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thoroughburro 2023, kith and kitchen

I’m just a week or so away from my first round of seed starting, and The List has stabilized.

As the title suggests, I’m focusing on a more shareable garden, this year. My high heat tolerance is well satisfied by sauces and flakes, so it’ll be a mercy to others and not much sacrifice to me if I cook more with mild or heatless peppers and lean into condiments for my own spice satisfaction.

Capsicum annuum​

4 Gogoşar (pronounced “gogoshar”; also transliterated as gogosar, gogosari, etc), a heatless Romanian variety whose name is confusingly also used generically for red pepper. My partner has very fond memories of this large, pumpkin-shaped pepper being roasted and then stuffed or preserved. They’re also used fresh, like red bell pepper. I had to import these seeds from a Romanian seller on Ebay who at first resisted since US customers had been leaving bad reviews for unreliable shipping. I assured her I would leave a good review regardless of ever getting them. It all worked out, and now of course I’m that much more invested in growing the variety…

4 Quadrato d’Asti Giallo, a superlative, heatless yellow bell pepper from Asti, in northern Italy. I grew this last year and, although the pods were stunted in only 5 gallons of soil, I was extremely impressed with the thick flesh and excellent flavor. Together with Gogosar, these should account for most of our “vegetable pepper” usage.

4 NuMex Heritage 6-4, well known as a choice, but mild, New Mexican cultivar. I grew Big Jim last year, but it was too hot for my partner to enjoy when used as the base of, for example, chile verde.

4 Jalapeño Zapotec, nearly rejected for again being too hot for my jalapeño-popper-loving partner, it found a place as my primary fresh spice pepper for pico de gallo and other fresh salsas. I’d find a place for it regardless, really; I find it a very compelling pepper.

4 Jalapeño TAM, this is the jalapeño to hate if you despise the near-heatless jalapeño products which took over the mass market: it was developed by Texas A&M University to be a commercial (but open pollinated) crowd pleaser. It should be exactly right for my partner’s poppers, and thus allows me to grow my Zapotecs!

4 Chiltepin O’odham (pronounced something like “OH ohdahm”, the apostrophe representing a glottal stop; they’re fascinating), a really tempting chiltepin collected from a sacred mountain. I struggled to choose a chiltepin for the year, especially because my dried Chiltepin Hermosillo Dwarf from last year have been amazing… but I do want to see if the berries of a non-dwarf might be a bit bigger, and I’m a sucker for a good origin story.

4 Stavros, an apparently choice Greek pickling pepper of the general type known in the US as “golden Greek pepperoncini”. “Pepperoncini” terminology is an absolute minefield, which is a shame since so many of us developed an addiction to them in childhood (thank you for that if nothing else, Papa John’s). This seems to be the only specifically named cultivar widely available, so it was an easy choice.

Capsicum chinense​

4 Orange Habanero (SLP) and
4 Orange Habanero (CPI), let one of these be the harpoon which slays at last this white whale, please god! This will be the third year I attempt to accomplish the original goal of this now-major hobby, which was to replace my no-longer-locally-available favorite sauce (El Yucateco XXXtra Hot Kutbil-ik) with homemade. The first year, I began too late and only whetted my appetite; last year, I put all eggs in the Habanero Oxkutzcab basket, which was too fruity for purpose. I’ve realized I need a bog standard habanero for the sauce I crave. Hopefully one of these will do.

4 Habanada (also using seeds collected from @HellfireFarm), which will allow me to make a medium-heat, taste-alike version of my signature sauce for more sensitive friends and family. This technique, of substituting some of the spicy variety with a heatless version to make a mild sauce, works so well that the smell, texture, and damn near the flavor are almost identical to the real deal. I hope to slowly create more heatless varieties of sauce peppers to allow this for each sauce I make. Someday.

4 Bahamian Goat, which saved my bacon when Habanero Oxkutzcab proved unsuited. It’s bulletproof and super productive with no downsides. It would almost be hubris not to grow: oh, you think you’re so good you don’t need the Goat at your back? It’s a good luck pepper.

4 Hot Paper Lantern, which I failed to see through last year. These have an almost universally excellent reputation, and in general sound like another pepper with all pros and no cons. I tend to like those! In addition, Johnny’s offers a yet more lauded version which was apparently the pride and joy of one of their breeders, Janika Eckert. I expect great things!

2 7 Pot Jonah, which I fully expect to regret growing. The capsaicinoids all over everything around processing time was a bit annoying last year. This year, I know to dedicate a separate cutting board and generally be more aware of the invisible menace which accumulated capsaicinoids become. Even so, I expect processing a superhot into sauce to be an ordeal. But I do want that sauce. I want a sauce in my repertoire which can make me think twice. Plus, I already thought of a good name.

2 Ají Charapita, which I grew from RFC seeds last year. I wasn’t sure if I would grow it again, but it’s lovely and compact, and looks amazing filled with glowing berries. We made a present of the single harvest of the single plant we grew, packed in vinegar, and it was both surprisingly beautiful and tasty. This seedline from Peter Merle was collected by him from a wild (or, I would suspect, naturalized) context along the Amazon, near Iquitos where the variety is common. I don’t expect it to be appreciably different to RFC’s, but the extra provenance is cool!

2 Redfire, also known as CAP 691. An enigmatic wild (or naturalized) red chinense which @Pr0digal_son described temptingly here. I’m hoping this has deciduous pods…

Capsicum baccatum​

4 CAP 455, which was the most productive pepper I grew last year, as well as the tastiest heatless red. The large jar of refrigerator pickles leftover has seen heavy use in chickpea salad sandwiches. I intend to devote a future season to more widely exploring baccatum, but this one is essential.

Capsicum frutescens​

4 Tabasco, which sure, yawn, but that unique flavor is still my absolute, must-have favorite on breakfast eggs. I’ll be surprised if I can make an acceptable substitute, but taking a shot at it will be my first fermented sauce project.


It’s a smaller grow than last year, in order to allow room for a burgeoning interest in herbs and a tentative branching out into other veg. As long as my choices work for purpose, it should all be more than enough!
 
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Looks like Tray 3 is another complete loss. More than 150 seeds in this one. Depressing.

It’s frustrating, because the troubleshooting is nearly conclusive by now: the culprit is almost certainly either this batch of (bargain basement) rockwool or my idiosyncratic initial watering with H2O2. I’m leaning toward the latter.

However, my patience is at an end. I need the next attempt to succeed, or I’ll just skip the season in disgust. The plan today is to buy some Jiffy pellets, expand them in plain water, and plant a much abbreviated season in that.

If that fails, then it’s the seeds. Another area where I’m already following close to best practice though: I store them in an airtight container with color-indicating silica gel, between 68-72 F.
 
Whatever is going wrong is going so wrong that fatality is at (so far) about 300/300. If I were reading this glog from the outside, I would be thinking: “What absolutely massive variable are you not telling us? What you’re describing is basically not possible.”

I’m wracking my brain. No major house fires… no chlorine gas leaks… I really don’t know!
 
I feel your frustration and really hope you'll succeed with the pellets. Had you lived closer, I would have given you some of my seedlings.

BUT, I must admit, this a freakin' interesting adventure. I mean, this is a better whodunit than any of Agatha Christie's novels.
 
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All right, Tray 4 is finished. But first, let’s look at Tray 2 — these were left shallow, so we can see better what’s going on, not that it’s very elucidating. These were sown on Jan 29.

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It looks to me like the first stage of germination is completing successfully: the root is emerging. I can’t see any examples of root tips which have entered the rockwool. Hypothesis: the environment is suitable for germination, but something about the medium is repellent to root development.

It’s not just Capsicum. These Eryngium foetida (culantro, shado beni) were sown on Jan 18:

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These seeds are like dust, but I think I maybe see some tiny root feet in there as well. Culantro usually pops around day 15.

And here’s Tray 4, just sown:

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I couldn’t resist adding a few more seeds in rockwool, but this time using only plain water for everything. If they take purchase just fine, we’ll all be able to say “it was the H2O2, which inhibited root development”, and move on with our lives. If not, it will remain a mystery.

Here’s what got planted:

- Bahamian Goat, 1-6
- Habanada, 7-12
- Habanero Gambia Orange, 13-18
- Bonda Ma Jacques, 19-22
- Bhüt Jolokia, 23-26
- Gogoşar Anileve73, 27-32
- Quadrato d’Asti Giallo, 33-38 gal
- Ancho San Luis, 39-44 gal
- Jalapeño Zapotec, 45-50
- Jalapeño TAM, 51-56
- Haskorea, 57-60
- Chiltepin Hermosillo Dwarf, 61-64
- CAP 455, 65-68
- Tabasco, 69-72


- Golden Cayenne, RW1-3
- Culantro, RW4-6 (maybe — I thought I had seeds left, but they were even more dustlike than usual)
 
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Here’s a question: can anything in Tray 2 be saved? It looks like plant tissue is still living.

Maybe try to tip them out and into Jiffys? My hands shake, so I feel sure I’d crush them if I tried to transfer them by hand. Tear out the surrounding chunks and plant them? I’d love to save some Habanero Orange or 7 Pot Jonah…
 
All right, I talked myself into flushing with water as the best way to give these seeds another chance. I prioritized the varieties I was most excited about originally and those which aren’t in Tray 4.

And here’s a probable smoking gun: as I handled the cubes a little, putting them on a rack to flush, the faint, telltale, slightly-vinegar smell of H2O2 was evident. Wow! My strong instinct was that a weak solution of it exposed to air over so much surface area (rockwool) made any remaining present unlikely. It looks like that may well be the bad assumption at the root of all this.

So. They got flushed through with plenty of tap water (our water here is great — 6.5-7.0 pH and nil TDS) to create Tray Easy as 1-2-3:

- Orange Habanero (SLP), 1-6
- Orange Habanero (CPI), 7-12
- Hot Paper Lantern, 13-22
- 7 Pot Jonah, 23-30
- Jamaican Hot Chocolate, 31-36
- Quadrato d’Asti Giallo, 32-37
- Chiltepin O’odham, 38-41
- Ají Charapita, 42-44
- Redfire, 45-49

I have no idea if any will still be viable. The mechanism of H2O2 toxicity might not be reversible — chemistry is my weak area. I’d sure love to see some of these this year!
 
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If I were reading this glog from the outside, I would be thinking: “What absolutely massive variable are you not telling us? What you’re describing is basically not possible.”

I’m wracking my brain. No major house fires… no chlorine gas leaks… I really don’t know!

Not really, sh*t just happens and it's just not always possible to identify the culprit.

And here’s a probable smoking gun: as I handled the cubes a little, putting them on a rack to flush, the faint, telltale, slightly-vinegar smell of H2O2 was evident.

H2O2 solution = odourless, or only slightly perceptiple (especially low concentrations - you're at 0.3%? Low...). Perhaps another compound is added (to avoid confusion with water) or CH3COOH is formed as a reaction product. Check the H2O2 label. Does it state the presence of a "denaturant", acetic acid, or peracetic acid?
 
H2O2 solution = odourless, or only slightly perceptiple (especially low concentrations - you're at 0.3%? Low...). Perhaps another compound is added (to avoid confusion with water) or CH3COOH is formed as a reaction product. Check the H2O2 label. Does it state the presence of a "denaturant", acetic acid, or peracetic acid?
Interesting! The bottle insists the only inactive ingredient is distilled water and the only active ingredient is H2O2.

When I pour some in my hand, I don’t smell it. If I then rub my hands together to create a warm film, I smell it instantly. When I work with it, I smell it on my hands the rest of the day. It smells similar to but different from vinegar. That said, I’ve noticed I smell things more keenly than some.

I don’t think I smell it stronger in older bottles of H2O2 though, which might suggest against it being a reaction byproduct? As I’ve said, I’m out of my depth with chemistry.
 
When I pour some in my hand, I don’t smell it. If I then rub my hands together to create a warm film, I smell it instantly. When I work with it, I smell it on my hands the rest of the day. It smells similar to but different from vinegar. That said, I’ve noticed I smell things more keenly than some.

In that case it probably is a reaction product (or a mixture of reaction products) from H2O2 with the organic material of/on your hands. Lower MW organic acids are easily detected. You already know acetic acid, likely butyric acid as well (rancid butter). None of them have a particularly attractive smell. Nothing to worry/bother about then.
 
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Thank you! That’s really interesting.

In this case, the smell is still a smoking gun I think: it indicates the H2O2 was still present in the inorganic rockwool, able to then react with organic hand gunk.

Do you agree, or do you suspect a yet undiscovered solution to the rooting issue?
 
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Do you agree, or do you suspect a yet undiscovered solution to the rooting issue?

I have no idea. I've never used rockwool but it appears to be an established method for seed germination (even patented). My guess is either a pH-issue (mineral wool is alkaline, and seeds prefer a slightly acidic pH - otherwise enzymes might not function properly) or perhaps it's physical.
 
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