starting from seed

Below is the mother plant of the Chinook brewing hops. They were doing very well inside our mock-greenhouse. They were well settled until they went outside and got destroyed by strong winds coming over the mountain. But I remain optimistic, as there is a lot of new, good green growth that is wrapped itself around the twine up the house. Also the small clone had been outside a day or two and is looking really good. They really just need to get established the first year to survive their first winter, then I will harvest more hops every year after that.



Below is a photo of our tray of basil. (sweet basil i think it was) We have seen slow development with the basil and all the herbs in general. The sage is doing the best out of everything, although the basil has some really dark green new growth.






New Mexican sunset with the Jemez mountains in the distance. Taken from the bridge to our house.



tomato plant indoors, with no artificial lights








A tray of peppers; mostly jalapeno peppers but we did end up with three or four habaneros and some surprise California wonder peppers, from the sweet pepper variety. Should be a nice surprise.

Back in Feb. we started many plants inside our small passive-solar house. Everything from seed including roma tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, sage, chives, watermelons, tomatillos, basil, jalapenos, habaneros, sweet peppers and mint. Our house got pretty crowded as the plants got bigger and transplanted into larger peat-pots. Some stuff got started later on. Some other stuff got planted directly outside (which I will try to do more of next year just due to limited indoor space) peas, green beans, yellow crook-neck squash, sweet corn, mammoth sunflowers, radishes, mesculin lettuce and bibb lettuce. We also acquired through trading some New Mexican green chiles and Chinook variety of brewing hops. (which I was able to get a clone off a cutting) We fertilized with some free alpaca manure and it's great because you can add it directly to the garden because it does not decompose "hot" because of their three stomachs. Not a very common fertilizer here in the states but more common with Peruvian alpaca farmers who also garden at high altitudes with short growing seasons.



I am hoping to get outside later today to take some pictures of how everything is coming along.