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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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I think I figured out what those wasps were that were tagging me every time I stuck my hands in the plants. It stopped when I started wearing long sleeves and mechanic gloves for picking. Yellowjackets.
 
I found this thing in a tree out front when I was plowing leaves today. They should be dead due to the freak freeze that killed my plants but they're not. Not sure this thing is big enough to be one of our world famous alabammy perennial nests but I don't like it. Not sure what to do with it. I guess it could be just the queen I saw going back in to it today or there could be a quarter-million of those little beasties in there. I'm considering my options at this point. The only winner I can imagine is go out and pump a few rounds with the 12 gauge sawed off and run like hell. It's about 2' tall.
 
 
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Nothing rakes leaves like a Kubota zero turn. I pushed up 17 huge piles in less than an hour. Now to haul them out to the garden.
 
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Not a fan of the Bee critters for sure (when they sting). And had to seal up a nest in an Oak tree hollow 18' from the house last year...long story.
 Whatever you decide use care ;) Shotgun thing? Ever been chased by an angry nest? Someone should have clocked my ass running that day!
 
Here's to sorting out next seasons endeavors :dance:
 
DWB said:
I found this thing in a tree out front when I was plowing leaves today. They should be dead due to the freak freeze that killed my plants but they're not. Not sure this thing is big enough to be one of our world famous alabammy perennial nests but I don't like it. Not sure what to do with it. I guess it could be just the queen I saw going back in to it today or there could be a quarter-million of those little beasties in there. I'm considering my options at this point. The only winner I can imagine is go out and pump a few rounds with the 12 gauge sawed off and run like hell. It's about 2' tall.
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:flamethrower:
 
Just my $0.02, although both barrels and bail sounds like fun too.
 
Unless you happen to trip, that is.   :shocked:
 
Instead of the sawed off 12ga use a full length 10ga. Full length barrel has better range. Shoot it from inside your pickup, then get out fast.


I sprayed a much smaller one years ago at my grandmother's house. Sprayed them while sleeping, best I can tell they died before ever getting out.
 
Nice nest! They certainly can be defensive creatures. No worries on that one being perennial though, it should be done any day now, if not already. Often times other wasps and insects use the nests to overwinter in after the colony expires, giving the impression that it is still active. If weather is mild enough, old workers and males may remain for some time but will eventually die. It appears to be a "Bald-faced Hornet" nest (Dolichovespula maculata) which are great predators of flies, mosquitoes, and smaller yellowjackets. 
 
Indiana_Jesse said:
... It appears to be a "Bald-faced Hornet" nest (Dolichovespula maculata) which are great predators of flies, mosquitoes, and smaller yellowjackets. 
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...and the occasional human who chooses to f*ck with them.
 
PaulG said:
 
Garbage bag.
 
Loppers.
 
Ladder.
 
;)
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Might consider a bee suit as well...but this is how we would remove that here.  Into a trash bag, tie it off and let the hive suffocate (or burn it if you can in your area).
 
We keep honey bees and Yellow Jackets are a fact of life here.  They love raiding bee hives...evil, vile things they are!
 
Hey Dub, you may be able to sell that nest. I see ads for people who buy wasp nests that are not sprayed or wiped out. I think the buyers sell the nest and bees/wasps/hornets to a lab. The lab makes antidotes for people who are allergic to bees and such.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
We had no wasps at all this last season, a first around here. I mean none. We put out the usual bee traps (soda bottles and a half cup of MT. Dew), and beyond the myriad cowpie flies (look like houseflies, bite like deerflies), we had NO yellow jackets or baldface wasps. As wet as it was the mud daubers were absent as well. The honey bees, on the other hand, were abundant to almost nuisance levels.
 
When I was a kid we used to toss a cooked chicken wing to the curb in the early fall and watch the yellow jackets pile on. A dozen or two of the bastiges would clean it to bone in a half hour. Strange form of entertainment for a 12 year old, I know, but it was so creepy to see happening we couldn't resist the urge!
 
Besides removing the fence walls around the rows, I've not done much in the patch but watch and wait. We're gotten down to freezing or slightly below maybe 8 times since the big freeze and we've also had quite a few frosts that weren't associated with a freeze.
 
34 jungle plants have survived the entire winter with no help at all. After I took count early last week I went ahead and banked up the survivors with rotting leaves since we were forecast to have a few very cold nights. We had three freezing nights with two down below 27°. Once that was done I uncovered the plants and they're fine. Before too long I'll finish snapping down the dead wood, pull the posts and reconstruct the support structure. Initially I'll use single posts at each end and run one rope down the center of the rows to hang the frost covers on. For the next month or so, I'll probably just bank up the leaves again when it's forecast to freeze.
 
This will be my pepper crop for the year. The plants are nicely spaced throughout the jungle area and will have plenty of room to grow. Even so, they'll probably go to jungle again but this time I'll be better prepared to manage it. 
 
Oh yeah, I forgot about that yellowjacket nest for a while. Rather than get all radical spending a shotgun shell on it, I was gonna test it quick for signs of life by poking it with a section of pvc pipe and then play piñata if there was no action.
 
Ha, by the time I got back to it, it was finished. A storm took it down and this is what was left of it.
 
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DWB said:
34 jungle plants have survived the entire winter with no help at all. 
 
This will be my pepper crop for the year. The plants are nicely spaced throughout the jungle area and will have plenty of room to grow. Even so, they'll probably go to jungle again but this time I'll be better prepared to manage it. 
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That's so awesome, DW! Those plants
will definitely be bestial before summer's
end!
 
With only 34 plants this season, you will
feel like you are on vacation  ;)
 
Good luck with those, my friend!
 
Happy 2020, DWB.  Glad to hear that the jungle survived, and probably just about the right amount of it to grow back into J2. Sort of a nice payoff for all your work last year  that you can skip most of the work of starting replacement plants. Did you OW some stuff indoors too, like your yellow scorpion, and how's that doing?
 
And hey, the yellow jacket's nest took care of itself - a good lesson to us all that if you ignore a problem long enough it just might take care of itself!  ;)
 
Looking forward to another crazy ride this season.
 
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