Success And Failure

[jaideeguy]

Winter is my favorite time to plant, as it's cooler for both me and my plants. This year I ordered many different seeds and traded a few more and had mixed results. almost all were falang origin and most were open polinated.

I had my share of failures, maybe 50+% and will share my experiences in the hopes that others will share theirs.

corn........excellent results so far with 2 varities, after initial start up problems with snails chewing young shoots. 2nd and 3rd crops seem vigorous.

squash......mixed results from 5 different varities. best was pink banana squash....worst was zucchini

eggplant.....great results from hybred japanese ichiban eggplant and another round [black beauty, i think]

peppers.....not too good results, hard to sprout and vulnurable to insects/fungus.

tomatoes........mostlly bad results from all the larger types, but great results and the sweetest tomatoes from Cuban yellow cherry tomatoes.

tomatillios.......bugs like them

beans.....good pinto bush

let's hear other's experiences.....

[WatersEdge]

For the Peppers,

I am growing Bell Pepper in the open field.

Sprouted them in trays, two weeks wait until they sprout,

then transplanted to potting bags

about three weeks from planting,

and when they blossomed transplanted again to the field.

about two months from planting the seeds

Set them on 50 cm grid.

From the time they sprouted in the trays snail and millipede tore them up,

so we elevated them on eucalyptus platforms,

and they still climbed up to feast heartily,

so we sprinkled Carbofuran crystals around them.

This wiped them out, but they still continued to try.

When we put the plants out in the field, it was another attack.

Carbofuran again decimated them.

At the height of rainy season,

any plant stem in contact with the wet clay,

grew a white fungus and the whole plant died.

It was also not a good idea for bean hay mulch to be too close to the stem,

had to keep it cleared away.

Overall rule is, the plants cannot be buried too deeply in wet soil.

They like water but cannot tolerate standing water,

and have a good tolerance of extended dry days.

The preventative for fungus is Copper Sulfate spray,

but it must be applied before the fungus starts to grow,

not after it already is there.

Do a google on Bordeaux Mixture,

Copper Sulfate and Lime together.

Copper Sulfate is also effective against insects,

we had a short time of aphid in rainy season,

but since it washes off, must be regularly sprayed over the leaves.

Since copper is a micro nutrient,

frequently depleted from farm soil,

it's hard to go wrong by applying copper sulfate to the crops as often as needed.

I've been told that Bell Peppers must be grown in a greenhouse,

which I understand to control the amount of moisture,

and to leave the insect repellent on the leaves.

Ideally it seems, drip irrigation on a plant with a clear umbrella overhead

The plants must be stake supported,

as they will fall down under their own weight.

I should confess that my plants got maximum abuse with minimal care,

including an 11 day period of no water.

Goats like the leaves, another problem area for us on occasion,

although they are kind enough to not eat the stalks

Finally I tried to kill them with kindness,

by putting too much 16-20-0 fertilizer on them,

followed by not enough repeated application of water.

I'd like to grow Pinto Beans if you'd like to sell me seed.

I know them very well from high desert Nevada,

and it's especially nice that they are toxic to pests,

so they have more or less a free ride as they grow.

Grocery store dried pinto beans were 100% sterile,

not one plant sprouted from a whole kg of beans.

Trying Zucchini now, and have read the thread on Zucchini here on ThaiVisa,

which says you must pollinate from the male flowers low on the plant,

up to the female flowers high on the plant.

Unless you have insect traffic on the plant, you will have very poor yield.

Byproduct is the male flowers which are good in soup,

so perhaps the surefire method is to dust the males over the females,

as you harvest.

Maybe spraying sugar water on the plant would encourage ant traffic?

Just a daffy idea, no one should take it as a proven method.

I've had miserable germination from sweet corn seed,

[Beardog]

We are growing panpan squash yellow & green, summer crookneck yellow crookneck squash recently & carrots. so far they are doing great many flowers & healthy stalks. Last time we grew in rainy season & the squash all had fruit but croaked due to inadequate drainage(mold on stalks.) Now in fortified beds with irrigation & doing well Spinach is doing good & all the spices I brought back from the U.S. doing well. Tomatoes a dud . Tried cherry tomatoes & bugs ate the leaves up & it was rainy season. The only thing I could not get to grow so far is blackberries- which I got seeds from Kennedys seeds & they were 100% failure. I tried in petri dishes with damp paper towels. Planting pots. Regular pails. In beds since July no luck. If I new they were bunk seeds I would have brought a ton up from Sonoma California where the summer temps are identical. Bananas papaya coconuts beans gourds pumpkin lamut, Champoo pet chili peppers & many spices no problem.And 40 types of Thai veggies I never saw all doing well. I will try to get some tomatoes & blackberries to take.

Barry

[thaidrav]

Blackberries: Try varieties that grow in humid climates like Florida rather than California. Brazos is a good thorny one. I'm testing some thornless in Florida but won't have a report till next year. If bringing veg seed get varieties that do well in the deep south east USA.

Pumpkin: Seminol squash, vigorous summer grower (give it some space!), stores well, delicious. open pollinated so you can save your own seed.

Corn: Rieds Yellow Dent, multi purpose corn, pick just right for fresh corn, let dry on plant for corn meal, open pollenated.

Strawberries: Sweet Charlie, excellent for kitchen gardens, try growing in a hanging basket.

Asparagus: whatever the locals grow in LOS

[Farma]

Pumpkin, Squash, Zucchini and Cucumber fruited but too many bug and fungus problems

Onions and Garlic good results.

Tomatoes a failure. Couldn't get them to sprout.

Bowen Special Mangoes 100% success rate and growing fast.

[rice555]

Hello All, WatersEdge, when you say field grown, do you mean like the bell.jpg picture?

If you look at the side picture, you can see how they tie them up using the Florida weave,

can find on Google. What verity of bells are you growing? I just got some Yolo Wonders to

try. I use a bamboo sleeping platform with a couple sheets of corrugated roofing and plastic

mesh to hold 12x105's, The legs of the platform are in the plastic water bug cups you see

kitchen cabinets in to stop ants, it doesn't stop the flying stuff, but great with the crawlers.

The second picture is a set back I had with a couple hundred ancho plants, not the weather or bugs, just my poor eyesight. I transposed formula numbers and used the wrong amount of chems when mixing up my nutrient. the chili should have been as long as the bottle.

The third picture is the pruned to shit ancho plants starting to grow again, this time with the right nutrient formula.

jaidee, these are the tomatoes that you shamed me as I had not planted mine from the other veg thread. This picture was Dec 18, 09, the first 2 rows are black cherry, the 2nd. 2 rows are Belgium Giants, both from TGS in FL. The next tom picture is 12/29/09 after they were planted.the first row is peppers, the 2nd row and 2 of the 3rd row are BG's, the last rows are BC's.

The next picture is 1/11/10, showing the peppers taller and the BG's getting bigger. You can see the red plastic cups on the bamboo table in the background.

The last picture was 1/21/10(still my today), beside some leaf miner problem and not being tied up properly, they both have some blossoms, but its been raining on and off for 2 days now.

Now that it's wet again, I can get the tractor back to plough and finally get some of the Texas Gourd Seed corn planted and some pink bananas.

rice555

[turnpike]

rice,

nice looking operation you got there by the looks of it.

i'm bitterly jealous. lovely looking soil.

makes my little 2 rai hobby garden look rather medieval....

love looking at pictures of other peoples gardens. keep 'em coming.

as for my experience in relation to this topic, i've had mostly failures, although any and all sunflowers grow well (theres dozens of varieties if you didn't know) and i'm having small victories with tomatoes this year. where i work (offshore india) theres nationalities of all kinds. i've got eggplant from indonesia, bell peppers from india, tomatoes from croatia and denmark, plus snake gourd,okra and some unidentified seeds from india.

funny when i was a kid, i hated anything to do with the garden, now i can't wait to get home again and get my hands dirty. come on febrary 5th!

[rice555]

Hello turnpike, thats some else's bells, I think in FL., it is an example of using cane fields as a wind break.

All the bag stuff is mine, it's just coir.

rice555

[turnpike]

Hello turnpike, thats some else's bells, I think in FL., it is an example of using cane fields as a wind break.

All the bag stuff is mine, it's just coir.

rice555

here's a couple of my recent successes. the one on the left is a marmande and the one on the right is some kind of oxheart. both from croatia. i've become freaking crazy about growing tomatoes. i've planted a bunch of seeds from home (canada), brandywines, sweet 100's,husky gold and a couple others i can't remember. wifey says they are poking up thru the dirt in the small pots i've started them in.

about this coir? you mean thats all thats in the bag? or is it mixed with soil. and where do you buy this stuff, is it cheap?

thanks in advance for any help/advice

tp

[rice555]

Hello turnpike, nice looking toms! Coir is from ground coconut husk, most of the

toms, eggs & peppers I grow hydroponically, when I moved to LOS, I lived in a

shophouse and only the parking area to grow.

It was easier to get coir and rice hulls than good dirt to grow in. I also have tried 2

others of the Husky line, Red and cherry, the Red were so so, the cherry was very poor.

Which Brandywine are you growing? From what I've read, the BW OTV can handle

heat better.

Have you tried any of the 'black' Russian toms? They are a great taste treat!

I do also grow in the dirt where I live now, and have plans for more at the farm.

rice555

Florida High Bush OP egg, not as nice looking as the B. Beauty's or some of the others,

good eating, 2-4 like this per plant is what I got, my hydro grown ones were a flop.

This is from Feb. 08 garden.

[turnpike]

Which Brandywine are you growing? From what I've read, the BW OTV can handle

heat better.

Have you tried any of the 'black' Russian toms?

rice555

rice,

i'm on the rig right now, but i think my brandywines were just plain old brandywines, i can't recall aything else written on the pack but i'll check when i get home. never tried the black russians, but they're high on my list. i believe they're heirlooms, no? here's a sight for tomato junkies like me, it's pretty good actually.

http://tomatoville.com/

also planted some black beauties, wifey says they're up. i've planted them before, and they've done well.

cheers,

tp

[rice555]

Hello tp, this the BW's that the place I got my seed from has, I just got the OTV, The 2 Dr's that did the work

on the OTV have done other tom's to, Dr. Male has a 'white' tom named after him. http://www.southernexposure.com/ http://www.tomatogrowers.com/

Besides a few of the blacks I've tried, I've been growing black cherry's from TGS in FL for 8 years here, they

are great tasting. This pix was today(1/31/10), the plants our on their own as I'm busy with installing support

wires for double rows chili plants, I really haven't started all the toms I was going to grow this season.

The chili is a NuMex Sandia today, the last pix is taken on the day the plants were transplanted(1/3/10), the closest row you can see 'A' on some of the bags, I ran out of anchos to transplant, so had the wife add the 'S&N' for the SAN on the bags in the picture. Only half a dozen of the Sandia had this rapid growth.

rice555

Brandywine USDA Certified Organic

74 days. (Indeterminate) [introduced in 1889 by Johnson and Stokes.] Prized for its distinctively flavorful fruit, and highly rated in our taste trials. 'Brandywine' has achieved a national reputation as the flavor standard for tomatoes. Fruits are dark reddish-pink, average 10 to 12 oz., and are borne on vines with potato leaf foliage. Vines are not disease-resistant but flavor of the tomatoes is of gourmet quality. Use for slices, salads, and sandwiches.

Brandywine, OTV USDA Certified Organic

72 days. (Indeterminate) [Named and released by Drs. Carolyn Male and Craig LeHoullier, editors of Off the Vine (OTV), the newsletter of heirloom tomato enthusiasts. Bred from an accidental cross of Yellow Brandywine and an unknown red beefsteak.] The best strain of Brandywine, set apart from the others by its smooth, creamy, almost buttery texture, and harmonious sweet flavor. Fruits are a rich red color with an orange undertone. Produces a large percentage of usable attractive tomatoes, relatively free of defects, averaging 3/4 lb. up to 1 lb. Foliage cover is excellent due to the vigorous vine growth and the extraordinarily large leaflets. This is the most productive and heat-tolerant Brandywine. A must for every tomato lover.

Brandywine, Yellow , USDA Certified Organic

76 days. (Indeterminate) [illinois heirloom from the Seed Savers Exchange.] Has the same great flavor as the popular pink-fruited 'Brandywine'. Fruits are large, slightly ribbed beefsteaks with sweet, tangy, delicious flavor. We rate it in the top 10% for flavor. Extremes of temperature may sometimes cause some fruit shape irregularities. Large potato leaf foliage provides medium fruit cover.

[rice555]

Hello tp, my first ripe Black Cherry this year,

well wort the effort.

rice555

[turnpike]

Hello tp, my first ripe Black Cherry this year,

well wort the effort.

rice555

hi rice,

hope you're still around.

this is going to be a black year for me.

i've got black cherry, paul robeson, black krim, black from tula & cherokee purple, all classified as black tomatoes.

also have 2 strains of brandywines (OTV (the one you mentioned) and sudduth's) plus another one called stump o' the world.

all open pollinated (heirloom) strains, so hopefully can save seeds from each one that i like.

looking forward to starting the seeds late july. i've heard the "blacks" cannot be beat for taste, particularly the cherokee purple.

last years brandywines were awesome. i felt like the local drug dealer handing out tomatoes to all the farangs in the neighborhood.

btw, your black cherry looks good. do you recommend it? i've read where they can grow quite big, like 8-10 feet.

[rice555]

Hello turnpike, sounds like your having fun, my first blacks in LOS was a Krim and a cherry. Have started PR's, but didn't have a place to put them. Have grown Black and B pear's before with good results.

There's a Black Brandywine I've seen lister in catalogs.

I started my season off with a good start with Mex chilies, and only a few toms, for some reason my mental season chart is off, I'm still waiting for the 'hot season' to start.

On the B cherry, if I got my facts right, the now dead husband of the lady at TGS(FL) was behind the development of the BC. 1. it is OP, but it is under 40 years old, which is under the age of 'heirloom's' in some quarters. Wiki has it listed as an 'H', but in their pic of 'H', it's as red as a beefstake, but they may have mislabeled it.

The best way I've heard was to let the plant go to a fork(2), let it go grow some more and then prune to 4 stems going up and tie to 4 stakes. Keep it pruned/suckered so it doesn't grow any more. Yes they will get tall, just prune the stem when you can't tie it up anymore.

The flood in Korat put some of mine plans behind as the outlaws were flooded and lost all papaya and vegetables at the village. We have the highest land and can start plants here in Korat(Muang) and move when they can plant. All the papayas that died were from me 2 years before when they flooded and lost all.

I finally got some of my toms going and transplanted. BHN-189, BHN-826(from Johnny's Seclect Seed-MN), Black Cherry, Victoria Supreme(paste) from TGS(FL) and BW-OTV(SESE-VA).

After the several storms we've had here, rain=weeds over the past month or so, things sort of went 'tits up', I got sidelined with leg problems, so I was down and on meds and not much got done. I've got to be good so they don't saw off my leg.

A new seed source to me, I found looking for corn seed. http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/

The OP corn is grown from 'saved seed' I begged and borrowed from the OP of this thread. Another two moons and it will be 'masa' time. (Thanks jaideeguy!!) This corn verity been around 136+ years.

Here's a catch up in pictures.

rice555

1. Feb. Thai toms.

2. Jan. BHN-826 & 189.

3. 3/7/11 transplanted and doing great. Name on bags.

4. 4/16/11 lack of care and rain. B-chery, OTV's.

5 & 6. Nov. 2010 serranos and anchos.

7. same chili plants, second crop, 4/16/11.

8. This season inside garden, minis tree in center ready to plant.

9. Crop Failure, what it looked like 4/16/11

10. Outside field ready to prep. 1/17/11

11. Need I say more?

12. After slow progress on 2 rows, I used Super Products spray tape(upside down) to help soften the dirt. Faster

progress.

13. Rained for 2 days, planted 4 days earlier. Added 4 more rows after the rain, much, much easier.

14. 26 days after planting, doing first weeding.

15. 57 days after planting, 3 big thunder storms, past 8 days, WEEDS and ears are developing, 10-20% 2 ears.

16. Up and doing some light weeding 4/16/11

[oldestswinger]

Hi rice555. Where do you get the white potting bags in Korat? All I've ever found are the black ones.

[rice555]

Hello olsestswinger,the white bags I'm using came from joeycano. I haven't read the post, from this thread he ordered from CM, I got 10kg of bags from him.

In post #15 of this thread, 1/2 of the toms in pic#2 I gave to teletiger at that he said that they had white bags in Pac Chong at the big ag store by the bus station.

They have a store here in Muang Korat(N.side of the Hyw, between see yet and Lotas, The Mall's on up the road a ways.), I use this store for black bags and other

water soluble fertlizers for my drip system and a source of nutrients for hydroponics.

The W/bags I have, have no holes, which I like for hydro, I can put them where I want.

rice555

[oldestswinger]

Rice555: thanks for the info. Regards.