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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 yellow cardi group moved about 200' north and at least 200' from any other pepper plants. I used some of my usual tulle bags and some new ones of a different type. I'm not really pleased with any of them because of the pipes so I have some different stuff inbound.

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The red cardi group took over the spot by the house. I need to find another drum or at least a garbage can that doesn't leak. I learned my 15 gallon bucket only holds 13 gallons when I fill it using a meter.

These eat and drink the same 1% Masterblend.

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Love what you've done with the place, DW 🧐. You could have monsters in the making🤞.
 
July patch update

The winter squash section is doing great. Lots of butternut and candy roasters coming along. Something started eating the zucchini flowers a while back so we only got one fruit. I have five new gallon-size plants ready to rotate in soon.

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The tomatoes and beans are growing well and flowering but not producing. Maybe they'll do something when it cools down a bit. I sure want to make some pots of marinara with the San Marzano tomatoes.


The peppers are doing well. They're the smallest plants I've ever had in July but that's fine with me and to be expected since I didn't plant out until June. I was going for simple and sane this year, not jungle. I avoided the digging critter by planting late but still had to replace four plants that some other critter ate. Probably a rabbit.

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I'm gonna get rid of the hillbilly winter shelter this year and go with something completely different. The last two winters have been too severe and I'm tired of losing my mama plants. The new thing will triple the cubes and be much easier to manage and maintain. Plenty of room to automate everything when I close the roof and south wall for cold weather. I'll have room to dig up some of the best plants in the patch and add them to the overwinter crowd.

The chamberbitter is an awful weed. I think I brought it in with the load of decomposing sheepshit and rotting hay in 2018. The first weeds I remember seeing were the next year. I didn't know what it was and thought it was kinda cute when I pulled them. They look like baby mimosa trees. I didn't really start paying attention and learning until 2020.

The garden area is the epicenter of the infestation and over the years I've fought it but not seriously enough. Now there are spots of it everywhere so I've upped my game this year. The garden itself is okay but the surrounding areas are not. It laughed at the pre-emergent from Ace I put on it in 2022. You can't mow it away. It learns to grow close to the ground if you do. This year it's full-on war. This year I'm using 75% Isoxaben and using glyphosate as a marker where I can. This costs me around $3.50 a gallon to mix.

What makes this weed so bad is it grows little dingleball fruits all up and down underneath the leaf axils. These fruits explode and spew seeds everywhere as they mature or are molested.

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It stinks but the best management practice without using atrazine or other very bad chemicals is pulling them before they can spew. I travel our property with a bucket now. This is the fifth feed sack ready to go to the landfill this month.

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Here's some of the first pods from the Canadian Yellow CARDI Scorpions. Looking more like a sick joke. They have as much of the CARDI Scorpion form as my Red Wing boots. They don't even have that Butch T look of all the other Yellow CARDI fakes people are peddling.

We'll see after a while. I do have four plants but now I'm glad I only started four plants.

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Woulda been nice to see it SLICED DW, lol. Good thing I don't live closer, you woulda had company. Looks delicious.
Here ya go DR. This time I'll show the end game. 19.8 pounds of pig smoked all day the Sunday before last.

Just out of the smoker 6:30 PM

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Rested for an hour, time to pull some off for eating

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8:20 PM I like to tear them down at 175°-ish

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8:23 PM done with the basic deconstruction

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I started eating these so-called Cardi Scorpions from the Canadian seed seller. What a joke. So disappointing. Obviously zero cardi scorpion form but that's not the worst. I started slicing pieces off the first one. Fruity and tasty but the heat isn't there. I'm being wildly generous if I say it's Fatalii level. Really, these are the mildest peppers I've ever grown. Not even habanero level.

After eating the first one, piece by piece, hoping for something to happen, I chopped another and put it into a soft taco size chorizo and bean burrito. That stuff is pretty wild thanks to all the YNBS and reapers I used when I cooked it. To be honest, I never sensed any additional heat from the yellow sweet pepper I added.

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The really great scorpion news is the 2nd generation of the mutant that accidentally popped from the red cardi last year is growing true to form and is just as beastly hot as the original. A quarter inch of the tip end hurts. I still believe this yellow is at least as hot, if not hotter, than the red.

I also got some of the red cardi scorpion seeds from this Canadian seed seller. They're growing true to form but none are ripe for heat and taste comparisons yet.
 
Here ya go DR. This time I'll show the end game. 19.8 pounds of pig smoked all day the Sunday before last.

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Nice looking butt DW. Lotsa Mr. Brown to mix in, and juicy as hell. Great job! Now, I'm hungry. I might have to fire up the smoker, ha.
 
sorry my recommendation to the canadian seeds was a bust for you.

i have only had 1 or 2 of the 30+ types i bought from there over 4 years not come out as expected.

It's not a big deal and I truly appreciate the recommendation. I brought Jason up to speed on this and he's trying to figure out what went wrong. It may take a while but he truly appreciates knowing what happened. His red cardi are looking pretty good and real. I'll be able to start tasting those soon.

Meanwhile, my second generation yellow cardi mutants are not disappointing at all. They're everything I was hoping they'd be. The ones I planted out in the patch are finally starting to grow and produce well now that the ridiculous heat has given us a break.

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It's bizarre but I just started picking beans yesterday. I suppose I better find a better variety to grow in the blistering heat we have anymore. The plant in the background is a red cardi scorpion from the Canada seller. I have four of those and still don't have a ripe pepper to compare taste, etc. with the ones I've been growing for 8 years or so.

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I've also recently stated getting some tomatoes. Five San Marzano but no Amish Paste. I'm learning something from this and saving the seeds.

I did okay with the winter squash considering some critter ruined about half of the squashes. About 30 pounds have survived so far.

Zucchini was a total bust. The first round of plants were chewed down quickly. The second round of gallon size starts were also chewed down before I could get a thing. Only one fruit all year but It was good.

Peppers are doing well. I was hoping the plants would stay small so I wouldn't have to pound in all the posts again put up the fences around the rows. I decided to go for it but I may regret it before it's all done. Stringing them up to the wires isn't going too well. Time to pick peppers again in the morning.

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That last pic is a real money shot, bro!

Beautifully tended garden, DWB!
Thanks Paul. It's odd to see so much floor at this time of the year.

This is what we picked yesterday. Mostly YNBS and my yellow cardi scorpion mutants. Some reaper and douglah in there too.

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It so was stinkin' hot the working dogs supervised me from a shady spot.

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I need to start picking twice a week. Initial culls made a gallon for the black soldier flies. They have a good colony going in the far geobin where I dump all the veggie trash. The last two colonies I had by the pumphouse moved a while back. .I dumped those two remaining BSF scuzzbuckets in there. I imagine they're happier with a ton pile to live in rather than swimming in a bucket forever.

A neighbor brought me his two rolling bins in July. 55 gallon drums. He moved to town and didn't need them anymore. I needed two feed sacks to hold the very nice finished compost that came in them. More than 100 pounds. A smokin' deal. I refilled them with layers of horsey fertilizer, grass clippings and chipper slash. I'm not much in favor of turning over compost piles but I can handle rolling these around once in a while to do the same thing. We'll see if it makes compost any quicker. Regardless, I'll have plenty for next season.

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