From This to That...I also grow very hot peppers from Chocolate Habanero's to Ghost Peppers...

 

Do the raised beds work better?

Do the raised beds work better?

 

From my experience they give you a little more ability to control the soil conditions and I personally even think they're easier to keep weeded since you're controlling the soils that go into the bed. If you take the time to build a taller one you can also avoid issues with rabbits, and it's a lot easier to keep dogs out of the garden.

I "winterized" the raised garden bed I planted last fall with some humus and manure on the top of it, and I did a little pH balancing back at the beginning of March. Planted my taters about a week ago (red Norlands), and noticed the first few plant buds starting to poke up through the soil yesterday.

 

Also got some late-spring bulbs in the ground around the same time as the potatoes.

 

Now there could be like 4-6" of snow on Saturday. Lovely.

 

Dug up the potatoes. I planted an area about 4' by 5' with potatoes, and dug them up today, which is a little more than 2 months after planting. Got about 12 pounds of potatoes. Not bad, considering the fact that I didn't even bother with dirt mounding as the plants grew (that increases the crop size).

 

 

I also have 4 tomato plants I planted alongside the potatoes. Three Rutgers tomato plants, and one yellow pear cherry tomato plant. They all four just had their first round of fruit start growing within the last 4 or 5 days.

I ended up with 4 jalapeño plants, a ghost pepper and 2 basil plants.

Been using the basil already. Just noticed last night my first pepper on the plant.

I've scaled back this year. Just 15 tomato plants, Jalapeno, Bell, and Sweet pepper plants,3 eggplants, and some zucchini. I've decided it's just not worth my time and effort to grow green beans, corn, winter squash etc. All are doing well, except the eggplant. I always get these black mites, and I didn't spray with Sevin soon enough, and there's not much left to them. Hopefully they'll come back.

I've scaled back this year. Just 15 tomato plants, Jalapeno, Bell, and Sweet pepper plants,3 eggplants, and some zucchini. I've decided it's just not worth my time and effort to grow green beans, corn, winter squash etc. All are doing well, except the eggplant. I always get these black mites, and I didn't spray with Sevin soon enough, and there's not much left to them. Hopefully they'll come back.

 

I've tried eggplants 3 times, and all 3 times I got the same mite dealio and lost the plant.

I've tried eggplants 3 times, and all 3 times I got the same mite dealio and lost the plant.

 

The black mites have been a recent thing. I've been gardening here in NKY since 2001, and eggplant did well for the first 10 years or so. Then the black mites showed up, and the only success I've had is growing eggplant on my deck in containers. I decided to try doing them in the garden again after a few years on the deck, and taking last year off. Sure enough, the mites are back, and the eggplant are doing terrible. It's funny, those mites are the only garden pests I've encountered since moving here. And I guess, they are really flea beatles, not mites. Japanese beatles, potato bugs, hornworms, all things I saw and watched my dad fight in his garden back East, I haven't had any issues with out here.