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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.
 
 
 

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The garden is certainly a snake attracting element. The critters that eat the bugs, frogs, toads, lizards, and then the rodents, are all food for the snakes. Rattlers seem to love my garden, and fencing it like I did has helped. But I'm always cautious, those 18" snakes are plenty for some reason around here.
 
The Douglah's look mean. I've yet to meet a brown pod that liked me..LOL
 
Devv said:
The garden is certainly a snake attracting element. The critters that eat the bugs, frogs, toads, lizards, and then the rodents, are all food for the snakes. Rattlers seem to love my garden, and fencing it like I did has helped. But I'm always cautious, those 18" snakes are plenty for some reason around here.
 
The Douglah's look mean. I've yet to meet a brown pod that liked me..LOL
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The thought of reaching up in the jungle and getting a hot shot instead of a squishy mater is terrifying. I think those whippy little bastards are the most dangerous to us because they don't have their confidence built up and don't have much control to save their venom and give a dry bite.
 
It's been a quite a long time ago but I caught one of those small diamondbacks within 6' of our back door one weekend. The next weekend I caught his identical twin in the exact same spot below our back porch. I gave both of them to the same person.
 
Holy cow Dee, that's some inSANE growth! Clearly the plants are gobbling up what you're giving them, so keep up the good work (which I know you will [emoji4])!

I really admire your persistence, no matter what nature throws at you, you figure out a way to not let it get in the way of you thriving. Gonna be exciting to see how many pounds of pods you're gonna end up with that jungle there!

And yes, please be careful when harvesting there's nothing hiding there. My parents' dogs are good at warning for snakes so I'm certain you're in good hands! [emoji1303]

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Haha, if I was making pepper hay, I'd be golden. I've already lost count of picked pods but I do have about 3 quarts of 40 mesh pepper powder made already.
 
Always careful about snakes but I'd much rather take a bite myself than have one of the dogs get hit. I have insurance. The last bite to a dog cost $3000 and that was in 2000. Same snake that bit Cadi. It got him first and stated running. Our female golden retriever was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Laying in the front yard waiting for her mommy to drive in. The snake crossed two driveways, through the side yard and under the board gate and tagged her in the throat. She did okay but it was close. She lived another 9 years.
 
DWB said:
Haha, if I was making pepper hay, I'd be golden. I've already lost count of picked pods but I do have about 3 quarts of 40 mesh pepper powder made already.
 
Always careful about snakes but I'd much rather take a bite myself than have one of the dogs get hit. I have insurance. The last bite to a dog cost $3000 and that was in 2000. Same snake that bit Cadi. It got him first and stated running. Our female golden retriever was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Laying in the front yard waiting for her mommy to drive in. The snake crossed two driveways, through the side yard and under the board gate and tagged her in the throat. She did okay but it was close. She lived another 9 years.
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that's a ton of powder to have done already. what kind do you have?
 
 
 
 
its never good when your dogs get hurt. hopefully that wont happen again.
 
BDASPNY said:
 
that's a ton of powder to have done already. what kind do you have?
 
its never good when your dogs get hurt. hopefully that wont happen again.
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Sharpei, reaper and fatalii.

After that bite, I started doing the venomous snake aversion training for them. I still need to catch a rattler to finish Cody's training. All I've found to catch since he's been here is a cottonmouth.
 
PtMD989 said:
Dang ,that’s a jungle you going there, eh [emoji16].
 
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Yah, I don't know WTF I was thinking planting those 4' wide rows on an 18" stagger.
 
PtMD989 said:
You could have been thinking, some of these plants won’t survive, so I’ll plant extra to cover my loses? [emoji16]
My garden beds usually end up looking like, 20 gallons of sh!t in a ten gallon hat [emoji16].


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I suspect more like 20 gallons of awesome in a 10 gallon hat.
Only thing is dwb has a metric ton of it.
 
DWB said:
 
Sharpei, reaper and fatalii.
After that bite, I started doing the venomous snake aversion training for them. I still need to catch a rattler to finish Cody's training. All I've found to catch since he's been here is a cottonmouth.
 
 
Yah, I don't know WTF I was thinking planting those 4' wide rows on an 18" stagger.
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cant say ive heard of the sharpei pepper.  im still hoping my fatalii will  take off.  I haven't had one before so id like to.
 
that sounds cool, I didn't know they had training like that for pets.
 
PtMD989 said:
You could have been thinking, some of these plants won’t survive, so I’ll plant extra to cover my loses? [emoji16]
 
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Honestly, I was thinking if I never topped the plants, they would grow straighter and taller and I'd have adequate room to work with them with minimal training other than strapping them up by the main stem. I was hoping they wouldn't turn into this type of sprawling shrubbery.
 
 
BDASPNY said:
 
 
cant say ive heard of the sharpei pepper.  im still hoping my fatalii will  take off.  I haven't had one before so id like to.
 
that sounds cool, I didn't know they had training like that for pets.
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You haven't heard of that pepper unless you read about it here in my grow log. There are pictures and a bit of info on sharpei earlier in this thread.
 
We learned about the snake aversion training when we lived in Tucson in the 80's and encountered quite a few snakes when out in the desert with our dogs. We had the training done in Marana AZ and saw how well it works. After that, our dogs warned us about snakes rather than the other way around. The training is very popular out west but around here, not so much.
 
DWB said:
 
Honestly, I was thinking if I never topped the plants, they would grow straighter and taller and I'd have adequate room to work with them with minimal training other than strapping them up by the main stem. I was hoping they wouldn't turn into this type of sprawling shrubbery.
 
 
 
You haven't heard of that pepper unless you read about it here in my grow log. There are pictures and a bit of info on sharpei earlier in this thread.
 
We learned about the snake aversion training when we lived in Tucson in the 80's and encountered quite a few snakes when out in the desert with our dogs. We had the training done in Marana AZ and saw how well it works. After that, our dogs warned us about snakes rather than the other way around. The training is very popular out west but around here, not so much.
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sounds like very useful training for both.
 
 
looks like I need to start at the beginning of this thread. lol
 
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BDASPNY said:
 
 
wow  those are really cool looking. what's the details on it?
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It doesn't have an english name. It's just a weird pepper from Mongolia. A generally weak and unpleasant taste with very little heat. Pretty much useless until it's dried to concentrate the heat and flavor. Then it becomes a magnificent seasoning for beef.
 
Check out the seed "plug" It has no placenta, just this.  I did surgery on this pod to get the plug out intact but when a pod is very ripe, you can pull the stem and pop it right out. And that dang stem. It's so tough. Much stronger than the branch it grows on. Indeed a weird pepper.
 
 
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