This grow's been a mixed bag. Some good, some bad. About a good third of the plants were kind of stunted. The problem was I got the compost and loam spread with very little time to get the plants in the ground before I had to go on a trip. The spreading was done a bit unevenly, and I really should have tilled it after to loosen up the existing soil. But it was already a week later than I wanted to get them in the ground, so I went ahead and planted. So about one third are OK, one third are too small and the other third is in between. Since I planted twice as much as last year I should still get a fair amount, but I wanted to stockpile. Another mistake I made is that after I planted, I didn't test the soil for a few weeks, because I couldn't locate my soil tester. I ended up getting another one, and the soil, since I bought it, was too high in pH. So I had to get some fast acting acidifier and also some blood meal which not only increases nitrogen, but also increases acidity once the bacteria go to work on it. I also added some bone meal. Expensive for a big plot, but it paid off in much better growth. But if I had got that right from the get go things would be better.
All the Turkish are doing real well, though. And I should get seed for the growout and from my GRIN varieties. Another plus is I had NO HORNWORMS! But... for two weeks I had a real Japanese beetle problem. I was real worried about that and then they just died down, but they did cause some damage. I hate those things. And then lately I've had a real bad aphid problem on many of the plants.
I've also decided to try sun curing. I'm just stringing the leaves on the wires I usually use to hang them, then hang the wires on the hog panel fence surrounding the plot. It seems to work really well in this climate. The suns not too intense up here and the humidity seems about right. The only problem is bringing them inside each time it rains. But I just tested a tip of a Del Gold lug leaf that was sun cured and for zero aging it tasted excellent.
Because my plants were slow to get started it's almost like I planted a month late. I'll get some pics up later.