a gardener to remedy. Just tap the flower cluster a few times each day with a twig or chopstick. The loosened pollen will then go about its preordained mission."

3 days after doing this and my flowers turned to tomato's.... awesome!!!

7/6/2009 11:48:13 AM

so what do you do w/ sunflowers?

7/6/2009 12:33:39 PM

Eat sunflower seeds, durr.

7/6/2009 12:53:01 PM

that it?

7/6/2009 12:58:49 PM

Well, they look pretty when they are blooming.

I mean, wtf are you expecting? For them to harvest themselves, hop up on your counter and prepare a meal for you?

7/6/2009 1:00:46 PM

just wondering if they had any other uses

thanks for answering my question

7/6/2009 1:02:26 PM

http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Sunflower_seeds_Recipes

^I dunno if the recipes are any good.


I'm back and forth between harvesting mine or just letting the birds try to eat them. I've got one that's an easy 12 feet tall, and the flower is so big it's all drooped over. The neighborhood kids get a kick out of it.

[Edited on July 6, 2009 at 2:34 PM. Reason : []

7/6/2009 2:33:48 PM

sunflowers also have tuberous roots that are prepared like a vegetable, they are called jerusalem artichokes

7/7/2009 2:35:18 AM

I've been bitten by the growing bug! Right now I just have a Starling Ivy, and English Ivy, a Golden Pothos and a Philodendron. Yes, yes, I know they are just common house plants, but they are in a container and serve several great purposes thus are legitimate entries into this thread. Sadly, I missed the boat on growing my tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumbers but these first plants will be my trial to see if I learned anything from watching my father grow amazing things every summer.

Anyway, I saw someone post some neat pictures of their Morning Glory earlier and as it turns out I am going to stop by and pick us a variety of seeds and planters myself this morning after work so I can get them to (hopefully) grow on my now liberated patio railings.

Also, I am going to start my own composting with red worms as soon as next week when they arrive! I have the container with holes, gratuitous amounts of newspaper and cardboard just ready to go. I've done a good bit of reading online, but as always hearing from others' experiences is supremely beneficial.

7/8/2009 7:11:01 AM

i wonder what makes ants pick a particular leaf. i'd say theres like 150 leaves at least but they only flock to a particular 3 or 4

7/8/2009 1:27:41 PM

FINALLY, just this morning saw swelling under a pumpkin blossom. Time to grow that pumpkin like a mofo.

Now I just need to get rid of some powdery mildew that just showed up this week. It looks like once a leaf gets powdery mildew, the best thing to do is remove it I guess I'ma do that and spray the unaffected leaves with a baking soda/water solution.

7/11/2009 2:37:36 PM

^I harvested my firt pumpkin yesterday afternoon. Got it curing in the garage. I had to cover them with an old t-shirt to keep the deer from eating them.

7/13/2009 11:02:41 AM

Quote :

"so what do you do w/ sunflowers?"

We don't use them for food. They just look pretty, and my GF puts together flower arrangements for friends/family.

7/13/2009 12:37:22 PM

we can't get our cucumbers to pollinate! We even tried it by hand, and we do have quite a few bees/wasps trying too.

7/13/2009 1:13:06 PM

My cucumbers are doing pretty well, but one of the plants produces really *round* cucumbers. Not perfect spheres or anything, but definitely wider than they are short. They look and taste fine, and it's actually kind of cool, but funny.

I've seen that it could be insufficient pollination and/or insufficient watering, but I don't think water would be the issue in this case.

Tomatoes and peppers are doing ok considering the lack of sun in my yard, but man, my zucchini will NOT fruit. I don't think I've even gotten any female flowers yet. I have one crookneck yellow squash growing, and that was from the second female I've seen on those plants the whole time. The first one I guess never pollinated, so it fell off. I hand-pollinated this one, and it seems to have taken, but I'm frustrated by the sausage fest that is my squash and zucchini.



[Edited on July 13, 2009 at 3:23 PM. Reason : .]

7/13/2009 3:20:30 PM

Our cucumbers have done another round of blooms. We thought it was done so what a pleasant surprise to wake up one morning and see a whole new set of cukes.

Also, our tomatoes are turning now. I ate one the other day and it was faaaaaaaaaantastic.

7/13/2009 4:35:55 PM

Our grape tomato plant is doing fantastic--looks a little spindly compared to our other tomato (husky red), but we've probably harvested 15-20 tomatoes from it already and there are probably 30 more in various sizes/stages, plus not done flowering. Our husky red, on the other hand, is very leafy but seems to have stopped producing--it's got 5 clusters of tomatoes with 3 or 4 on each cluster, but the last new cluster showed up probably 3 weeks ago. I'll have to try the tap pollination thing, but I haven't even seen many more flowers. Maybe it's just a low yield plant?

Peppers have *finally* all started setting fruit. Took damn forever for the bells do anything, but they're all in business now, a few small peppers on each plant and more flowers coming and going. All we've been able to harvest so far is a couple of jalapenos though. Is there any secret to getting sizeable peppers? The jalapenos we've picked have been tasty but rather small, and the ones on the other plants don't seem to be getting any bigger. Too early to tell about size on the poblanos/bells.

7/13/2009 5:06:23 PM

yeah my bell peppers have all been super short and squat, none of them reach full size.

my tomatoes are getting very dark green leaves and some upper branches are turning brown. not enough water/too much sun??? haven't had a tomato in a while

7/13/2009 5:12:49 PM

Sprouts!!! This is the best Morning Glory planter thus far and it's only been 4 days since they were seeds!

7/13/2009 6:14:39 PM

We have tons of yellow pear and yellow cherry tomatoes in the yard. The green peppers are huge this year as well. I made sure to sprinkle epsom salt under the peppers like I read somewhere and it helped a lot.

7/14/2009 2:11:54 AM

too late for morning glories imo. i felt like mine were late and i got mine in may

[Edited on July 14, 2009 at 2:56 AM. Reason : water them more than you think is correct]

7/14/2009 2:55:22 AM

morning glories are just another weed to me

7/14/2009 7:50:46 AM