b3rnd 2019 update

Hi guys! This year I'm mainly lurking here. I'm following a few projects, some glogs and check for any interesting posts daily. I just haven't gotten around to contributing a lot this year. I had great plans for this season, but as always life tends to get in the way. My dad got diagnosed with cancer. Although he caught it very early, that kinda stuff still gets to you. It seems he's in the clear now though, so that's nice. Also the usual stressing about money and work got to me a little. All in all I didn't really feel like dealing with my 'internet life' as well.
 
All is not bad though! My SO and I each got an allotment at the local community gardens. They're right next to each other, so we basically have one big allotment. They're 4 by 25 metres each, totaling 200 square meters. That is 240 square yards? Is that the one you guys use? I get confused. Anyway, it's a lot of work but I finally have the space to plant all of my peppers in the ground. I don't really enjoy growing in pots. It can be such a hassle to get everything right. The allotment really gave me the chance to really start all the projects I wanted to start. 
 
This year we're growing: peppers, tomatoes, squash, beans, leek, lettuce, cabbage, physalis, strawberries, few different kinds of Rubus, onions, beets, carrots and cucumbers. A lot of first-times for me, so I've made plenty of mistakes. Had some issues with onion fly and cabbage fly. The tomatoes there aren't doing great, while the ones in my home garden are doing wonderful. No clue why, but I'm guessing it's the microclimate in my backyard. It's a few degrees warmer on average and most days there's almost no wind. Although my peppers are doing better at the allotment and worse at home... I started the squash in too small pots as well, so they were lagging behind a lot. Next year I'll experiment with direct sowing as well as pre-sow in bigger containers.
 
The onions went great, we were one of the first with huge onions at the gardens. We planted almost a month before everyone else, they called us crazy for being so early. Joke's on them. We didn't plant enough to last us through the winter though, that'll be a point of improvement next season. My SO is Portuguese and some of her dishes call for 3 or 4 big onions, so you can imagine the amount of onions we need. The same goes for carrots; didn't plant enough of them. They last long and they're delicious, so we're planting almost triple the amount next year. 
 
I love growing beets, but I think I'll just grow a few next year. My SO doesn't enjoy them, but my parents and I do. I'll grow a bunch of Swiss chard instead. I love that stuff, we use it in everything instead of spinach. Lettuce is another leafy green we love, but we struggle with planting the right amount at the right time. We had all of our lettuces ready at the same time. We need to apply staggered planting for this crop next season. The leeks tasted great, but we didn't know we had to plant them deep to get a long white stem. All of our leeks were short. They also got infected with rust, but I heard that isn't really threatening to the crop.
 
As for the beans, I have mixed feelings about them. The plant enthusiast in me loves the color and shape variation of dry beans, but the food eater in me doesn't like beans all that much. My SO and her son do like them, but eat them green. We'll have to try out different ways off cooking and grow all kinds of varieties of bean to find something we all enjoy.
 
For everything we grow I try to find all kinds of interesting and tasty varieties. Eventually I want to keep growing the ones we love and start breeding them to make our own interesting varieties. I have a bunch of different winter squash growing, a few kinds of tomato and ofcourse a shit tonne of pepper varieties. I want to start to do the same for cucumbers and zucchini next year. I really love variety and diversity. Plant breeding is just so interesting.
 
This post is getting hella long, sorry. I'm kinda using this as a way of reminding myself of everything I learned this year and everything I plan to do next season. Maybe some of you found it interesting to read and I'll take that.
 
While I was writing this I found out the tomatoes at the plot all got blight. Sad. The weather has been really shitty these last few weeks. Lots of rain, not a lot of sun. At least the peppers are doing okay. *knocks on wood*
 
Also, since taking these pictures there's been a storm that knocked off quite a few branches and even split two plants at the stem.

Varieties I'm growing
 
Baccatum
Lemon Drop
Brazilian Starfish
Sugar Rush Peach
Sugar Rush Creme
Aji Mango
Aji Amarillo
Aji Omnicolor
 
Annuum
Aleppo
Farmer's Market Jalapeño
Trifetti (aka Purple Tiger)
Fish
Goat's Weed
Thunder Mountain Longhorn
Small Orange Thai
Piquillo de Lodosa
Sulu Adana
Peter Pepper
Ethiopian Brown
Portokoleva Fifironka
Bögyiszloi Eros
Chiltepin
 
Chinense
Aribibi Gusano
7pot Burgundy
Chocolate Habanero
Pink Tiger
CGN 21500
Fatalii
Tiger's Tooth (?)
Some kind of white scorpion (?)
 
Frutescens
Ekirike
 
Wilds
C. chacoense
Cumari Pollux
CAP 214
 
Crosses
Brazilian Starfish x Lemon Drop F2
Aji Angelo x Cumari Pollux F1
 
 
Goat's Weed

 
Peter Pepper

 
C. chacoense

 
Pink Tiger

 
Trifetti. This is the mystery pepper I made a topic about earlier this season. I don't have a clue how I got these seeds though.

 
Cumari Pollux

 
Tiger's Tooth. I got this pod from a local chili festival, but Google searches with the name don't find anything.

 
Fatalii

 
Aleppo

 

 
Aji Amarillo

 
Brazilian Starfish

 
Brazilian Starfish x Lemon Drop F2 pheno 1

 
Another pod from the same plant. I really like this one, I hope it tastes good too. I'd like it to get a little longer than this but keep the ridges along the sides.

 
Pheno 2. I don't like this one.

 

[b3rnd]

I've been trying to get some crosses going this season. I want to grow a whole bunch of hybrids next year, just because I really love the exitement and surprise that comes with it. Two years ago I made my first cross; Brazilian Starfish x Lemon Drop. You can see pictures of the F2 in the post above. I'll post some more pics soon.
 
The year after that I really got the taste for it. I tried a bunch of crosses that didn't take. My plants also weren't the healthiest, so that's probably why I didn't really succeed with all of them. I tried:
 
Aji Angelo x Cumari Pollux
Cumari Pollux x Pimenta da Neyde
Aji Ethiopian Fire x CAP 214
Thunder Mountain Longhorn x Aribibi Gusano
 
The first one succeeded, and the F1 is (was) growing now. Unfortunately the single plant I had got torn apart in a recent storm. Split at the stem. I hoped by staking it, the plant would grow back together like a graft. I tried it before with branches and it definitely works. I guess when the damage is too severe it's much harder. I did take two cuttings that still seem to be alive. If that all fails I hope to still get viable seeds from the now unripe pods on the broken plant. No clue how probable that is. The second cross succeeded but the little wild pod just had three seeds. One of those seeds was viable but the seedling died. The rest of the crosses didn't take. 
 
This year I ramped up my crossing and I planned ahead, instead of going at it willy-nilly. I want to keep a few of them to myself for now, because it's more fun with pictures. Once I get the F1s going I'll start to share more. Among them are:
 
Thunder Mountain Longhorn x Aribibi Gusano (cross attempted for the 20th time, hoping for success)
Thunder Mountain Longhorn x Portokoleva Fifironka (cross attempted, waiting for pod to grow)
Aji Amarillo x Lemon Drop (cross took and pod is growing)
Aji Omnicolor x CAP 214 (no flowers on CAP 214 yet, planted late)
Chocolate Habanero x CGN 21500 (no flowers on Hab, got damaged in the storm)
Fish x Trifetti (cross took and pod is growing)
 
I'll lift the veil on a two others: they involve the Small Orange Thai.
 
When I think of new crosses to make, I consider fruit shape, fruit colour, growth habit as well as flower shape and flower colour. Flavour ofcourse is also important, but I feel a really cool-looking pepper doesn't always need be high up in the flavour department. Heat (namely high heat) is not on the list of considerations I make. For example, last year's attempted cross between Aji Ethiopian Fire and CAP 214 was solely because of the interesting flower shapes.
 
I feel a lot of people 'waste' (subjective) time on insanely hot crosses between very similar peppers. I personally am tired of all the superhot crosses that look almost identical. There is so much potential in peppers besides superhot, gnarly, wrinkly pods. Our forum's own (can I call it that at this point?) PdN x Bonda cross is a good example going in the right direction. Awesome colour palette, great pod shape, nice growth habit. Most importantly it sparks community interest and is awe-inspiring. A really unique hybrid, instead of another 7pot Braingum Bhutballz Reapernagah. That's the path I'd like to take.

 

[stettoman]

Man, that Aji Amarillo looks suspiciously crossed to me; Kinda sharpei, ya know?
 
Then again I am slowly getting the concept of fluidity-in-nomenclature, and realize what a broad spectrum the name Aji Amarillo covers....
 
Some of your crosses sound intriguing, nice!! 

 

[b3rnd]

Man, that Aji Amarillo looks suspiciously crossed to me; Kinda sharpei, ya know?
 
Then again I am slowly getting the concept of fluidity-in-nomenclature, and realize what a broad spectrum the name Aji Amarillo covers....
 
Some of your crosses sound intriguing, nice!! 

 
Thanks for dropping in! I've been wondering the same. I grew them two years ago and I remember them differently. I wish I had another plant going, then I'd be sure. But now that you've mentioned it as well I went to check some pics online. They look much straighter in the pictures. Let's see when they ripen. I'll try to take some photos of other pods soon to compare.
 
I really hope all the crosses take this year. Especially the TML x Aribibi Gusano seems extra stubborn.

 

[stettoman]

These are mine, from a 3 year old I grew out of seed from PaulG. I LOVE Aji Amarillo!

 

[Devv]

Agreed on some of the crosses going around. I hope to get into some of that next season. Time has always been an issue though.
 
Good luck with your crosses and of course, we need pics

 

[b3rnd]

These are mine, from a 3 year old I grew out of seed from PaulG. I LOVE Aji Amarillo!

20190820_173656.jpg

 
Wow, they definitely look so different. I hope to get down to the allotment today, I'll try not to forget my camera. The one on my phone is busted so I have to remember to bring the DSLR. I wonder what it could've crossed with.. Too bad, because I was really looking forward to the Aji Amarillo x Lemon Drop cross.
 

Agreed on some of the crosses going around. I hope to get into some of that next season. Time has always been an issue though.
 
Good luck with your crosses and of course, we need pics

 
Thank you! I'll take loads of pics. I hope you find the time to experiment with it! It's great fun.

 

[PaulG]

Hey Bernd! Glad to see you getting a grow on.
You have some nice looking plants growing.

The Aji Amarillo definitely looks crossed, but
baccatums dont cross that easily, I thought.

One other thing, a square meter is more than 9
square feet. So, your 200 square meter plots
equate to about 1800 square feet, at least.