• Blog your pepper progress. The first image in your first post will be used to represent your Glog.

Mezo`s "super hots" Glog including the 'big' solar dehydrator.

The is thread with the humungous solar dehydrator. :D

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G-Day, im Mez or Mezo & im new to this part of Australia having come from Perth (Western Australia) where growing chili peppers is so easy (except the heat).

I live in the border ranges in northern New South Wales (bordering Queensland) and its a mixed bag of temperate & tropical conditions, the summers are very hot, wet & humid, the winters are dry & sunny.



Average daily temps.

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And average monthly rainfall.

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Aussies reading this will already know this, but people in other country's probably paint a picture of Australia as a hot dry/dusty land but this is far from the truth, up north its full blown tropics with a wet season & 100% humidity (yuck). Down south its freezing cold & snow during winter, out west its a dry heat like in the Mediterranean & in the middle of Australia is desert country.

So im now growing for the first time "Super hots" and for a very important reason, whilst working away in Perth i had a double heart attack wich has left me permanently disabled, sadly they are unable to operate on me (bypass/stent) as its to far gone, so having worked all my life (Electrician) im now at the age of 45 claiming a disability pension & i hate not being able to work.

Now i take shovel fulls of dam tablets to keep my heart pumping & id rather not be taking any but right now there no option i have to take them or ill drop dead on the spot. After much reading i found out that cayenne powder has all sort of benefits to your health & well being, especially to your cardio vascular system. I had read that cayenne powder can stop a heart attack in its track & i put this to the test (twice) and yes it does work where the medication (Nitrolingual) had no effect.

So anyone reading this who spots a friend having a heart attack just flick some chili powder in a glass of water as fast as you can & get them to drink in right down, fast. It works within 30 seconds of drinking it & it saved me from two more attacks already.

So there's my life story in a nutshell & some sound advice on how to save a heart attack victims life.
And this ladies & gentlymen is why im growing "Super Hots" to make high heat cayenne powder for cooking to improve my circulation/remove fats & as a "just in case of emergency"

OK on with the first of my "Hots" the Bhut Jolokia, the reason i chose this was simple i just Googled "whats the hottest chili" and up popped the result, however further reading on the interweb i found threads from this forum & names like the Butch T, the Douglah & Brain Strain.

So ive ordered them from pepperlover.com after so many people gave such great reviews, Bhut in the meantime lets look at my Jolokia`s.

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Bhut6.jpg


Must admit i just love the shape & color of these babies.
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More soon,

Mezo.
 
Been a while since I stopped in, nice video of the dehydrator

Same with me, nice video.

I generally eat a fair amount of Super hot powder, but in 1/4tsp increments, one ounce lasts a while. What you have in that dehydrator would probably last me 10 years. What do you do with it all?
 
That is a great design! Is there more flyscreen at the top and plexiglass just open a crack? I think you said before that it rained on it and everything stayed dry.

I'm definitely going to have to copy that and build my own one!

Could you collect the seeds from the trays? ie. do you think they will be viable?

Yep there is flyscreen at the top as well, and around the intake vent & around the door is that foam draught excluding tape (sticky on one side) that is important as it stops any humidity from coming inside when the door & vent are closed.

It looks a bit rough & ready as its just knocked up with stuff i had laying around the yard, its very heavy as well.

The seeds are viable as i grew plants from the seeds i collected at the end of last season.


Looks Great, Mezo. Nice harvest.
We bought an electric dehydrator last year and got a lot of use from it. We did, berries, carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, hamburger, all kinds of leftovers (for backpacking and stuff) and of course peppers, The only trouble is it's too small even though it has 7 -16x16(?) trays. It just couldn't keep up with a small garden even. I like your design better than most, but already have a lot of irons in the fire -don't know if I'll get to it this year. Always got my eye open for salvage though. :)

Yeah like me im busy & i wanted to build a dedicated smoke house this year but its just finding the time (rebuilding a motorbike).

Huge harvests and a beautiful dehydrator mate! Fantastic.

Thanks mate.

Been a while since I stopped in, nice video of the dehydrator … I had read through the whole building stage and early uses back when I first joined. The video just adds that much more to all the information you provided in the past, would be cool if it was all together, but if someone wants to build one they need to pay the piper and read the whole glog :)

Love all the harvests shots, keep dem coming!

Yeah i thought pics are good but its nice to be able to show a short movie of the peppers at various stages of drying.

Same with me, nice video.

I generally eat a fair amount of Super hot powder, but in 1/4tsp increments, one ounce lasts a while. What you have in that dehydrator would probably last me 10 years. What do you do with it all?

Well it will keep for in powder for a while & that was the whole idea from the start, i give some to friends & family as well.

Mezo.
 
Thank`s James, its been a month since i did my last garden video update & the plants are still pumping pods & more importantly flowers, its becoming real hard to walk around the joint now, the plants are throwing out limbs left, right & centre to try & capture as much of the sunshine as possible.

The temps here are still fine but the plants are all starting to lean northward now as the sun gets lower (our winter & your summer).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AznVw77ihKo&feature=youtu.be

Mezo.
 
Very nice pepper jungle you have there, Mez.
Since your autumn season has technically started, how long do you have until frost?
 
Very nice pepper jungle you have there, Mez.
Since your autumn season has technically started, how long do you have until frost?

Hard to say, some years none at all, but last winter we had three mornings & that did kill three of my Bhut`s id left outside.

Cold is not the problem its when the river mist settles on the leaves & then freezes.

Mez.
 
Mez,

Great to see your plants bounce back after that awful spring you had. The weather certainly was not co-operating with you. I've been struggling with spidermites though I think I've finally got rid of the buggers. My superhots germinated in Nov./Dec. and are ready to be planted out in the late May. I have 3 1/2 months to get ripe pods. We'll see what happens.

Got some interesting varieties for you and will mail them once I have them all ready.

Conor
 
Well by the looks of it you still have plenty of pods to get you by this winter.... Awesome pepper forest you got Mark....
 
thanks for the vid. I'd like to see a pic of the Peach Bhut when they ripen. I'm growing my first "peach" pepper variety this year- the peach trinidad scorpion. I'll post a pic up later as well if I can get her to produce a ripe pod.
 
Hey DC, ive had a couple ripen & so far they are much smaller than my red Bhut`s (half the size) but the same shape.

I will get get a picture later,

Mez.
 
Mezo, your grow is fantastic. I can't get enough of your Vid. Updates lol...hey NICE SOCKS!

"Whose got big balls? We've got big balls. We've got the biggest..balls of them all!"

Awesome glog buddy. Love it. What are you doing with all of those peppers?? Winter's rations? Lol
 
Funny you should say that, just had a peek in the garden & its loaded with ripe fruit ready for harvest, this week has been cracking with sunshine & nice warm temps.

EDIT: Here is harvest six just picked & just in time as it started to piss down with rain, don't mind to much as they needed a drink.

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You can see a few Peach Bhuts in there & noticeably lots more yellow peppers in this week's harvest.

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That was the biggest Peach Bhut, the rest were pretty tiny.

Mezo.
 
Meez, you've had your ups and you've had your downs (and then some more downs) but damn, you're killing it now! :onfire:

Cheers Gas, the plants still churning a kilogram a week at the moment, not sure how long that's going to last though?

And finally just before the start of winter, my 7 pod browns are turning brown. :dance:

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And just a couple of pics just before i cropped them, still plenty of unripe ones on there.

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BhutJolokiamay_zpsdd27b273.jpg


Mezo.
 
I assume it gets cooler down and up there in winter than it does here? Dunno, I don't think the remaining immature pods will go running off on ya or anything but I doubt you will be seeing weekly kilo harvests for much longer?

(Prove me wrong, Mezo, prove me wrong! ;))

What's the frost situation there?
 
That 7 brown is mighty fine looking! Attempted last season, none germed, gave up, and then had seeds pop. So after narrowing down... i think mine never podded up, so i overwintered the plant to see if it is the brown. Could be a red douglah though. I have a couple new starts this season to make sure i end up with one. Sounds like that taste great!
Please give us a right up when to try that beauty!

And pods everywhere!
 
beautiful pics of the peach bhuts Mez. Thanks. My peach scorp is only around 2 ft tall now but not long & I may have a pod or two emerging. Your season's harvest is phenomenal :shocked: Congrats :cheers: You'll deserve a proper pint after harvesting the rest :beer:
 
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