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2018 - The Farm

Well, I've been gone a few years from the board, and away from growing peppers, but looks like life is pushing me back that way again. 
 
I recently (last month) closed on a 25 acre farm in Central Illinois with some primo soil, and I'm going to give a commercial grow a test run. 
 
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From up on the roof, when I was doing some roof repairs on the outbuildings. Not much as far as the eye can see, but cornfields...
 
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Has a 4 stall garage and a horse stable on the property
 
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Probably do my grow room upstairs here after I insulate it
 
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Built some doors for the horse barn and patched the roof last month
 
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Anyway just dropped a cold grand on seeds from pepperlover and buckeye, going to hit a greenhouse supplier up for other materials next week.
 
Have plans to build a 30x72' greenhouse in the spring, and a ~1200 sq foot dedicated grow room. Too late really to help with this year's grow, but next year it'll save me a lot of hassle on hardening off. 
 
The greenhouse, I am going to do a piped infloor heat slab, with a horizontal loop geothermal system (I own a mini excavator) that is solar powered. So heating should be nice, uniform, not create heat / cold bubbles, and not dry out plants like forced air would. I build circuit boards in my day job, so I will also build a microcontroller to handle the automated watering system with soil moisture monitors and actuated plumbing valves on the water supply.
 
Also plan on building a "deep winter" greenhouse for year round production. Got blueprints I made from a couple of years back, those are walled on three sides with heavy duty insulation, with the glass wall side angled to face winter solstice, so you can grow in the deep freeze months of the north. In the summer, those get hot enough to use as a natural dehydrator, replace the tables with racks for bulk drying.
 
Only doing a half acre or so of peppers to start with this year, the balance will be put in corn. I can't manage more than that with the labor I have available. (When you start talking thousands of plants, simple tasks like up-potting grow in to hundreds or thousands of man hours...)
 
Going to hire some local kids to help, school has a good ag co-op program for high schoolers, they can get school credit working on local farms. Since the plant out and harvest doesn't conflict too badly with corn, shouldn't have a problem finding labor around here.
 
Anyway, that's the plans.
 
We'll see how it goes.. er.. grows.
 
 
stettoman said:
Sweet corn price fluctuates wildly here, especially the local stuff, which is just starting to come in heavy. Right now I see a lot of it @ $6/dozen, but I wouldn't pay or charge that unless it was worm free and picked same day.
 
It goes as low as $2.50/dozen for ratsass stuff grown next to the field corn, which around here you really have to pay attention to planting schedules to get a more isolated pollination.
 
I planted mine way late this year, it's just now tasseling, I think I'm good for the purist strain I've ever grown! Heck, even the wheat is already cut up here...
 
 
 
Yeah I waited just over 2 weeks from field corn plantings and the pollination schedule worked out well, I had zero cross pollination problems.
 
People who haven't grown corn before (and I am one of them, first year) just CANNOT appreciate how sweet the sh-2 supersweet hybrids can be fresh picked off the plant. I must have ate a half dozen ears right there in the field. SO DAMN GOOD. 
 
What I didn't know before recently, is sweet corn loses 50% of it's sugars in the first 24 hours. The kernel enzymes start converting the sugars to starch immediately after it's picked. The sh-2 hybrid (supersweet) loses 50% in the first 48 hours so it keeps a little longer.
 
But think about that a minute. You've all bought corn in the grocer before. How long since it was picked? How much sugar has it already lost?
 
Most of it.
 
I've never, ever in my life had same-day (or within a minute :) ) supersweet corn before and it TOTALLY blew me away.
 
Awesome stuff.
 
nmlarson said:
Trent,
 
Are these the price lists on your FB pages you were referring to?
 
 
 
 
Yes - keep in mind pricing is dependent (right now) on how long it takes to pick, mainly.  We're on the EARLY pods on the chinense so it is tough to get any QTY. Annuums, hell, I can get a bushel if you need it. I am disposing of more rotten produce than I am harvesting, because we just haven't been selling enough. (We go through and "clean the plants" as we pick, bad stuff goes in to a 5 gal plastic bucket, good stuff goes in the basket; frequent glove changes, we wear blue nitrile gloves while harvesting)
 
Even with all that we have attracted Tazewell County's largest scavenger bird population.
 
Did you know birds like peppers?
 
Well, they do.
 
Every morning several THOUSAND birds take off out of our pepper field when workers show up, and watch us work from the power lines.
 
It's creepy.
 
I mean REALLY f'n creepy.
 
Like Alfred Hitchcock creepy.
 
In a few weeks, as I add larger QTY slots to most of those, prices will come down. 
 
Haha I bet those birds are creepy! I think I heard somewhere they lack the taste receptors to get the spicy sensation from the capsaicin. Could be why they're so interested in your peppers
 
Birds are bad news, they don't taste the burn.
I can only grow under nets otherwise I don't have any crop.
 
I 've seen a small bird eat a chocolat habanero of the same size as itself and then switch to eating the leaves off the plant.
Good luck!
 
The good news is they appear to be only going after the rotten / bad pods we toss out of the rows. We've had lots of moth larvae eating holes in pods, and it's been so wet I've had problems with certain species going bad before they ripen or as they ripen (especially cayenne). So about 1/4 of the pods end up getting chucked. Also have ground squirrels going after pods. Those guys prefer the sweet ones though. 
 
I don't mind the birds so much as they also go after the bugs. I've got more pods than those birds could eat in 5 years. 
 
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Too bad I don't have a processing capability. Can't sell it once I cut in to it. But packed away 9 bushels this weekend, blanched and in the deep freeze.
 
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Trent, how do I order peppers from you. I would love some fresh ones and support a fellow pepper head at same time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
TrentL said:
 
Yes - keep in mind pricing is dependent (right now) on how long it takes to pick, mainly.  We're on the EARLY pods on the chinense so it is tough to get any QTY. Annuums, hell, I can get a bushel if you need it. I am disposing of more rotten produce than I am harvesting, because we just haven't been selling enough. (We go through and "clean the plants" as we pick, bad stuff goes in to a 5 gal plastic bucket, good stuff goes in the basket; frequent glove changes, we wear blue nitrile gloves while harvesting)
 
Even with all that we have attracted Tazewell County's largest scavenger bird population.
 
Did you know birds like peppers?
 
Well, they do.
 
Every morning several THOUSAND birds take off out of our pepper field when workers show up, and watch us work from the power lines.
 
It's creepy.
 
I mean REALLY f'n creepy.
 
Like Alfred Hitchcock creepy.
 
In a few weeks, as I add larger QTY slots to most of those, prices will come down. 
 
I've read birds are not affected by the heat....
 
And yes I agree sweet corn eaten the day it's picked is simply killer!
 
 
I totally crashed after market today, wife brought me dinner in bed :)
 
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Markets are picking up .. only $288.5k left to go to break even this year lol.
 
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At market today We sold out of Tekne Dolmasi, Poblano, TFM and MOA scotch bonnet, yellow fatalli, green beans, and Royal Burgundy beans. We moved 3 1/2 bushels of beans today and 1/2 bushel of cucumbers.
 
Oh, one guy came and cleaned me completely out of Ultrahots too - I brought 30 mixed ultras today and they all went in one shot. 7-Pot Brainstrain, 7-Pot Primo, Carolina Reaper, Reaper / Moruga, Brown Bhutlah, Yellow Trinidad Moruga Scorpions, and some Butch-T's I brought out of my private reserve.
 
We also got permission from Smokin' Ed Currie at Puckerbutt Pepper Co to market USDA Certified Organic Carolina Reapers. So no more calling them "reapers", we can use the full name now. Ed is a good dude, been talking with him in the last week, he just landed a deal with Taco Bell to get Reapers on the menu there... I expect my whole crop to be sold this year, one way or another... :)
 
https://puckerbuttpeppercompany.com/
 
More to follow... trying to work deals with a couple more spice companies...
 
 
 
Its good to hear that things are turning around for you. Your last report was not looking too good. Im sure the guy that bought your supers knows a few chiliheads and will get the word out for you. Also interested to see what Taco Bell does with the Reaper name. I say "name" because they sure as hell ain't going to use the peppers! Im sure it will be some super gimmicky 2 month long promotional deal called the "Blazin Reaper Wrap," or some such nonsense, with exactly .000000000314159% Reaper powder and a couple of mild jalapeños to give it a little kick for the wannabe chiliheads that wouldn't touch a superhot pepper with a ten foot pole. Most of the big name fast food joints have tried this with the Ghost Pepper, with limited success because a non chilihead aint going to touch anything with the ghost or Reaper name, and a chilihead will try it one time and feel like they got ripped off and never eat it again. I would certainly dig a burrito with some true Reaper sauce!
 
CMJ said:
Its good to hear that things are turning around for you. Your last report was not looking too good. Im sure the guy that bought your supers knows a few chiliheads and will get the word out for you. Also interested to see what Taco Bell does with the Reaper name. I say "name" because they sure as hell ain't going to use the peppers! Im sure it will be some super gimmicky 2 month long promotional deal called the "Blazin Reaper Wrap," or some such nonsense, with exactly .000000000314159% Reaper powder and a couple of mild jalapeños to give it a little kick for the wannabe chiliheads that wouldn't touch a superhot pepper with a ten foot pole. Most of the big name fast food joints have tried this with the Ghost Pepper, with limited success because a non chilihead aint going to touch anything with the ghost or Reaper name, and a chilihead will try it one time and feel like they got ripped off and never eat it again. I would certainly dig a burrito with some true Reaper sauce!
 
Yeah I'm kind of curious to see how that goes too. I used 3/4 of a Moruga x Reaper hybrid with one (very large) TFM scotch bonnet on a pizza two nights ago, and I was getting milk out of the fridge by the second slice. And that's from a guy who munches on TFM scotch bonnets while working out in the sun all day, for a "snack." Those reapers (and assorted ultra hybrids) are definitely way outside the league of anyone going through the drive through and ordering handfuls of "diablo" sauce or whatever. :)
 
I get sad whenever I get taco bell, their hot sauce doesn't even so much as make my mouth tingle. I like taking my own along. Had a great yellow Hab sauce I made 5 years ago, that stuff went perfect with tacos. I need to freeze some pods and do another batch this winter.
 
Oh speaking of Jalapenos MAN everything is running hot this year. I did a 'twice baked' Pizza Hut pizza last night. Ordered a pizza unsliced, brought it back out to my house and loaded it up with some Biker Billies, stuck it in the oven for another 5-6 min to warm them up. THOSE damn things are warm this year, too. Everything is growing well on the hot side, in that pasture. My lips and gums were burning for a solid 20 minutes after I finished a few slices.
 
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