discussion Vegetable gardening/food growing thread

[Ash12345]

So who here has a vegetable garden? What kind of stuff do you like to grow or what does well in your area? I'm growing in about 700 sf (60m2) of space in southern Ontario. I've been starting to take pictures of each of my harvests since late August, which I've found is a fun and practical way to track how the garden is progressing through the season.

[Ash12345]

Aug 26

 

Aug 27

 

Aug 29

 

Aug 30

 

Aug 31

 

Sept 1

 

Sept 2

Edited September 21, 2022 by Ash12345

[Ash12345]

Sept 3

Sept 4

 

Sept 5

 

Sept 6

 

Sept 7

Edited September 21, 2022 by Ash12345

[Ash12345]

Sept 8 

 

Sept 9

 

Sept 10

 

Sept 11

 

[James_Dean]

This year I've managed to successfully grow steak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, romaine lettuce, purple lettuce, jalapeños, serrano chili peppers, zucchini, and butternut squash 

 

I tried growing brussels sprouts, but they flopped and didn't grow correctly for whatever reason 

[pierreleswiftie]

43 minutes ago, Ash12345 said:

So who here has a vegetable garden? What kind of stuff do you like to grow or what does well in your area? I'm growing in about 700 sf (60m2) of space in southern Ontario. I've been starting to take pictures of each of my harvests since late August, which I've found is a fun and practical way to track how the garden is progressing through the season.

which part of Southern Ontario ? I was in Toronto/Niagara/Uxbridge/Guelph

 

I am currently growing some fennel that I planted from seeds and some basil. Need to take pics.

 

 

[RussianRoulette]

This summer has been very hot and our peppers kind of died. But tomatoes were good this year. 

Aubergines also did nicely. 

[Ash12345]

12 minutes ago, James_Dean said:

This year I've managed to successfully grow steak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, romaine lettuce, purple lettuce, jalapeños, serrano chili peppers, zucchini, and butternut squash 

 

I tried growing brussels sprouts, but they flopped and didn't grow correctly for whatever reason 

I've never tried brussels sprouts but I've heard they're really tricky. Jalapeños weren't one of the peppers I grew this year but I think I'll grow more peppers next year including some jalapeños. Have you even tried other species? Serrano, jalapeños, poblanos, thai chilis, bell peppers and most peppers sold in grocery stores are capsicum annuum, but there are four other species (capsicum chinense, baccatum, fruitescens and pubescens). I have a sweet habenero (aka habanada) which is a chinense variety and they taste totally unique and different from the annuum varieties I'm growing.

 

My lettuce was mostly growing in the spring, I harvested it in May-June, after that they bolted and I let my squash and carrots take over their space. But after pulling out some old zucchini plants earlier this month I planted more lettuce in their place so hopefully I can harvest again in October-November.

 

My butternut squash is starting to get harvested, but my Guatemalan green moschata squash is still ripening on the vine. These Guatemalan squashes just keep growing and making more fruit it seems, unlike the butternut where the vines die off as the fruit ripens.

[Ash12345]

14 minutes ago, pierreleswiftie said:

which part of Southern Ontario ? I was in Toronto/Niagara/Uxbridge/Guelph

 

I am currently growing some fennel that I planted from seeds and some basil. Need to take pics.

 

 

Halton zone 6.

[Ash12345]

4 minutes ago, RussianRoulette said:

This summer has been very hot and our peppers kind of died. But tomatoes were good this year. 

Aubergines also did nicely. 

I'm a bit surprised, I thought peppers and eggplants were supposed to have a bit better heat tolerance than tomatoes. My summers are usually pretty mild though with days in the 20-35C range and nights around 12-24C so excess heat hasn't ever been a problem for any of those three plants for me.

[Kamil24]

I just have a balcony (also in Ontario) that gets sun in the morning until noon. I always have 2 types of cherry tomato that grows successfully (I plant 4-5 of each type). Last year I also had cucumbers. This year I added some lettuce (which grew ok I guess), but the cucumbers failed to grow (too little light this spring).

[James_Dean]

48 minutes ago, Ash12345 said:

I've never tried brussels sprouts but I've heard they're really tricky. Jalapeños weren't one of the peppers I grew this year but I think I'll grow more peppers next year including some jalapeños. Have you even tried other species? Serrano, jalapeños, poblanos, thai chilis, bell peppers and most peppers sold in grocery stores are capsicum annuum, but there are four other species (capsicum chinense, baccatum, fruitescens and pubescens). I have a sweet habenero (aka habanada) which is a chinense variety and they taste totally unique and different from the annuum varieties I'm growing.

 

My lettuce was mostly growing in the spring, I harvested it in May-June, after that they bolted and I let my squash and carrots take over their space. But after pulling out some old zucchini plants earlier this month I planted more lettuce in their place so hopefully I can harvest again in October-November.

 

My butternut squash is starting to get harvested, but my Guatemalan green moschata squash is still ripening on the vine. These Guatemalan squashes just keep growing and making more fruit it seems, unlike the butternut where the vines die off as the fruit ripens.

Yeah should Youtube tutorials on growing brussels sprouts for next year, cause I honestly thought it was going to be a straight forward plant and water till they develop... but they grew so funky, they didn't even resemble brussels sprouts at all 

 

Last year I grew thai chili peppers and pablano peppes. The poblanos took a loooong time to grow so I skipped them this year. I think I will try growing habañero peppers next year.

 

I harvested my romaine and purple lettuce back in late June. I chopped them off completely from the base cause they were pretty huge. The purple never grew back, but the romaine is still thriving to my surprise 

 

 

[RussianRoulette]

1 hour ago, Ash12345 said:

I'm a bit surprised, I thought peppers and eggplants were supposed to have a bit better heat tolerance than tomatoes. My summers are usually pretty mild though with days in the 20-35C range and nights around 12-24C so excess heat hasn't ever been a problem for any of those three plants for me.

Peppers usually like it below 30 degrees so they can really grow and they don't like dry soil. Even tho i did water them every day.

 

The carrots are also nice and the tomatoes.

 

Oh and this year i tried two times to grow parsnips but I gave up. No result. With two different kind of seeds.

 

Oh and also my peas did well this year.

Edited September 21, 2022 by RussianRoulette
Spelling

[Ash12345]

4 hours ago, Kamil24 said:

I just have a balcony (also in Ontario) that gets sun in the morning until noon. I always have 2 types of cherry tomato that grows successfully (I plant 4-5 of each type). Last year I also had cucumbers. This year I added some lettuce (which grew ok I guess), but the cucumbers failed to grow (too little light this spring).

So you have 8-10 cherry tomato plants on your balcony? That sounds like a lot, I have 6 cherry tomato plants and 6 slicer tomato plants which is already more than what my family can eat fresh, and we've been putting a lot of the tomatoes into pasta sauces, stews, tomato salads, etc. Are they dwarf varieties? One of my cherry tomatoes is a dwarf variety (Tiny Tim) which produces a lot of tomatoes and starts early in the season and goes all the way until frost, but they aren't as sweet as my full sized cherry tomatoes (Sweet 100 and Midnight Snack).

 

Peppers might do ok in your part-shade. You could bring the containers inside to overwinter them too, they won't produce much fruit and might go dormant due to lack of light but they have a decent chance of surviving and coming back with a bigger and earlier harvest next summer.

 

Top things I would grow if I was constrained to a balcony would be tomatoes and peppers. And then maybe peas, greens, herbs and/or bush beans if I still have space. I think those should do ok in containers.

[Ash12345]

3 hours ago, RussianRoulette said:

Peppers usually like it below 30 degrees so they can really grow and they don't like dry soil. Even tho i did water them every day.

 

The carrots are also nice and the tomatoes.

 

Oh and this year i tried two times to grow parsnips but I gave up. No result. With two different kind of seeds.

 

Oh and also my peas did well this year.

I'm just surprised peppers did worse than tomatoes because tomatoes are supposed to prefer 15-30C weather too. We've had a bit of a drought, only around 20-50mm of rain per month from April to September vs a normal of 70mm, but I still didn't water my tomatoes or peppers that much, generally just once a week or if they get wilted. I watered my greens more frequently though - usually every 2 days.

 

I'm waiting until we get a frost to harvest most of my carrots and parsnips since they convert starches to sugars after a frost since sugars make the root resist being killed by frost or something like that. What happened with your parsnip? I pulled up a nice big one a few days ago. The seeds expire faster than other plants seeds though, so you have to use them within a year. And maybe they need more soil moisture to germinate? I sowed mine in March.

 

My peas did well in early summer, I harvested a lot in June, a bit less in July, and then only a tiny bit in August because they don't like the heat. I sowed new ones in August though, so hopefully I can harvest those in a month.

[RussianRoulette]

14 minutes ago, Ash12345 said:

I'm just surprised peppers did worse than tomatoes because tomatoes are supposed to prefer 15-30C weather too. We've had a bit of a drought, only around 20-50mm of rain per month from April to September vs a normal of 70mm, but I still didn't water my tomatoes or peppers that much, generally just once a week or if they get wilted. I watered my greens more frequently though - usually every 2 days.

 

I'm waiting until we get a frost to harvest most of my carrots and parsnips since they convert starches to sugars after a frost since sugars make the root resist being killed by frost or something like that. What happened with your parsnip? I pulled up a nice big one a few days ago. The seeds expire faster than other plants seeds though, so you have to use them within a year. And maybe they need more soil moisture to germinate? I sowed mine in March.

 

My peas did well in early summer, I harvested a lot in June, a bit less in July, and then only a tiny bit in August because they don't like the heat. I sowed new ones in August though, so hopefully I can harvest those in a month.

My parsnips simply did not grow this year for whatever reason. Maybe you're right and the seeds did expire, who knows.

It's okay I can always buy them but it was a bit frustrating. 

I forgot to say here that i had some amazing onions this year! The galic did okay too.

I'll try for next year to grow some hot peppers. I never bothered with them but I like spicy things and I was thinking that maybe i can grow my own instead of always buying them. Do you grow them too? Can you give me some tips?

I'm glad your vegetables did well 

Edited September 22, 2022 by RussianRoulette
I just saw in the pictures that yes, you grow them too.

[Ash12345]

2 hours ago, RussianRoulette said:

My parsnips simply did not grow this year for whatever reason. Maybe you're right and the seeds did expire, who knows.

It's okay I can always buy them but it was a bit frustrating. 

I forgot to say here that i had some amazing onions this year! The galic did okay too.

I'll try for next year to grow some hot peppers. I never bothered with them but I like spicy things and I was thinking that maybe i can grow my own instead of always buying them. Do you grow them too? Can you give me some tips?

I'm glad your vegetables did well 

This year I tried to use some leftover parsnip seeds from last year and only like 2% of them germinated. But then when I brought fresh seed most of them germinated. So for sowing in the spring, you want to use seeds you bought in the winter or spring. You also want to keep the soil moist. I sowed my seeds in very early spring when the soil was still wet from the thawing snow and ice. 

 

I haven't tried bulbing onions yet, more like green onions (Kincho Scallions, Walking Onion and Welsh Onion). And garlic too. My softneck garlic struggled a bit though because we got a -9C frost in late March after they already started growing and it knocked them back. My hardneck garlic did better.

 

I mostly grow milder peppers but the idea should be the same. If you start them from seeds and you have some indoor grow lights, then you can start them earlier than tomatoes since they're slower growing and will take longer to outgrow their little plastic containers. You can start them 8-10 weeks before you plan to transplant them, which should be around the same time as tomatoes and eggplants (a couple weeks after your last frost date, when the weather is summer-like with days mostly above 20C, nights mostly above 10C, around here that's usually late May). You can also buy transplants - but their plants are often left in their containers too long, you want a fresh young plant. This year was the first year I grew them from seed, last year I just bought some four-packs for $4 each (so $1 per plant) from a local farm/garden market.

What area do you live in? I'm curious if they really died from the heat or if they just looked like they did (ex wilted, yellow leaves). There's diseases that can interfere with water uptake so it could be that too. Most summers we get about 10-20 days above 30C, with the hottest day being around 34-36C. That should be no big deal for peppers. If you're in Texas, then ok, maybe the heat is a problem.

 

You can plant peppers in the ground or in containers. I would recommend at least 5L (1.5 gal), preferably 10-15L (3-4 gal) for container plants. If you have compost or composted manure, peppers usually appreciate it. "Black Earth" soils they often sell at garden centers in my area aren't worth it imo though. And then you can mulch them, which helps prevent the soil from drying out, reduces weeds and gives food to decomposers like worms and roly polies that will help get the nutrients from the mulch to the peppers. I use pine cones, pine needles, grass clippings and wood chips for mulch because that's what I have available but you can use other stuff too, just be careful about buying straw for mulch because it can have pesticides that can kill your plants.

 

Past that, peppers in my garden don't need much. If the leaves start getting droopy, I'll water them, if they start turning light green/yellow-ish I'll give them a bit of nitrogen. Potted plants need more watering than in-ground, but I mulch my potted plants too, so I only need to water them a couple times per week. As the plants grow, you should water more "deeply", ie less frequently but larger quantities. That encourages the plants to develop larger root systems to draw water and makes them more drought resistant. Obviously a recent transplant can't grow a massive root system overnight though so young plants will need more frequent watering. If the leaves aren't drooping though, that means it has enough water. And if the leaves droop a little, that's no big deal, the plant should recover quickly after you water it.

 

Many peppers will grow fruits in "flushes". If you pick off the first flush, the pepper will flower a lot a few days later and start growing another flush to replace the previous one, so the more often you pick them, the more fruit you get. If you don't pick them, they'll just keep ripening them. So if you're growing peppers that are typically eaten green like banana, pepperoncini, shishito, jalapeno, poblano, you'll get much more if you pick them green than if you pick them red. But there's other varieties that just taste much sweeter red, so I let them ripen even if it means fewer fruit.

 

You can also overwinter your favorite varieties, or varieties that need more time to mature. Last winter I brought 7 inside, and 4 of them survived. Most of them went dormant from December to February because they don't get as much light as outside, but that's ok, in March I brought them closer to the window and put an LED light stand on them and they woke up, and then they were giving me great harvests a month before my non over-wintered plants.

 

I personally haven't had much pest and disease issues. Mainly grass hoppers being annoying and chewing the fruit stems. Aphids tend to only be a problem for less healthy plants, such as indoor plants, because indoor plants don't get the full spectrum of light (windows block certain UV rays) that they like to use for photosynthesis. Indoor plants are also more vulnerable due to a lack of predators - lady bug larvae eat huge amounts of aphids. Last year my peppers had aphids when I brought them out of the greenhouse, and I found a lady bug larvae in the garden and moved it onto my peppers and it ate all the aphids within a day or two.

 

BTW my favorite variety of peppers I've grown so far (out of 14) is Roulette, which is like a habanero but mild. I'm also looking forward to tasting a St Croix pepper, which is a mild baccatum pepper, but I underfertilized them so it's been slower than my other plants.

 

There's 5 species of cultivated peppers

 

Annuum: the most common, includes bell, banana, serrano, poblano, jalapeno, marconi, cubanelle, shishito, pepperoncini, cherry, pimento, cayenne, thai chili, anaheim, fresno, gypsy...

 

Chinense: many of the superhot varieties like ghost, Carolina reaper, Trinidad scorpion. Also moderately hot varieties like Habanero and Scotch Bonnet. But they've also bred mild versions like habanada (my fave Roulette is a habanada type) and binquinho.

 

Baccatum: includes bishop's crown, lemon drop, locoto and aji amarillo. 

 

Fruitescens: includes tabasco - most ornamental peppers are basically tabasco peppers.

 

Pubescens: mostly rocoto peppers.

 

I've only tasted annuum and chinense so far, but it seems like each species has its unique taste. The typical sweet pepper taste that people are familiar with is the annuum taste, but sweet chinense has a completely different taste. That's why I'm hoping to grow more of these non-annuum species next year, because Baccatum and Pubescens aren't really available commercially, and even Fruitescens is usually only available as tabasco sauce, rather than raw peppers. And most Chinense sold in stores (Scotch Bonnet and Habanero are commonly sold) are really hot so it's hard to taste the fruity floral aspects of them because the heat overwhelms you.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Ash12345

[RussianRoulette]

6 hours ago, Ash12345 said:

This year I tried to use some leftover parsnip seeds from last year and only like 2% of them germinated. But then when I brought fresh seed most of them germinated. So for sowing in the spring, you want to use seeds you bought in the winter or spring. You also want to keep the soil moist. I sowed my seeds in very early spring when the soil was still wet from the thawing snow and ice. 

 

I haven't tried bulbing onions yet, more like green onions (Kincho Scallions, Walking Onion and Welsh Onion). And garlic too. My softneck garlic struggled a bit though because we got a -9C frost in late March after they already started growing and it knocked them back. My hardneck garlic did better.

 

I mostly grow milder peppers but the idea should be the same. If you start them from seeds and you have some indoor grow lights, then you can start them earlier than tomatoes since they're slower growing and will take longer to outgrow their little plastic containers. You can start them 8-10 weeks before you plan to transplant them, which should be around the same time as tomatoes and eggplants (a couple weeks after your last frost date, when the weather is summer-like with days mostly above 20C, nights mostly above 10C, around here that's usually late May). You can also buy transplants - but their plants are often left in their containers too long, you want a fresh young plant. This year was the first year I grew them from seed, last year I just bought some four-packs for $4 each (so $1 per plant) from a local farm/garden market.

What area do you live in? I'm curious if they really died from the heat or if they just looked like they did (ex wilted, yellow leaves). There's diseases that can interfere with water uptake so it could be that too. Most summers we get about 10-20 days above 30C, with the hottest day being around 34-36C. That should be no big deal for peppers. If you're in Texas, then ok, maybe the heat is a problem.

 

You can plant peppers in the ground or in containers. I would recommend at least 5L (1.5 gal), preferably 10-15L (3-4 gal) for container plants. If you have compost or composted manure, peppers usually appreciate it. "Black Earth" soils they often sell at garden centers in my area aren't worth it imo though. And then you can mulch them, which helps prevent the soil from drying out, reduces weeds and gives food to decomposers like worms and roly polies that will help get the nutrients from the mulch to the peppers. I use pine cones, pine needles, grass clippings and wood chips for mulch because that's what I have available but you can use other stuff too, just be careful about buying straw for mulch because it can have pesticides that can kill your plants.

 

Past that, peppers in my garden don't need much. If the leaves start getting droopy, I'll water them, if they start turning light green/yellow-ish I'll give them a bit of nitrogen. Potted plants need more watering than in-ground, but I mulch my potted plants too, so I only need to water them a couple times per week. As the plants grow, you should water more "deeply", ie less frequently but larger quantities. That encourages the plants to develop larger root systems to draw water and makes them more drought resistant. Obviously a recent transplant can't grow a massive root system overnight though so young plants will need more frequent watering. If the leaves aren't drooping though, that means it has enough water. And if the leaves droop a little, that's no big deal, the plant should recover quickly after you water it.

 

Many peppers will grow fruits in "flushes". If you pick off the first flush, the pepper will flower a lot a few days later and start growing another flush to replace the previous one, so the more often you pick them, the more fruit you get. If you don't pick them, they'll just keep ripening them. So if you're growing peppers that are typically eaten green like banana, pepperoncini, shishito, jalapeno, poblano, you'll get much more if you pick them green than if you pick them red. But there's other varieties that just taste much sweeter red, so I let them ripen even if it means fewer fruit.

 

You can also overwinter your favorite varieties, or varieties that need more time to mature. Last winter I brought 7 inside, and 4 of them survived. Most of them went dormant from December to February because they don't get as much light as outside, but that's ok, in March I brought them closer to the window and put an LED light stand on them and they woke up, and then they were giving me great harvests a month before my non over-wintered plants.

 

I personally haven't had much pest and disease issues. Mainly grass hoppers being annoying and chewing the fruit stems. Aphids tend to only be a problem for less healthy plants, such as indoor plants, because indoor plants don't get the full spectrum of light (windows block certain UV rays) that they like to use for photosynthesis. Indoor plants are also more vulnerable due to a lack of predators - lady bug larvae eat huge amounts of aphids. Last year my peppers had aphids when I brought them out of the greenhouse, and I found a lady bug larvae in the garden and moved it onto my peppers and it ate all the aphids within a day or two.

 

BTW my favorite variety of peppers I've grown so far (out of 14) is Roulette, which is like a habanero but mild. I'm also looking forward to tasting a St Croix pepper, which is a mild baccatum pepper, but I underfertilized them so it's been slower than my other plants.

 

There's 5 species of cultivated peppers

 

Annuum: the most common, includes bell, banana, serrano, poblano, jalapeno, marconi, cubanelle, shishito, pepperoncini, cherry, pimento, cayenne, thai chili, anaheim, fresno, gypsy...

 

Chinense: many of the superhot varieties like ghost, Carolina reaper, Trinidad scorpion. Also moderately hot varieties like Habanero and Scotch Bonnet. But they've also bred mild versions like habanada (my fave Roulette is a habanada type) and binquinho.

 

Baccatum: includes bishop's crown, lemon drop, locoto and aji amarillo. 

 

Fruitescens: includes tabasco - most ornamental peppers are basically tabasco peppers.

 

Pubescens: mostly rocoto peppers.

 

I've only tasted annuum and chinense so far, but it seems like each species has its unique taste. The typical sweet pepper taste that people are familiar with is the annuum taste, but sweet chinense has a completely different taste. That's why I'm hoping to grow more of these non-annuum species next year, because Baccatum and Pubescens aren't really available commercially, and even Fruitescens is usually only available as tabasco sauce, rather than raw peppers. And most Chinense sold in stores (Scotch Bonnet and Habanero are commonly sold) are really hot so it's hard to taste the fruity floral aspects of them because the heat overwhelms you.

I'm from Europe sis. Romania.

I doubt i can find that variety of peppers (easily) here.

But i'll have a try.

What i use hot peppers for, is usually for a homemade sauce or my mum stores them in vinegar with sugar for winter and you get something like pickled spicy peppers (and they're so good)

[KillingYourCareer]

Oh I love doing that! I have my vegetable garden behind my house where I grow various types of tomatoes, zucchini (unfortunately this year with the drought there weren't many), eggplants, various types of lettuce/cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, radish and this year I tried okra as well which I really like. There's also all the staple Mediterranean herbs, especially basil since I love making my own pesto. My uncle who lives in front of me has been taking care of his garden for years so he gave me lots of useful tips.

[Kamil24]

11 hours ago, Ash12345 said:

So you have 8-10 cherry tomato plants on your balcony? That sounds like a lot, I have 6 cherry tomato plants and 6 slicer tomato plants which is already more than what my family can eat fresh, and we've been putting a lot of the tomatoes into pasta sauces, stews, tomato salads, etc. Are they dwarf varieties? One of my cherry tomatoes is a dwarf variety (Tiny Tim) which produces a lot of tomatoes and starts early in the season and goes all the way until frost, but they aren't as sweet as my full sized cherry tomatoes (Sweet 100 and Midnight Snack).

 

Peppers might do ok in your part-shade. You could bring the containers inside to overwinter them too, they won't produce much fruit and might go dormant due to lack of light but they have a decent chance of surviving and coming back with a bigger and earlier harvest next summer.

 

Top things I would grow if I was constrained to a balcony would be tomatoes and peppers. And then maybe peas, greens, herbs and/or bush beans if I still have space. I think those should do ok in containers.

I have 9 this year. 5 are actually Tiny Tim plants so they don't take up much space, and the other 4 are Yellow Pear Shaped tomatoes, so these ones are much larger plants. In previous years I got so much tomatoes - thousands and thousands. I would pretty much eat most and bring some to family lol. This year all my plants did poorly in the spring and started out pretty dwarfed. I'm finally getting a lot of tomatoes but I had much more by this time last year.. and like I said the cucumbers just didn't grow this year. I think I'll get a grow light next year - I start growing them all from seed indoors and move them to the balcony once it's warm enough, and this year they all got so little light indoors. 

 

I've never tried peppers because I've hated them my whole life, only recently began to eat a bit more of them. Maybe I'll try next year lol. I also want to try cucumbers again. Last year I got so many nice ones and this year the plant struggled to grow lol.

[Ash12345]

1 hour ago, RussianRoulette said:

I'm from Europe sis. Romania.

I doubt i can find that variety of peppers (easily) here.

But i'll have a try.

What i use hot peppers for, is usually for a homemade sauce or my mum stores them in vinegar with sugar for winter and you get something like pickled spicy peppers (and they're so good)

I see, except for maybe the mountains I think Romania was hotter in Jul-Aug than it's ever been in my part of Canada since it was a much hotter summer than average there (and even an average summer is hotter than here). Nonetheless a lot of the American Youtube gardening channels I watch are from climates that are as hot or hotter than Romania (ex Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey are hotter; Ohio, Indiana and Illinois are comparable), and it seems peppers still do ok there.

 

I think if you have temperatures around 35C or more, it will cause the plants to reduce fruit production, and possibly slow down growth, but they should still be able to survive until temperatures get into a more preferable 25-30C range.

 

You might not find Roulette, but you should still find Chinense and Baccatum varieties from specialist retailers in your country. This website seems to be Romanian and they have Zavory peppers which are supposed to be quite similar to Roulette (both mild habanada type peppers).

https://www.seeds-gallery.shop/ro/acasa/zavory-habanero-hot-pepper-seeds.html

If you like your peppers hotter they of course have plenty of those.

 

[RussianRoulette]

16 minutes ago, Ash12345 said:

I see, except for maybe the mountains I think Romania was hotter in Jul-Aug than it's ever been in my part of Canada since it was a much hotter summer than average there (and even an average summer is hotter than here). Nonetheless a lot of the American Youtube gardening channels I watch are from climates that are as hot or hotter than Romania (ex Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey are hotter; Ohio, Indiana and Illinois are comparable), and it seems peppers still do ok there.

 

I think if you have temperatures around 35C or more, it will cause the plants to reduce fruit production, and possibly slow down growth, but they should still be able to survive until temperatures get into a more preferable 25-30C range.

 

You might not find Roulette, but you should still find Chinense and Baccatum varieties from specialist retailers in your country. This website seems to be Romanian and they have Zavory peppers which are supposed to be quite similar to Roulette (both mild habanada type peppers).

https://www.seeds-gallery.shop/ro/acasa/zavory-habanero-hot-pepper-seeds.html

If you like your peppers hotter they of course have plenty of those.

 

I'll try next summer and see how things are going. 

 

[Ash12345]

6 hours ago, KillingYourCareer said:

Oh I love doing that! I have my vegetable garden behind my house where I grow various types of tomatoes, zucchini (unfortunately this year with the drought there weren't many), eggplants, various types of lettuce/cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, radish and this year I tried okra as well which I really like. There's also all the staple Mediterranean herbs, especially basil since I love making my own pesto. My uncle who lives in front of me has been taking care of his garden for years so he gave me lots of useful tips.

Zucchini sometimes underperform for me, but I planted two of them by my driveway and they loved it. Some of the leaves were up to 50cm big (not including the stem). It seems they loved the heat radiating from the asphalt.

I got about 20-30 zucchini per plant from those. They didn't really need watering either, even though it's been a dry summer. I think if the soil has some clay layers that helps in droughts since clay soils hold more water. 

 

My okra did ok, but not super productive for how much space they take up. I've been counting how many pods I'm getting from each plant/variety I'm growing and so far it seems to be a bit less than last year. My top performing varieties so far have been White Velvet, Jing Orange and Red Burgundy. Jambalaya and Clemson Spineless were kinda flops. Jambalaya was especially surprising because it's a hybrid that's supposed to be very high yielding, but maybe that's only true if you use a lot of artificial fertilizer (I've only been using compost).  Last year was my first year growing okra and Clemson Spineless did great, so I'm not sure why it's underperforming this year. Last year my top performing Clemson Spineless plants gave 18-21 pods, and this year it looks like it'll only be 10 or so.

 

Basil struggles here for some reason. It keeps getting diseases.

[Bad Decisions]

I'm so jealous of people who have gardens I've always wanted to grow my own vegetables but I live in an apartment and I barely get any sunlight. (I'm also in Ontario! Seems like we enjoy gardening here )

[Ash12345]

1 hour ago, Bad Decisions said:

I'm so jealous of people who have gardens I've always wanted to grow my own vegetables but I live in an apartment and I barely get any sunlight. (I'm also in Ontario! Seems like we enjoy gardening here )

Maybe you can get on a wait list for a community garden plot? I know a couple people who have one. You might have to wait a year or two though depending on the community you live in though. My town has 24 sq m plots. My vegetable garden space is about 60 sq m and that produces around 400 lbs per season, which is more than my family of 3 can eat, and that's with much of it in part shade - community garden plots are more likely to be full sun which helps a lot. So if you're a single person, 24 sq m is a lot.

 

Worst case scenario you can probably still grow micro-greens under a grow light or basil on a window sill, although an outdoor garden is definitely more fun.

Edited September 23, 2022 by Ash12345