Jamie's Maties 2023

[jamiethemime]

now there's at least a 1/2" space to reach the light!

Just enough space for a couple more plants!!

I think the smallest we ever got in my store were 1" succulents... I could make it work

[jamiethemime]

It's time for an updaaaaate


Our biggest change is the Buena Mulata simply got too big for the aerogarden and is trying out life in potting mix. It's definitely complaining. I hope it pulls through, there's some flower buds and I wouldn't mind having a few early indoor chilies.

The spicy globe basil (in the background with the other herbs) is losing a few leaves but not enough to be super concerned yet. I have a jar of props just in case though.


There's so many tomatoes on this thing. I have been pruning suckers that get too far away from the light and twist kinda awkwardly around and I don't even feel that bad about it, it's doing so well. Kratky genovese basil still chugging along, nothing notable here.


Kratky Quick Snack cucumber is looking good! Kratky Vilma tomato is also making progress.


The Aji Charapita spare plant got moved in to the Buena Mulata's old spot, maybe it'll like it there. In Khang Starr's recent live, he talked about it being prolific, and I'm pretty sure he mentioned it did well in hydroponic.


Various micro tomatoes and pinata chilies, only major note here is we lost one of the pinatas. It had been struggling for a while and I accidentally let it dry out once early on, and it just never really grew much, I let it dry out too much again and while the other seedlings in coir weren't phased at all, it fainted and never recovered. So I have 10 total seedlings that seem vigorous enough to make it to adulthood.


Oregano is a slow grower holy moly. It needs a kick in the pants or something. One of the Aji Charapitas looks odd, but the other two are growing well. I've had to start plucking flower buds off the pinatas, the two largest have started trying to flower.


Ground cherries are slowly getting more green in their true leaves. I've been watering sparingly, they were pretty dry though so today I bottom watered with some leftover water with aerogarden nutrients. I topped one of the Buena Mulatas, and FIMed another to see how I like it vs. two naturally growing plants.


I planted a new round of seeds in the cells that never germinated for Baby and KPP since I had only one plant each so now I've got backups of those. Plus, one of those Baby tomatoes has 3 cotyledons! Only other notable thing I can think of is the TastyWine drop their cotyledons really fast. Kind of odd!

Now I'm realizing I forgot to include a picture of my Spoon tomatoes. I'd seen reddit threads where people say they have weird shaped leaves, lots were concerned about disease or something, idk. But mine are definitely curly-weird shapes. Different from everything else. They seem to like less water like the Ground Cherries too.

I think that's all for now, everything's still mostly growing well. The sun is starting to hit the rock patch around my patio, which is where I'll be placing my tomatoes for the summer. I was starting to get nervous that there wouldn't be enough sun exposure to grow anything even though I know my pepper did just fine last summer (until the bugs got it, that is...). It was a degree away from hitting 80 a couple of days ago.

[jamiethemime]

We got our first taste of real sunlight, about a half hour

[jamiethemime]

I've been sick for a week, finally feeling better today! Let's see the plants!


The cucumber EXPLODED with growth while I was out of it! It looks amazing!
There are so many tomatoes on the Jochalos I've stopped pollinating the flowers actively, whatever happens naturally from here on out is its business!
Vilma and basil still chugging along.
The mint grows so fast, I should set up a time lapse on it, I bet it'd be an interesting to watch over the course of a day, or a few days.


Spicy globe basil isn't doing amazing. I let one stalk flower so maybe I'll get seeds, can plant another crop later on this summer.
Flowers on the Buena Mulata! I'm pollinating those daily, will hopefully start seeing some peppers forming in the coming weeks.





I moved almost everything to their 4" pots! Everything so far seemed to take off once they hit that size and the weather outside was so nice today that I really honestly had no choice but to do it! Also noticed a few of the tomatoes have definitely been underwatered, not sure if the tray isn't level enough or what, but I'll be checking a bit more closely from now on. Additionally, now there's not a lot of room under the grow lights anymore which means.....


Welcome to tough love central! We aren't past last frost yet, so I took the extras that didn't fit under the lights and bid them good luck with the great outdoors. And I set out two of the basil plants to see if they prefer it outside even though it's not super warm out yet. Whatever happens, happens. The sage and mint, meanwhile, are really enjoying their new outdoor home, but they should both be well equipped to handle the 33F low predicted this weekend. Godspeed, the rest of 'em, lol.

[jamiethemime]

The Fruits of our Labors


Jochalos has started ripening!!


A 2" cucumber!!! Will probably harvest in the next few days


An out of focus pepper!


And here's everybody else!

[jamiethemime]

Time flies!

Buena Mulata started in the aerogarden now pushing out peppers!


I caved and bought some strawberries


Tomatoes and oregano


Group shot! almost everyone's in their final homes. Need just a little more potting mix.

[MissS]

I like your determination to keep that strawberry!

[jamiethemime]

I like your determination to keep that strawberry!

i'm not leaving anything to chance!!

[AKgardener]

Luv the update keep on keeping on

[bower]

Nice to see the food coming on already!

[jamiethemime]

Whoops!! I kinda fell out of updating this.

Was overall a fairly successful first outdoor container garden attempt! I ended up having to halve the amount of full size plants for space reasons (the building manager said no plants out on the rocks, things can only be on my patio). I made one pot of mostaccioli out of all the tomatoes I grew , I just don't get enough sunlight for it to be worth as much space so next year I'm focusing on peppers--which did really well for only ending up with three large plants (and my bunch of minis, but those are a much easier space investment, and they're more for fun ), I made 3 jars of hot sauce and 1 infused pepper vinegar. I will probably grow one Sweet as Linda tomato, which ended up being my favorite out of all the tomatoes I grew. I just got in my 3 new pepper varieties for this coming year, and started 2 of them in kratky jars. Sunday I might set up my aerogarden with 1 or 2 pinatas or micro tomatoes of some sort--sky's the limit!!

[jamiethemime]

The spoils! Aji Charapita vinegar, Buena Mulata hot sauce, Pinata hot sauce, and purple Buena Mulata hot sauce (all sauces loosely following a peppergeek recipe)

[bower]

Nice to see you have some rewards to savor in the off season.
And a good plan to grow your favorite fresh eating tomato, if the space or sun is not enough for sauce.
Sounds like a success to me!