Currently it is 16 degrees outside and given my grow box containing jalapeno peppers is in my unheated detached garage, which can bring some challenges. Like most plants, peppers will continue to grow in the range of 60 to 90 degrees, but thrive in 70 to 90 degrees. With the lights on the grow box gets to about 60 degrees but drips to the 50’s at night. This will…
Along with gardening, I also have a passion for cooking/baking. I have had many adventures I wanted to share but didn’t exactly fit under “The Cheap Vegetable Gardener” so I have started Going Homemade. Though I have been spending much of my life eating most of my meals from bags and boxes, I am making a commitment to bravely try homemade versions of my personal favorites as well as…
Recently I was approached by Hometown seeds if I would be interested in receiving a variety pack of their top selling seeds, my first instinct was “woohoo free stuff.” Though instead I decided it would offer the seeds to my awesome readers. Well that and with all the seed saving I have been doing this year I have more seeds than I know what to do with. Hometown Seeds…
I was lucky enough to win some Bhut Jolokia pepper seeds from Red Icculus. In case you haven’t heard of these they are the hottest peppers on earth having a heat rating of over 1 million scoville units. Just to put that into comparison jalapenos are around 5000 scoville units. One property of this pepper is the way the heat builds after consumption, on first bite it is spicy…
It shouldn’t be a surprise that kids these days are not as patient as previous generations. Personally I feel this is less on a change of parenting but a result of children’s expectations created because of the advance of technology. For example, When my daughter asks to watch a particular show “On Demand” and then 5 minutes later asks me to “pause it” so she can go potty. This…
If you head over to Campbell’s Help Grow Your Soup site you can get some free tomato seeds and while you are at it vote for a barn which Campbell’s will give $250,000 to restore. So free seeds for you and one dollar for a barn restoration.
I doubt there is anyone who enjoys pulling weeds, though now at the end of the season is a great time to do some preventive measures to prevent new growth next season. Kill your weeds early: The sooner you pull your weeds the easier it is to keep up with them. In addition, if you pick the weeds before the mature and flower and drop seeds you will save…
The kids and I carved several pumpkins this year but we waited carve the three pumpkins we grew in our backyard until Halloween since these were the seeds I wanted to save for planting next year. First, I know exactly how these pumpkins were grow, organically and free of any pesticides. Second, I was able to let these pumpkins grow undisturbed until the day I picked the seeds, so…
Corn is one of those crops I really don’t have space to grow but still like to try every year. This past year I only had one ear that made it to maturity, in the plants defense we have a very hot summer and I didn’t have the most consistent watering schedule so I am to blame for most of their demise. Given I used the last of my…
We have seen MIT students making robots to tend on their plants. Now Fuji Heavy Industries has created a robot that can completely take care of your fruits and vegetables in your fields (or greenhouse) for a modest fee of only $100,000. You can pick up your own by the next fiscal year. It uses lasers with reflective panels to orient itself and is 6.5 feet long, unfortunately there…
Well this is pretty much clichéd nerdiness but given it only required a couple of lines of C# I couldn’t resist. I have updated my grow box software to “tweet” some sort of semi-humorous and not really witty comment appropriate to its current state and share its current temperature and moisture content every 2.5 hours. For those who want to do something similar, this is how I did it. …
If it were up to me every part of my landscaping would be edible. Though my homeowners association may disagree with me but blueberry bushes looks just as nice as any ornamental plant/bush when you visit the nursery with the obvious bonus of free food. When selecting a blueberry bush, unless you are very patient spend about $10 a plant and get some more established ones (about 1/2 inch…