INTENSITY²
Start here => Free For ALL => Topic started by: garmonbozia on October 17, 2008, 12:26:40 PM
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I took the afternoon off today, because one of my cats has a vet's appointment in about 45 minutes. (I've got a vet who makes house calls, so I post this while killing time waiting.)
After cutting up a green bell pepper for lunch, I saved the seeds and put a few in a glass of water to see if they germinate. Provided this isn't some kind of sterile hybrid green pepper (not unusual for grocery store produce), I'm going to see if I can raise my own. Same with some squash that I plan to eat sometime this weekend, after I clean the roach crap out from under my stove. If this works, then I might have a supply of produce on my balcony (which faces west and gets alot of the afternoon sun, and I'm in Florida so it's warm most of the year), and I can pick the vegetables only when ready to cook them. Should be alot cleaner than what's in the produce section full of pesticides and in the open for all to sneeze on.
Anyone here ever tried that?
Got the idea a few weeks ago after rescuing a tree seedling from the landscaping waste at my volunteer job. That one turned out to be a red maple, no practical value, not even ornamental since the things grow like weeds here. Just growing that one for shits and giggles. I'll save it for one day when I've actually got a yard to plant it in. Rather mundane here in Florida, but if I end up moving a few hundred miles north to somewhere that has actual seasons, I understand it will turn a awesome fire-engine red in the autumn.
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I have a small garden now, and I have grown tomatoes, snow peas, and other vegetables in containers. It can be done.
You will have to pick the vegetables pretty much when they are ready to be picked, but you will have some leeway with that.
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i grow my own food all the time, and i love it - such a sense of achievement, and it always tastes better (although that must be partly psychological, i'm sure). :thumbup:
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Since I'm on the second floor, I'd have to grow them in pots. I'm under the assumption that they would quickly deplete the nutrients in the soil. Got to read up on it.
BTW, the vet's appointment is over with. This vet has an office set up inside a converted motorhome, so all I had to do was put the cat in the carrier and bring her down to the parking lot and into the van. The cat was not too happy about it and clawed me a set of emo arms in the process. I think she's still pissed. (And to think I've done all I can to make it easy on this cat. It's not like I had to load her in the car and take her several miles to the vet.)
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*basks in the pleasant glory of this threads' title*
I might post later.
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Here is a photo from the urban garden where I was working today :o It was right in front of the windows only about 5 feet from the side walk. Who says you can't grow things in the big city :laugh:
(http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q131/parts67/003-10.jpg)
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Here is a photo from the urban garden where I was working today :o It was right in front of the windows only about 5 feet from the side walk. Who says you can't grow things in the big city :laugh:
(http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q131/parts67/003-10.jpg)
Did you get any clippings? :green:
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Haha that is nice.
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Since I'm on the second floor, I'd have to grow them in pots. I'm under the assumption that they would quickly deplete the nutrients in the soil. Got to read up on it.
you just feed them once a week in the growing season. i grow all the stuff in my greenhouse in pots, and so far, i've grown peppers, melons, cucumber, tomatoes, chillies, blueberries (christ, this is starting to sound like flo's daily medication list), lemons, figs, salad leaves, beetroot, garlic, olives...
more important is the size of the pot - it is a good idea to read up on that (depends on the root system).
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Here is a photo from the urban garden where I was working today :o It was right in front of the windows only about 5 feet from the side walk. Who says you can't grow things in the big city :laugh:
Pity it's a male; they're not good for much beyond pollinating the females.
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Here is a photo from the urban garden where I was working today :o It was right in front of the windows only about 5 feet from the side walk. Who says you can't grow things in the big city :laugh:
Pity it's a male; they're not good for much beyond pollinating the females.
In Kansas ditch weed would grow all over the place... a remnant of when hemp was a major cash crop before they outlawed it.
There would be huge patches of it, but none of it was fit to smoke.
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I put some of the green pepper seeds in butter tubs with potting soil, mixed it up, and watered it. There are small slits at the bases of the butter tubs to keep it from getting saturated. I don't know if it's going to work or even if it's the right time of the year, but all the materials were here so I decided what the hell.
As for that stuff Parts found. I won't be needing any of that shit. A drug raid is not something I care to experience.
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I put some of the green pepper seeds in butter tubs with potting soil, mixed it up, and watered it. There are small slits at the bases of the butter tubs to keep it from getting saturated. I don't know if it's going to work or even if it's the right time of the year, but all the materials were here so I decided what the hell.
As for that stuff Parts found. I won't be needing any of that shit. A drug raid is not something I care to experience.
a lot of commercial fruit is grown to be sterile, so don't be disappointed if they don't work.
on the other hand, if you want to grow coriander or potatoes or even garlic, you can use ordinary versions you buy to eat. otherwise, get some seeds in a packet and grow them, cos that's what they're supposed to do.
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Here is a photo from the urban garden where I was working today :o It was right in front of the windows only about 5 feet from the side walk. Who says you can't grow things in the big city :laugh:
Pity it's a male; they're not good for much beyond pollinating the females.
In Kansas ditch weed would grow all over the place... a remnant of when hemp was a major cash crop before they outlawed it.
There would be huge patches of it, but none of it was fit to smoke.
Look to the root system in male plants - clip them mercilessly (avoiding formation of pistols) to their barest leaf flush for survival, while pumping them full of K - heavy compounds. It makes great tea from a totally different set of isomers.
:headbang:
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Precisely.
Buy fresh seeds in the late winter and start again. Even if these seeds are fertile, they may not produce the fruit you expect, since they are most likely hybridised.
Doing a bit of research before you buy seeds, you can choose the varieties which are known as "heirloom" varieties. These varieties produce fruit with fertile seeds, which are worth the effort to save for the next planting season. This type of seed will grow into plants which are fertile, stable in their genetic structure and will produce many succeeding generations of fruitful plenty.
If you have saved hot peppers, they could be fine, but sweet peppers are an abomination of nature and may not be productive. If you want sweet peppers, buy seeds or seedling plants.
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a lot of commercial fruit is grown to be sterile, so don't be disappointed if they don't work.
on the other hand, if you want to grow coriander or potatoes or even garlic, you can use ordinary versions you buy to eat. otherwise, get some seeds in a packet and grow them, cos that's what they're supposed to do.
I've been wondering about that business with sterile seeds. Coincidence, or did they go to the trouble of making them sterile just to keep us from growing our own? The worst thing that could happen is that I end up with three bowls of useless black mud that needs to be thrown out. What made me decide to go ahead and try using those seeds was that I once heard of a sewage treatment facility that uses leach fields. Apparently, all kinds of seeds pass through the human digestive tract and remain intact (tough little fuckers). Then, after a leach field has dried out, the remaining seeds take root and grow, resulting in all kinds of cucumbers and tomatoes and shit growing in the fields. I figure that since most people get their produce from the supermarket and that happens, then some of the seeds must still be good.
I am, however, prepared to get some packets of seeds if nothing happens in the next few weeks. As for heirloom varieties, there's a particular type of tomato that I'm interested in acquiring - the size of a cherry tomato, but yellow and pear-shaped. Somebody in a club that I'm in brings them to meetings once or twice a year, so if that happens again, I'll have to take a few home.
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here you go:
(http://www.chileseeds.co.uk/images/tomatoes-organic25.jpg)
or:
(http://www.chileseeds.co.uk/images/old-ivory-egg-tomato-seeds.jpg)
you can get them here: http://www.chileseeds.co.uk/organic-heirloom-tomato-seeds.htm
or for one in the US, here's: http://store.tomatofest.com/Beams_Yellow_Pear_Tomato_Seeds_p/tf-0043a.htm
sadly, they're not organic, though. :(
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Can't tell for sure yet, but it looks like the pepper seeds might be sprouting. Should be more obvious one way or the other in a few days.
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yay! that's so exciting - i always get completely spazzy and flappy when that happens, being a big kid. :green:
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Can't tell for sure yet, but it looks like the pepper seeds might be sprouting. Should be more obvious one way or the other in a few days.
Not meaning to persuade you to dash them upon the dry rocks as yet, because gambling is how the original hydridisers came to successes.
Do you know how the seeds may have been developed.?. Do you know the parentage
Where do you live, BTW. I could never get a pepper seedling, sprouted in October, past my climate's horrid, no-sun winter. Some sprouts from March have made it, but never even a February seed has done more than suffer in my area. I have tried (I'm serious - for years - with all manner of sun gathering equipment, soil warming devices and other blah, blah - it doesn't work) and it is mostly the May seedlings which come to mature fruiting.
If you live in Arizona - maybe. I would dearly love to try!!
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Can't tell for sure yet, but it looks like the pepper seeds might be sprouting. Should be more obvious one way or the other in a few days.
Not meaning to persuade you to dash them upon the dry rocks as yet, because gambling is how the original hydridisers came to successes.
Do you know how the seeds may have been developed.?. Do you know the parentage
Where do you live, BTW. I could never get a pepper seedling, sprouted in October, past my climate's horrid, no-sun winter. Some sprouts from March have made it, but never even a February seed has done more than suffer in my area. I have tried (I'm serious - for years - with all manner of sun gathering equipment, soil warming devices and other blah, blah - it doesn't work) and it is mostly the May seedlings which come to mature fruiting.
If you live in Arizona - maybe. I would dearly love to try!!
I've been having trouble getting seedlings to survive our horrid no-sun summers, never mind the winters. They do fine in spring, when we often get a nice sunny spell, but then the weather turns cold, dark and shitty and all the seedlings die or go leggy, even in the greenhouse. It wasn't always as bad as this; it's just in recent years that we've really been struggling with above-average cloud cover and rainfall.
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that's global warming for you. :(
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Where do you live, BTW. I could never get a pepper seedling, sprouted in October, past my climate's horrid, no-sun winter. Some sprouts from March have made it, but never even a February seed has done more than suffer in my area. I have tried (I'm serious - for years - with all manner of sun gathering equipment, soil warming devices and other blah, blah - it doesn't work) and it is mostly the May seedlings which come to mature fruiting.
If you live in Arizona - maybe. I would dearly love to try!!
I'm in Florida. Hot like Arizona, but unlike Arizona it's very humid here instead of dry. It's starting to cool down here, relatively speaking. Around here, 60 degrees Farenheit is considered chilly. That might sound wonderful, but hurricane season's a bitch. I suppose I could bring the sprouts inside if it gets too cold, and put them back out in the spring.
I looked at them again this afternoon, and there's definitely sprouting going on.
If this experiment fails, I'll just try again in the spring. (Remember, it was free. I was cutting up a grocery store pepper for lunch and had some potting soil left over from the maple, so I figured "what the hell".)
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Where do you live, BTW. I could never get a pepper seedling, sprouted in October, past my climate's horrid, no-sun winter. Some sprouts from March have made it, but never even a February seed has done more than suffer in my area. I have tried (I'm serious - for years - with all manner of sun gathering equipment, soil warming devices and other blah, blah - it doesn't work) and it is mostly the May seedlings which come to mature fruiting.
If you live in Arizona - maybe. I would dearly love to try!!
I'm in Florida. Hot like Arizona, but unlike Arizona it's very humid here instead of dry. It's starting to cool down here, relatively speaking. Around here, 60 degrees Farenheit is considered chilly. That might sound wonderful, but hurricane season's a bitch. I suppose I could bring the sprouts inside if it gets too cold, and put them back out in the spring.
I looked at them again this afternoon, and there's definitely sprouting going on.
If this experiment fails, I'll just try again in the spring. (Remember, it was free. I was cutting up a grocery store pepper for lunch and had some potting soil left over from the maple, so I figured "what the hell".)
Well, then, COOL!
I grew up in the southernmost tip of Texas, so I know a little about warm winters (and I've studied hurricanes and horticulture). I was eighteen when I first encountered snow. Still hate it! (I now live in Indiana ... :bigcry:)
You might be OK (- for some reason, I thought your were Eurotrash or something. SORRY! It's the screen name, but we'll talk about that later.)
Beware the sneakiness of fungi! Don't allow seedlings to stay wet, and keep the air moving.
What I would do (if I had fresh seeds and a southern winter to look forwad to) is I would make sure to use only fresh, sanitized sphagnum moss and plant some seeds about every two weeks. That way, if you get an infection, you can control it with acidic sprays (citric or acetic acid sprays - low concentration) and likely many from less susceptible ages would survive. Then as the weather becomes more to the liking of the tropical pepper plants, some will have well established roots. Combine these efforts with warming the actual soil where they are to be planted and again setting them out in succession - what ever type of seeds you have - some should make it to maturity. No guarantee that they will produce fruit, but you will know with the first flower whether or not they are capable.
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Hey Garmonbozia, try giving that maple the bonsai treatment.
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Hey Garmonbozia, try giving that maple the bonsai treatment.
It's not thick enough. Interestingly, it's grown a couple of side-trunks out of the dirt at the base of the main trunk.
I brought the pepper sprouts inside the other day, since it's gotten cold very fast. Not sure if they'll survive the reduced sunlight and the cats, but we'll see.
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That little cold spell's over, so I put the sprouts back outside. However, there will surely be many more cold spells before it stays cold for the winter. (Florida's autumn and spring weather is unpredictable.)
The sprouts are about an inch tall now, most of them with two leaves and the seed casing still hanging onto a leaf. Those are green bell pepper plants. I have since saved the seeds from a red bell pepper and planted them a short while ago. I plan to do the same with jalapeños some time in the next few days.
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The green pepper sprouts are still alive. Some tomato seeds I planted the other day have sprouted up fast, and the red peppers are just starting to. The jalapeños haven't started to yet.
I'll have to start moving this stuff into bigger pots soon. Their biggest predator is one of my cats.
I've got some tomatillos (like tomatoes but green and sour). When I've used those in cooking, I'll be sure to save the seeds.