HelpfulGardener.com

Today I am doing 2 more potato experiments. I planted 2 potatoes under flower pots to see if potatoes will grow larger not being compacted tight on soil. Air space under the flower pot should allow potatoes to grow larger. Hole in bottom of flower pot will allow the plant to grow out if it can find the hole in the funnel shape pot.

2nd experiment is to mix pine needles with soil to make soft soil. Pine needles will not mix and alternating layers of pine needles & soil will be hard as adobe bricks. I spent an hour cutting needles smaller now I have blisters. Small pine needle pieces still do not mix well with soil.

I planted a total of 4 Yukon Gold potatoes. We bought grocery store potatoes a week ago I had some soaking in water but decided to plant only 4 potatoes, we don't need 300 lbs of new potatoes. Wife & I can't even eat very many potatoes these days but I am having garden FUN. If I learn the perfect way to grow potatoes in TN then next year I only need to grow 70 lbs of potatoes. About 60 small golf ball size seed potatoes every years should be all I need to save to replant. Hills are very easy planting & very easy harvest.

We are having very high wind today gust to 40 mph.

Carrot seeds were planted a month ago carrots are not growing. Carrot bed had about 15 plants when they were covered with glass. When we started having rain I removed the glass now there are no plants. The 34 ft long carrot row is not growing either. I know carrots are slow to grow maybe they will still grow. Oh well, if nothing grows I will plant Zinnia seeds April 20.

I did not watch TV weather this morning & did not look at our thermometer either. I put on my big heavy jacket & hat then went outside it is 65°. LOL, I need to get this hot jacket off. It rained all night I waited for water to do down before going outside. Rain gauge shows it rained 2" last night no wonder garden was under water for a while after sun came up.

Today we have another celery bottom to plant. I put rooting powder in it then took it outside & planted it.

The 1st onion bottom I planted had no rooting powder it never grew but the 2nd onion bottom with rooting powder is growing.

1st & 2nd celery bottom with rooting powder are growing.

Cabbage bottom with rooting powder keeps growing larger.

We are still having grocery store shortages we go to the store about 6 days a week looking for items we need but have not been able to find. Today I bought potatoes & onions 5 lb bags are both about 1/2 price compared to a month ago. Potatoes were $4.99 now $2.77 for 5 lbs. Onions were $4.99 now $2.68 for 5 lbs.

I have been watching it rain I need something to do. I saved 2 typed of hot chili peppers from the garden they have dried up after being inside the house for several months. One pepper is Tabasco. I don't remember the name of the other pepper I bought it for color like having flowers in the garden, peppers are, green, yellow, orange, red color and very hot.

How Its Made video shows how Tabasco pepper sauce is made by fermenting red peppers then allowing natural vinegar yeast in the air to covert alcohol to vinegar. Peppers are pureed then flavored with salt & sugar.

I used my wine book to figure out, 3 cups of warm water plus 4 ounces of sugar will ferment producing 5% alcohol, then vinegar yeast in the air will naturally convert alcohol to about 4% natural vinegar. Yeast will finish in a week, I used bread yeast I think bread yeast flavor will add good flavor to pepper sauce.

I removed pepper stems, allowed most of the seeds to fall out, trashed bad peppers brown color peppers are not good. Yeast sugar water mix sat in kitchen 18 hours to make a good yeast starter then I added ground up peppers flakes. This should finish fermenting in about 1 week. It might take a week or 2 for vinegar yeast to start naturally then another 3 weeks to turn all the alcohol to vinegar. Next I will puree the chili sauce mixture in the kitchen blender, add salt & sugar to taste, then put chili sauce is a jar or bottles. I'm not sure if 4% vinegar will be the same as factory pepper sauce they give no recipe only a process. Next summer I will make chili sauce with fresh picked garden peppers.

I could use wine yeast to get 15% alcohol I wonder how that will takes instead of vinegar flavor. Grapes fermented with chili peppers then aged will make balsamic flavor chili sauce. I can also make Champaign chili sauce put some of that on your taco. LOL

Sounds like fun — and seems like a natural progression to build on your already considerable expertise on fermenting and preserving — I foresee a whole new shelf in your pantry of yummy goodies

I decided to clean up and take a pile of boxes outside and burn them. Boxes are stuck inside each other to save space. I burned boxes 1 by 1 so not to make a giant fire. Down in the bottom is a smaller box folded shut with 62 seed potatoes inside. Now I remember, Oct when I planted the 1st potato row I used only sprouted potatoes and tossed these shriveled up no sprout raisins in a smaller box. These are mostly Kennebec, 2 Red Pontiac, might be some Russet too. I can't throw out good seed potatoes so I raked up a row of soil, set potatoes on top 3" apart, this is too close together but I don't care, wait & see what happens. I use flat end of rake handle to push seed potatoes down inside the soil 4" deep. This is the fastest row of potatoes so far it took about 20 minutes to plant. Now we have 5 rows of potatoes.

More clean up. I have a 30 gallon trash can full of wood ash & charcoal in garage that is getting in my way. I also have 45 gallons of wood ash & charcoal in 5 gallon buckets that needs to be gone. I threw it all in the garden. I started to burn the charcoal but when I learned charcoal is chemically the same as wood ash it makes no sense to waste time burning charcoal. I threw all of it in the 4 corn rows.

TomatoNut95 wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:43 pm

The last two times I grew broccoli it was killed by snow.

My TN broccoli had ice & snow on it for several weeks it did not die. Once we start having 70° weather broccoli bolts in TN. It seems to me you could grow broccoli the months that never get warmer than 65°. My AZ broccoli grew good winter was 23° to 65° Jan to Feb.

My son installed AD blocker all the ADs on this forum R GONE.

I decided to check out the potato rows. Potatoes planted 2 months ago have tiny plants under the pine needles. Potatoes planted 6 weeks ago have plants 2" below soil surface. Plants 4 weeks ago are 4" below the surface.

No carrots in carrot bed or carrot row. I saw YouTube videos where people cover carrot seeds for a month with boards to make seeds germinate. It may be too late for me to do that carrot seeds were planted a month ago. I should probably plant all 3 onion seed packages in the carrot row and forget about carrots.

Pac Choy is reseeding itself & plants are covered with honey bees. There should be a lot of plants to transplant about May 1st but I'm not sure pac choy will grow in 100° weather with no rain. Not sure pac choy is good to eat in hot weather?

We are having Tacos for dinner we get to eat our own Romain Lettuce & volunteer cilantro.

It is 67° now, wind is calm, it is creepy there are no birds. Birds never even came to the bird feeders this morning. We have storms in the forecast.

Gary, when is it best that I divide my clump of bunching onions? I've had these for like 3 or 4 years and they're pretty thick...

TomatoNut95 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:31 pm

Gary, when is it best that I divide my clump of bunching onions? I've had these for like 3 or 4 years and they're pretty thick...

I would do onion transplants now while it is still cool moist weather, onions need to grow new roots before hot weather arrives.

I stirred up the onion bed mulch so I can plant onion seeds. I planted 250 short day onions seeds today. There is no way I can plant these seeds March 1st we will be having 12 hours of sunlight when plants are 4" tall, plants grow bulbs in 12 hrs of sun.

I also planted Walla Walla onion seeds package says medium day length onions. We have 15 hrs of sunlight in June. Maybe onions do good and maybe not 250 seeds only cost $1.69 free shipping.

I also planted yellow = brown Spanish long day onions. Spanish onions I planted last year from sets did ok we had several 2" to 2½" diameter onions. Maybe these grow better from seeds.

No matter how well these grow I can fill in gaps with onions sets March 1st when sets are available at the garden store.

Tacos for dinner with our, lettuce, cilantro, pac choy, 2 kings of sauce. I build each 8" taco different for variety. Flour tortilla shells cooked in cast iron skillet get crunchy.

Rain stopped. I went to garden to pick cilantro & mint then I notice several rows of potato plants and 3 Broccoli. This 60° & 70° weather with rain is making plants grow. NOVA TV show last night was good scientist have finally learned the real cause of global warming, my garden is loving this winter warm weather. We had warm weather last year & we will have it again next year with tornados. A few more weeks of perfect garden weather we will have broccoli for dinner & maybe 60 lbs of potatoes. Today I was determined to make India Chutney & eat with dinner no matter what we are having. I never made Chutney before it had a bit too much lemon juice and a tiny shortage of mint but it was good. I need a mini food processor to make small amounts of Chutney. Dinner tonight was garden, bell peppers, garlic, corn, 1 potato, cilantro, mint, with polish sausage. Jan 1 new law pays $3000 for a storm shelter we are getting one with a bed tornadoes only come at night. Potatoes are growing good in soil rows covered with pine needles plant are 8" apart. Potato rows covered with mulch seem to be compacted a little too tight plants are struggling to work there way up to sunlight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yim-XQgisnE

Potato row before snow and after snow.