Seed Starting In December & January!! Are You Excited for the New Year?

Seed Starting In December & January!! Are You Excited for the New Year? #gardening #farming #garden
True Leaf Market (Seed Company)
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We are a small family farm which began in February, 2023. We invite you to take a journey with us through all of our adventures including our failures and successes. We started with market farming growing fruits & vegetables. Join us in our garden as we "GROW" together. As time rolls on we will add animals to the mix as well.
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Jim & Sharon

[@regencylass]

Nice setup. Good idea, utilizing the well house.

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Thank you! It worked well last year and I will be making some improvements to the growing situation this year. (Using the resources that you have available). Thanks for watching!!

[@lamarwilliams185]

The commercial green houses grow all year long!! LOL

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Very true. And I hope to have a couple before it is all said and done.

[@elizabethfarkas6468]

Great seed starting talk! Thank you. I am also a SC neighbor just west of Orangeburg from your 'lower SC'. We home garden and experienced all the same travails as you-but the hurricane didn't do much damage here. We had a wilt on our tomatoes this year both roma and large slicers. Our pole beans did poorly, but our peppers; namely the jalapenos and Hungarian red Paprika were bumper crops this year. The bells were not so big-probably a consistent fertilizer problem. We kept shade cloth over the peppers starting in May or June with the 1st high temps throughout the season; the plants just died with that 22 degree cold snap that lasted 3-4 nights here. The Burpee big boy will need shade! and more space between plants. Start transplants with Espoma biotone in planting hole and consistent Neptune harvest or other fertilizer on schedule. Consistent watering. Heavy staking and thinning those suckers every day. I use Capt. Jack's to keep common bugs off too. We had the uncommon flat footed leaf bugs and stink bugs you can only hand pick every day in a bucket. We keep other organic sprays for disease problems going forward next season. With the Carolina ghost reapers, I understand they are a large bush and take a long grow out. They need conditions of consistent moist, bottom heat, humidity dome in the dark till they germinate. Don't plant but 1/4'' deep and keep their topsoil moist with a fine mist spray every day or two. Put under lights once they come up. Maybe keep heat on till they are all a week old... I invite you to look at Peppergeek.com. He seems to have thorough knowledge on them. There is also the Pepper joe site. I thought he used to be in Myrtle Beach? Might have moved. I'm curious, why start your broccoli so late (to me)? That's usually 68-70-75 days to harvest. I was going to start Dec. 1st but got busy. I believe I will follow your same schedule for everything else you named that we eat too. Would love to know what markets you will be selling from in 2025, so we can be new customers. Thank you.

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Howdy neighbor! I actually live in Walterboro. Thank you very much for the kinds words and detailed comments and thoughts. Where to begin... Other than those reapers, I had very good success with my peppers until the storm came. Jalapeno, cayenne, paprika, bell and habanero. The Habaneros did well and I was just a few days away from harvest when Debby visited for a bit. Sadly, didn't get to harvest any. I have no shade for my tomatoes of any kind. Something I hope to be able to work on throughout the year with hoop structures and shade cloth. I do use some of those same types of fertilizers for tomatoes and peppers. Mainly Agrothrive and Nature Safe. I am familiar with Peppergeek, so I may check their site out for additional info. I switched this past year to Contender bush green beans. Found it simpler to grow and the harvest was good. Of course, there is more succession planting as well for continuous harvest. Green Magic broccoli is around 57 days and I don't plan to cover them so I make sure about my frost dates. Mostly, it is also a market timing thing too along with selling plants. As to markets: I started with my community one here in Walterboro. Colleton Farmer's Market. However, we are planning on doing one for Hampton County and in Bluffton. Talks of others are possible also. Hopefully that covered most of everything. Thank you so much for taking the time for the comment and for watching the video. I appreciate very much!

[@budbarrett8056]

Great wake up call

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Yes

[@honeydew4576]

Last year I started seeds In January. It was way too early. I live in 6B, so it's better for me to start them indoors in February. Still, it's fun to think about and watch others doing.

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Thank you for watching. I understand that in your zone January was probably a tab bit too early. My last average frost date is around March 27th and last year I was able to transplant into the ground the week before. Grow out space and various forms of protection are also important. I hope you have an amazing garden in 2025 with a bountiful harvest!!

[@regencylass]

I'm in USDA Zone 5b, and I always start my onions, leeks, and celery in the 3rd week of December.

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Sounds great. Typically, I start onions in September to transplant in November for over-wintering.

[@honeydew4576]

@@regencylass Agreed. Especially celery which takes a long time. I don't grow celery.

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Celery is definitely a test of patience because it does take a long time. It has been fun so far, so we will see long term.

[@dawnteskey3259]

I started my asparagus patch from seed about 5 years ago. This year is the first year for a decent harvest. Over a hundred plants gives a huge amount of asparagus!

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

It takes time, but so worth it! 5 years is good to know and about what I would expect. That is about the amount of plants I hope to grow out as well. What kind of yield in pounds did you get or bunches? Thanks for watching!

[@dawnteskey3259]

@@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316 About 35 pounds. I only harvested for about 6 weeks, and I didn't harvest the spears that were pencil size or smaller. I probably could have harvested more, but I didn't want to be greedy, lol.

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

It sounds like you did the right thing. 35 pounds sounds most excellent!! Thanks for the update. Gives me hope and something to look forward to.

[@joemachismo6594]

Burpee big boys are ok but if I grow a Burpee hybrid tomato, I prefer their big daddy hybrid. I would recommend growing Pineapple yellow and Dr. Whyche's yellow tomatoes as well. They are beefsteak type and they produce very well for me and have really good flavor. Only way Ive ever gotten carolina reapers or ghost peppers to produce is to plant them, let them grow, then overwinter them and I get produce from them in the second year. I have never had any luck with those producing the first year so for my hot peppers I have gone to almost exclusively habanero peppers. I have good luck with those in the first year of planting. A couple sweet peppers I would recommend are giant marconi and giant aconcagua. They are both very productive and produce enormous peppers.

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Thank you very much for all of the information. I will look into those varieties of tomatoes and peppers. Since, I am only trying to grow a handful of the Carolina Reapers for market, I agree that if I get them up and going I will likely overwinter them for the following year. I was doing pretty well with the habanero plants and only a few days until harvest when Tropical Storm Debby wiped them out. I look forward to more success this year with those. Thank you very much for watching the video and for the comments!!

[@martimcgowan-chitwood761]

Thank you so much for your clear and concise overview. O am excited to start seeds soon! I'm also excited to be overwintering three large pepper plants, lots of tomato and basil starts, and a nice eggplant that has several 🍆! We gardeners thrive on all things that sprout and grow...

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

You are so welcome! And yes, we do for sure love to watch things grow. Let me know how the peppers produce that way for you this coming year. As many peppers as I plant I don't think that would be an option for us. I hope your season goes well and that you have an awesome harvest!! Thanks for watching the video, I really appreciate it!

[@IAMGiftbearer]

I've grown Better Boy tomatoes and they did well as long as I didn't grow them when it was too hot and humid. They are more disease resistant than Big Boy. I love artichokes and asparagus but have not grown them yet. I am growing Jade Cross Bussell's Spouts and Green Magic broccoli but the germination rate doesn't seem that great, so will have to re-seed more to fill in the gaps. Same with Red Veined Sorrel; about 2 out of 10 germinated.

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Sorry to hear that about the germination issues. As far as my Green Magic and Jade Cross they have germinated just fine. The broccoli was around 98%. Thanks for the tip on the Better Boy vs. Big Boy. I will see how this season goes and, as usual, make adjustments as necessary. I am looking forward to the artichokes, hopefully it goes well. Happy gardening and thanks for watching!

[@crowellovecraft7289]

change ur seed with carolina reapers

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Good thought, but it was 3 different seed packets (10 seeds per pack). I may try a different type, a ghost pepper.

[@crowellovecraft7289]

​@@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316 in the UAE where i run my operation . i see the best germination rates for Reapers in the greenhouse thats with low heat and Median UV i have tried everything for years and with negligible success , i then heared the veggie boys saying its always bad seed , changed my supplier to a totaly diffrent region and now i have reapers . all of this is just my experiance tho

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Could be. I did get all of the packets from the same place, so I think I will look for another source and try your suggestion. Couldn't do any worse, that's for sure. Very cool that you are in the UAE and farming and watching videos here in the states. How much different is it to farm there? I know that farming is farming pretty much but the variables change such as climate, rainfall, soil and access to various infrastructure needs. I too really like the veggie boys. It takes that whole family for sure to farm their 80 acres.

[@crowellovecraft7289]

@@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316 first major difference is that we use loose sand because of the nature of our daylight hrs. and UV profile . so red sand acts like an insulation to the roots and we use clay or compost in lower layers of soil, humidity is a massive issue in green houses so my design doesn't even have cooling fans but uses geothermal cooling , you can say we are more similar in farming to Alaska and Arizona where there is major extremes and we have to design a climate to grow anything at all , native soil is barren , dead and full of native seed a recipe for disaster if you use it to run a Cherokee tomato ops like i do

[@Son-RiseFarm-su6nbJohn316]

Very interesting indeed. Everyone has to adjust to their conditions and hopefully plan well so that we have abundant harvests. I am a fan of the geothermal. I have been looking into that for when I can get a greenhouse. I want a consistent growing environment year round so that I can grow out certain crops. I have been looking into the GAHT system. This method seems highly efficient. How have you liked it so far?