Marianne 2015-2016 Grow

nice variety of peppers. Sound like you got a good grasp on what your peppers need to grow well in your area.

Please show and tell about your shading.

Nice selection, Good luck, looking forward to your progress

Thanks!

My shading is from either planting under trees (experimenting what side of tree & how to trim canopy) or planting near structures. Shade cloth would either rot in the sun or blow away. We get powerful storms with regularity and anything that isn't a fixed structure has trouble. The native chiles here grow under trees so I decided that was the best place to start. The only less than ideal part is that some are my neighbor's palms & they've become infected with fusarium and will all be dead in a year. At that point, I'll see how the plants are doing & decide if I need to erect a shade structure or plant another tree.

The upcoming forecast keeps changing, now there is a night next week possibly down to 48, but since most of my plants are sheltered they shouldn't be too effected. I should have at least 2 more weeks of good setting weather before the growing season finishes up. I probably have around 150 pods set, hoping for over 200. Not a bad season!


Heirloom Poblanos







The photo of the pods is older and thanks to the wind, it grew at the house but it's a neat plant. It is a very old variety and an heirloom from some of the Arizona Native American tribes. It is my most hardy variety and has a larger than normal temperature range where it will set pods--50 to 100f. It isn't extremely vigorous (could just be the soil I have it in--unamended clay) and took the full 250 days to mature. It was clearly bred to be cultivated as a perennial and to withstand a wide temperature range. Not the most prolific producer, but the pods are normally 2" x 3" and normally I use them either chopped on pizza or dried & then cooked in tepary beans. Soooo tasty that way! Fun plant to grow. I think I'll save some seeds from the next pod I pick. It blooms so much earlier & later in the season than everything else, there was nothing to cross with when the current pods set because everything else, even though more shaded, still had blossom drop.

Ugh, it has been in the 40s for the past few nights so my growing season is probably winding to a close. Normally it is a few weeks longer but we've swung from +107f to 46f in about 3 weeks. I did get a decent set, now that I actually looked at my Thai chiles, I'd say I got around 250 pods growing total, which is nice. I was hoping for a few more of my chinense varieties but that just isn't going to happen.

My chinense plants suffered greatly this summer. I had them growing in 2 different spots to see how they did. My 2 year old Orange Hab gets 3/4 of the day in the sun. It literally turned white from the heat & alkalinity.



When it cooled down, it turned back to green. I made sure to give it some chelate, Epsom salts & flush with rainwater. It's doing better. I'll get a few pods this season.



It just never grows taller, I'm sure heat is the issue. Browsing online tells me that people near me grow 5' habs, upon close inspection of the pictures I can see that they grow in 75% shade. This plant suffered greatly in temps +115f. No amount of mulch & water can help with that.

This summer I planted Havana seasoning peppers in pots that would get about 60% sun. One pot got more sun than the other. The one in less sun looks better and started to bloom. The stems are all purple from sun exposure but it's hanging in there. About 18" tall even though it is 8 months old. The one that got about 45 minutes more sun a day is in terrible shape.



It has severe heat damage to the leaves & roots. Every time it hits +105f, every point where it is growing dies. The roots seem to be suffering from the same issue. The leaves have been growing crinkly since it hit 117f in the shade for a few days in a row. It has plenty of calcium but it's like the roots suffered some kind of damage where they can't absorb it enough? The one that turned white doesn't have this issue and the other potted one has minor crinkling but not this severe. I'm pretty sure this one doesn't have mites--no webs, I see no mites & no stippling. Instead, after every heatwave it gets more and more deformed. I'm getting no pods off of it this year. I'm torn between letting it ride & seeing if it recovers or ripping it out and planting a hardy anuum. Decisions!

I've got some Tobago seasoning peppers going in a raised bed that gets 75% shade. So far, so good! I'm curious to see if that's finally the adequate shade amount. Seedlings are around a month old. I planted them in pairs for added shading. I don't care if it slows down their growth if it means that they do ok and I get pods at some point.

What weird weather lately, keeps swinging between average temps & dead of winter temps. Oh well. I'm finally starting to pick stuff, got 5 Thai chiles and my 4th or 5th handful of padrons today. Yay! Forgot to take a picture.

My Aji plants are finally doing well. My Christmas bell set all of its pods about 2 months ago. They've just been loitering there, maybe they'll ripen soon? Anyway, I noticed that this plant thrives in the top part of the temperature range & sets between 95f and 65f. Anything below 65f for a low causes blossom drop & it stops forming buds. It hasn't put out any more buds since the nighttime temps fell below 65f a few weeks ago. However, it did take the summer like a champ. I did notice a few pods are starting to seem more orange so here's hoping I get to taste one soon.



On the other hand, my Aji Peru yellow did not appreciate temps above 90f. Don't get me wrong, it lived! It just didn't grow much at all and had much greater water needs than similar sized annuums. However, since the temps dropped, it has exploded in size and setting like crazy. Even with lows to 45f (my yard was probably 50f), it is still going nuts. No blossom drop and still forming buds at every node. I have no idea how many it has set, but it is now about 18 inches tall and 2' across and a carpet of pods. Really excited to taste them. So, this one seems to be really adaptable to my growing seasons and tough enough to straggle through the summer. Before next summer, I should probably consider pruning it so it has less foliage to support. Here's a tiny part of the plant:



All in all, things are doing well. Annuums winding down with the cooler lows and pods starting to mature.

Picked the rest of my limes! Probably got 8lbs of key limes this season.

Unusually cool week, lows down into the high 30s, but no damage. No chiles set this week but set ones are growing ok and everything looks fine. A few aphid colonies appeared but I think I got them stamped out. Things are chugging right along! Picked about 12 peppers this week, not bad considering virtually all chiles are still unripe. Rest of garden is doing well, good growth for greens & tomatoes are finally growing fruit.


Ecudorian red rocoto is doing ok, about 2 months old. It grew really slowly at first due to +105 temps but it seems to be picking up steam now. I have a second, much smaller one--it is a triploid so it seems to want a totally different growth pace. They should be a decent size come next season.


This is one of the Aji Benito's, has some pods going. This Aji was not terribly fond of the summer and did best between 85-65f. Not as cold tolerant as Aji Peru yellow. The plant is getting much less sun right now and isn't thrilled about it. But, it is ok and should do well in the spring.


Hybrid poblanos are doing well, working on a second flush. The temps this next week should be good for that.


Galangal is really growing, hoping it blooms this winter!

This next week I need to rip out one of the Havana seasoning plants and start a sweet green one to replace it. It was a freebie from Judy, so I'm curious to try it now. Also, must finish leveling for my tomato raised bed and start some of the seeds for in there. Busy weekend!

Alright! I am jealous of your PHX weather, too cold in Northern AZ. Definitely going to follow this one. Also if you're interested, I would be more than happy to send you some superhot seeds...

Trent

Enjoy your seasons up there!

I appreciate the seed offer but I'll pass. We won't eat very many of them and they seem to truly hate Phx summers. All chinense plants I have struggle like no other so until I figure out how to grow them here, no superhots. I do have seeds for a few supers but I'm hesitant to plant them as I suspect they'll never produce for me. In the past year, only 1 out of 3 chinense plants fruited for me.

The birds had a fight in my garden this morning, the pods lost. Only minor damage. I'm surprised they were interested right now, they have plenty of other things to snack on.

True, the summers can be pretty brutal, not real nice on tomatoes either. I have found shade cloth to work on particularly hot days. I never tried to grow anything in PHX mainly because we didn't have enough space. Well your year seems to be off to a great start! This is why I love AZ, can get a good crop almost year round!

I love being able garden year-around. I would go nuts living in the snow. Really looking forward to my current crop, as I've got some newbies like Aji Peru yellow & Aji Benito that I'm anxious to taste.

Summers here can be so nasty. I don't use shade cloth because I never know when a microburst is coming during the summer and I could see it turning into debris quickly. Instead, I plant under my trees and in the shadow of the house--luckily I have a decent sized area to work with.

Shockingly, I had a volunteer tomato plant survive the summer this year and it has fruit on it now. I'm going to save the seeds & grow it out to see if I can get a really heat-tolerant variety going. It just went dormant for the summer. It didn't grow much for those months but it sure didn't die. After a few tries, I'll be really happy to share seeds.

Would love to give that a go. I really am not a big tomato eater or grower, the tomatoes I do grow are competition only, they are for the heavyweight title at fairs and a pumpkin weigh off in Scottsdale. So since you'll have seeds, and you're offering, I would love to.

I finally remembered to take a picture, here's the F2 fruit. I'll let you know when I have seeds from it. It is bigger than a baseball, so nice sized.



Also, I was reading around on Peru Yellow peppers and realized that ALL sources note them as growing pendant, but mine are growing straight upright. None on the entire plant are pendant. I wonder if it is something else or a cross. Don't know! I got it from CCN and they're pretty reliable, so I guess I'll see when I get some pods off of it

I got most of my next raised bed assembled this weekend, remaining components come Monday.

In celebration, I started some seeds:
Peru Bitdumi x2
Sweet Green x1
Shattah x1
Sweet Antigua x1

And tomatoes:
Tiren f1 x2
Persuasion x2
And rescued a purple tomato plant growing in the lawn. No clue what it could be but hey!

This is my first time doing indoor starts. Normally I do direct sow but I had no raised bed to sow in a few months ago and so I figured I'd give it a try. Went for some sweet peppers because we tend to use them in everyday cooking so no such thing as too many. Luckily I have a nice, warm, sunny south-facing window so no elaborate grow setup. And it isn't sunny enough (I hope) that having the blinds open will eat holes in the floor this time of year. Yes, Arizona problem--sun through windows destroys flooring & furniture via "sun rot."

those poblanos look superb.  i had some good sized ones, but yours are huge.

Ozzy2001 said:

those poblanos look superb.  i had some good sized ones, but yours are huge.

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Thanks! I'm hoping they taste as good as they look (should). I'm waiting until they ripen a bit more to dig in.

Thank you very much for the seeds! They made it in good order.

Great looking Fruit

dragonsfire said:

Great looking Fruit

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Thanks! Looking forward to eating them
Quick update--we had a spell of normal weather for a few days so stuff had a chance to ripen. Back down to highs of 60s, lows of 30s (will be 40s in my garden) soon. Anyway, got my first Aleppo pepper!


Really excited to try it. I think I'll let it set a few days on the counter then cut it open. The plant has about 2 dozen more on it and looks like it will make it through the winter. It is in a pot so I can always drag it under the porch if we get crazy weather.

Visited my parents & my dad gave me a few pounds of jalapeños he grew. He is of the ignore the plant philosophy and his chiles get to be very flavorful & face-melting. He's always encouraging me to neglect my garden more and has helped me grow tastier pods.


Roasted a few for dinner the other night. Some were nicely spicy. Others were nuclear. My husband, chile head he is, got the hiccups pretty bad. But oh were they tasty! Maybe I need a jalapeño plant this spring...