Had a rough time figure out how to post pictures at first, but that was corrected (see pod porn below).
Stefan_W's Great Big Beefy Pepper Adventure: Grow List
- Thread starter Stefan_W
- Start date
It has been a week since I put up any photos, so I figure it is time to update this Glog. Things have changed considerably over the past few days because the weather is finally starting to cooperate. The nights are getting warmer, which is usually when my garden really takes off. I am still worried about how fast the ghost peppers and tabascos will ripen, but I knew that could be an issue when I picked out these plants.
First up is one of the types of cayenne. It is exceptionally meaty and large, which I like because it makes it easier to cut up after harvesting. The plant has quite a few peppers of this size already, which many buds on the go.
Next up is another type of cayenne, which is much smaller in size. We have had brutal wind storms all through spring, which I worried about a lot. When I checked the plants this morning I noticed that one of the three main branches was looking like it was splitting from the plant. I tried to stake it, but it came off in my hand when I tried to move it. This is the part that is left. I took in a branch with 20 peppers, 6 flowers, and around 3 dozen buds on it. Considering that was less than half of the plant I think I will still be all right with what it produces. I hung up the green pods to let them dry out, and took a few for eat raw and later for nachos. It was surprisingly hot, and I was very happy with it. My wife took a pod to put in her chai tea as an experiment, but it did not really do anything. I figure it is because of the heat being in the oils and not spreading into the water or something to that effect.
I still love my atomic starfish. My stepdaughter picked them out, and I have slowly grown to really like them.
The ghost peppers are starting to pod and flower like crazy. The next week or so of perfect growing weather will go a long way toward determining whether these guys will get to red before I have to wrap up this growing season. They are the only peppers I have that still have no pods.
The tabasco peppers surpised me with how slow they are to flower and pod. I have my first tiny pod as of a day or so ago, but they are really taking about as long as the ghost pepeprs to get going. I think they will be kick started in the next week or two by ideal growing weather.
Like all of my peppers, the giant jalapenos are looking a lot better now that the cold nights have passed.
The paprikas have more buds on them than I can count. This is wonderful news, because I use a lot of paprika power and usually run out fairly early in the winter.
Every growing season has good and bad surprises. One of the best surprises for me has been how much I have enjoyed the yellow wax peppers. They came as free seeds from my Pepper Joe's order, and I almost did not plant them. As it turns out, they are heavy producers and yield large, beefy peppers. They not only have my largest peppers so far, but they are also packed with buds. I plan to can these in the same way as you would banana peppers. They may not be as sexy as the super hots, but they are going to be a good workhorse when I'm cooking this winter.
And, of course, a gratuitous shot of what will be the tomato part of the salsas I plan to make later on. I have a dozen tomato plants, 5 varieties, that are just getting going with about 5 or 10 flowers on each. I will have hundreds of tomatos in a little while, and the garlic will be ready to pick at about the same time. This means salsa heaven! This one is a purple brandywine, which is great for salsa (if you like the meat of a tomato with little pulp) and of course is the king of BLTs.
That is it for this update. I'm actually considering moving over to the "growing other" glogs, because peppers are only one part of my garden. I always feel like I am just getting going with discussing my garden when these updates end.
First up is one of the types of cayenne. It is exceptionally meaty and large, which I like because it makes it easier to cut up after harvesting. The plant has quite a few peppers of this size already, which many buds on the go.
Next up is another type of cayenne, which is much smaller in size. We have had brutal wind storms all through spring, which I worried about a lot. When I checked the plants this morning I noticed that one of the three main branches was looking like it was splitting from the plant. I tried to stake it, but it came off in my hand when I tried to move it. This is the part that is left. I took in a branch with 20 peppers, 6 flowers, and around 3 dozen buds on it. Considering that was less than half of the plant I think I will still be all right with what it produces. I hung up the green pods to let them dry out, and took a few for eat raw and later for nachos. It was surprisingly hot, and I was very happy with it. My wife took a pod to put in her chai tea as an experiment, but it did not really do anything. I figure it is because of the heat being in the oils and not spreading into the water or something to that effect.
I still love my atomic starfish. My stepdaughter picked them out, and I have slowly grown to really like them.
The ghost peppers are starting to pod and flower like crazy. The next week or so of perfect growing weather will go a long way toward determining whether these guys will get to red before I have to wrap up this growing season. They are the only peppers I have that still have no pods.
The tabasco peppers surpised me with how slow they are to flower and pod. I have my first tiny pod as of a day or so ago, but they are really taking about as long as the ghost pepeprs to get going. I think they will be kick started in the next week or two by ideal growing weather.
Like all of my peppers, the giant jalapenos are looking a lot better now that the cold nights have passed.
The paprikas have more buds on them than I can count. This is wonderful news, because I use a lot of paprika power and usually run out fairly early in the winter.
Every growing season has good and bad surprises. One of the best surprises for me has been how much I have enjoyed the yellow wax peppers. They came as free seeds from my Pepper Joe's order, and I almost did not plant them. As it turns out, they are heavy producers and yield large, beefy peppers. They not only have my largest peppers so far, but they are also packed with buds. I plan to can these in the same way as you would banana peppers. They may not be as sexy as the super hots, but they are going to be a good workhorse when I'm cooking this winter.
And, of course, a gratuitous shot of what will be the tomato part of the salsas I plan to make later on. I have a dozen tomato plants, 5 varieties, that are just getting going with about 5 or 10 flowers on each. I will have hundreds of tomatos in a little while, and the garlic will be ready to pick at about the same time. This means salsa heaven! This one is a purple brandywine, which is great for salsa (if you like the meat of a tomato with little pulp) and of course is the king of BLTs.
That is it for this update. I'm actually considering moving over to the "growing other" glogs, because peppers are only one part of my garden. I always feel like I am just getting going with discussing my garden when these updates end.
I'll post a longer update later, but for now I wanted to just put up one picture plus a question. This is a photo of one of my paprika plants, but the same types of marking appeared on many of my pepper plants over the past three weeks. After researching I am guessing flea beetle. Do you think I am right? Any other guesses? I started treating with neem oil as a first step, because it is oganic and it works on a lot of different critters.
I was worried about being able to grow bhut jolokias to maturity due to our short growing season. This was not helped by the poor spring weather, which set my entire garden back a couple of weeks. Well, today I have several bhut pods on the plants. This picture is of the largest one. Here's hoping that he is red by the time our weather turns again!
Both bhut plants are loaded with podding flowers, so if the weather is good toward fall I'll have an amazing harvest!
Both bhut plants are loaded with podding flowers, so if the weather is good toward fall I'll have an amazing harvest!
Things are starting to ripen, right on schedule. For the most part my pepper plants are now doing great, and all of them have podded up like crazy. Other parts of the garden are still being attacked by cucumber beetles and squash beetles, but I wont post pics of that because this is a pepper forum.
The bhut jolokia produced gads of flowers. Even though some of the dropped, it looks like I will end up with quite a few pods. This is a closeup of the pods coming in on one of the bhut plants.
The atomic starfish are starting to ripen. I'm really interested to find out what these taste like, because they are fun to grow.
I lost about a third of my firecracker chili plant to windstorms early in the year, but the ones that are left are none the worse for wear and are starting to ripen. I've picked a few so far, and they taste great and have a nice slow heat.
This butterfly decided to make a pit spot on one of the tomato cages. I loved the colours so I snapped a quick picture. Considering the bad luck I'm having with pests eating my garden this year I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be some sort of tomato eating butterfly that ravages gardens.
I'm hoping to get a few comments this time around
The bhut jolokia produced gads of flowers. Even though some of the dropped, it looks like I will end up with quite a few pods. This is a closeup of the pods coming in on one of the bhut plants.
The atomic starfish are starting to ripen. I'm really interested to find out what these taste like, because they are fun to grow.
I lost about a third of my firecracker chili plant to windstorms early in the year, but the ones that are left are none the worse for wear and are starting to ripen. I've picked a few so far, and they taste great and have a nice slow heat.
This butterfly decided to make a pit spot on one of the tomato cages. I loved the colours so I snapped a quick picture. Considering the bad luck I'm having with pests eating my garden this year I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be some sort of tomato eating butterfly that ravages gardens.
I'm hoping to get a few comments this time around
I did a little experiment with my ghost peppers. The bottom set of leaves on both of my bhut jolokia plants were looking rough after the hardening off process was over, but these leaves were clearly still attached. I was struggling to figure out whether or not to snip them, so I ended up snipping the bottom leaves off of one of the plants and left the other plant alone. Both received the same amount of water, sun and nutrients. I'll put up pictures this weekend of the two plants side by side to show the differences between how the two plants turned out.
Guesses are welcome if anyone wants to take a stab at predicting the results of my impromptu experiment.
Guesses are welcome if anyone wants to take a stab at predicting the results of my impromptu experiment.
The Bhut pruning experiment was really interesting to me, so I gave it a separate thread:
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/32318-bhut-jolokia-pruning-experiment/
My garden is producing tons of cayennes and things like that at the moment. The most interesting is the atomic starfish, which tastes absolutely amazing!
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/32318-bhut-jolokia-pruning-experiment/
My garden is producing tons of cayennes and things like that at the moment. The most interesting is the atomic starfish, which tastes absolutely amazing!
nice plants bro. Sorry I didn't get to this glog earlyer. have you tried AACT yet? i may help with the bugs.
Nice glog man... subbed
Nice glog man... subbed
Mini Update:
I was waiting for four kung pao peppers to ripen so I could experiment with making a traditional kung pao chicken dish, and today was the day that I picked them. I will post pictures of the dish when I make it this weekend, along with the recipe. It was actually quite a struggle finding a real kung pao recipe, because almost all of them online are either heavily westernized (water chestnuts and crap like that) or else they substitute something else for real kung pao peppers.
This is my kung pao plant, and if you look carefully you can see the four kung paos still there.
Pod Porn! This is my mini-harvest from this morning. The yellow ones are hot wax peppers, and they have a surprising bite to them when they turn orange. The smaller ones are firecracker chilis, and the rounded one in the top middle are flourescent purples that have ripened to red. The rest are assorted cayennes.
The harvest was on the small side, but it is still early. Plus I've been cheating and picking a few off the plants daily to mix in with nachos etc.
I was waiting for four kung pao peppers to ripen so I could experiment with making a traditional kung pao chicken dish, and today was the day that I picked them. I will post pictures of the dish when I make it this weekend, along with the recipe. It was actually quite a struggle finding a real kung pao recipe, because almost all of them online are either heavily westernized (water chestnuts and crap like that) or else they substitute something else for real kung pao peppers.
This is my kung pao plant, and if you look carefully you can see the four kung paos still there.
Pod Porn! This is my mini-harvest from this morning. The yellow ones are hot wax peppers, and they have a surprising bite to them when they turn orange. The smaller ones are firecracker chilis, and the rounded one in the top middle are flourescent purples that have ripened to red. The rest are assorted cayennes.
The harvest was on the small side, but it is still early. Plus I've been cheating and picking a few off the plants daily to mix in with nachos etc.
I decided to add kung pao peppers to this year's grow list because I wanted to try to make an authentic kung pao chicken dish. A couple of days ago the first four kung pao peppers ripened, so I knew this weekend would be my chance.
I cannot take credit for the recipe, which I found at: http://rasamalaysia....-pao-chicken/2/ The reason I liked this recipe is that it is not a Westernized version of the dish, and as such it does not include non-tradiational kung pao ingredients like (water chestnuts or carrots) that are so common in resteraunt versions of this dish.
I expanded the recipe for five large chicken breasts, and I used fresh kung pao peppers rather than dried ones. The garlic was picked from the garden minutes before making this, as were the green onions that replaced scallions (I try to use what I grow).
I decided to add kung pao peppers to this year's grow list because I wanted to try to make an authentic kung pao chicken dish. A couple of days ago the first four kung pao peppers ripened, so I knew this weekend would be my chance.
I cannot take credit for the recipe, which I found at: http://rasamalaysia....-pao-chicken/2/ The reason I liked this recipe is that it is not a Westernized version of the dish, and as such it does not include non-tradiational kung pao ingredients like (water chestnuts or carrots) that are so common in resteraunt versions of this dish.
I expanded the recipe for five large chicken breasts, and I used fresh kung pao peppers rather than dried ones. The garlic was picked from the garden minutes before making this, as were the green onions that replaced scallions (I try to use what I grow).
The most important step was infusing the oils from the kung pao peppers into the garlic and ginger slices. I took my time with this part, and it payed off because in the end the garlic pieces were the hottest part of the entire dish.
The recipe is quite picky with a lot of steps that have to be followed in a specific sequence. Even so, I give it an "easy" in terms of difficulty level, because I managed fine in my first run. This picture shows the last cooking step.
This last picture is a bit deceptive because the bowl is quite big. Remember that this is five good sized chicken breasts worth.
The dish was fantastic, and I highly recommend it. The only bad thing was that I did not have enough ripe kung paos yet, but that will be corrected the next time I make it.
I cannot take credit for the recipe, which I found at: http://rasamalaysia....-pao-chicken/2/ The reason I liked this recipe is that it is not a Westernized version of the dish, and as such it does not include non-tradiational kung pao ingredients like (water chestnuts or carrots) that are so common in resteraunt versions of this dish.
I expanded the recipe for five large chicken breasts, and I used fresh kung pao peppers rather than dried ones. The garlic was picked from the garden minutes before making this, as were the green onions that replaced scallions (I try to use what I grow).
I decided to add kung pao peppers to this year's grow list because I wanted to try to make an authentic kung pao chicken dish. A couple of days ago the first four kung pao peppers ripened, so I knew this weekend would be my chance.
I cannot take credit for the recipe, which I found at: http://rasamalaysia....-pao-chicken/2/ The reason I liked this recipe is that it is not a Westernized version of the dish, and as such it does not include non-tradiational kung pao ingredients like (water chestnuts or carrots) that are so common in resteraunt versions of this dish.
I expanded the recipe for five large chicken breasts, and I used fresh kung pao peppers rather than dried ones. The garlic was picked from the garden minutes before making this, as were the green onions that replaced scallions (I try to use what I grow).
The most important step was infusing the oils from the kung pao peppers into the garlic and ginger slices. I took my time with this part, and it payed off because in the end the garlic pieces were the hottest part of the entire dish.
The recipe is quite picky with a lot of steps that have to be followed in a specific sequence. Even so, I give it an "easy" in terms of difficulty level, because I managed fine in my first run. This picture shows the last cooking step.
This last picture is a bit deceptive because the bowl is quite big. Remember that this is five good sized chicken breasts worth.
The dish was fantastic, and I highly recommend it. The only bad thing was that I did not have enough ripe kung paos yet, but that will be corrected the next time I make it.
Can I come over for dinner? Wow that looks good!
My goal this and every year is to use everything that comes out of the garden. I had a pile of yellow wax peppers that were starting to turn orange, with one that was red, so I decided it was time to make some hot banana peppers. The yellow wax peppers make it a bit hotter than your standard store bought hot banana peppers, and I added in a few cayennes to add some more red (colour is important!) and up the heat a touch more. I find that banana peppers are great as a gift because they are not crazy hot, but they give the person getting the gift the lingering sense that things can be much much better than relying on store bought canned goods. I also love them on hot dogs and burgers.
I use the recipe below because it is very basic, and allows the peppers to supply all of the heat--don't let the "sweet" in the title fool you! The heat can be adjusted up by simply mixing in some hotter peppers, which in my case will be ready when they ripen in a few weeks.
http://www.food.com/...a-peppers-17254
This was the starting point. I have many more left on the plants that will be used when I do a hotter version of this in a month or so. Note there is only one yellow wax pepper that turned red (on top of the others on the left hand side), so I added three cayennes. Colour is everything!
My goal this and every year is to use everything that comes out of the garden. I had a pile of yellow wax peppers that were starting to turn orange, with one that was red, so I decided it was time to make some hot banana peppers. The yellow wax peppers make it a bit hotter than your standard store bought hot banana peppers, and I added in a few cayennes to add some more red (colour is important!) and up the heat a touch more. I find that banana peppers are great as a gift because they are not crazy hot, but they give the person getting the gift the lingering sense that things can be much much better than relying on store bought canned goods. I also love them on hot dogs and burgers.
I use the recipe below because it is very basic, and allows the peppers to supply all of the heat--don't let the "sweet" in the title fool you! The heat can be adjusted up by simply mixing in some hotter peppers, which in my case will be ready when they ripen in a few weeks.
http://www.food.com/...a-peppers-17254
This was the starting point. I have many more left on the plants that will be used when I do a hotter version of this in a month or so. Note there is only one yellow wax pepper that turned red (on top of the others on the left hand side), so I added three cayennes. Colour is everything!
The next step was chopping them up, which was mind numbingly boring but it had to be done.
The end product was 6 X 250 mL containers and 6 X 125 mL containers. The smaller ones are a great addition to gift bags for friends. We usually toss them in with jams, jellies, pickles and other assorted canned goods we create over the summer. The bigger ones are for us and for better friends. Yes, I play favourites.
The coolest part is that I am listening to them popping as I am typing this up. People who can things know that those little popping sounds are a bit of instant gratification that has to hold you over for a few weeks until they are ready to eat.
I use the recipe below because it is very basic, and allows the peppers to supply all of the heat--don't let the "sweet" in the title fool you! The heat can be adjusted up by simply mixing in some hotter peppers, which in my case will be ready when they ripen in a few weeks.
http://www.food.com/...a-peppers-17254
This was the starting point. I have many more left on the plants that will be used when I do a hotter version of this in a month or so. Note there is only one yellow wax pepper that turned red (on top of the others on the left hand side), so I added three cayennes. Colour is everything!
My goal this and every year is to use everything that comes out of the garden. I had a pile of yellow wax peppers that were starting to turn orange, with one that was red, so I decided it was time to make some hot banana peppers. The yellow wax peppers make it a bit hotter than your standard store bought hot banana peppers, and I added in a few cayennes to add some more red (colour is important!) and up the heat a touch more. I find that banana peppers are great as a gift because they are not crazy hot, but they give the person getting the gift the lingering sense that things can be much much better than relying on store bought canned goods. I also love them on hot dogs and burgers.
I use the recipe below because it is very basic, and allows the peppers to supply all of the heat--don't let the "sweet" in the title fool you! The heat can be adjusted up by simply mixing in some hotter peppers, which in my case will be ready when they ripen in a few weeks.
http://www.food.com/...a-peppers-17254
This was the starting point. I have many more left on the plants that will be used when I do a hotter version of this in a month or so. Note there is only one yellow wax pepper that turned red (on top of the others on the left hand side), so I added three cayennes. Colour is everything!
The next step was chopping them up, which was mind numbingly boring but it had to be done.
The end product was 6 X 250 mL containers and 6 X 125 mL containers. The smaller ones are a great addition to gift bags for friends. We usually toss them in with jams, jellies, pickles and other assorted canned goods we create over the summer. The bigger ones are for us and for better friends. Yes, I play favourites.
The coolest part is that I am listening to them popping as I am typing this up. People who can things know that those little popping sounds are a bit of instant gratification that has to hold you over for a few weeks until they are ready to eat.
Pod Porn July 18
Nothing all that new to show today, but I snapped some pictures of the bhuts for my bhut pruning experiment thread. I'm adding this one here as gratuitous pod porn. To get this photo I was practically sitting in the cucumber bed, and needless to say I had not taken a picture of the bhuts from this angle until this one.
Nothing all that new to show today, but I snapped some pictures of the bhuts for my bhut pruning experiment thread. I'm adding this one here as gratuitous pod porn. To get this photo I was practically sitting in the cucumber bed, and needless to say I had not taken a picture of the bhuts from this angle until this one.
