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.
 
 

 

[PaulG]

Good luck wrapping up your grow, DW,
Has been most impressive  
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 

[BigCedar]

DW...
 
Dude......
 
Honest to god, that is the most insane pepper grow I have ever laid eyes on in my entire life. Holy F**** Sh** balls.   I am floored man! Completely floored. Those plot shots and ladder aerial shots are stupid! Honestly hard to believe they're real. 260 lbs of pods?! Get outta here!! Freaking grand slam season my friend, what a pleasure to catch up on and read through. I wish we lived closer, I would love to see that thing in person, I'd pay good money for a tour!! When you were planning all this early on, did you have any idea that it would be THIS successful? 
 
Also, my dehydrator has been pissing me off all season, Gourma 8 tray, can't expand it, cant keep up with the pods. Been looking for an upgrade and I'm totally sold on yours!  Thanks for that! I found one that fits 30 trays, looks like a winner. 
 
Once again buddy, absolutely incredible     

 

[Mr.joe]

Alright DW... I'm divin in!

Brace yourself, this is a glog like I've never seen

 

[PaulG]

260 pounds of pods.
 
That's a bit over 1/8 ton   
 
Egads.

 

[DWB]

DW...
 
Dude......
 
Honest to god, that is the most insane pepper grow I have ever laid eyes on in my entire life. Holy F**** Sh** balls.   I am floored man! Completely floored. Those plot shots and ladder aerial shots are stupid! Honestly hard to believe they're real. 260 lbs of pods?! Get outta here!! Freaking grand slam season my friend, what a pleasure to catch up on and read through. I wish we lived closer, I would love to see that thing in person, I'd pay good money for a tour!! When you were planning all this early on, did you have any idea that it would be THIS successful? 
 
Also, my dehydrator has been pissing me off all season, Gourma 8 tray, can't expand it, cant keep up with the pods. Been looking for an upgrade and I'm totally sold on yours!  Thanks for that! I found one that fits 30 trays, looks like a winner. 
 
Thanks Brandon.Once again buddy, absolutely incredible     

 
Thanks Brandon. If you think 260 pounds of pods is insane, consider the 13 pounds (5% waste) of stems I fed to my BSF larvae as I prepped those pods for the dehydrators
 
The Nesco is a good dehydrator but I think you have to watch them very carefully. But then again, I knew the one of mine had a problem from day 1 because it didn't get hot enough. At that time, Nesco said it was "within tolerance" and had no issues. Uh huh. I can confirm they do automatically adjust for number of trays up to 30 trays. I verified that by monitoring the KWH drawn with more trays.
 
Honestly, I had no idea pepper plants could grow so huge and no matter how they're trimmed, they quickly and completely fill in every cubic inch of space available to them. I never dreamed these plants would/could grow to 10 or 12 feet tall and then collapse due to pod weight. And then do it over and over and over again continually creating new tops from side shoots of the collapsed stems. If this was a marijuana patch, I woulda made a fortune.
 
 

 

[PaulG]

"If this was a marijuana patch, I woulda made a fortune."
 
Hindsight is 20-20, my friend 
 
I'd like to see your BSF set-up. They are awesome
composters, alright. I have seen online videos of the
salmon feast, and was rather blown away by their
voraciousness, if that's a word 

 

[solid7]

 If this was a marijuana patch, I woulda made a fortune.

 

 
Funny you should mention that...  I learned a lot about the methods that we've discussed in this thread, by observing the guerilla grows that were frequently conducted on our river bottom property in rural Nebraska.  I've never seen indoor plants that grew to the mammoth proportions that the drive-by growers achieved on our land.

Best I could tell, they were never fertilized.  They were almost always put up next to gigantic rotting trees (thereby with lots of rotting wood and leaf cover), and no shortage of moisture. 
 
The same spots where we often found some of our best wild mushrooms.  Funny how things work together...

 

[DWB]

I guess this is the last of the normal pickings. Tomorrow we go into salvage mode.
 

 
My wife picked the rest of the beans today and then helped me pick some peppers. She did good and hung in there until the bees showed up for work. Then she was outta there but was saddened by the huge amount of green pods, most of which will probably be lost.
 

 
My co-pickers, who look after me every day in the garden, are also sad that our sometimes daily pickings are coming to an end.
 

 

 
 
 
 

 

[PaulG]

The puppies look plumb tuckered out.

Hope you get a little break after you
get things wrapped up. Always green
pods left at the season end here. Just a
fact of life.

 

[BDASPNY]

id almost want to build a greenhouse over the plants and try to save them.

but.... how high would the roof need to be. lmao

 

[DWB]

id almost want to build a greenhouse over the plants and try to save them.

but.... how high would the roof need to be. lmao

 
Today is the day to decide and do. I think I may trim out the end plants and pile those tops under tarps for fence hanging on Thursday and deploy my frost blankets over the top of the middles. I think I have 1000 ft² of that cloth. That may protect a lot of it of it down to the most consistently forecast temp of 28. This could give me weeks of additional harvest. I have at least another 150 pounds of large pods on the vine in various stages of ripening.
 
 

I'd like to see your BSF set-up. They are awesome
composters, alright. I have seen online videos of the
salmon feast, and was rather blown away by their
voraciousness, if that's a word 

 
I plan to put up some more info and pictures in my BSF compost thread in the main growing forum. One of them is still a basic15 gallon slop bucket and the other one is sleeved with a perforated 5 gallon bucket with all the goodies contained inside a five gallon paint strainer bag.

 

[Uncle Eckley]

BSF composting really interests me.  I explained it (well, what I know about it) to the wife and she made a face that stopped me thinking about it, lol.  (Voracity!)
 
Keep pushing that weight total, Dub!

 

[DWB]

I was delusional in my thinking I could remove any sizable plant parts (with pods intact) from the jungle with all plants so completely inter-twangled. Not a chance.
 
I put up some frost covers that may help a little if it doesn't stay below freezing for long.
 

 
 
 
 

 

[Mr.joe]

In theory the outside plants should protect the inside ones right? Either way good luck surviving the cold

 

[CaneDog]

Damn, that's a legit cold blast headed your way.  Can't imagine plants better suited to survive it though.  Like Joe said, outer plants shielding the inner ones.  Add in what I expect are hugely developed roots deep down in that warmer soil plus the tarp to pick up the frost and they've got a chance.
 
Hope the cold is short-lived and all those pods hanging out there find they're way through your dehydrator.

 

[DWB]

BSF composting really interests me.  I explained it (well, what I know about it) to the wife and she made a face that stopped me thinking about it, lol.  (Voracity!)
 
Keep pushing that weight total, Dub!

 
The BSF are kinda disgusting and sometimes it stinks very badly. May not be a good thing for a small yard but then again, I don't have a proper setup.
 
I told my wife I'm doing something different with compost now but I haven't showed her or told her exactly what.
 
 

In theory the outside plants should protect the inside ones right? Either way good luck surviving the cold

 
Thanks Joe. I think the mass of the jungle should offer itself a lot of protection. Now that the front has passed and the wind has switched, I'll use a large and heavy tarp to put up a north wall and extra ceiling. That should help retain more heat.
 
 

Damn, that's a legit cold blast headed your way.  Can't imagine plants better suited to survive it though.  Like Joe said, outer plants shielding the inner ones.  Add in what I expect are hugely developed roots deep down in that warmer soil plus the tarp to pick up the frost and they've got a chance.
 
Hope the cold is short-lived and all those pods hanging out there find they're way through your dehydrator.

 
The cold will be all done tomorrow morning with everything heading back to normal. The stuff I put up yesterday is the frost protection/row cover cloth I mentioned in Paul's log a while back. It will get a good test now. I hope it works well.

 

[PaulG]

You are doing a great job of keeping the season going, DW!

 

[DWB]

You are doing a great job of keeping the season going, DW!

 
We'll see about that tomorrow. I hope I didn't spend two days pissing into the wind. Speaking of, that 30 mph north wind is mighty miserable for hanging tarps and pissing (even downwind)
 
I hung my data logger right in the middle at about 4 ft so we'll at least know what jungle peppers can take.

 

[CaneDog]

 
We'll see about that tomorrow. I hope I didn't spend two days pissing into the wind. Speaking of, that 30 mph north wind is mighty miserable for hanging tarps and pissing (even downwind)
 
I hung my data logger right in the middle at about 4 ft so we'll at least know what jungle peppers can take.

 
Great idea dropping the data logger into the patch.  Really curious how different it is at the middle versus outside.

 

[DWB]

 
Great idea dropping the data logger into the patch.  Really curious how different it is at the middle versus outside.

 
Not the points you're looking for but at 8 PM, 33.2° in the center of the patch. 35.2° on the windward side of the house with the thermometer sitting on the porch rail