In the immortal words of Bill Oxner, "that ain't a garden , that's a Truck Farm!

😄

Now I need to invest in a seed drill

... and an airplane - to crop-dust it when the bugs come, and cloud-seed when it' needs watered!

I have the number for the crop duster that does all the fields around me :-) and I also have water on the property now so I can irrigate if needed.

I have the number for the crop duster that does all the fields around me :-) and I also have water on the property now so I can irrigate if needed.
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Now you just have to find some hired help to keep it picked. That might be your biggest challenge in todays workforce!

Now you just have to find some hired help to keep it picked. That might be your biggest challenge in todays workforce!
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I’m retired so this will help keep me in shape.💪

Is this virgin land or has it been used for farming in the past?

Built this 3 section compost area today. I made each space wide enough to fit my tractor bucket. I have a ton of material between a mini donkey, goats, llamas and chickens. The idea is to have one section finished, one in between and and one that gets new material.

It’s been farmed and the rest of the 19 acres will continue to be farmed via share cropping. It had already been fertilized. But going to test the soil myself to verify that it is good for the crops I’m going to plant 🪴

That looks awesome! Great idea

Yea it does! Goals for sure.

That's awesome. Can't wait to see your updates.

BradyBuck has moved into straight baller status. That is fantastic.

Haha, Thanks guys. I’m excited to get it going. I’ll be starting it this week hopefully.

The garden is almost done! I’ll do a video of it when it’s completely finished.

Yeah, that’s commercial grade right there!

Where is your roadside produce stand going to be located?

Honestly I buy most of my produce from local stands vs HEB when I can.

Water night. Everything looking pretty good. I’m a fan of topping peppers. It’s a highly debatable topic. This is a jalapeño. I love the growth after topping. You can see where I topped the main stem on the top right. I hard topped the left side of the plant row pretty hard last night.

Those look great. We are just now starting our seeds.

What’s the idea behind topping your peppers?

The idea is you stop vertical growth and support horizontal growth per say. Making it a more bushy plant, instead of a tall tree type. Once you cut the main stem it produces more shoots/nodes, creating more growth from the main stem and increasing more yield per plant. Plants in nature want to produce their fruit in general and go to seed to reproduce.So you cut the main stem of that cycle. So it puts it's energy to get as many stems or side stems as possible to reproduce instead of a single stem and just produce whatever instead of going to bloom cycle. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the jist of it.

Really like your setup Derek, I went guerilla gardening this year. Probably resort to traditional next year if it fails.

Does it work with tomatoes?

Supposedly yes. But I haven't tried it. I go determinate tomatoes so they only get to a certain size, but I might try it this year. I need to grow two of the same side by side, top one and leave one regular. I can see it really working for indeterminate types like a Porter.

Will see how it works on my porter cause I think the hail topped it.

New to starting peppers from seed. Got a mess started on the 22nd of February. Didn't have high hopes based on reading here and what I've read elsewhere. Started em in one of the packaged "greenhouse " tray deals. I'll be darned if they didn't pop through today. But everyone came up except the Anaheims. No heat mat or anything just an ac set to 76. Really wasn't expecting much given the preference for higher temperatures.

Have some container varieties of jalapeño the rest will most likely head out to a buddy's garden once there around 4 to 6 inches and hardened off. I guess I have a question or two.

In lieu of a grow light is it acceptable to place em outside to get required light on warm days and then with or without the cover.

Second question is, are habaneros able to be container/bucket grow. My buddy's place is overrun with deer and they knock the tar out of the native bird peppers/chiltepins we have nursed along and transplanted across his 10 acres.

Thanks,
Bones

Nice! It was probably my post that might have come off as starting peppers can be a pain. If so I apologize. Didn't mean it to come off like that. Most peppers are pretty easy. Some of the hotter ones and specific varieties can be. Most of your Jalapenos, Habs are simple. Surprised your Anaheim's haven't come up yet. Give it some time. You can go sun. This is a great weekend for it. I would work them in a few hours at a time. Give them 3-4 hours of direct sun then move them to a broken sun area like under a tree. Leave them outside as much as possible. Keep an eye on the soil and make sure they don't dry out. Move them to dixie cups in a week or so.

No issue at all with buckets. You want to use light colored ones. Bullfrog here only grows in buckets/large pots and does great. Come summer you'll really need to monitor the soil moisture. They can dry out pretty quickly. And if there is a particular one or few you like you can bring them into the garage over winter. Trim them way back about this time of year and you're good to go with the same plant next year.