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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.
 
 
TrentL said:
 
The Edens Gem melons are mostly untouched. They went after the divergent cantaloupe first, northern pickling cucumbers got hit hard as well. The Eden's Gem muskmelons were in between those and they largely ignored them. But they were all over the watermelon and slicing cucumbers too. 
 
We have a few *million* Japanese beetles milling around today. They were thick in the air. So far they've been leaving my veggies alone, and going after the soybeans, which I'm OK with. Got some Azera pesticide on the way just in case they change their minds...
Thanks! When I originally saw those dead as a door nail cukes, my first thought was they would make an awesome trap crop to help out my melons!

You certainly have had your share of drama, trials and tribulations while getting up and running. Have you given any thought to a name for the farm?
 
My inlaws get a ton of those Japanese beetles on their raspberry, blackberry and cherry trees. My father in law put up some traps that use pheromones as an attraction bait upwind of the plants. He then dumps boiling water on the bugs that are caught in the traps.


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PtMD989 said:
My inlaws get a ton of those Japanese beetles on their raspberry, blackberry and cherry trees. My father in law put up some traps that use pheromones as an attraction bait upwind of the plants. He then dumps boiling water on the bugs that are caught in the traps.


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Lures are a bit of a double edged sword. They draw a LOT of bugs to your property and not all get caught by the traps. I put them out one year and... never again. :)
 
PodHopper said:
Does anyone else feel invested emotionally in Trent's crops or is it just me?
 
Heh I'm trying my damndest not to screw it all up. I *might* pull some annuum pods this weekend to hit up the farmers market, if I think I have enough for a table. MIght have enough Santa Fe Grandes ready to go, those are the right size and generally sell un-ripe while they're still yellow.
 
saiias said:
I am here along with you.

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We got RAIN RAIN AND MORE RAIN.
 
Field was pretty heavily flooded today, workers are slogging through mud, had one kid quit on us today, he had enough. He took a job over at the local Ford dealership changing oil and tires. Said it'll be easy compared to what it's like working in the full sun all day.
 
This job ain't for sissies. 
 
I'm just glad I'm 1/8 indian and have skin that darkens fast. :)
 
chocolatescotchbonnet said:
I give it to you.. I couldn't Imagine taking care of that many plants or the cost of it.. If I could make make a living of it, that would be fine with me.
 
I don't know about the making a living part, so far all I've proven is
 
A - I can grow peppers REAL damn good still
B - I suck at growing everything else except weeds
C - I DO NOT LIKE TOMATOES THIS MUCH! GODDAMN STRINGING 200 F'N PLANTS IS A METRIC SHIT-TON OF WORK (I'm doing all of that myself as I don't trust workers to prune them properly)
D - The easiest way to make a small fortune farming is to start with a large fortune
 
I guess the good news is I can write off like 250k a year in R&D costs with taxes, so considering this is "one gigantic experiment to develop the worlds' best organic potting soil" I will at least owe the government a little less this year.
 
So there's a lot of positives. I'm healthy, muscles are frigging RIPPED, for a 41 year old I'm cut like a 20 year old again, I get to munch on tomatoes and peppers right off the plant while I work, and we have beer in the fridge for the end of the day.
 
And sometimes, the fridge even keeps it cool. (It's kind of a hit & miss thing.. old frigging refrigerator at the farm)
 
saiias said:
 
 I am 8/8 India-n  :lol:  :D
 
Haha, yes, yes you are.  
 
I'm 1/8 native american (blackfoot), 1/4 german, with the rest "american English mutt" .. lost most of my genealogy branches down in Arkansas somewhere back in the 1800's. Lawrence line kind of dead ends there, no idea where they came from before they were hillbillies in the woods, other than my great granddaddy had shacked up with an Indian gal, down there. Arneson (on the other side of Dad's line) were the bootleggers from Chicago.  Don't have any info on them, either, my paternal grandmother is psycho, and I haven't talked to her in 22 years.
 
On mom's side, the Schott lineage, can't find any records before the boat trip great grandpa took from Hamburg back in 1905. All the German records of that line were destroyed between the two wars. The other part, the York line, goes back to England. There's also some Spencers in that mix. 
 
So lots of European lineage, all muddled up. 
 
Trident chilli said:
Trent I hope all goes well with your chillies at the farmers market. Sorry to read about the bugs but you have many positives and I tip my hat to your continued efforts
 
Thanks! Hopefully we can get at least a little income coming in soon.
 
 
 
Walchit said:
That's funny for me
 
Oh and Trent, my tomatoes got out of control on me before I got them on a  trellis. So now they are "Free Range" or "Cage Free"
Lol
We will see how they turn out
 
Dude these tomatoes would have been SO EASY to string 4 weeks ago, but the wire rope took forever to get here.  
 
The main vines are 4-5 feet high, most have sent out 10-15 vine shoots that are 3-4' long, and it is a REAL pain in the ass to string them. I'm pruning back the vines that haven't set fruit yet, but still running an average of 8 strings per plant. I lost so many plants, and they are looking so healthy, I figure rather than train them back to 2 vines each I'll let them load up with 8 or so vines. At least fill in the gaps in the trellising a little better if I let them grow a bit bigger.
 
Any pics of the tomatoes? The farm nearby has an amazing greenhouse set-up with strung tomatoes that are about 8-9 feet tall and loaded with big beautiful tomatoes. It’s unreal. I’m imagining you with a very similar setup!

I didn’t know tomatoes could grow that tall like that.. They have the suckers all pruned and the plants are basically massive long vines with pounds of tomatoes every 2 nodes. Anyways, I’m mainly a pepper guy, but I’ve learned a lot about tomato care this year, definitely will be more into them going forward.

Also, I picked up 3 Amish pastes from a farm in Kutztown PA back in early May cause I was inspired by yours, I’m excited to try them!


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fcaruana said:
Any pics of the tomatoes? The farm nearby has an amazing greenhouse set-up with strung tomatoes that are about 8-9 feet tall and loaded with big beautiful tomatoes. It’s unreal. I’m imagining you with a very similar setup!

I didn’t know tomatoes could grow that tall like that.. They have the suckers all pruned and the plants are basically massive long vines with pounds of tomatoes every 2 nodes. Anyways, I’m mainly a pepper guy, but I’ve learned a lot about tomato care this year, definitely will be more into them going forward.

Also, I picked up 3 Amish pastes from a farm in Kutztown PA back in early May cause I was inspired by yours, I’m excited to try them!


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I'll take some pics next time I'm out. I've been stringing plants every day this week. SO slow, as they got so damn big.
 
I have green tomatoes splitting wide open because we got too much water this week!!!
 
 
Ghaleon said:
If you're going to hire youths, pick ones with ADHD. All that energy has to go somewhere.
 
Yeah, not a bad idea, if only you could keep them on task lol.
 
Genetikx said:
Well if the farm isn't flooded now, it will be soon after all this rain. Future Radar Is looking pretty wicked so hope it's another kick back with some beer days
 
Unfortunately, there were DUCKS SWIMMING IN MY FIELD TODAY.
 
Yes.
 
Ducks.
 
SWIMMING.
 
nmlarson said:
Speaking of tomatoes, did Scrawny make it?
 
Oh yeah Scrawney is still alive and kicking in a 15 gal pot. It's... one odd frigging tomato plant. I'll try to remember to get a pic tomorrow!
 
 
 
I'm glad these Japanese beetles don't like to eat peppers. There are TENS OF THOUSANDS of them in my field. Every plant had dozens on it today, they are emerging from the soil, climbing up the plants, mating, and then flying off to go eat my soybeans.
 
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First ripe ultrahot goes to.. Trinidad Scorpion Cardi. One of a handful of surviving plants from the original 6 experimental trays.

Yes, it tasted great, and had some good heat.
 
We cut it in thirds, me, my son, and a field hand (18 year old kid) each ate a slice. 
 
Then I told the field hand if he could take the leftover placenta and seed cluster in his mouth for 60 seconds I'd write an extra hour on his time card.
 
He did it.
 
He cried, but he did it. :)
 
So he earned an extra hour of pay for "Quality Assurance" today. :)
 
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More pepper porn. Rows and rows of it.
 
Plants are perfectly healthy. Haven't used any fertilizer at all this year, probably won't need to, judging by the plants and pods.
 
100' rows;
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Oops random cucumber photo bomb
 
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More pepper rows
 
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56' long rows;
 
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Some melons for a pepper break
 
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