DesertChris' High Desert Extreme Gardening Glog

DesertChris · Mar 20, 2013

Ok, got the sweet peppers sown, and had 2/3 of the 72 cell tray left, so sowed more seeds for 5 types of tomatoes

When the trays get more empty space, i'm thinling I better get more tomatoes sown, and quickly..... gotta have plenty to go with the peppers for salsa, and spaghetti sauce, and tomato sauce, and salads, and and and......

So, all that remains for pepper seed sowing, is the seeds from AjiJoe that should be here pretty soon

Then I can just water them, transplant them, watch them grow, move them from place to place if it gets cold, and generally stare at them frequently ....until plant out time....LOL

Oh, also....Chickens are freaking crazy!

I was feeding the neighbor's farm animals this afternoon.
There have been ground squirrels being a nuisance.
So I shoved a hose down one of their burrow holes, and then decided to check inside the chicken area for another exit.
Sure enough there was another burrow exit.

So I buried the first hole, brought the hose to the second hole, and while flooding it, I looked for more.
I moved a feed storage bucket (small metal trashcan), and there was a family of mice under there.
The chickens dove in as a pack, killed the adult mice, played "keep away" and ripped em apart.
They then devoured the babies.
I was shocked, since I hadn't seen our chickens do anything like that.

Then I moved the other feed storage bucket, and the scene repeated itself!

The mouse population over there just decreased a bit.
And the chickens looked very pleased with themselves.
I suppose they were getting revenge for stealing their lay pellets and scratch.

Pulpiteer · Mar 21, 2013

Wow, that's crazy about the chickens...
And about how many freaking peppers you're planting :shocked:

I love the peach bhuts by the way. Great pepper.

Sawyer · Mar 21, 2013

Chickens are awesome. And have a way more sophisticated social hierarchy than they are generally given credit for.

DesertChris · Mar 21, 2013

Sawyer said:
Chickens are awesome. And have a way more sophisticated social hierarchy than they are generally given credit for.

Heck yeah, Chickens are pretty interesting animals. Everyday when I feed them , they make me laugh with their strange behavior.
It's funny, I feed our animals everyday, and the neighbors animals during the weekdays....Ponies, sheep, goats, 2 sets of chickens....Its like being the pied piper of farm animals with them all following me around....

Pulpiteer said:
Wow, that's crazy about the chickens...
And about how many freaking peppers you're planting
I love the peach bhuts by the way. Great pepper.

I am thinking I probably have 500 or so plants and seedlings, might end up with 1000 by the time all is said and done.
So if half or more of them survive to grow up and do well, I will be totally happy

I won't really know exact #'s until all germination has had some more time, and then I can count everything up and see what #'s of each variety I actually have

At this point I just know it is a lot...LOL

Devv · Mar 21, 2013

Oh, also....Chickens are freaking crazy!

We used to raise them until they started killing roosters, I'd bring a full grown one home and he would last a day...

So how's your natural selection process going?

Take care,

Scott

stc3248 · Mar 21, 2013

hmmmm...Spicy Chicken did the math last year on pods per plant, and he lives in Wisconsin. I dunno I'm going to say, conservative guess of even just 50 pods per plant puts you at 50000 PODS!!! I averaged way above that on many of my plants last year picked 30+ per weekend every weekend for a WHILE. Don't know how the hot+dry+wind will affect your #s but safe bet is you're gonna be a busy dude this summer!

Oh...and BTW on the non-conservative side if you grow out 1000 my bet is you should be around 100k pods if you get the nutes right and figure out a way to shade them.

DesertChris · Mar 21, 2013

Devv said:
We used to raise them until they started killing roosters, I'd bring a full grown one home and he would last a day...

So how's your natural selection process going?

Take care,

Scott

Wow, killing the roosters is nutty, especially since they are the tougher ones of the species.
I know adult females will take out smaller ones introduced to the group.
We have 6 females (no rooster) and get between 2-5 eggs per day. Average of 4.
Last winter we got eggs all winter long, but maybe 2-3 average.
This winter it was more like ZERO For 2 1/2 months!
It was way colder this year.

Natural selection is going great, they have been outside getting blasted with sun and wind, and have only lost a very small handful of seedlings.
Pretty much to damping off or helmethead issues.

stc3248 said:
hmmmm...Spicy Chicken did the math last year on pods per plant, and he lives in Wisconsin. I dunno I'm going to say, conservative guess of even just 50 pods per plant puts you at 50000 PODS!!! I averaged way above that on many of my plants last year picked 30+ per weekend every weekend for a WHILE. Don't know how the hot+dry+wind will affect your #s but safe bet is you're gonna be a busy dude this summer!

Oh...and BTW on the non-conservative side if you grow out 1000 my bet is you should be around 100k pods if you get the nutes right and figure out a way to shade them.

If I end up harvesting 100,000 pods, I will be overjoyed...LOL

Last year was the great garden expiriment, to see if it was worth it to try growing food here.
Some stuff was total failure, but other stuff grew like crazy.

For hot peppers, I just grew standard plants readily available at the stores. And we started later than this year too.
The largest plants were Poblanos, Hot Banana's and Cayennes, all around 4' tall.
Habaneros, Jalapenos, Serranos Weighed in around 3' tall....

Even though I started late they still produced lots of pods.
The Cayennes, Bananas produced at least a couple hundred pods each, maybe more.
The Habaneros I will guess did between 100-200 pods each
Jalapenos were maybe 50-100 each
The Serranos around 50 each (but they got the most wind on the west side of all of the plants)
Mystery red hot pepper (2 plants) did maybe 50 each.
Anaheims were maybe 15-20 each.

So for this year, I figured I would grow tons of varieties and make it fun.
I found tons of different stuff from a few seed companies, and then kind people here sent me a ton of varieties too.
That is how it all got out of control...lol
I haven't grown superhots here, so have no idea how they will perform.
Habaneros did quite well though.
So this year is also a test of sorts, to see what thrives and what doesn't.
With the Huge spectrum of varieties I am sure some stuff will do well

And even the sweet peppers we chose a decent variety to test too

I figure the mini bells are going to be awesome.

With the heat and wind, I think it keeps the plants lower, but 2 of the spots I am going to put peppers have better windbreaks this year.
Last year, We moved a bunch of old cow manure laden soil to the test garden. I used zero added nutrients after planting. Just water, sun and wind.
All 4 garden spots are laden with old manure, so not sure if I will even fertilize after plant out.

There will be some shade from the windbreaks, and each other due to sardine style planting, but other than that it will be insane triple strength sun.

And lots and lots of water.....

My main concern is that I have read opinions that superhots lile humidity, well there is none here...But I have also read that stressing plants makes the pods hotter. So if that is true, well, they will get the hell stressed out of them here for sure...lol

It really is all just unknown until the end of growing season, and then all my questions should be answered

DesertChris · Mar 21, 2013

I should add that my Jalapeno #'s would have been higher, but the neighbor kids left the gate to the garden open (on their side of the fence)
And their Scottish Sheep snuck in, and decided eating Jalapenos was the thing to do....
It was a small Jalapeno massacre....LOL
I wonder if they enjoyed them? Because those Jalapenos were far far hotter than anything I have ever obtained in a store

It's definately the "Amateur Hour" Here...LOL
But through Trial and Error, I will figure out a lot more this year

DesertChris · Mar 21, 2013

Shane, you peaked my curiosity on my #'s so far....

So.....

Just spent some time counting....I may have missed or added a couple...but these are approximate totals of plants, seedlngs, and hooks.

Hots = 546
Sweets = 181
Tomatoes = 354

And here is the Germination Tray situation....

7 trays of 72 jiffy pellets 504 pellets total with 1-4 seeds in them...
23 open spots
45 pellets with Tomatoes
77 pellets with Sweet Peppers
359 pellets with Hot Peppers

Outside of that total are the 178 Red Bhuts from ghost-powder.com (in Canada) that I sowed into 36 pellets.....However, after a week, they show no signs of life, and I honestly have zero faith that they ever will. They just looked old and awful.... If even one germinates, I will be shocked beyond all comprehension!

stc3248 · Mar 21, 2013

So not counting multiples and your..."178 Red Bhuts from ghost-powder.com (in Canada) that I sowed into 36 pellets....." :rofl:

that is 1163...ummmm...Hope you got a big freezer!

DesertChris · Mar 21, 2013

stc3248 said:
So not counting multiples and your..."178 Red Bhuts from ghost-powder.com (in Canada) that I sowed into 36 pellets....."

that is 1163...ummmm...Hope you got a big freezer!

Hahahaha, you added the sweet peppers into that total...

The Hots would be "only" 905 +/- depending on germination and survival rates

Only time will tell...LOL

Our refrigerator's freezer is pretty big, plus the neighbors have a couple side by side fridges, and also a deep freezer.

There would never be room for the 100,000 pods you suggested earlier! Or even 50,000 of them.
But I do plan on drying a lot of the harvest for flakes and powders, and of course....SEEDS!

Oh, and Pickling too.
Maybe give smoking the pods a try also.....maybe....

stc3248 · Mar 21, 2013

Gotta count the sweets!!! They produce lower #s but still take up a ton of space...probably more than the hots. I filled two side by sides quickly and boxed, mailed, powdered, sauced as fast as I could last year and still had as many rot as went in the freezer. Damn shame...oh, and I only had about 60 non ornamental plants that I was pulling from. Seeds are a great idea, and if you really wanted to do that some netting or cheese cloth that could cover an entire plant/row would be better than the little baggies. Regardless of what you decide to do with them...having more than you can handle is always fun...and fun to watch for me!

DesertChris · Mar 21, 2013

Oh.... I like the cheesecloth idea, and also the netting...I bet we can find either of those cheap...!!!

Yep, it'll be fun to see if this is an epic success, or an epic failure...LOL

The good thing is it gets so dang hot here, I can string peppers whole, hang them outside on the porch, and dry them in the sun, until later in the year that is....then I will have to figure out an efficient way of drying them in huge quantities, especially since the later harvest would be when they are really producing the most. Luckily the Neighbors/Garden Partners are both Engineers...I could put them to work on that issue, and they would find it entertaining

I'll have to get an accurate count of plants, by variety and strains of each variety (there are a couple duplicates), and count the pods as I pick them.
Maybe I will be able to get an average of pods per plant for each variety...if I am diligent with the record keeping.

Shoot, our road here is one of the busier ones in the area, maybe i'll have to have a roadside pepperstand in the driveway a few afternoons per week, and be able to sell some.
That would be nice to offset some of the garden costs!

One more funny tidbit of info.... Apparently my 3 goats love hot peppers...LOL
Any pods that fell off the plants, and ended up on the ground, I tossed over the fence to them. And they gobbled them up.
They ate Cayennes, Jalapenos, Serranos and Banana peppers last year :fireball:

I didn't hit them with Habaneros though.

So I suppose if there are too many pods, I can use them as Goat Feed.....bahahahahaha

stc3248 · Mar 21, 2013

Careful that goat feed stuff is cause for warning points! Check out Mezo's grow log for info on solar dehydrators...

DesertChris · Mar 21, 2013

Well, I don't want any warning points, so I suppose they will have to go without any hot peppers this year.

Poor Goats....I think they like Jalapenos, like I like Habaneros....

Devv · Mar 21, 2013

So I suppose if there are too many pods, I can use them as Goat Feed.....bahahahahaha

Ha! reminds of a deer lease we once had full of goats, we called em baaaaastards. I guess you had to be there

DesertChris · Mar 21, 2013

They are Baaaaaaastards....lol
They eat the bark off firewood, tumbleweeds, just about anything!!

Wow, noticed the first superhot flower this afternoon...and there are 2 of them on a "Giant Bhut Jolokia"
I hope they stay on there....

Please ignore the pest damage, dirt, dust, dirt, dust and wind damage etc.... we are getting 60 mph wind out there right now...and it sucks.
So windy we can't barely see across the street with all the dirt in the air!!
It feels like a dirt hurricane out there...I actually moved a bunch of plants/seedlings up closer to the house!

DocNrock · Mar 22, 2013

So far looking great, Chris! I wouldn't mind the first flower being an Anaheim. As generic as they are for a pepper, I have one plant that makes pods with little heat, but when ripe they are sweet as fruit. Great in salads or just to munch as a snack.

Keep an eye on the plant in that picture above, I see what look like aphid eggs on the edges of some of the leaves.

highalt · Mar 22, 2013

Yikes! Sorry to hear about those winds. They don't suck though, they blow! :oops:

Sorry I couldn't resist.

The winds haven't started here yet, but we do have a chance of snow in the forecast for the next 3 days. I don't expect any accumulation, but it's too cold for me to want to be out there digging in the dirt.

I can't wait to see those 1,000 + plants of yours in the ground.

Hope the winds die down soon!

DesertChris · Mar 22, 2013

DocNrock said:
So far looking great, Chris! I wouldn't mind the first flower being an Anaheim. As generic as they are for a pepper, I have one plant that makes pods with little heat, but when ripe they are sweet as fruit. Great in salads or just to munch as a snack.

Keep an eye on the plant in that picture above, I see what look like aphid eggs on the edges of some of the leaves.

Thanks Doc

Remember those Pests that nobody knows what they actually are...i think those are the eggs from them.
I have hit them with three different things, and knocked them back, but still finding a few eggs like that.
Definately will keep an eye on the little buggers!!
I still wish I knew what they are.....

highalt said:
Yikes! Sorry to hear about those winds. They don't suck though, they blow! Sorry I couldn't resist.

The winds haven't started here yet, but we do have a chance of snow in the forecast for the next 3 days. I don't expect any accumulation, but it's too cold for me to want to be out there digging in the dirt.

I can't wait to see those 1,000 + plants of yours in the ground.

Hope the winds die down soon!

Thanks Bonnie

Yep, you are right, it does blow....hard...lol

Yikes...on the snow

I seriously can't wait to plant out, but I still haven't finished the germination routine, or the garden preparations!

Hopefully the latest rounds of seed sowing pop quickly