yes. canopy. and yes, thinning as they grow...sorry, left that out.

Oh, OK, I was about to go plant 10 more pepper plants in little area!

I've got a three - four year old pequin in a 2 gallon pot . The soil is about 6" from the top and the plant is about 18".

Should I :

a) Just add more soil ? (I'm assuming you can bury the stem of an older chili so more roots will grow .)

b) Repot it ?

c) Root a lot of cuttings and start a pequin plantation ?

Sounds good. Look at some of the pepper fields in New Mexico. They look like big rows of turnip greens.

i don't think they have advantageous/adventitous roots, so you should probably go to a bigger pot....but, if they do then adding more soil would work.

Tomatoes looking good so far. Planted Early Girls this year and I already have lots of blooms (only 4 plants though) and 4 little tomatoes about grape size. Don't understand my cucumbers though. Last year they went crazy and the seeds popped quickly. This year they seem a little slow and only about 6-8 small plants popped up. Might have to reseed and try again if the others don't germinate and pop up in the next week.

I'm looking for a few castor bean seeds if anybody has some they could spare. It's such a cool looking plant I like having a few. But my old seeds don't seem to be germinating. If you have a few PM me and I will send you an PPD envelope to mail them. Thanks,

I tink I might not be meant for this gardening thing.
Got my rasied gardens built about 3 weeks ago.
Two Saturday's ago, planted plants - Maters, bell peppers (different colors), squash, zucchini, watermelon and cantaloupe - all plants.
Monday, we had a frost. Killed all my plants except for my maters and one pepper plant.

Replaced all those dead plants this Saturday plus transplanted all of our herbs from inside to outside and then every freakin hail stone ever created came crashing in to my garden this morning.

Will these things survive this? or should I just give up? A quick check this morning looks like they are pretty battered.

That depends. Did You make sure to buy the hail resistant varieties?

They tried to sell me the extended warranty on them at the sales counter but I refuse all extended warranties.

you'll never look at farmers/farming the same way again...

It depends on if the plants were broken or bent. Tomatoes can take some breakage and be fine. However, pepper plants broken on the main trunk/stem, if they are young plants, usually die. I wish you luck. I have to go check the garden at the lake.

We are experiencing the exact same thing. Last year we had more cucumbers than we knew what to do with, this year nothing has popped up. We put some more seeds in the ground last week, we'll see if these come up.

Perhaps we need the soil to warm a bit more...

Germination temps -
Min - range - optimum - max
Asparagus 50 60-85 75 95
Bean 60 60-85 80 95
Bean, Lima 60 65-85 85 85
Beet 40 50-85 85 85
Cabbage 40 45-95 85 100
Carrot 40 45-85 80 95
Cauliflower 40 45-85 80 100
Celery 40 60-70 70 85
Chard, Swiss 40 50-85 85 95
Corn 50 60-95 95 105
Cucumber 60 60-95 95 105
Eggplant 60 75-90 85 95
Lettuce 35 40-80 75 85
Muskmelon 60 75-95 90 100
Okra 60 70-95 95 105
Onion 35 50-95 75 95
Parsley 40 50-85 75 90
Parsnip 35 50-70 65 85
Pea 40 40-75 75 85
Pepper 60 65-95 85 95
Pumpkin 60 70-90 90 100
Radish 40 45-90 85 95
Spinach 35 45-75 70 85
Squash 60 70-95 95 100
Tomato 50 70-95 85 95
Turnip 40 60-105 85 105
Watermelon 60 70-95 95 105

This is my earliest tomatoe ever...

my wife decided that since i wasn't growing anything this year she would make a flower bed....she spent all of last week and weekend working on it and finally got it ready to plant yesterday, so she did....wake up this morning and the deer had destroyed almost all of it...i'll let her wake up and see it her self, then explain option of either deer resistant plants or an enclosure.

Corn , squash, cukes, cantalopes and watermelons are all up. Both patio tomatoes have several fruit and the large varieties are flowering like crazy . I'm impressed with this "Black Russian" heirloom. It's about 2 ' tall and and a well-branched sturdy plant. Hope it holds up during the heat.

Looks like a good year for chilis. I have several eating-size serranos and the others (except for the habs , naturally ) are growing fast.

I've heard that plucking the little pepper buds on a young serrano plant will help it grow and produce more serranos in the long run. Should I pluck em or let them grow.

I'm going to leave then. Thanks for the input.

I'm wondering if my Mexican palm is going to make it. When do they start to put on new growth in Texas?

Kevster, Neil Sperry said after this winter's cold, if they haven't shown new growth by mid April, it's toast.

We lost one planted that went in last spring. I haven't given up total hope yet, but it isn't showing any signs of recovery. May drag it to the curb in the next week or 2.

I did some research,and what I found out was that if you try to pull out the heart and it comes out with very little pressure its a goner,that's what I just tried and it came out and the ants and their eggs where everywhere inside it.so I went ahead and dug it up.