Garlic is up.. mostly.

Just doing some research on the garlic growing stuff I've got and it turns out it's time to harvest some of them. The ones I've got out of the ground right now are happily drying on the back porch out of the direct sun on the mesh table we have. They're awfully small looking things, but I guess that's all I'm gonna get. Looks like a couple got killed off and didn't grow underground and another one looks like it just plain ol' got too far along and keeled over and broke up into pieces.. but I've got ten good ones so far. Not all of them were quite ready. Here's a shot of the evidence:

American Homebrewers Association Conference 2011

Just got back from the A.H.A. conference in San Diego, California the other day.. it was quite an event. If you're not familiar, the American Homebrewers Association is *the* biggest and only homebrewers conference of it's kind. Nearly 2,000 people attended this thing this year. Not sure if it out does the GABF festival I'm so fond of, but it was very informative. Here's a few pics from the four days I was out there..

The Tiki pavilion draft system, designed for the A.H.A. conference. 

Just *some* of the beers being poured at the Brewing Network festival party on Wednesday..

The 'Ale Camino" Beer Utility Vehicle, with 350 IBU's of power.

Ron Jeffries from Jolly Pumpkin, pouring me a beer. 

Gary Glass and John Palmer, legends. 

Dan Gordon of Gordon Biersch showed up with a few bottles to share at one of the seminars..

That's a 9 tap Randall system. Sheesh.. 

These are the beers that didn't get drank from the judging. There were hundreds..

Yeah, it was quite a thing. Coming to Penn in 2013, as we heard.. might see you there.

Garden update.. and a bagel for good measure.

Yep, here she is.. the almighty Earthbox. Stuffed with Jalapeno's, she's doing quite fine. The potato SmartPot also got rolled up a bit more and filled with some more medium.. not quite all the way up, but it's darned full now. The horseradish has taken over the whole right hand side of the herb garden area, and looks healthy enough since I've been pulling slugs off it on a nightly basis.. (sheesh!). Most of the peppers are all ding quite fine, with the exception of a Fatalii in the upper raised bed which kicked the bucket due to it being too cool for it out there when I planted it, hop house notwithstanding.. (Darn it, my father is going to laugh when he reads that.. ) but otherwise, the other peppers in that same bed are all doing just fine. The Tobasco in the Smartpot is a textbook specimen, too. Those things are doing nice across the board. In bad news, I've got a mole in the beds now that's giving me fits knocking things over and tilling up good garden beds.. I will stomp the life out of that thing with my foot if given the chance.

In even sadder news, we lost another chicken the other day. A large bobcat was seen with one of my Red colored birds in it's mouth, walking off across the yard.. broad daylight in the middle of the yard, too. That's the first bird I've lost to a predator in over two years now. I'm looking to add a couple more to the flock in the near future.. stay tuned for that. 

Earthbox Jalapenos

Horseradish

Sideways shot (sorry) of my Gardners Supply hanging planter with Roma tomato inside..

Potatoes!

Tobasco

Upper bed

Lower bed

And lastly, a home made sourdough bagel of the cinnamon rasin variety. Was delicious!

Updates.. Hops, tater's and stuff.

Everything is still slowly moving along now.. starting to pick up the pace, but still pretty slow. The cold night time temps is still holdin' us back I think. I think I see some flea beetles out there, but they're not hurting anything so far. Still no slugs, which was what was killing me last year. I'm keepin' an eye out fr them, though. Got the last Global Bucket project finished up finally and put a Roma in it the other day, and here she is on the deck, next to the EarthBox and the other bucket project..

Also filled and hung the new Revolution Hanging Planter from Gardners Supply. This is a spinoff of the Topsy Turvy, of course, but it's way better built with a zippered enclosure, steel coated wire surround and a self watering feature from the top from a one gallon reservoir. Curious to see how this goes, as I've never done the upside down thing before..

Revolution Planter

Cascades

The Smart Pot farm

Upper bed

Brussels Sprouts, arguably the strongest thing in the beds right now..

Lower bed

Potatoes...

Potatoes are starting to come up.. check it:

That didn't take long.. sprouted right up once we got some soil onto them. Nice.. the hops plants are both doing well now. I'm constantly untangling them every day to keep them somewhat on the trellis..

Cascades

Here's the little Fatalii I put out in the Smart Pot.. a bug did a little damage right there on the left side, but it'll make it. The yellow bit there was a bit of a cold snap that came along that I didn't see coming and failed to take precautions against. I was in NYC, so I was a bit far away to work on that part, though..

And finally, some Arugula poking up in the lower bed. Hard to see, but it's coming along too. Everything else is just a bit larger and doing quite fine. Better than last year, so far, I'd say. Much more orderly with the SFG method. So far, so good..

Arugula

Earthbox filled and Smart Pots up and running..

Took some time yesterday and the day before to fill the Earthbox up with the mix I'll be using this year for all my containers out of the beds. It's called ASB Greenworld Growers Mix, and it's a pretty standard Peat based mix, pH balanced to just slightly acidic and filled up with a bunch of Perlite too.

Jalapenos installed. That's gonna be a lot of growth in a small space..

So that's the mix, and there's the Earthbox. The Earthbox company says, seriously, to put in 6 Jalapenos in that thing.. so, that's what I did. Last year I just ran with two Hab's in the box and they grew like gangbusters... but they're saying I should have done six plants arranged like shown in the pic above. the only problem I see now is the slow release food I've put in there is good for three months, but these things will probably grow and produce well into the month of September. I might have to open the top and re-fert the thing in August some time. We'll see how that goes.

In other news, I also filled up the #15 (15 gallon) fabric Smart Pot and installed the potatoes just under the soil. They're already chitted and wanting to grow.. it won't be long before they pop right out of there and reach for the sky. I got 5 of 'em in the big pot, per their instructions as well. In the photo below, you can see the #15 pot int he middle, surrounded by the smaller #7 pots, which will each be holding one chile peper plant. I've got one plant in each, except for the lower left pot right now, which is reserved for a Tobasco chile that's just not quite big enough to be outside just yet.

Potato in the middle, surrounded by chiles. 

Also, I finally located the horseradish plant that was missing for a while out back.. but here it is. Coming up strong in the herb garden area which I put down all that manure on last fall. That trick seems to have worked well.. the chives are growing like wildfire too. I'll probably put out some basil in a couple more weeks.. I should start some up today in the basement, I guess.

And finally, above, a pic of the upper bed as it now stands. Garlic is strong, Brussels Sprouts doing well, a bunch of Bell, Jalapeno, Hot Cherry chili's all in place.. starting to look like a garden, finally. :) My dad says that this stuff should not be here so early in the season, and that they're all going to die in a wicked cold snap.. but we'll show that old man how it's done. Clearly, he has not read Elliot Coleman's book, the Four Season Harvest. Read up, old man! It's time to learn some new tricks! ;-)

Bits and pieces.

Been a while since I've written.. things are still growing, no real setbacks. The potato project is actually coming along faster than I figured it would.. I got some organic potatoes to grow in the Smart Pots I got, and just left a few out.. and I'll be darned, they sprout really fast. Like, in just a few days fast. "Normal" sprayed potatoes would have looked god and stayed un-sprouted for considerably longer.. and I guess that's why they spray 'em. I have heard pros and cons for using organic potatoes for a 'seed' as opposed to ordering "seed potatoes" from a reputable gardening source. Disease, proper growth, is this thing you're planting *really* what it's labeled? Hybrid or no? But you know, it don't matter that much. The other 2/3rds of the bag of spuds was turned into the best whipped potatoes you'd ever laid eyes on and the Smart Pot can be used for something else if it doesn't work out just right.

The marigolds I put in tiny starter pots last week have already started to come up.. I'm pondering putting some of my peppers out into the raised beds this weekend

Here's some pics of things as they stand:

Cascades hops. Just a week since I last took their photo.. now have leaves!

Brussels Sprouts, survived the storm last night. 

Peas

Onions. Still clinging on! They loko so sad, though..