Here is a great video from Earthbox about combination boxes.

I learned that you can grow sweet peppers and hot peppers together without worrying that your sweet peppers might turn hot. I have always taken great care with separating them, and it’s good to know I don’t have to worry about that.

Hot peppers and sweet peppers can indeed cross pollinate, but it will affect plants grown from those seeds. So don’t save seeds if you mix peppers. Otherwise go ahead and mix and match as you please.

It’s getting colder and colder, and I am realizing there will not be time for the sweet peppers to ripen. So I harvested many of them green tonight. Sad to not get to see them get ripe, but I’d rather have them green than not at all.

There is still more to harvest. The hot peppers are continuing to ripen, though they are also late, and we are getting quite a small harvest as compared to usual.

Peppers: Jimmy Nardello and College, Eggplant: Amethyst
Potatoes: Bintje and unknown red variety grown from Trader Joe’s organic potatoes that started sprouting eyes  Red onion: Red Crimson

Jimmy Nardello is one of my favorite sweet peppers, and College is one of my favorite anaheim type peppers.

This is the first year for me growing Amethyst, and they will certainly be on my “must grow” list for next year. Absolutely delicious, and cooks faster than many other eggplants.

I have grown squash in earthboxes for a few years now, and I have not been entirely thrilled with the results. Using the earthbox quidelines of 4 per box, I always got anemic looking plants. They did produce squash, but not as much as I would hope for.

This year, I put one plant per box, right in the middle of the box.

What a difference that made!

As you’ll see in the picture, you can’t even see the box – you’ll have to trust me, there’s an Earthbox under that foliage.

 

 

The eggplants are now coming on strong. Time to freeze! The way I do that is I cut them in slices, and layer them in single layers with parchment paper between each layer. Once they are frozen, I put them into freezer bags.

The same method works great for squash and bell peppers (or any other pepper you might want to freeze).

Right now, dinners from the garden are getting more and more tasty.

Yesterday’s dinner was:

Broccoli has been thriving this cool and temperate summer. We have been eating lots of it. Now that the heads have all been harvested, the harvesting of side shoots continues, and hopefully those will keep coming for some time still.

Delicious!

The reason for cutting off most of the branches is that it allows a strong root system to develop, as roots will form all along the buried stem.

The reason for digging a long, shallow hole, and laying the seedling sideways is that the soil is warmer at the surface.

It might seem counter-intuitive to cut off most of the branches of the seedlings you have carefully raised and lovingly tended, but it really helps you grow a stronger tomato plant.

My tomato plants routinely grow to be 8 - 9 feet tall.

We planted this asparagus from crowns, three years ago. The first two years, we did not harvest at all, finally we are getting to enjoy it.

The variety is Jersey Giant, and it is super delicious. I highly recommend it.

Today, finally, we had a day with no rain (so far anyways, it’s staring to look like rain might be coming any moment now).

So I took the opportunity to plant out 8 lettuce seedlings to this spring’s first earthbox.

Indoors, the pepper and eggplant seedlings were moved from under lights in the garage, but kept on their heatmat, since the garage is still pretty cool at night, and they do love their heat.

The empty cells contained sponges were either the plants had not germinated and were replanted, or they were JUST emerging. I moved those sponges over to another cell block, and left them under the dome for a little bit longer.

Today I got a 60 plug Bio Dome flat planted with Hot Peppers, Sweet Peppers and Eggplants.  They are now on the heat mat, at about 80ºF.

On the 4th, I planted Tomatoes along with a just a few hot peppers. Many of the tomatoes have sprouted and have already been moved off the heat mat and under lights. A few still have not sprouted, or are just emerging, so they are still on the heat mat, next to the Peppers.

Since I have a few Bio-Domes, I am able to move the sponge-plugs from one planting block to another, which allows me to move only the plants that are ready to go under light while leaving the rest on the heat mat until they are ready to move.

I am trying a few new varieties of peppers, eggplant and tomatoes this year, along with the tried and true “must plant” varieties of years past.

It is good to have some planting to do when the weather is as miserable as it is right now. As I plant the seeds, I visualize the plants grown and ready to harvest. It is almost like having a little bit of summer right in the middle of the cold and rain. I can almost feel the warmth of the sun, and almost feel the smooth touch of the ripe eggplant or enjoy the beauty of the ripened pepper as each seed goes into it’s little planting sponge.

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