wrote:
Hi,

*snip*

The little bell peppers seem to be turning red pretty quickly but the
Cayenne peppers are still green.

Do I need to wait until the Cayenne peppers turn red? I have some
really big ones going now but they are all green.

*snip again*

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Steve

Hi,

Why keep waiting on the cayenne? If you want to eat them fresh, you can
go ahead and pick what you want to eat. Leave some to turn red for your
sauces, etc, but for fresh (just chop and add to veggies, etc) to me
they are just as good green. I do wait until they get to be at least 2
inches long before I pick my cayenne. Anyway, you can leave them to turn
red or go ahead and pick a few to eat....

~Rae

In article , Charlie wrote:

On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:24:30 -0700, Billy
wrote:


So, I presume your funky shui thing doesn't include seed saving OR are
the beds 500' apart, or do you bag, or cage? Fertility and entropy
make purity difficult. Think I can get my funky shui aligned if I just
rotate the hill 45 degrees to the west and invert the slope.

No, I'm not saving pepper seeds this year, for several reasons,
proximity to one another the prime reason, I have lots of different
pepper varieties in cold storage, I wanted to try a bunch of new ones
this year to determine habits and yield, etc....and.....
I think next year I'll have to start baggin' some of the squash,
cucumber, tomato and, the pepper flowers. I definitly need to
reduce the number of varieties and sweet peppers and tomatoes will
be the most difficult to reduce in number. Sweet millions cherry
tomato was the first to produce and has set a large crop to ripen )
and they are definitely competitive in quality with store bought (
Unfortunately, it, the Sun Gold, and the Yellow Pear have collapsed
on my dwarf Meyer lemon trees, which they are now using for an arbor.


My damned labels faded when I transferred them outside this spring and
other than six varieties, I dont have a ****in' clue what most of them
are yet and may have a hard time figgerin' it out....
Seems we have similar administrative skills vis-a-vis identifying and
marking. Fortunately, most of my herbs are perennials and I'm starting
to get a handle on what they look like.

Gnnna be some good eatin' though! ;-)

Monapa spinach seed is being harvested now and have a big old Nimba
Zuke conditioning for seed. Going to save at least one tomato, Black
Brandywine, which is delicious and looks to be more productive than the
regular Brandywine and a more compact, less vining plant than the
regular.
How did you manage to save pure seed from the Black Brandywine? Think
I'll cut back to three types of tomatoes; cherry, mid-sized, and
large. Unfortunately, the selection won't just be just based on taste
but the visual spectacle, via the different colors, as well.

Saving the Empress beans and Rattlesnake pole beans. Have sevearl
varieties of lettuce and the Mizuna making seed and the Love Lies
Bleeding Amaranth is being saved and going to be used in landscaping
next year.
Not as flashy as your amaranth, but I like the spectacle of my dent
corn towering 12 - 14 feet up into the air. Now I just need to refine
my processing skills to turn it into grits.

Planted four varieties of cukes, so they are out for saving seed, but
if the danged Armenian "cuke" ever produces anything other than lots of
vine and a gazillion blossoms and if we like, will save it.
Same here. It's a decorative sucker but I wish it would get of the pot.

THe vining 'tunias save themselves quite well.
Mine were sluggish in their sphagnum rich germinating soil. Then they
got into the program, when I put them into regular potting soil. Now
they've locked up again with potting soil in sphagnum lined hanging
pots(

Gotta run and try and get some outdoor stuff done before the heat gets
up there and then spend the hot time taking care of business and trying
to makes sense of this mess of an "office".......
Ha, I was lookin' for "Seed to Seed" yesterday when I finally spotted it
in my room/office/log. Only trouble was, there wasn't anyway to get to
it safely( The resulting tale would be worthy of Indiana Jones.

Speakin' of gardening, for a change, I see that your evening temps are
running about 20 F higher than here. Yesterday we had a temperature
swing from 52 F to 97 F. It's a miracle everyone doesn't have the flu.

Gardez la foi, le Frère
Charlie

jusqu'à la prochaine

"The number of people out there today seriously worried about the
health of all the plants and seeds on which modern agriculture depends
must be very limited, and the number of people actively campaigning to
protect them vanishingly few. ... Of the Earth's 250,000 plant species,
only 200 are cultivated for food on any serious scale."

"Even more extraordinary, the vast majority of the world's food comes
from just 20 crops, in just eight plant families. Most of these
monocultures are dangerously vulnerable to diseases (both old and new),
pest infestations, and a rapidly changing climate."

"Yet the "genetic pool" on which plant breeders might need to draw to
build resistance and adaptability is being constantly eroded as older,
non-commercial varieties disappear. ..."

"[S]eed banks can only do so much in this massive salvage operation.
The seeds they store need to regularly germinated, otherwise they too
die. The best way of maintaining an active and vibrant seed bank is to
ensure that farmers (and gardeners) are planting out those 'land races'
and rare varieties of plants which are now so endangered."

"More often than not, that sets small-scale, subsistence farmers (on
whom this kind of "active conservation" depends) in conflict with the
juggernaut of industrialised, intensive agriculture.""

~~Jonathan Porritt, founder and director of Forum for the Future, in
the Nov. 7, 2007 edition of BBC News
--

Billy
Bush and Pelosi Behind Bars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo...eature=related

Charlie wrote:

No, I'm not saving pepper seeds this year, for several reasons,
proximity to one another the prime reason, I have lots of different
pepper varieties in cold storage, I wanted to try a bunch of new ones
this year to determine habits and yield, etc....and.....

My damned labels faded when I transferred them outside this spring and
other than six varieties, I dont have a ****in' clue what most of them
are yet and may have a hard time figgerin' it out....
snip

Hi,
If you are using something that can be written on for labels, a #2
pencil will not fade.
Enjoy the peppers.

HTH -_- how

--
no NEWS is good

In article , Charlie wrote:

What effect does treated water have upon soil microbes?

Charlie

Depending on the chlorine levels, it probably sets them back a bit
if it come straight from the pipe but chlorine is very reactive and
probably gets sponged up quickly by the organics (thus buffering [in the
generic sense] its' effects on the critters). Just figures that
the critters evolved with rain water and standing water and that would
have to be best.
--

Billy
Bush and Pelosi Behind Bars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo...eature=related

In article , Charlie wrote:

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:16:32 -0700, Billy
wrote:

In article , Charlie wrote:

What effect does treated water have upon soil microbes?

Charlie

Depending on the chlorine levels, it probably sets them back a bit
if it come straight from the pipe but chlorine is very reactive and
probably gets sponged up quickly by the organics (thus buffering [in the
generic sense] its' effects on the critters). Just figures that
the critters evolved with rain water and standing water and that would
have to be best.

OK, that is a *bit* reassuring. So, one might benefit from the
addition of compost tea to counteract the effect of chlorinated water?

Our water comes from a water tower, 1/3 mile from our home, after a two
mile trip from the treatment plant. I'm gonna check chlorine levels
now....hang on.......

OK...I've got .75 ppm chlorine. Whaddaya think. Scientific wildass
guesses are acceptable. I be no chemistryist, ya know.

Charlie

Whatcha lookin' fo' dog?

EPA guidelines allow up to 4 parts per million (ppm) of chlorine in
municipal tap water. We find this allowance alarming, since a standard
pool test kit shows that levels above 3 ppm are not safe to swim in!
http://www.aquasanastore.com/water-faq_b07.html

http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise.../watintro.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_purification

The FDA relies on state and local government agencies to approve water
sources for safety and sanitary quality, as specified in part 129.3(a).
Also, some states have regulations that differ from FDA's in content or
coverage. For example, Texas requires water haulers transporting water
in a tank truck or trailer to maintain a minimum chlorine residual of
0.5 mg/L in the water, whereas FDA does not have any specific
regulations requiring chlorination of water.
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/bo****r.html
This is also reflected in Cl. max. for dialysis water.
http://www.mdsr.ecri.org/summary/det...px?doc_id=8175

If'n you wants to hit the panic button, read here.
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journa...ience/kb_chlor
ine.html

If'n you wants to be reassured, there is this from down under.
http://www.waterquality.crc.org.au/D...Water_Safe.pdf

Finally,The amount of residual chlorine permitted in water effluents
varies from one facility to another. Normally the allowable amount of
chlorine is typically less than about 100 micrograms per liter as
"total" chlorine.
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/53...scription.html

I don'ts wants to be talkin' down to you dog, cause I likes my body the
way that it is (with nuthin' cut off) but to put this into perspective
mg/liter = ppm.

Hope you finds somethin' useful in this missive.

Well, time to go get the cork outten my breakfast. I just hates
to eat on an empty stomach;o)
--

Billy
Bush and Pelosi Behind Bars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo...eature=related

On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:41:49 -0500, Omelet
wrote:

In article
,
" wrote:

On Jul 25, 12:03*pm, Omelet wrote:
In article
,





" wrote:
Hi,

This year I decided to grow some peppers and I have a few questions.

I have 2 types of peppers growing. *Small red bell peppers and also
Cayenne peppers. *I already picked one of the little bell bell peppers
and it was extremely hot!!! *I accidentaly touched my eyes after
eating it and my eyes were burning.

[..]
lol Bell peppers get to be about 4" or so across and tall.

Wonder if you grew Habaneros? Those (aka "Scotch bonnets") are one of
the hotter peppers!

For mild peppers, I prefer anaheims. They are great stuffed and made
into chili rellenos.

Most hot peppers get fed to my cockatoo. She loves them and they are a
great source of vitamin C for her.


Cascabel perhaps?

On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:24:30 -0700, Billy
wrote:

So, I presume your funky shui thing doesn't include seed saving OR are
the beds 500' apart, or do you bag, or cage? Fertility and entropy
make purity difficult. Think I can get my funky shui aligned if I just
rotate the hill 45 degrees to the west and invert the slope.

Not Charlie, but I like to play...

I also have planted all of my peppers close enough to touch. They
seem to like companionship.

I tried a couple of years ago to bring my peppers in and overwinter
them, but a surprise frost kind of bit me a bit and I also forgot
about watering them for too long.

I'm going to give it a serious try this year, and also maybe try some
leaf node cuttings with the plastic bag trick (sorry, don;'t know the
official name for it).