This jalapeno (front right) also had just the growers mix. Its a chichimeca jalapeno. I got so many pods off that sucker i could not use all of them,
You are fortunate to have a local source for growing medium that nice. That stuff is KILLER!!!!!
Most gardeners just don't realize what the benefits are to top notch soil. I had a 23" deep × 9' wide × 27' long raised bed that I built accordingly to the Square Foot Garden model. I used two tiers of 2"×8" boards, separated by a single tier of 2"×10" boards. Every 4' a 2"×6" board was lag bolted vertically, between the 1st & 2nd tiers, crosswise, to prevent the long sides from bowing outwards. At the top, to establish the Square Foot pattern, 2"×4" boards were lag bolted vertically, crosswise, also to prevent bowing. Down the full 27' length of the bed, three 2"×4" boards were deck screwed, with gaps, to the end boards, and the cross boards to create a walkway to stand on so as to be able to easily reach the interior plants.
In essence, the entire bed was one giant raised bed. Roots went every which way. My original goal had been to double dig the entire bed. That was quickly put to rest when I encountered a nearly impenetrable layer of blue/gray/yellow clay that I could not sink the tip of a pick a single inch into.
So, instead of going down in the traditional manner, I went up. This was just before I was to start culinary school in December. My boss at a temp job at a local big time nursery one day told me to take the beater p/u truck and clean up the grounds of all the broken bags of mulch, fertilizer, compost, peat moss, potting mix, Pro-Mix, etc, and to dump it out at the farm. When I told him I was building a big raised bed garden, and asked how much he wanted for all of it, the grumpy old @$%^ gave me 2 hours, and the truck to haul about 1.5 tons to my mom's row house back yard. For free!!@
I purchased about 40 bales of peat moss, 5 large bags of vermiculite, 10 large bags of perlite, and 2 cubic yards of compost. This was in September.
My mother's best friend's back yard yielded 140, 30-gallon trash bags of leaves.
I shredded as many of the leaves as possible, about half. The balance were dug loosely into the top of the rest of the garden, which at that time had only a single 2"×8" tier.
I let the rain and snow have their way to break down the leaves not shredded. By late spring when it was safe to work the bed, I went at it with a 4-tine garden fork, mixing everything as thoroughly as possible. Several weeks later, after I realized I needed more height, and added the other 2 tiers, the cross braces, and the walkway, planting started. I used bright orange plastic twine, and staples to mark out the 1ft ×1ft squares. Masonite 1ft square templates with 7/8" holes drilled for poking a finger through the hole to mark planting spots were fabricated for 4, 6, 9, 12, 16 plants per square foot.
That first year we planted 4 eggplants because the labels said the yield would only be 3-5 eggplants per plant. We ate eggplant ALL SUMMER LONG, because each plant yielded in excess of 30 eggplants, and none of the neighbors ate eggplant. Same thing with green bell peppers. We fixed, and froze them all summer long. Didn't run out until April the next year. Bought cabbage cauliflower, and made chow-chow relish which was water bath canned.
Grew so many green beans that we were running out of freezer space. So I purchased a 21.5 quart All-American pressure canner, and we put up about 24 pints of green beans, in addition to about 10lbs frozen.
I love raised beds, and their productivity.
Dabbed some roast chicken in it and could not stuff it in my face fast enough. There is plenty of heat but the Flavor was fantastic. Now I fear that 2 bottles of it will not be enough. Gonna have to order some more. The family reserve is definitely better than the regular too, and the Jelly was not at all bad but will have to try some more of that to be sure.
Now got to make some tacos this weekend!
