Pepper Seedling Update May 1 2022

[@markbrennan8392]

Pepper starts are looking great JT and that's a handsome pup too. Couple more weeks till we should be safe to put stuff out here in southern AB, and like you I'm sure looking forward to it 😀

[@JTBear]

The happiest day of the year for Canadian gardeners, the day we can plant outside!!!!

[@insAneTunA]

It turned out to be a longer story as I wished, but please hear me out. I strongly recommend the channel from Charles Dowding. And I also recommend to cover the surrounding soil with wood chips (not fresh pine or oak), and that you learn about carbon based farming. Also adding vermiculite or permiculite to the soil will hugely benefit the soil and the seedlings and the roots and the useful bacteria and fungi. You need to get the soil as fluffy as possible, and yet moist enough but not soaking wet, with enough surface area and nutrients for both fungi and bacteria to live. The soil and fungi and bacteria must not get anaerobe. Which seems to be happening with your plants in the middle. Also learn about inoculating wood chips and other organic matter with fish waste tea or compost tea, and about the Johnson and Su bio reactor. When you learn about all those things, with the instructions from Charles Dowding, it is like an eyeopener. Over time the wood chips will be broken down to plant available nutrients by the fungi and bacteria. Fungi are for 70% the most important factor for soil based food grow. They need wood and water and air (the right composition) as their nutrient source. The fungi will create a very healthy rhizosphere for the roots and the bacteria. And it will subtract nitrogen from the air, create passage ways for water, store water, and slowly turn the carbon from the wood into plant available nutrients for the plants and seedlings. It is like a nutrient battery for the soil and the plants and the fungi and the bacteria. But if the soil is too compact and too wet, in other words, if it can't breath, it will become anaerobe, and the useful bacteria and fungi will no longer be able to do their work, and the plants will become vulnerable for pests and diseases. In an anaerobe habitat there are actual bacteria that will try to get the plant killed because it will benefit their anaerobe habitat. But with enough fluffiness and the right nutrients and surface area in the soil the right bacteria will be able to fight of the bad anaerobe loving bacteria simply because they have the best possible habitat to live and thrive. The wood chips and vermiculite will not only provide a place to live, and long lasting nutrients for bacteria and fungi, and prevent water evaporation, but it will also expand and shrink as it gets wet and dry, and therefore it will be able to breath, if you will, and prevent the soil from becoming anaerobe. The wood chips take some time to be most effective. It is best practice to inoculate them first with some compost or fish waste tea and to let that season for a while. And to have some inoculated wood chips, compost and vermiculite mix prepared before you are planning to seed your seeds. But the vermiculite is very effective right from the start. After that learn something about bio char, and inoculating charcoal with compost tea or fish waste tea. At the end of the day you must take care of the right fungi and the bacteria, if they thrive and when they are happy where they live, and happy with the conditions where they live (lots of air and water and nutrients) all the rest will thrive as well. And all of this can also be applied to your entire garden or raised garden beds. It is called, no dig wood chip gardening. I hope that this long story was to any use of you. It is the best knowledge that I can share with the world.

[@JTBear]

It is truly amazing how much life there is in the soil and how many things we can do to help it along. Soil being too compacted is a big part of the issue out in the side yard gardens and I'm slowly working on adding carbon in a wide variety of forms but I've also recently learned that I need to be adding sand as well, to help re-mineralize the soil and help keep my home grown foods as healthy as possible. The woodchips I've been adding to the gardens have been from the chicken coop, so they have a bit of a start on the breakdown process while still adding their benefits to the garden. Charles Dowding has a wonderful channel, and is very easy to watch/listen to. Great advice for any gardener! Thanks for the great comment!

[@insAneTunA]

@@JTBear You're welcome 😄

[@spectrotripping]

If you want to bust up compacted soil without a whole lot of effort, plant some daikon turnips. You can plant them at the end of the season and they'll last down to 0F. They work well, even with dense clay soil. (don't need to harvest them either, if you don't want. Just till them up next spring)

[@insAneTunA]

@@spectrotripping Wood chips are a long term remedy. And the fungi that comes with the wood chips are very important, if not the most important for for a healthy nutrient rich organic soil and the plant roots. Fungi provide most of the plant available nutrients to the plant roots. Which are needed to keep the plant healthy and productive and protected against pests. A fluffy soil without fungi will be less productive as a fluffy soil with fungi.

[@sir.reelcinema]

❤️

[@JTBear]

Hiya!!

[@ristuksenvittu]

i had to stop the video i was just watching to see this one, for some odd reason it took 8 days to get a notification for this video, it is 9.5.2022(9th of may). clock 0.02 (2 minutes past midnight)when i am posting this. edit: i personally have only california bell peppers and yellow hungarian hot wax growing, when it comes to peppers. those peppers are soon ready to split/making the V and start producing flowers. i do also have tomatoes, cucumbers and other things going on but they are side projects just like the upcoming carrots, onions, dill and lettuce and some berry bushes i don't really have to give any attention to. Rabbits ate my honeyberry/haskap that i bought last year down to the ground level last autumn so i am not expecting to get off of it anything this year... so i am just putting a net around it and hope the rabbits will leave it alone this year. the thing is, i do like the taste of rabbit meat but obviously you're not allowed to shoot or trap them in residential area, so i don't really know how i should stop their reign of terror. edit 2: are you planning on planting those peppers outside like you've usually done in the past? i never have had any luck on open soil with peppers, but they seem to do really well in pots outside. edit 3: i don't know if you remember but i used to have this cayenne from 2017 but sadly this spring as it was starting to make new growth, it made 1 flower(which i pinched off, as it was too early) and then suddenly decided to dry out and die, i have no idea what happened but i do have seeds from that plant from 19, 20 and 21 seasons, so i am planting a new cayenne in few days so it gets to grow big and strong this summer and then make fruit next year, i've still got loads of dried cayenne peppers so i don't think i need any this year.

[@JTBear]

That's quite a delay, even for KZbin! Never even thought about rabbits eating down the haskap bushes, might have to put a netting system around ours here as well! Most of these peppers are heading outside, some in the newer straw bale gardens and some into the soil gardens. The ones in the new garden did great last year so I curious to see if it happens again! Too bad that your 2017 cayenne has gone to that great compost in the sky, that's a good long run for a pepper plant. Hope the new one lives twice as long!

[@babetteisinthegarden6920]

Hi Archer by Archer

[@JTBear]

Hiya Babs!!

[@sir.reelcinema]

Your nutrients are off.

[@JTBear]

Not using any, just letting Darwin sort it all out ...