4/4 Harvest - Overwintered Peppers

I'm officially declaring my experiment with overwintering peppers indoors a big success.  We harvested an occasional pepper here and there throughout this winter as needed, but today we harvested most of the cayenne peppers from the indoor pepper plant. My first "big" harvest of 2011, and I totally forgot to weigh it.  Sigh.  After a long winter, I guess I'm just out of practice with harvesting and reporting.

Most of the harvested peppers were already dry (because we left them on the plant unharvested for so long), but there were a few "young" peppers in there as well, as you can see in the picture above.

Above is a full body shot of the cayenne pepper plant in all its glory before we harvested the peppers.  Well, actually you can't see the peppers all that well in this picture, but they were really there.

Here's a close-up with some peppers and new blossoms.  I posted last December that this plant was starting to put on new blossoms.  After that, the blossoms and new peppers just kept coming all winter long with hardly a break, which we thought was pretty cool.  And, the pepper plant stayed green and healthy the whole time.  The best part about it all was that this plant required pretty much zero maintenance from us, aside from watering once every week or two.  Ahh, if only the rest of vegetable gardening was that simple.

Keith asked me if I was going to put the plant outside again after the weather warms up.  And the answer is... I haven't decided.  My first thought was, why fix something if it's not broken?  But who knows, maybe it will do even better outdoors in the summer heat.

Aside from the peppers, there's been many new garden activities and I'm past due on some garden updates.  Without making any promises, I'll try to post more often this week to catch up on all the garden happenings.

Happy Harvest Monday!

1/10 Harvest - back from the (almost) dead

I remember the good old days (i.e. last year) when I got really excited about every single plant in my garden and monitored for the slightest visible evidence of vegetative growth on each of my plants.  Well, I still care and I still think that growing plants are exciting, but I'm going to admit to you all that I've been getting a bit... lazy.  Even though my winter gardening responsibilities involve only indoor plants, I haven't spent nearly as much time or effort on taking care of what few plants I have.

One of the near-casualties of the diminished gardening effort on my part involved the potted basil.  Remember when I planted some basil cuttings to winter them indoors?  They grew really well for a while, and then they almost died because I stopped watering and harvesting them.  The plants got too heavy and tall for the grow box, and they they started wilting and drying up from lack of water.  I know, I know, I was a totally bad plant mom.

About two or three weeks ago, I felt bad enough and decided to clean up my act.  I took a pair of scissors gave my basil a much needed trim.  After cutting off all the dead branches and leaves, I was left with a basil plant whose main and most side stems were dried brown.  There were very few leaves left on the plant and I didn't think it would make it.  I wish I had a picture to show you, but I didn't take a picture of this almost-dying basil.

But now it's alive again!  The miracle of consistent watering!

I'm thoroughly pleased to report that the top of this basil plant is busy growing new branches and leaves.

Here (pictures above and below), you can see how the main stem and most of the side branches are dried and brown.  I really thought that this basil was toast.  But surprisingly enough, there's somehow life in there, and new leaves and young branches are growing out of the dry and brown ones.

I've been harvesting a few basil leaves here and there for things like homemade pizza, pasta and salads.  It's not much, but it still allows me to eat something that I've grown myself, and that makes me happy.

Check out Harvest Monday for other winter gardeners' bounty!

12/13 Harvest - December Peppers

Hello again everyone!  Somehow I let a whole month get away me from since my last blog post.  It was partially because my gardening has slowed down considerably due to wintry weather and partially because I've been enjoying some downtime with my family in California and with Keith in Indiana since my last work project in Texas ended.

But now I'm happy to be back.  For today's Harvest Monday, I don't have too much in the way of harvest, but I do have a wee bit of excitement to share.

Do you see what I see?  New pepper blossoms, in mid-December!  My cayenne pepper plant that I brought indoors about two and a half months ago has been not only surviving, but actually thriving, flowering and starting to make little baby peppers again.  I'm really surprised that the plant is producing new flowers even though we left most of the ripe red peppers on the plant for "looks."  I remember reading somewhere that picking ripe peppers will keep the plant from slowing or ceasing new flower/fruit production, but apparently the reverse is not necessarily true?

This is the top-ish view of the pepper plant.  It's a bit hard to see in this picture, but there are dozens of new blossoms on this plant.  Outside the window, you can see some dusting of snow from early last week (all these pictures were taken last week).  We've gotten a lot more snow this week to a point where I can barely see the raised boxes (10 inches high) outside under the snow. 

Compared to less than two months ago, this pepper plant has grown a lot more foliage to support new blossoms.  If you think that we crank up the heat in the house to greenhouse conditions - we don't.  We keep the thermostat set at between 66 F (night) and 68 F (day).  When I first brought this pepper plant in to winter indoors, I had hoped that it would hunker down and survive the indoor conditions without dying so that it could start to grow again next spring.  But this plant is still actively growing and definitely exceeding my best expectations.

Okay, one last picture before I sign off.  Oh, and in spirit of Harvest Monday, I did harvest four cayenne peppers from our growbox pepper plant (unfortnately no pictures) yesterday to use in our slow-cooker beef stew.  Whoa, we had some spicy stew!

Happy winter gardening!

Ripening Indoor Peppers

The indoor cayenne pepper plant has been busy ripening its peppers.  These peppers had been green for so long, I was really starting to doubt  that they would ever turn red.  But a couple of weeks after I first brought this plant indoors, the peppers started turning red one by one, and now they are beautiful.

Many of these peppers are ripe enough to be picked, but Keith wants to leave them on the plant because they look so pretty.  I have to admit, this colorful pepper plant is definitely brightening up this corner of the living room.  I'm really hoping that this plant can overwinter indoors without much trouble, so that it could grow even more foliage and peppers next year.

Slow Ripening Peppers

We have our very first ripe cayenne pepper!  While the rest of the peppers are still stubbornly hanging on to their green colors, this one pepper somehow popped its red color almost overnight, kind of like... magic.

Oh, I also spotted a baby version of a tobacco hornworm on this plant.  Luckily, I caught it before it caused too much damage on the plant. I hope that was the one and only pest this pepper plant brought in from the outside.  Just the thought of "growing" one of those hornworms indoors gives me the shudders.

Although this is our first cayenne pepper that ripened on the plant, we have several more cayenne peppers that have turned red since we picked them green last week.

They really are pretty, and I can't help but keep staring at them thinking, "I grew them!"

This post is linked to Tuesday Garden Party.

More Jelly Bean Tomatoes in the Indoor Grow Box

Keith told me this week that some Jelly Bean tomatoes in the indoor grow box are finally starting to ripen.  Before I get home this weekend to see them for myself, I wanted to share a couple of pictures from last weekend.

Compared to three weeks ago when this tomato plant first started showing evidence of lateral growth, the plant has put on a lot of growth in terms of stem, foliage and fruit.  The stems and branches are now growing every which way that they can within the confines of the indoor grow box.  I'm guessing that the plant is stressed to no end, but it's certainly serving a good experimental purpose and proving that this grow box can grow indoor tomatoes.

Here's a close-up of some green tomatoes.  I'm looking forward to seeing them all ripe and red.  The best part about these indoor tomatoes is that I don't have to worry about the impending frost in the upcoming weeks or having another encounter with a tomato (or tobacco) hornworm.  I guess that's two best parts.  Granted, I probably won't be harvesting that many tomatoes from this plant, but the amusement value of growing a tomato plant in the indoor grow box has been totally worth it.

Happy gardening weekend, everyone!

Overwintering Peppers Indoors - Day One

I first entertained the idea of overwintering peppers about a month ago.  This past weekend, I decided to pull the trigger and go for it.  First, we took the two cayenne pepper plants in the five-gallon bucket and tipped the whole thing upside-down.  While Keith was holding the plants and the top of the soil (which was now at the bottom) in his hands, I lopped off about a third of the roots from the bottom of the soil (which was now at the top) and separated the smaller pepper plant from the larger one.  The larger plant got transplanted into a new pot to be brought inside for the winter.

Here is the pepper plant in its new pot and new indoor space for the winter.  I pulled off all the damaged leaves from the bottom, so the plant looks a bit bare at the moment.  That is a south-facing window behind the pepper plant, so I hope the plant can get enough sunlight to survive the winter indoors.  I'm definitely not expecting the plant to thrive indoors - I'm willing to settle for any level of "alive"! 

Here's a close-up of the pepper plant.  As you can see, this plant still has lots of green cayenne peppers.  If they ever turn red, this pepper plant is going to look really pretty!  Well, it already looks like a pretty houseplant in the living room, and Keith and I are very happy to have some greenery in the house.  But with some red peppers, I'm sure it will look even prettier.

I'm really curious to see how this will work out.  I'll be providing regular update during this winter for those of you who may be curious.

Linked to: Tuesday Garden Party

Planting Basil Cuttings

I'm very happy to report that the cuttings I took from my basil three weeks ago have all rooted beautifully in water.  If you'd like to see how the cuttings looked two weeks ago when they were just starting to send out roots, please see my post on Basil Propagation from Cuttings.

All three basil cuttings have grown new leaves as well as new roots in water.

Close-up of new roots on basil cuttings

I planted these rooted cuttings into separate containers and removed the bottom set of leaves because they were too close to the soil surface.  These new plants will overwinter indoors, most likely in our indoor grow box, and hopefully provide us with plenty of fresh basil all winter long.  Cheers for a successful basil propagation experiment!

This post is linked to Tuesday Garden Party.

Growing Rosemary from Seed

When we were at Menards this spring to purchase seeds for our first vegetable garden, we used both logic (let's get bush varieties of some vegetables because we don't have any trellises yet) and whim (oh, look at the pretty picture on this seed envelope!) to select our seeds.  When it came to rosemary, I think it was Keith who said something to the effect of "rosemary would be good to have around, for cooking chicken and stuff."  So we bought a packet of rosemary seeds.

The seed packet instruction said to sow the seeds indoors 10-12 weeks before the average last frost date.  Well, it was already May, well past the last frost, but that shouldn't make a difference if I'm sowing seeds indoors, right?  So I sowed my seeds in little cups, and waited for them to germinate.  I waited, waited and then waited some more.

I don't actually remember how long it took before the first sign of life popped up from those seeds, but it took a really long time, at least 3-4 weeks.  And germination was sporadic.  As in, although some seeds started germinating at 3-4 weeks, the other seeds didn't germinate for at least 2 months.  The rest of them just didn't make it.  Later, I learned that even good rosemary seed stocks only have about 30 percent germination rates at best.  My seeds were probably very average, then, instead of very subpar that I accused them of being at the time.

June 25, 2010 (at 6 weeks)

After the seedlings got their second set of leaves, I transplanted them to bigger containers, anticipating that they would need the extra space.  Ha, if only I knew then what I know now.  At the rate that these seedlings have been growing, they probably could have stayed in their baby containers for the first year.

I scoured the internet to see what we were doing wrong with them and why they weren't growing faster.  Then I learned that rosemary is notoriously difficult to germinate and to grow from seed, and most websites talking about growing rosemary recommended growing them from cuttings or nursery plants.  All this just made me and Keith even more determined (read: stubborn) to keep growing our rosemary seedlings. 

August 8, 2010 (at 12 weeks)

As small as these seedlings were, they just gave off the most incredibly strong (and pleasant) rosemary aroma every time I touched their teeny leaves.  It's just pure torture waiting for them to grow big enough to harvest!

August 21, 2010 (at 14 weeks)

It's been almost four months now, and some of the seedlings have finally started putting on some noticeable growth.  I think the largest seedlings have almost doubled their height in the last month.  I say doubled, but it's still not that much when you're talking about seedlings that are only one to two inches tall.  We did learn one thing: water them very little.  When we kept the soil looking visibly moist, the seedlings seemed to be at a standstill.  When we cut back and only watered a little bit once a week or less, to a point where the soil looked very dry on top, the seedlings finally started to grow.

September 5, 2010 (at 16 weeks)

The rosemary seedlings were moved into our indoor grow box after we built it in July, and that's where they have been this whole time.  I meant to take them outside when they grew to a "decent size" but I don't think they are there yet.  At this rate, they will probably spend all winter in the grow box.  Even when these seedlings reach a decent size, I won't plant them in the ground because I don't think they can survive the winters in Indiana.  But hopefully we can transplant them into a good sized container someday, so we can have rosemary year-round.  

You know, for chicken and stuff.

*** Rosemary Update on April 13, 2011***

Basil Propagation from Cuttings

At some point, I read about basil propagation from cuttings.  I admit, the last thing we need in our garden right now is more basil plants.  But in the interest of science and garden experiments, I had to try this out for myself.

Last week, I cut off different sizes of tops from a basil plant, and stuck them in small glasses of water.  I didn't take a picture then, but this is how they looked a week later.

After one week (Sunday, 9/5/10) I could see the beginnings of roots forming on the largest of the three cuttings.

Just 24 hours later (Monday, 9/6/10), the roots have already grown longer.  I'll probably wait another week or two and plant this one in a pot of soil to see how well it grows.

If this works out, it might be a good way to have "new" basil plants for the winter.  I'll just have to find some nice sunny spot indoors (easier said than done!) for my winter basil.

Have any of you propagated your basil or any other herbs from cuttings?  Did it work out well for you?

This post is linked to Tuesday Garden Party.

Jelly Bean Tomatoes Growing Indoors

The one Jelly Bean tomato plant left in our indoor grow box is now growing laterally, as it has already reached the maximum height from the top shelf of the grow box.  It is also flowering and starting to set tomatoes.  Would these tomatoes be considered hot house tomatoes, even though they've never seen the light of day aside from the artificial lights inside the grow box?

Jelly Bean tomato plant in the grow box, with some basil in the background and cilantro in the foreground.

First Grow Box Tomato

More Tomato Flowers

8/30/10 Harvest - Salad Fixings

We had a very small harvest this week - just some baby lettuce mix and arugula grown in our indoor grow box, and probably the last few cucumbers from our slowly-but-surely dying cucumber vines.  This lull between summer and fall is turning out to be kind of depressing!  Now I have to wait patiently for my fall crops to start growing.

I harvested the baby greens (and reds) from these two containers.  I thought I took a picture of the harvested lettuce, but apparently I forgot to do it.  It wasn't a lot of lettuce, just enough to make two appetizer-sized salads.

I spaced out and did not remember to take a picture of my harvested cucumbers until after I sliced them all up.  My loud "oh no!" probably made Keith think that I cut my finger with the kitchen knife or something.  With the way that our brown and brittle cucumber vines look right now, these may very well be the last cucumbers of the season.  We'll see if we get any more next week.  Otherwise, adiós, garden cucumbers.  See you next year.

I made some tzatziki with these cucumbers, garlic, lemon juice, salt and plain yogurt.  Various recipes said that greek yogurt works the best, but all I had in the fridge was plain yogurt, so that's what I used.  It still turned out pretty yummy, if a bit too garlicky.  That's what happens when you just wing it without following a recipe!

Oh, I almost forgot.  I also harvested about 16 oz of basil.  1 lb of basil doesn't sound like a lot, but it's really a lot of basil.  They filled up a huge serving bowl.  I took all the leaves off the stems (so tedious) and laid them down to dry, as we have enough frozen pesto cubes for now.  They filled up three large pizza pans and four cookie sheets.

Visit Daphne's Harvest Monday for harvests from other gardeners.

Indoor Grow Box Limitations - Tomatoes

Our Indoor Grow Box is awesome in many ways, but it does have its limitations.  Our tomato plants are growing so well in there to a point where they are growing too tall, too fast for the grow box.  I thought it looked like a jungle in there two weeks ago, but now it's a bit junglier in there. 

The two remaining Jelly Bean tomato plants grew and reached the top of the grow box, and are now starting to grow sideways at a 90 degree angle to its main stem.  They are also looking stressed, having long outgrown the grow box shelter.  I felt so bad for them!  Since a few weeks ago, their siblings were transplanted into individual five-gallon buckets and have been thriving outside, and even starting to set little jelly bean shaped tomatoes.  We left these two plants in the grow box to see what would happen if they grew too big, and now we know.  So we freed one of them and transplanted it into a large planter previously occupied by a now-dead zucchini plant.  Hopefully it will do better outside in its new home. The other plant is still in the grow box, only because we didn't have any more large containers.  If it's still alive, I'll have to figure out something for it next weekend.

I can almost hear this plant saying "ouch, ouch, the ceiling is hurting my head!"

Well, at least now we know how fast they grow.  It's been seven weeks since we started these tomato seeds to test drive our new Indoor Grow Box.  So when we use the grow box "for real" next spring,  I'll know that they will reach their maximum grow box size sometime around 5-6 weeks.  Does that mean I have to start my tomato seeds about 3-4 week before the last frost date, to be transplanted out 2 weeks after the last frost date?  Hmm, I thought most people started them 6-8 weeks before the last frost date in our USDA zone 5b.

If you (that's you, the blog reader!) start your tomato plants from seeds, how early do you start your seeds, and about how big are your plants when you transplant them outside?

8/9/10 Harvest and Grow Box Jungle

The harvest this week was rather small, in quantity as well as in vegetable sizes.  Our Early Girl tomato plants are still producing tomatoes, but individual tomatoes seem to be getting smaller every week.  My spreadsheet tells me that I'm not just imagining this problem.  Hmm, would some fertilizer help with this problem, or is this normal for growing tomatoes?

The bush beans squeezed out a few more green beans, because I just couldn't bring myself to pull the three remaining ratty plants that still had some blossoms left last week.  Maybe next week.

The cucumber plants gave us only one cucumber this week, but I spotted several baby cucumbers on the plants, so hopefully we can get more cukes in a week or two.

Although our harvest was pretty dismal this week, our plants are growing really well in the indoor grow box.

 Indoor Grow Box Overview 8/8/10

On the top shelf, we have basil, cayenne peppers, jelly bean tomatoes, and some cilantro (started just last week).  When I started the pepper and tomato seeds in the grow box about a month ago, it was just an experiment to see how well the grow box would work to germinate seeds.  But they have been growing so well that I'm starting to wonder if we might get lucky and actually get some peppers and tomatoes out of them this year.  We transplanted a few of the seedlings outdoors, just to give them the best chance to grow during the rest of this season.  The remaining plants, we'll keep inside the grow box for as long as we can and see what happens.  I just spotted what look like tiny pepper blossoms starting to appear, so yeah, I'm totally getting my hopes up!

Are these really the beginnings of pepper blossoms?

In the middle, we have nasturtium and several different kinds of cut-and-come-again lettuce, including arugula.  Would you like to see the difference between indoor and outdoor nasturtium?

Nasturtium in the back; the rest are lettuce and arugula

More Lettuce

On the bottom shelf, we have some more experimental seeds, a new flat of spinach seeds (not yet germinated), and a few rosemary seedlings with a serious growth problem.  Okay, I know it's not fair to compare rosemary with fast growing annuals like cucumbers or green beans.  I did read that rosemary is hard to germinate from seed, and very slow to grow; but I had no idea that it would be this slow!  These seeds were sown in May, so they've been growing for almost three months now, and their heights range from 1/4 inch to barely an inch.  They are really testing my patience, but hopefully I'm more stubborn than they are.  Eventually, I really would like to have a rosemary bush (or even several) that I could point to and say, "I grew that from seed!"

Three Month Old Rosemary Seedlings

Happy Harvest Monday celebration continues over at Daphne's Harvest Monday.

Indoor Grow Box Update - Nasturtium

Here's a quick peek at one of my garden experiments.  My garden experiments may be rather unscientific, usually with a sample size of just one, but I'm still having a lot of fun playing garden scientist in my own backyard.

Nasturtium growing in our indoor grow box

Nasturtium growing outside

What a difference a grow box makes, eh?  I think it's just been too hot outside for the nasturtium plants, even though I put them in a place with some shade in the afternoon.  I've never grown this flower before, so I don't know if they are supposed to be grown in full sunlight.

Speaking of sunlight...

With daytime temperature hovering over 105 degrees F every day in Texas this week, I just melted every time I went outside. It was just so HOT.  I was so happy to return to Indiana last night, and I'm looking forward to some sub-90 degrees "cool" weather here this weekend.  I might even do some work in the garden!

7/26/10 Harvest and Indoor Grow Box Update

Presenting, our very first tomato!  The variety is Early Girl, and the tomato plants were grown from seedlings bought from a garden store before we figured out how to start our own seeds.  As far as the taste is concerned, I would say that this one tasted slightly sweeter than an average store-bought tomato, with that good wholesome home-grown flavor.  I'm sure there are many other tomato varieties with better flavors, and I hope to grow more varieties from seed next year.

We also harvested a few more green beans, but I think we're done with these bean plants for the season.  They have been under some sort of a beetle attack - I think cucumber beetles, but there may be other bugs involved as well - and the leaves are getting rather lacy and ratty-looking.

Cucumbers are continuing to produce.  We harvested four more this week for more cucumber salad, and the vines promise many more in the upcoming weeks.


Indoor Grow Box Update

Our homemade indoor grow box has been performing beautifully, and we harvested some baby lettuce from our first trial run.  Three weeks ago, we planted a variety of lettuce seeds in a Jiffy mini greenhouse and a re-purposed container (one of those clear plastic containers that hold supermarket strawberries).  They started germinating after 2-3 days, and three weeks later, we already have some edible baby greens.

Encouraged by our success, we constructed a few more lettuce "beds" from doubled-up aluminum lasagna pans.  The bottom pan was filled with a layer of pea gravel to hold up the top pan.  We poked some drainage holes in the top pan and filled it with Mel's mix (equal parts peat moss, vermiculite and compost).  Now we'll be able to grow cut-and-come-again lettuce all year long indoors without worrying about them bolting in the heat or freezing in the cold outside.

The few seedlings in the pictures below were transplanted from the Jiffy mini greenhouse into one of the new lettuce beds after some of the bigger leaves were cut for our first lettuce harvest.

At the same time that we started our lettuce seeds (three weeks ago), we also started some jelly bean tomato and cayenne pepper seeds in the Jiffy mini greenhouse.  I know that's too late to start tomato and pepper seeds, but we wanted to experiment and see how seeds would germinate and seedlings would grow in our indoor grow box.  There's also a transplanted basil growing in there, too. So far, everything seems to be growing pretty well.  The tomato and pepper seedlings were transplanted into separate containers last week.

Inside of the grow box before the first lettuce harvest

If you haven't yet, do you want to see how we built this indoor grow box ourselves three weeks ago?

Check out Daphne's Harvest Monday for everyone else's harvests!