Well it finally happened. I knew sooner or later my luck would run out. You see, I don't actually know what I'm doing when it comes to growing plants. I've just been winging it so far, lol. I kept waiting for them to start looking better before I posted a glog, but at this point I guess it's futile. I don't know where I went wrong exactly, maybe it was a combination of things. For one I moved the seed starting rack to the basement, where I guess the temps were a bit lower. I was hoping that the heat from the lights would be enough, and I'm still not sure that it wasn't. The soil stayed pretty warm to the touch for the most part. The other problem may be lack of nutrients in the potting soil. I'm pretty sure I used miracle grow or something last year, but I can't really remember. This year I went with a big cube of pro-mix, which I think is just peat and perlite with no added plant food or anything. I probably should have given them more fish fert while they were still inside to compensate. As is I only gave them pretty diluted doses twice before moving them outside. Definitely going to remedy this next year. In fact if Trent has any of his super soil for sale I may go that route. Yet another mistake was probably failing to cull the lesser seedlings and leaving more than one to grow in most of the pots. I should have realized that would result in both plants doing worse than a single one would have done in each pot. The end result is that the plants were all way too small when they went in the ground. Last year I think got around 500 lbs of peppers, this year I'll be surprised if I crack 100 lbs. So while my dream of being the new hot sauce king of the south isn't quite dead, it definitely took a hit.
Further complicating matters, the groundhogs returned this year to kick me while I was down. Out of the 180 plants I put in at the big spot they dug up about 90 of them. They don't even eat them, they just like digging them up. I'd find a hole where the plant was and the plant itself a foot away, uprooted and dying. I re-buried a bunch of them more than once. I tried cinnamon and super-hot pepper flakes, both of which would work for a while, but they'd eventually be back. What seemed to work the best was just bunching straw up around the plant really tightly. I guess they see any loose soil as a good spot to dig for grubs. Lesson learned for next year.
I think another problem is that the soil is starting to get depleted. This is the third year in a row I've grown peppers at the big spot and one of the three community garden spots. The other two have had other crops grown on them for the last 3 or 4 years. So I did some calling around and found a source for manure. I'm planning to amend the soil at all of them this fall after I take down the plants. Just sprinkle it around and till it in. It should be well composted by next May when I plan to put more plants in there.
On the sauce front, sales have been going pretty well. I started out with 1200 bottles and I'm down to about 300. Been selling mostly at two farmers markets every week this summer, and the occasional special event, and I've added a few new retail outlets. I have a hundred something followers on facebook and a few loyal customers. I was hoping to have enough product to try to get into the really big farmers market in Lexington next year but that's not going to happen now. I'm thinking I'll throw most of this year's peppers into my new pickled pepper recipe. It's basically the same recipe as pickled Jalapenos except with all chinenses instead of annuums. They're so freaking tasty it kind of blows my mind. The vinegar seems to mellow out the sharpness of the peppers somehow, but leaves all of the delicious floral chinense flavor. Even leaving the seeds in it's not nearly as bitter as a fresh, non-fermented sauce. I'm not even sure if they're "novel" enough to enter into the THP awards this year, but I'm still planning to do so if there's a category for them. I bought 300 8 oz jars for the purpose, so it's questionable if I'll have any left over to make any actual sauce, but we'll see.
Here's the list:
QTY VARIETY
80 Yellow 7 pot
20 MOA
10 Chocolate scotch bonnet
10 Orange ghost [pl]
10 Indian Carbon Bhut [pl 2018]
10 Red Devil’s Tongue [pl 2018]
20 White 7 Pot
12 Ghost [pl]
25 Chocolate Hab
25 Carolina Reaper
And a few of each of these:
White Bullet Hab
Red Douglah
Evergreen Fatali [pl]
Sherwood’s Carbon Bhut 7 pot
Wartryx
Bhut Orange Copenhagen
7 Pot Congo SR Gigantic Red
Red 7 Pot
Red Fatali
Caribbean Red
Filling pots, both with soil and gentle optimism. Sigh.
The bionic seed starting rack, now residing in the basement. Seeds started on 3/10/2019.
3/31/2019.
4/25/2019. They should have been much bigger by this point, obviously.
5/1/2019. Started hardening off, still way undersized. I replanted some that didn't come up on 3/27, those are the smaller ones.
5/16/2019.
5/17/2019. A bit of sunburn.
5/20/2019. Some doing better than others, but none doing well.
About a week after planting.
6/17/2019. Still embarrassingly small. No jokes please.
6/28/2019.
6/29/2019 at the big spot.
7/6/2019.
7/9/2016. Finally hitting their growth spurt.
Further complicating matters, the groundhogs returned this year to kick me while I was down. Out of the 180 plants I put in at the big spot they dug up about 90 of them. They don't even eat them, they just like digging them up. I'd find a hole where the plant was and the plant itself a foot away, uprooted and dying. I re-buried a bunch of them more than once. I tried cinnamon and super-hot pepper flakes, both of which would work for a while, but they'd eventually be back. What seemed to work the best was just bunching straw up around the plant really tightly. I guess they see any loose soil as a good spot to dig for grubs. Lesson learned for next year.
I think another problem is that the soil is starting to get depleted. This is the third year in a row I've grown peppers at the big spot and one of the three community garden spots. The other two have had other crops grown on them for the last 3 or 4 years. So I did some calling around and found a source for manure. I'm planning to amend the soil at all of them this fall after I take down the plants. Just sprinkle it around and till it in. It should be well composted by next May when I plan to put more plants in there.
On the sauce front, sales have been going pretty well. I started out with 1200 bottles and I'm down to about 300. Been selling mostly at two farmers markets every week this summer, and the occasional special event, and I've added a few new retail outlets. I have a hundred something followers on facebook and a few loyal customers. I was hoping to have enough product to try to get into the really big farmers market in Lexington next year but that's not going to happen now. I'm thinking I'll throw most of this year's peppers into my new pickled pepper recipe. It's basically the same recipe as pickled Jalapenos except with all chinenses instead of annuums. They're so freaking tasty it kind of blows my mind. The vinegar seems to mellow out the sharpness of the peppers somehow, but leaves all of the delicious floral chinense flavor. Even leaving the seeds in it's not nearly as bitter as a fresh, non-fermented sauce. I'm not even sure if they're "novel" enough to enter into the THP awards this year, but I'm still planning to do so if there's a category for them. I bought 300 8 oz jars for the purpose, so it's questionable if I'll have any left over to make any actual sauce, but we'll see.
Here's the list:
QTY VARIETY
80 Yellow 7 pot
20 MOA
10 Chocolate scotch bonnet
10 Orange ghost [pl]
10 Indian Carbon Bhut [pl 2018]
10 Red Devil’s Tongue [pl 2018]
20 White 7 Pot
12 Ghost [pl]
25 Chocolate Hab
25 Carolina Reaper
And a few of each of these:
White Bullet Hab
Red Douglah
Evergreen Fatali [pl]
Sherwood’s Carbon Bhut 7 pot
Wartryx
Bhut Orange Copenhagen
7 Pot Congo SR Gigantic Red
Red 7 Pot
Red Fatali
Caribbean Red
Filling pots, both with soil and gentle optimism. Sigh.
The bionic seed starting rack, now residing in the basement. Seeds started on 3/10/2019.
3/31/2019.
4/25/2019. They should have been much bigger by this point, obviously.
5/1/2019. Started hardening off, still way undersized. I replanted some that didn't come up on 3/27, those are the smaller ones.
5/16/2019.
5/17/2019. A bit of sunburn.
5/20/2019. Some doing better than others, but none doing well.
About a week after planting.
6/17/2019. Still embarrassingly small. No jokes please.
6/28/2019.
6/29/2019 at the big spot.
7/6/2019.
7/9/2016. Finally hitting their growth spurt.
