I recently ordered two plants from hirts garden. A peperomia prostrata (string of turtles) and a ceropegia linearis woodii (string of DAGGERS). The string of daggers is a close cousin of the string of hearts plant which I'm familiar with as I have 3 large plants of the HEARTS variety and one DAGGER variety that I have been growing for a while now (not from Alan Hirts but from actual honest sellers). For starters, these plants are EXPENSIVE for tiny 2" pots. So my expectations are that they are gonna be good investments. Fast forward to receiving the goods. Instead of what I ordered (string of TURTLES & string of DAGGERS), this guy sends me 2 string of HEARTS. After several back and forth emails with photos, he finally Sends a partial refund for string of turtles only because he says "What a joke.............String of Daggers is the same genus and species as String of Hearts." Alan you are a joke and a scam artist at best. Don't buy from this guy. There are a lot of sellers who are honest and customer service oriented and will work with you. I've been buying plants online for a couple of years now and have had good luck with many online sellers including Etsy shops. I've never had quite an experience as I've had with Alan hirts. You should google his shop reviews too, they are eye opening...wish I had seen sooner before my purchase as mid-shipments of plants are a regular occurrence. If you do decide to take a chance with Alan hirts, don't buy direct from his website. Take your risk through his Etsy or eBay shop because if you do (and you will) run into a problem with this guy, you can dispute it at least without dealing with his shadiness directly. Good luck to whomever decides to try your luck with hirts garden. Didn't say I didn't warn you

I'm having some similar issues. My peppers are all in the garden, not in pots. I have hot bananas, red chili, cayenne and yellow bell. The bell pepper has very curly/crinkly leaves. The larger leaves have cracked on the edges from wrinkling so much. It's putting out blossoms but they are very brittle. I barely touched one today because I was trying to brush off an aphid (they haven't been a real problem, just one here and there) and the blossom and it's little stem just fell off. That's the second one. This is my first year growing peppers. Is that normal? They are in a combination of the rich mix I got from a supplier in OKC and cotton bur compost. I added about a 3 inch layer of MG garden soil for vegetables. I only mixed in the compost because the rich mix was WAY too sandy. Won't be buying it from that place again. I think now I should have done something different, but I didn't know at the time so I just picked more of what the supplier said they used in theirs. The garden gets full sun from about 10am until late evening and they've all been planted since late March. Maybe it got too cold for them for a bit? The cayennes are starting to wrinkle like the bell and the banana pepper plant is yellowing. I have used some organic tomato fertilizer because it's all I had. I just used way less than I did for the tomatoes. It seemed to help slow down the yellowing but it hasn't gone away. I used sea weed fertilizer once right after planting. Should I just keep using that? I don't want to give them too much nitrogen though and not get a good crop. Or should I go get a different kind of compost to mix in? I have composter but the stuff I've thrown into it isn't ready just yet. All of the pepper plants have buds on them. Should I pick those off? The cayennes are only about 5 inches tall. The banana is about 8 inches. The bell is over a foot so I figured I'd leave those. I just don't know why they fall off so easily. If they're that delicate, how can they hold a pepper as it's growing? Any advice would be great. Thanks! Oh, and I'm in OKC in zone 7

Thanks for remembering Brian. They were recovering from the cold nicely and then last week slow down with no weather change. It turns out I made two blunders with them. 1) I planted out too early, March 23, and 2) I didn't give them enough water. Next year, most likely I will plant out around April 7. I only gave them half a gallon of a water a week where before I used to give them 2/3 gallon every 4 days. My water meter told me it was moist. I finally just used my gut feeling and stuck my finger in the dirt which turned out to be dry. So I am now mulching and putting them on 2/3 gallon every 4 day regimen again. Hopefully, I didn't do any permanent damage. Frustrated with myself and seeing your nice 5 gallon buckets, I decided to create my own. I don't have a reciprocating saw so my wife was laughing her butt off at me trying to cut a big hole using small drill and then "connecting the dots" :-(. I found a 3 inch Atrium Grate which turns out to fit the bucket nicely and also stayed put all by itself. It's sturdy and has a place for the top bucket to "rest". Here's a picture and also one of the retaining wall which my wife took. I was too ashamed to take the picture. lol. Tammsf: Nice cages ;-). I am in the same boat as you are. I am inland so nights are colder than Raybo or bdobs.

I have so many favorite canning books, it is hard to decide, but here's three I use a lot, in addition to the (of course) current Ball Blue Book and the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (2006). For marvelous unique jams, marmalades, preserves and jellies, you cannot go wrong with Madelaine Bullwinkel's "Gourmet Preserves" Chez Madelaine (her cooking school) style. Among some of the unique recipes in this book are these: Ratatouille Marmalade, Rosemary Red Onion Jelly, No-Sugar Orange-Fig Jam, Nectarine-Plum Jam with Ginger, Blueberry-Rhubarb Jam, Quince Jam, and Apple and Onion Marmalade. Most, though not all, of her recipes involve using only natural pectin. Some of her "Quick" recipes use purchased pectin. As a bonus, she has a lot of recipes at the end of the book for foods made to go with your canned foods, including various kinds of scones, all kinds of muffins, popovers, pancakes, french toast, a jelly roll sponge cake to fill with the jam, jelly or preserves of your choice, tortes, cheesecakes, bread pudding and at least one recipe each for a trifle and a fool (it is Rhubarb Ginger Fool). One of my favorites for making small batches of random stuff is "The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving" by Ellie Top and Margaret Howard. I have the 2nd edition from 2007. This book includes info on jams, jellies, low-sugar spreads, salsas, mustards, marinades, pickles, relishes, chutney's, conserves, curds, butters, dessert sauces, syrups and liqueurs, and flavored oils, specialty salad dressings and some specialty vinegars. They also have a few recipes at the back of the book to help you use the items you've preserved including Jalapeno Quesedillas (using their Pickled Jalapenos), Provence-Style Grilled Vegetables (using their Provence-Style Vinegar) and Camelized Red Onion Pizza (using their Carmelized Red Onion Relish). This book is close to 400 pages and has an astonishing variety of recipes for small-batch preserving, and even has a small section on freezer products, including freezer jams, freezer jellis, freezer salsa, freezer bread-and-butter pickles and freezer tapenades. If there's a recipe you are looking for, it is likely to be in this book and the fact that the batches are small (many make 3 jars) means you can experiment with many different recipes over the course of the season. Another one is Linda Ziedrich's "The Joy of Jams, Jellies and other Sweet Preserves" from 2009. This one has about 200 recipes for fruits and a few veggies and nuts, including some for less common fruit like medlar, quince, white currants, roses (like rose hip jelly), tomatillo, shrub, and some more common things that are hard to can safely---for these she has recipes that can be frozen, like Pumpkin Butter and Cabello Angel (Spaghetti Squash preserves). I also have her pickling book as well. Hope this gives you some new ideas. Dawn