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@jblue hi! I love to grow food and flowers.

@elliejmars hello! There’s lots of gardeners here so you should feel very welcome

@helloronaut hi!

@jblue I've also been fiddling with a lens I harvested from an old flatbed scanner. I've strapped it to my phone with twist-ties and have been taking macro photos of my seedlings as they come up.
https://mastodon.world/@imikla/109521288655200510

@imikla awesome! I use this microscope toy I got as a kid for macro photos. They come out a little blurry on the sides but we can call it atmospheric.

@jblue I was really surprised how sharp this one is and how little distortion it has. I guess when your making a scanner that has to be hundreds of dpi accurate, you have to use the best optics. I'm thinking the lens might have been most expensive part of that scanner.

@jblue it is! I was afraid after the first two failed, they were lost. I may be the only one that has this variety. I tried a heat pad for some bottom heat and five of the next six came up!

They're hot, but not super hot. Similar to a piquin, but longer and more slender. The heat is 30,000 to 60,000 Scoville, 6 - 8 times hotter than jalapeños.

The habit is small and compact. This is the 2012 parent of these I'm growing. If you look closely you can see some still green chiles and tiny flowers.

@imikla sorry, I can’t tell from the pic. Do you know what species it is? How long does it live and its cold tolerance? Are you in Australia?

@jblue Sorry, I should have elaborated. This was a plant I grew in 2012. I did manage to over-winter it, but I lost it in a move the following spring. The seeds I'm growing now, we're from chiles picked from this plant in the fall of 2012.

I'm in the US, Aurora Colorado. There's currently three inches of snow on the ground and it's -21°C (-6°F) outside.

This one is a Capsicum annum. All chile pepper plants are perennials, but in our climate, they have to be over-wintered indoors.

@imikla so what’s the story on why it’s so rare?

@jblue I don't really know how rare it is. I just know I've looked at a lot of seed sources, and while some are close, none are quite like this one, and I lost track of the guy I got them from.

I met this guy on a Usenet seed exchange around 1993. He lived in Africa somewhere. He sent me ten of these seeds, and I sent him ten of, I think, a yellow C. baccatum.

Until I misplaced them ten years ago, I had been re-growing them when ever the seeds were a couple years old keep them fresh.

@imikla I see, thanks!

@loveallexcludenone

@NaturalRadical

@NancyWallaceGA it’s a South African black rain frog. It puffs up to scare predators away but only succeeds in looking cuter.

I send this pic to my friends when they text something I disapprove. And if they keep sending boo-worthy texts, I send this:

@jblue That's PERFECT. I love it.

@Dr_Elizabeth97 I don’t care if he’s a grumpy frog, I love him.

The garden hashtag is full of flowers and food so needed to pick something that would be proximal to gardening that would still get readers’ attention. Did I succeed?

@Malkazoid welcome to mastodon! There are lots of gardeners here so you should feel right at home. (:

Be sure to follow hashtags that you would like to see on your home feed like #gardening #growyourown #flowers #permaculture #nativeplants #plants etc

@jblue Thanks so much for the tips!

@GreenMazza totally agree

@wyndlestraw_designs @jblue I thought I was good at #Gardening. Turns out I just live in Southern California ;-)
Been having a heck of a time with my "winter" garden thanks to the pests. Thought some cages are helping, as is our recent rainfall. Yay, all the kale!

@astrid hello there! Nice frog

@singlesustainablemom nice to meet you too!

@TropaeolumMajusSnail yes, I love it too! I’m inviting all my plant friends here

@LizaBrings do you imagine mostly flowers or fruits and vegetables?

@jblue
Oh, flowers!

@LizaBrings you must have beautiful dreams

@jblue
Yes, many of them are!

@otterX cute! How many years old is your citrus and what kind?

@jblue I have a 16yo lemon tree and a 8yo grapefruit sapling. Oh, and an accidental clone of the lemon tree that’s a few years old that’s upstairs in the rattie room.

@otterX has the grapefruit fruited yet?

@jblue Will it? It’s still smaller than the lemon tree.

@otterX 8 years is usually when grapefruits start fruiting from seed but it does look a bit small yet. There are people who grow grafted grapefruit and pomelos where I live and are able to get fruit with indoor/outdoor growing. I think you’re a bit further north than we are so yours may not be getting as much sunlight during the growing season. My lemon and pomelo are still outside and won’t come in until this weekend (and only for the weekend).

@jblue Wow, pomelo?! I love that fruit! So delicious! My grapefruit hasn’t even flowered yet. Maybe some day when we have a sun room?!

@otterX the person you really need to talk to about this is @virginiafruitgrower He has over 1k different tropical and subtropical trees he grows in VA in greenhouses he builds himself. Lots of citrus too. You can check out his YouTube channel. He has been busy lately so hasn’t updated his mastodon yet.

@lynneverson maybe you can plant a border of garlic and ramps around all your veg to scare away the groundhogs
I grow something as a companion plant called okahijiki. It’s edible when young and has really sharp spines on it. Later in fall/winter, the spines become dry and woody. It has successfully stopped the squirrels digging in my pots. It only grows in full sun though.

@jblue a good defense. You have a good point, I get the most damage to the garden in July/Aug (when in theory my tomatoes would ripen) not coincidentally after I have harvested the garlic. Maybe I should stick with peas that I can pick when the garlic is still there?

@lynneverson maybe grow tomatoes in a pot?
Maybe next summer you can grow bitter melons and noni as revenge. Let the groundhogs know suffering.

@jblue this is the way for sure. That'll teach em. Patio pots always do fabulous, though, you are right. And I can manage some potatoes in grow bags!