My wife loves to garden and help others grow veggies and such in the area.

This is her latest video and with our slow Internet speed it amazes me that she keeps doing this but for her, if she encourage even one person to grow a garden it is worth it.

She has other videos from this year and prior years on her YouTube channel so here is a link if you want to follow along subscribe to the channel.

She has a public FaceBook page that has her plant and other stuff that she does here at our homestead and if you want a link message me.

She feeds me well and I support her passion 100%!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=578mrJ8DMrQ&t=634s

Snowman-I appreciate her hard work, I still struggle after all these years with my vegetable gardening and any tips I can get are greatly appreciated.

I'm ready to start planting and there are 2 vegetables I really need help with:

Tomatoes: Last year I think my hoop-house got too warm. I had huge plants, and lots of flowers but almost zero fruit. I had Stupice and I believe Oregon Spring and then a high-altitude cherry variety. The handful of tomatoes I did get was not very tasty. perhaps it's because they were so slow to ripen. What is your tastiest tomato recommendation for up here-cherry and regular size? I like my tomatoes in sandwiches and salads. Is there an heirloom variety that grows well here? I love the taste of most heirlooms. I did have huge success with Sweet 100's one year, and since then none!

Peppers: I'd like to grow cayenne so I can dry them. Is there a variety that does well up here? Each year I plant peppers and get no yield. I get flowers and tiny fruit that doesn't ripen. I also would also like to grow some Chili peppers but have had dismal results.

What have you all started?

I know the wife's ultimate favorite tomato is the Black Krim I will have to ask her what she likes for the cherry type she typically has a couple of different types. Last year she planted Tiny Tims, and I always pulled tomatoes off those.

I call her the pepper whisperer not sure what she does but we always have tons of peppers. She grows Anaheim, Hatch, Chimayo, Poblano, Banana, Jalapeno, and Orange Bell peppers. She starts all her seeds indoors peppers are already growing and a few spices.

equinecpa, most tomato varieties will not fruit when temperatures rise above 85F. You'll need to find a better way to vent your hoop house and probably provide a shade cloth.

Tomatoes are self pollinating but the flowers need stimulation to pollinate. This can be accomplished with pollinators or "wind action" from actual wind, fans or manually tapping the flowers just as they begin to open.

For my tastes, the best flavor of cherry tomato I've ever grown is Sungold (they can handle warmer weather than most varieties) and the best flavor of a slicer tomato for me has been Pink Berkeley Tie Dye. But there are other good ones I've grown too: Purple Cherokee, Paul Robeson and Black Krim to name a few.

I'll be starting tomato seeds this week.

Wishing you better luck this year!

Equinecpa Carolyn, you won’t go wrong following the site snowman suggested. The YouTube videos are so helpful, basically answer all the questions before you ask them. Also the Facebook group is awesome. Your question on great tasting tomatoes is there! Go to “Colorado Mountain Gardening with Altitude”, if you don’t already follow it. Computer issue or operator error… I didn’t see the responses till after I wrote this. Decided to post it anyway! Good luck and have fun.

Happy to see the 2023 start up message! I've not checked in for awhile. We really mixed things up this winter and started a hyroponic system in the basement. We came across a fair amount of equipment for free and went from there. The learning curve was a bit stressful but I think we have a good handle on it now. It has been astounding for growing three varieties of lettuce, all doing well. I was even able to harvest some broccoli rabe, which is my favorite. Arugula did not do so great and got leggy and weird looking. I have already started ( I used root riot starter plugs from the pot shop lol) basil, more lettuce and cilantro in the living room window and once they get going, will move them to the basement system too.
Equine CPA, I had good luck with tomatoes last year, particularly the stupice and shenghuang as well as Sweeties. I feel my biggest mistake last year was starting the seeds too early ( February) so I have waited til March this year. The plants got so huge that lugging them in and out to the front patio really became a major chore. I am going to try and grow some in the hydroponic system as well as outside this year and see how that goes. I am not going to redo eggplant. Didn't get enough yield for my liking but I am really going to make a push for peppers this year:
Etiuda, Zulu, Serrano Tampiquino, Orange Spice Jalapeno, Anaheims. We had excellent luck with carrot varieties and will do more this year. I am also going to give a whirl starting an asparagus bed and also Brussel sprouts. A friend of ours off Wandcrest did Brussels and they were INSANELY cool. She had a perfect set up for it so I am going to give it a try. Will grow less yellow squash and zucchini because of the high yields. I'm also trying to pick things that dehydrate well, which carrots do fantastic with. I'm also growing a bunch of flowers from seed for the patio. Everything is SO EXPENSIVE these days. I actually overwintered 5 geraniums that I got from Tatonka Gardens as well as 3 beautiful Dahlias. Never did either of these before. Should be interesting. Here is a pic of the hydroponic garden although this was taken awhile back.

Awsome!!!

Bonefinder looks awesome the wife asked for a big dehydrator for Christmas so I got her one.

She is already testing it out with veggies she has gotten from the store that we could not use up. She made jerky also and that was mostly for me.

Before this dehydrator, she used our air fryer oven but was limited because there were only two trays she now has 6 and fills them all up but because of the temp differences jerky goes in by itself. Veggies and herbs typically use the same temp but fruit needs to be higher.

Snowman, I really love my dehydrator. I went "big" and got the 9 drawer Excalibur option ( made in the USA) and I absolutely LOVE it. I have no problem filling all 9 trays when I use it. It has been a bit trial and error and I've had some lessons learned. I also bought a vacuum seal machine/bags and used that quite a bit but I am less happy with that for storage than I am glass jars. There still seemed to be some moisture left in the bags so when I reached about 9-12 months in the vacuum bags on some items, they were no longer good and I had to throw them away. That was a MAJOR bummer. I kept everything in the basement where it is cool, including the glass jars. The jars worked much better for me. I tried various means of dehydrating, shape wise, and I don't like diced pieces. Slices worked much better. This last fall, I did a variety of dehydrating as well as blanching and freezing and both have served me pretty well. I would opt for more dehydrating this year than blanching and freezing though, based on storage space. Sliced peppers ( store bought) did fantastic in the dehydrator and then stored in jars. Those, along with carrots, maintained the most true to form taste for me. I also did some water bath canning but that was my least favorite. Just a personal preference, I guess. I am going to pick your wife's brain on peppers this year. I am making that my project to grow a variety of peppers. I should really post a more recent pic of the hydroponic garden. It is really doing great.

Tomatoes dehydrate well. I used to put up a couple of bushels every late summer. I washed and dried them, thickly sliced and VERY lightly salted them (to help them give up moisture). Then I took the light salting into account when I used them later. Stored stacks of slices in glass jars in a dark pantry. Summer vine-ripened flavor all winter.
Mrs. BGR

I love to slice up my tomatoes and roast them with different flavored olive oils. About 30-35 minutes. Then just freeze in little tupperware containers. I use them in sauces, chile, whatever. They keep well and are easy to deal with.

Question: Is if better to use determinant roma tomatoes or cut indeterminant at the top once they are tall enough? My greenhouse is 11' and I had trellises and they just kept growing and growing. Still have sub-artic tomatoes growing-much smaller than in the summer. I want a lot of tomatoes so am worried about limiting height or having determinant.

I personally only grow indeterminates these days. For my needs they have far more advantages than determinates.

I prune my tomatoes to fit my space. I typically allow a couple of the initial suckers to grow into "leaders". Later in the season, I might let a few other suckers grow too, depending on my space and what types of trellis system I am using, etc.. When the plants become too tall or too wide I prune them back. Again I may allow a few more strategetically placed suckers to form. I have found this method to produce the highest quanity of fruit per plant.

But if you initially train your indeterminate to a single leader (a popular method, for some crazy reason) and then weeks/months later you top it, it is unlikely that suckers will form that will produce very much fruit (but maybe a little if it is early enough in the season).

Indeterminate tomatoes are a lot more work than determinates. But for me it is worth it, providing fruit over a greater length of time.
Tomatoes in my greenhouse typically need pruning once or twice per week. Tomatoes I grow outside typically need much less pruning, mostly because they grow slower.

I hope that was helpful.