2019 Hay Bale Pepper Patch

I've been a member for a while but never posted a grow log. My usual garden is too boring for that. I use 20-30 pots and overwinter my mama plants in a hillbilly winter shelter. Our ground here isn't good for in soil gardening and I've not been enthused enough to undertake the work and expense to build raised beds.
 
Now I have my peppers working the way I want and have the need for a much larger grow to supply a project. The main peppers I'll grow will be reaper, douglah and fatalii. For a couple of years I'll do hay bale gardens and heap tons of organic trash into the area. I have monumental amounts of pine straw, oak leaves and bonfire ash every year to dump in the walkways. I think this will do a world of good to make this new garden area mo'betta for eventual in ground growing.
 
I closed off a 38x38 patch in the NE field that gets full sun. This is the area I chose. The big painted guy is my fertilizer supplier.
 
The little painted guy is my running buddy and load inspector.
 
 

 

[Ghost Pepper Revolution]

And we have a winner. Somehow I knew it would be you Paul.
 
It's a Chinese landrace I affectionately call Shar Pei.
 

Crazy looking pepper, was it tasty?
We need to know how it tastes? Or else.


Pt woot woot

 

[DWB]

It tastes like meat but it looks cool.

 

[Ghost Pepper Revolution]

It tastes like meat but it looks cool.

Meat? Really?

 

[DWB]

An acidic, almost blood-like raw meat flavor to it.

 

[CaneDog]

Maybe it actually crossed with a Shar Pei.
 
Seriously though, that's unfortunate.  It's a great looking pepper.

 

[DWB]

Actually it's a good thing. The spice is great for beef. A local restaurant chain has an exclusive on everything I produce.

 

[DWB]

Bale garden annex and isolation area.
 
My friend across the river who gives me the loads of compost was finally able to bale some hay today. First time since before Memorial Day we've had enough dry days in a row  so he could bale. Since he had some new hay in huge super-tight bales, I figured I may as well go get a few to see how a real bale garden is supposed to work as opposed to what I have after beginning five months ago.
 
I added a four bale square at the southwest corner of the bale garden. Not sure what I'll grow there. Hmmm, maybe some peppers and tomatoes?
 
I set a six bale row up by the house in my isolation area where I'll grow iso pepper plants plants in the bales and pots along that fence line.
 
I did the first charge with ammonium nitrate of the bales today. I suppose they'll be ready for some plants in a week or two.
 

 
 
 
 

 

[DWB]

Another row of peppers planted. Two full rows of those with 48 or so pepper plants and a total of 16 of those highly obnoxious tomato plants in the ground. Nothing has died yet so that's good. I'll pull back all the row covers one day soon to do a variety map.
 
Thankfully I have the largest of the peppers planted and protected. Most of the rest of them are smaller plants and still packed 24 to the bin. Each bin is a solidly conjoined mass of roots. They don't air prune worth a hoot when they're so tightly comingled. The tomatoes are beyond control so I've been potting up the worst of them. They're crazy, getting so huge and floppity and growing big gnarly dragon roots into mid air from the stem above the dirt line.
 
I have a couple of bins of tomatoes all untangled and ready for my neighbor to pick up. I wish he'd come and haul them off. They all need to be upsized to larger digs from the sock pots or put in the ground.
 
 
 

 
 

 

[luvmesump3pp3rz]

Crazy looking pepper, was it tasty?
We need to know how it tastes? Or else.


Pt woot woot

 
click this and scroll to top of page to see the pepper.
 
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/71128-strange-new-pepper-found-identification/?p=1622253
 
 
 

 

[CDNmatt]

Is this on the stuff you have just been putting out Dee?
 
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/71136-devastation-happened-overnight/?p=1622303

 

[DWB]

Yep. I got it on two of the five planted outside the row cover. Those late afternoon plantings seen in a picture last page. The one where Cody was saying "time to go play some soccer ".  A fatalii and a reaper.

 

[DWB]

I'm doing the quickrot on the new bales to get them ready ASAP. I hit them with the second nitrogen treatment yesterday and they're cooking rather well as of today. Cool today. Ambient air temp around 64°. Internal bale temp, almost 125°
 

 

 
 
My pole bean starts are all ready to go in the bean ditch. After these are planted I'll plant the rest of it with seeds. I want to get a jump start on the green bean production but I don't want to plant them too soon. They're gonna grow like there's no tomorrow but they'd be hard to protect from frost.
 

 
 
The first starts for my squash hills are starting pick themselves up and say howdy.
 

 

[Ghost Pepper Revolution]

 
click this and scroll to top of page to see the pepper.
 
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/71128-strange-new-pepper-found-identification/?p=1622253
 
 
 

Thats crazy
A South Africa pepper

 

[DWB]

 
click this and scroll to top of page to see the pepper.
 
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/71128-strange-new-pepper-found-identification/?p=1622253
 
 
 

 
 

Thats crazy
A South Africa pepper

 
Well, both peppers started out green and both have wrinkles. Isn't that enough for a positive ID?

 

[DWB]

I guess I have the "superstructure" in fairly good order. Despite my minimalistic / plan as I go / use what I find type of methodology, I think it's all gonna work. I'll start adding plants to row 1 (on the right) in a few days. Maybe when the construction and planting is done I can even make it pretty again. It's mighty dang butt ugly now.
 
My shade cloth clips should arrive from China tomorrow so I'll start seeing how my imagineering for dirt cheap garden shade will work.
 

 
 
When we got back from town Monday morning, I saw a big wad of plastic sheet had blown off a truck into the ditch out in front of our east end. Tuesday, I walked out there to see about it and either put it in the burn pile or use it to cover some bales for quicker cooking. As it turns out, it's like a 30x10' sheet of relatively intact thin plastic. Works nice for covering the 6-bale row.
 

 
Keeping them covered really gets them cooking.
 

 
 
I have been spreading a half cup of 34-0-0 on each bale every other day, then watering in and then completely soaking the bales on the off days. Today I changed to a quarter cup per bale every day for a few days. It's working well and very quickly. The insides of the bales are starting to look mighty fine already.
 

 
 

 

[Devv]

Wow! I like the hay bale thang!
 
Any issues with seeds starting from the grass that was baled? Here I only see for the most part Bermuda variants which I'm too chicken to try and use, as it's very invasive.
 
Wishing you the best this season and glad I found your glog

 

[DWB]

So far weeds and grass haven't been an issue at all. Since laying the bales down in mid-October there have been some sprouting weeds and grasses but nothing to compare to the amount of mushrooms. Any weeds are super easy to pull and I figure the mushrooms are good. Now the most numerous plants coming up now are volunteer oak trees. They get picked up with the leaves and spread around. I imagine all the grass seed that came in the hay bales is pretty well cooked out by now. If they washed out of the bales they won't have a chance under nearly a foot of mulch and manure  I laid down between the bales. Anyways, I don't spend any time at all on weed control. I see something once in a while and pluck it. I hope it stays that way.
 
Thanks for the good wishes Devv. It has been an interesting project and I imagine it will continue like that.

 

[DWB]

Shade is going up. I have the two middle rows done. This 30% cloth will give every plant a nice break from full sun. It doesn't actually seem like much when looking at the deepness of the shade but CARDI says it's plenty to protect peppers from brutal tropical-style sun. it should also offer some protection from out heavy rain which sometimes comes at a rate of inches per hour.
 
Everything will need some tweaking and adjusting as I see how it does. Basically it's panels suspended with a web of 110# poly baling twine. It seems to do well in the wind. It was gusting past 20 all day yesterday when I was hanging it. I hope it lasts. I haven't used any shade cloth since Tucson 30 years ago. That stuff was a completely different thing than this modern day chinese garbage.
 
I lose some headroom but I'll live with it. Maybe I should have thought of that before I filled the workspace floors with the foot of compostable material. Regardless, it's a small price to pay for protecting the entire garden for $100.
 
 

 

[CDNmatt]

Shade cloth is pretty solid Dee, I think its really gonna help you out when it comes to the mid summer crunch far as the hot ass sun goes eh. I think I will hold off for now and see how this season goes, we do not get long extended heat waves for the most part, so would hate to put out the money and time to set it up if I am not totally sure I even need it just yet.

 

[DWB]

It does make a notable patch of shade in the full, bright sun. My wife likes it. She said it will be good for me as well as the plants... as she helped me remember I had a melanoma cut out of my back in 2015.
 
I am so ready to lose the row covers but we're having a bit more cold. Down to the low 40's at night. We've only had a few nights above 60 since I started planting out so nothing is going wild yet. That's okay. i think the plants are very busy spreading some roots out of the sock bags into the warm hay compost.