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nzchili and the kiwi summer

Hi guys, thought I would make my own thread here rather than keep clogging up the great kiwi pepper thread..
Its a bit late as we are half way through our season..but anyway..here's a couple pics of how things are shaping up.
 
This year I have many unlabeled volunteers so will be interesting to see what I end up with in a couple months time.
 
some plants.. here we have some bhutlah crosses iv been working on for a few years (starting to look mean, will post pics later)..some wild bird peppers from jiji, a few pubes, a brain strain, and im not really sure what else...a douglah,  a large thick cayenne is in there.. oh and a volunteer tomato and rosemary :)
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here an aji verde that survived the winter...went through a bad patch a little while back but is doing ok now..is pretty big (picture does not show it well), but its got loads of pods on there. Probably have 5 or so aji verde volunteers as well
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on the weekend I potted up 11 x hybrids. I think they are douglah x annum of some sort. excuse the state of the pots lol..the dogs like to chew them sometimes..ah well they will do! :) 
I reuse the same soil (in pots) year after year...what I do to prepare the old soil for new plants is, add some organic stuff (dynamic lifter / compost), add a tea spoon of trace elements, a sprinkle of flowers of sulphur, and a bit of slow release fert..whatever floats your boat. I used osmocote in the pots below.
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some hybrids that have turned out green
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some purple ones
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just because people like to see pods...I did have loads of rocotos..but they were looted by rats a week or so ago..dont think ill have the same problem with the supers. Still have a few left but 90% were taken :(
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iv got some pretty mean looking pods happening now..will post some pics of those later
 
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Well this makes me a little sad :(
 
Was really looking forward to these watermelons..I bought a watermelon from some guy on the side of the road last year..was the biggest tastiest watermelon ever, so i kept the seems from it and called it the "roadside watermelon"
 
First my rocotos we eaten / stolen, now my "roadside watermelons" have been eaten by rats or something...note the half eaten small watermelon amongst the rocoto plant ><
I really didnt want to do it (as i have dogs), but I may need to get some rat poison...this is getting out of hand.
 
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So iv been battling rats since my last post..always seem to be battling something with this pepper growing..other years its been broad mites, or psyllids..this year its damned rats lol.
 
Anyway, iv deployed some poison which they have been eating..so hopefully the numbers are getting thinned down and I can finally get some ripe fruit..I would have had lots by now if they didnt consistently get plucked off the plant just before they start to turn!! 
 
This is slightly depressing...huge cayenne pulled off plant and half eaten by rats (multiple have gone missing, only one iv found remains of)..also note the super hot there on the ground as well... Id been eyeing that particular pod to keep for seeds as well! Bummer. I wonder if any of those cayenne seeds will volunteer for next season.
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plants in general are mostly doing well.
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these were some volunteers that sprouted in a bucket that I decided to pop into a raised bed
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Aji Verde is totally packed..looks a little scraggly but is happy enough
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the plants in the ground are mostly looking quite good
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I say mostly doing quote well as one of the plants in ground is very unhappy. Odd as its in the same part of earth as plant in above pic..will probably rip out the wilted one. 
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the hybrids are progressing ok. Pics of a couple of the phenos below..others are just plain green so not much point in posting those at this point
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and lastly a few pods which the rats have not stolen yet..
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Looking good!

Pity about the rats! Are you in the city? I've never had to worry about rats.

Going to be a nice harvest from the Verde!
 
RaelThomas said:
Looking good!

Pity about the rats! Are you in the city? I've never had to worry about rats.

Going to be a nice harvest from the Verde!
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Thanks :)
Yep, well im in Auckland. Its not dense or a concrete jungle where I am though. Have also never had to worry about rats before..I think it was my compost pile that attracted them in the first place. I used to throw all my vege scraps on the top of it. Now I only compost with grass clippings and dry leaves.
I think by the time I figured out I was feeding them and stopped it, there was already a sizable population that needed to feed (on my peppers!) after that I stopped the composting my vege scraps. Granted I just threw everything in old tyre so its open..would be ok in a proper enclosed compost bin. 
 
OCD Chilehead said:
Plants looking good Chris.

Sorry to hear about the rats. Time to trap.
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thank you good sir. :)
Iv got 5 rat traps consisting of 3 different types and have not had much luck with any those. They have been set off a few times but iv only caught one with the traps..they seem to be too smart for traps. Most of the time they just go untouched. 
 
I got a poison bait station a couple weeks ago and so far 5 blocks have been taken, so the numbers must be going down now :) the blocks are fairly large as well..about 1.5" square so i would assume it would take a few rats to eat 5 blocks over a couple weeks. 
 
Hopefully I will be mostly free of them soon.
If not this thread will turn into a trapping rats in NZ thread lol :)
 
Rat trapping 101 sounds good. LOL

I had the same problem with mice last year. Couldn't trap them because they liked the tomatos more than the bait in the traps.

The poison will work for sure.
 
Small update, The poison seems to have worked and my peppers etc are no longer going missing or getting half eaten...plus there was the scent of dead things in the air for a little while there so pretty sure most of them are no more.
 
Plants in general are going ok. I sprayed for psyllids a couple weeks ago, and sprayed some lime sulpur last week as I think the broad mites were making a return. Not a real problem as I caught it early & know what to look for this time round. No real set back.
 
wild bird peppers from fiji
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more of the same..a different plant though
 
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will be good to finally have some pubes after having so many stolen by rats..I ended up cutting back the big rocoto plant from previous images as it got mites and was getting to long and lanky. Should come back sweet though.
 
I think the plant below is a costa rica rocoto but cant be sure...its from seeds I saved from the toughest pube i had encountered...so naturally I just labelled the seeds "tough pube"..
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my hopes of progressing the BP3 strain this year lies on plant below. will have to see how hot they are!
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Douglah. this plant actually survived the winter...came back from a little stick. the white stuff on the leaves is from the lime sulphur spray
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in ground chili tree. some of the in ground plants are getting pretty big :)
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yay "road side watermelon" looks like it may make it to ripeness
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Trippa said:
Nice bro ! Hope you aren't getting too much rain at the moment!
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haha we are getting lots and lots of rain! Hopefully it dosent last long enough for roots to start rotting. No flooding here though so that's good
 
RaelThomas said:
Looking good!
What's the story with the BP3? Looks cool.
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It stands for bhutlah phenotype #3. It was just the naming convention for the different brown bhutlah plants I had. It was number 3 of about 5 different plants that all grew different from some unstable seeds. It was the nastiest one and didnt really turn brown. maybe goes maroon if you leave on the plant for ages. Have been continuing to grow and select from that #3 line for a few years now...its brutal. very painful, and can look quite mean & bumpy when the correct pheno plant pops up.
I lost a year last year as I was lazy and let winter claim the one plant that grew as I was looking for.
 
Madhatter123 said:
hey. where do you get the wild fijian birds from?
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From my (soon to be) in laws place in Fiji  :)
Its proper name is junglee mircha, which translates to wild pepper in hindi.
Its about all we use for cooking. I grow most of the others just for fun.
 
I could send some seeds your way, but probably not for a month or so till i can harvest some fresh seeds off the plants. :)
 
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