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Experienced gardeners are well aware of this reality and have even come to enjoy the ephemeral nature of their outdoor spaces.
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Are you thinking of growing some bell peppers in your garden this year, but aren't exactly sure where to start? Bell peppers are actually fairly easy to grow, provided you have the right climate, soil mixture, and meet their watering needs. In this article, organic gardening expert Logan Hailey documents all the steps you'll need to follow in order to successfully plant, grow, and care for bell peppers. Raw or cooked, sliced or diced, bell peppers are a colorful sweet addition to just about any summer meal. This warm-weather crop is a popular nightshade vegetable for any garden. If you loathe spice but still want a sweet crunch, this is the perfect veggie for you. They lack capsaicin, which is the active compound that gives hot peppers their heat. Plus, they yield in abundance all summer long. Peppers are generally a bit more challenging to grow because they need protection from the cold, plenty of water, and extra fertility. If you keep them happy, you will have plenty of sweet peppers for summer meals and winter preservation. Before deciding to add this vegetable to your garden, there’s plenty of important information that you’ll need to digest. You’ll want to learn everything you can about how they grow, before embarking on your pepper planting journey. Let’s dig into how to grow the best bell peppers your garden has ever seen! Propagation and Planting When it comes to propagation and planting, there are a few important factors you need to take into consideration for an effective harvest. Let’s look at some of the basics when it comes to first getting started with planting them in your garden. How Long Do They Take to Grow? It can take up to 90 days for a plant to mature. Bell peppers are warm-season annuals that take 60 to 90 days to mature. This means you need to get them started indoors early in the spring or purchase high-quality seedlings to transplant as soon as the weather is warm and the risk of frost has passed. Many varieties take 65-70 days to grow green fruits, but 85-90 days to produce the coveted ripe red bell peppers. How to Seed Bell Pepper plants perform best when the seeds are started in a tray indoors. Start pepper seeds indoors at least 8-10 weeks before the last frost. They are slow-growing and need plenty of time to get established so you can jumpstart your garden season. Use a south-facing window, grow lights, or a small greenhouse nursery to start pepper seedlings. It also helps to have a heating pad to get the best germination. You can begin with smaller cell trays, 6-pack trays, or a 4” pot. Some gardeners like to start with smaller cells and then up-pot their pepper plants after 3-4 weeks. Others simply start the seedlings in larger round or square pots. Either way, be sure your baby pepper plants are in a consistent warm space above 60°F, preferably with a heating pad underneath to keep soil temperatures around 80-90°F. Use a soil thermometer probe to determine how warm the soil is. Sow pepper seeds about 1/4” deep in a loamy well-drained potting mix. Keep consistently moist (but never soggy!) for 7 to 14 days until germination. They germinate slower in cold soil, so be patient or warm things up! Once the first cotyledons have appeared, back off the watering only slightly to ensure that the seedlings don’t dampen off (rot at the base). Cold treating your bell pepper seedlings can yield a larger harvest. Professional growers use a controlled cold treatment method on their pepper seedlings in order to increase the number of flowers and fruits later on. This is a more advanced technique that requires a controlled space like a small greenhouse with a thermometer and heater. To do it, wait until the third set of true leaves appear and then bring the minimum night temperature inside the nursery down to 53-55°F for 4 weeks. Keep the plants in full sunlight and protect them from harsh winds. After 4 weeks, bring the temperatures up to 70°F all day and night. Then, grow and plant as normal. The plants should be very resilient at this stage. You can yield at least twice as many peppers with this method, however, you will need to seed 1-2 weeks earlier than usual. Direct Sowing is Not Recommended Because bell peppers prefer warmer conditions, direct seeding is not recommended. Because peppers need hot conditions and a long growing season, directly seeding them into the garden is not recommended for most climates. Either buy happy seedlings from a local nursery or farm or grow your own seedlings indoors. Hardening Off Get your young pepper plant seedlings used to outdoor conditions by a method called hardening off. Pepper seedlings need to have an easy transition from the protected indoors to the unpredictable outdoor weather. Begin hardening off plants about 10 days before transplanting. You can do this by placing them in a protected (but still sunny) area outside and bringing them indoors at night for the first 4-5 days. Then, transition to leaving outside all night long while still in their pots. Give peppers plenty of time to adjust to bigger temperature swings. Transplanting Transplanting young seedlings should happen when the weather has warmed up. It is time to transplant when the soil is consistently warm and the risk of frost has passed (typically 2-3 weeks beyond the average last frost date for your region). Seedlings should have robust leaves and small buds, but no open flowers. To transplant bell peppers, begin by gently removing the seedling from its cell, ensuring that its roots have fully filled out the container but haven’t started twirling around and getting root bound. Create a planting hole a few inches deeper and wider than the root ball. Holding at the base of the plant, shimmy the plant out of the container and place it in the soil. Backfill the hole, keeping the soil surface aligned with the top of the root ball. You should never plant peppers deep the way you do with tomatoes. Plant Spacing It’s important to give this plant enough room to grow and have enough airflow. Space peppers at 9-12” apart in rows 24-36” apart, depending on the variety. If you plant them too close together they may become stressed from the competition for space, nutrients, and water, resulting in less vigorous plants. How to Water-In Transplants A phosphorus-rich solution is an excellent addition to your newly transplanted plant. To get your baby plants off to a good start, you can water-in the transplants with a high phosphorus solution such as a liquid seaweed fertilizer. This boosts root establishment and prevents transplanting shock. Use Row Cover Row cover not only keeps warmth and moisture in but also keeps bugs out. Whether they’re sweet or spicy, peppers like the heat. When we’re growing them in temperate climates like most of the United States, we have to do everything in our power to mimic those tropical conditions that peppers love. Row cover is a gardener’s best friend when establishing bell peppers. Floating fabric row covers can be secured over wire hoops to provide a buffer against cold weather and early plantings. The only caveat is that you need to open those low tunnels up if the temperatures get above 85°F. If you forget to remove the row cover on really hot days, blossom drop and heat damage can occur. Companion Planting Tomatoes can make excellent companion plants. Companion planting is a common organic gardening technique that helps improve garden growth by cultivating a diversity of plants that support each other symbiotically. Some bell pepper companion plants repel pests while others attract beneficial predatory insects or pollinators. Leguminous companion plants can add nitrogen to the soil, while ground cover companions help with weed competition.
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When you're growing brussels sprouts, you get a great harvest after enjoying an unusual plant. Here's our guide to growing them yourself!Everything is cuter when it’s tiny, right? Well, that makes Brussels sprouts the cutest veggie around! Sadly, despite their adorable size, these baby cabbage look-alikes often get a bad rap, but that can usually be chalked up to user error. When overcooked, Brussel sprouts release sulfur, which is why so many people complain about the smell. When cooked correctly though, you’ll find that they have a palatable, nutty flavor. With just a little love, care, and seasoning, growing Brussel sprouts can make them the stars of your garden and your kitchen, so let’s give them a try! Brussels Sprouts gained their popularity, and their name, in Brussels, Belgium. Though they date as far back as the 1200s, these little veggies weren’t brought to the United States until the 1800s. Today, California grows most of the US Brussel sprout supply. You don’t have to live in the Golden State to cultivate these cute veggies though. In this guide, we’ll teach you how to grow Brussels sprouts, as well as harvest and prepare them. Follow our tips, and you may just change your mind about these delightful baby cabbages.All About Brussels Sprouts Growing Brussel Sprouts Growing brussel sprouts in the cool months gives you great veggies. Source: clurross They look different, but Brussels sprouts are very closely related to kale, cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli. These are all varieties of Brassica oleracea, which is wild cabbage. Wild cabbage has been cultivated into several groups, including our beloved sprout Gemmifera. When you look closely, you’ll see that Brussel sprouts have many similarities to the other Brassica groups. These veggies store nutrients like nobody’s business, making them some of the most healthy foods you can eat. They also produce seeds through silique fruit, which are dry valves that seed internally. Brassica veggies are also typically biennials, meaning they flower after two years of growth. Brussels sprouts in particular resemble cabbage at first. As they grow though, the cabbage-like leaves shoot up on a sturdy, main stem that reaches 24-36 inches tall. The leaves continue to grow and hang over the stem. When you push those leaves aside, you can see a tiny round Brussel sprout growing right out of the stem. By harvest time, the entire stem will be shrouded in sprouts. There are lots of Brussel sprout cultivars to choose from. For some classic green medium-sized sprouts, try the Dagan or Jade Cross cultivars. You can also choose an early-blooming variety such as Churchill or Tasty Nuggets (the former bearing very small sprouts). Of course, you can add a little more excitement to your garden by choosing a colorful cultivar. The Red Rubine and Redarling plants feature beautiful reddish-purple coloring. Or you can go for a more blue hue with the Falstaff cultivar. Most colored cultivars feature a slightly sweeter taste and keep their color when cooked.
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Do you have a cedar tree in your yard, but aren't quite sure what to plant underneath it? Certain plants will grow much better underneath cedar trees, but how do you know which ones to pick? Cedar trees are a favorite landscaping tree for many people all over the world. But finding the perfect plant to grow underneath them can be a bit of a challenge because of their structure, and root system. Adding plants under any tree is a common technique for integrating that tree into a landscape and avoiding empty space. You can also create an interesting layering effect by adding a mix of ground cover and shrubs. However, there are some important considerations when choosing these plants, especially for cedars. The wrong plants could harm nearby trees or not do well if they have to compete with the tree’s root system for water and nutrients. Read on to learn more about cedar trees and which plants do well underneath them.Cedar trees belong to the Pinaceae family. They’re native to the Himalayas and the countries that border the Mediterranean Sea. These evergreen trees are incredibly resilient. They don’t need a lot of water and thrive in slightly acidic soil with no fertilizer. The only maintenance they require is the occasional mulching and some light pruning. You’ll also have to water regularly when you first plant a cedar tree, but adult trees only need rainwater. Cedars need plenty of sun. They grow rapidly and do well in Zones 7 through 9A, but it’s a very versatile tree that can adapt to different conditions. There are a few diseases to watch out for, including cedar-apple rust, a type of fungal disease that affects cedar trees and apple trees. Port-oxford-cedar root disease is a condition that can spread through soil movement. Besides improving the aesthetics of your yard, plants that grow underneath your cedar tree can help loosen the soil and help the tree’s root system absorb more oxygen and nutrients. Another benefit is that plants will absorb excess water and help create ideal conditions for the cedar, especially if you live in an area with heavy precipitations. If water accumulates at the base of a tree, it can make the soil too compact and make it difficult for the roots to grow.Some plants do well under cedars and others don’t. Cedars thrive in soil that is slightly acidic, but they can grow in soil with a pH of anywhere from 5.5 to 7.2, so don’t assume your garden soil is necessarily acidic if you have a cedar tree. It’s best to test the soil before selecting plants that will go underneath the tree, to figure out whether you should select species that do well in acidic soil or not. Shade can be a challenge. Cedars are evergreens with dense foliage. Cedars can provide similar challenges to growing under other shade trees like oaks. Depending on the cedar variety, they can cast a big area of shade, making planting underneath them a challenge. The dripline can be another issue. Because of the dense foliage, water will drip where it ends and create a zone that could get saturated with water. The root system can vary from one type of cedar tree to another, but lots of trees in that family have shallow and fibrous roots. Limiting the number of plants you add around the tree is important so the tree can still get the water and nutrients it needs from the soil.
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A bounty of produce can be had if you start growing butternut squash! Our in-depth guide reveals everything you need for great harvests.Nothing quite signals the arrival of autumn as a steaming bowl of butternut squash soup. A type of winter squash, it grows during the spring and summer but will last well into winter on a pantry shelf. Butternut squash can be made into any number of dishes, from being roasted and added to tacos to pureed and made into pie. For any gardener or home cook growing butternut squash, patience is key. Like all squashes, butternuts are native to the Americas and have a long history there. Butternut squash is a modern variety of winter squash, as squashes have been cross-pollinating and creating new varieties for millennia! Today’s butternut squash was developed by Charles Legget of Stow, Massachusetts in 1944. Since then, even more variations have been grown from this one type, including miniature versions such as the Honeynut squash and Butterbaby. Squash plants produce incredibly nutritious fruits, and butternut squashes are full of vitamins A, B6, C & E while low in calories. The seeds, when eaten, are even thought to be useful in calming the nerves. With a wide range of uses, and a long storage time, you’ll find many gardeners and homesteaders treat this as a staple in their pantry.
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We’re hot and spicy… literally!
Everyone’s favorite comfort food soup in crockpot form! Hands-off and incredibly easy with 15 min prep work! That’s it!
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With taco-seasoned ground beef, crisp lettuce, beans, avocado and cheese! Top with a dollop of sour cream. So quick, so good!
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