Caranx Thailand farmlife

Hello!

I should have started this glog some weeks ago but i have been pretty busy so it got delayed a bit!

Some background: I started my first grow and pepper glog last year. At that time I lived in a urban area on a island and didn't have much growspace and it turned out the neighbourhood was heavily infested by broadmites and many other pests. Once they was killed off the would return 1-2 months later and in the end I gave up the glog and cut down all peppers except two, a Aji Limo and a mystery pepper.

Fast-forward to 2019 and i got married and 4 months ago i moved with my wife to her hometown on the countryside.

I now have access to a 2 hectar farm where were we just started building a house.

The plan: 3-4 10*1.2 meter raised beds and two rows of in ground plants, plants will be planted out in 2 months and it is not enough time to properly amend our Claysoil so will mainly use raised beds for a year or so and the two rows in ground will be experiment to see how big diffrence the 2 months amendment will make.

List of varietys;

Stavros
Greek pepperoncini
Jalapeno
Jalapeno concho
Numex vaquero
MOA Red​ bonnet
TFM Scotch bonnet
Bahamian goat
Habanero hot lemon
Brainstrain yellow
Carolina reaper
Lemon drop
SR strain
Trinidad Hornet f5
Trinidad scorpion long SR
Scorpion moruga red
Limon
Brown bhutla SLP
Jay's red ghost scorpion
Aji Limon
Caramel bhut jolokia
7 pot Chaguanas Red 
JAFSH red
Billyboy douglah
Dorset naga orange
Borg 9 bleeder
Diomar

I just finished weeding out the spot this week so will start marking out where the raised beds will be and also till and mix in some stuff for the row of in the ground plants.

Alot of the farm hasn't been deweeded for 4-5 months so it's like a jungle right now with weeds reaching 2+ meters. Really hard work cutting it down even with a heavy duty cutter.

How it looked when i was just getting started

After, should be enough space for this year's grow

 

[Caranx]

So we had 35 hours heavy rain . Regret that I didnt take the seedlings to the greenhouse at the farm. The seedling rack do have some roof over it but the wind brings it in under.
Lost 2 jays red ghost and a concho that dampened off. Also forget to take in a propagation box sitting on the lower level and it was soaked on the inside. I think I will germinate another box just to be safe.

Also the mystery plant had a pod with holes in it, probaly from a bird.

What do you guys think it is, scotch bonnet or a yellow brainstrain?

 

[Caranx]

Small update

The Aji limo's ripening started out slow, one or two pepper per day. But three days ago it finally got going and there will be a good harvest next week. Left one for 10 days to see if would be diffrent to the disappointing one i ate some week ago and yes indeed they need to stay on for a week or so to get that nice zesty flavour.

Also caught the lizard that hangs out on the plant on camera today, he scared me quite few times in past because my instinct was telling me it's cobra or something every time i walked up to the plant and branches started moving lol. Couldn't get too close for a good shot but if you zoom bottom right corner you will see him

Finally started moving the seedlings to the greenhouse at the farm. Regret not doing it earlier, lost a few to the rain and they don't get much sun where they were sitting. My father in law planted some pepper seds around the same time as i did that been in the greenhouse from start and they are about the double size compared to mine hehe

And yeah he got motivated by my planned grow so he germinated ALOT of seeds and will soon put them in ground. Looks like we will have 200+ pepper plants at the farm now. Here is one of the plots he did some day ago

no rain for a good few days now and soil is ready to be tilled. Mixed the last bags of soil mix today and will till the spot tomorrow. And if you look to the right you will some staggered bottles, that's trichoderma fermenting in the sun.

My wife and i doing some old school cooking at the farm

Some pad krapao gai(stir fried holybasil and chicken) i chased with a Aji Limo the other day

 

[Caranx]

Not much happening right now!

The seedlings are coming along.. Slowly.. Think i need to tweak my seedling mix a bit. Maybe less char and more ricehulls for more air in the mix.

Alot of rain and storm coming in so haven't gotten the opportunity to till and amend the in ground plot. Currently just keeping it maintained and free from weeds.

This is the claysoil we have

Up to the right is where the groundbeds will be and the patch below is where the raised beds will be. Need to deweed the raised bed spot soon, the weeds are coming back quick with all this rain

Had a small harvest this week and another one coming in a few days

We are currently setting up a few smaller cheap greenhouses at the farm.
I think i will make a larger polytunnel for my raised beds. The costs of the one we are building now is about 80 dollars so very cheap for that size. However not sure if I would fit 3 beds inside it..

Alot of Thai varietys ripening at the farm now

 

[Caranx]

Aji Limo, gonna have another harvest in 2 days I think

The mystery plant, it really grinds my gear.. Some pods a very bumpy like a yellow brainstrain and some are more smooth and have a bonnet shape.

 

[Caranx]

I was suppose to do a update the other day and show some other parts of the farm since I've almost cut down all of the weeds.

However after the gas ran out on the cutter and i went back to the cabin i found our little minpin dead and still being attacked by a stray dog.

And it didn't stop there. I was alone at the farm so had to call my wife and tell her what happend and she got on the motobike and went full gas, ran a red light ending up crashing into another bike coming out the sidestreet. Thank god she was lucky and got away with 5 stitches on her foot and a sore body.. We are devestated because of this loss, he was like our son.

Atleast now he can forever be at the farm which was his favorite place and loved being free to roam.

Rip our little Kilo

 

[CaneDog]

I feel for you man, that's really sad.  Glad the accident wasn't worse.

 

[Downriver]

So sorry for your loss Caranx. Glad to hear your wife wasn't hurt badly.

 

[Tybo]

Glad your wife wasn't hurt any worse and I'm sorry for the loss of your dog.  They can become such a huge part of our lives.

 

[Caranx]

Not much to show but feel like i need to keep the thread alive. Will be at the farm tomorrow so will take a bunch of pics for you guys then.

I haven't really had much time for the peppers because of everything that happend, but atleast everything about the accident is settled now and we can move on and I can start focus more on the growing again.

The germination tray with the majority of bonnets and Bahamian Goats dried out, I did re-soak it and 2 TFM have come up but i don't except much. The plan was to have a bed dedicated to MOA Red, Tfm bonnets and Bahamian Goats. But i probally won't have enough plants for that now so I started germinating superhots to fill that bed out last weekend.

However some luck in the bad luck. The mystery plant turned out to be a MOA Red bonnet and i already snatched two pods which tasted and felt very good after not having that taste and heat for a year now. There is 10 more pods that still got some orange tint to them so i will let them sit for a week and then deseed them and build a new raised bed for them.

Also i harvested the Aji Limo which was very overdue, about half the pods was turning a bit soft.
Counting what i harvested before and what approximately been snatched every now n then and those disgarded because rot or pest damage i would say this plant when fully loaded will hold 1+ kg of pods.

The soft ones will be used for a sauce tonight and the crispy ones was pickled 3 days ago which turned out very tasty. The family really enjoys them aswell!

Also i had the sister and mother inlaw testing bonnets for their first time and it was their first time feeling something with a proper habanero heat, ate a quarter each and the sister inlaw got fooled by the creeping burn and mom was crying!