Drunken Bee's 2024

Decided to drop a few seeds in december for next year so decided to start a '24 Glog early.

I'm very lucky in that in addition to a small domestic greenhouse at our house I also have access to a significant space in a commercial greenhouse (our little island used to be the UK's leading tomato supplier but the industry collapsed in the face of cheaper imports from warmer climes so there are a lot of huge greenhouses looking for uses here). In it I grow a lot of perennial stuff that needs a mediterranean climate (or is marginal there) - bananas, figs, tamarillos, various passiflora and my peppers sit interplanted with them. With our mild climate it is possible often to overwinter capsicum of all species in ground in these big greenhouses - not always though so hope for a mild winter!

Taking these into the winter to hopefully overwinter:

Annum
Chiltepin Amarillo
jalapeno lemon spice
jalapeno maylon
jalapeno X purple tiger

Baccatum
Aji melocoton

Chinense
Bahamian Goat
Bhut Orange Copenhagen
Mustard Gum Naga Brain
Pockmark Orange

Pubescens
Chocolate XPS
Oculto CLEF

10 days or so I dusted off the propagator and put in some seeds of

Cardenasii USDA X Cap 500
Eximuum Cap 1530
Flexuosum

Pubescens
Arequipa giant yellow
de La Selva rojo Arequipa
mini olive
Orange giant
Pico mucho
various Rocopica crosses

A couple of Rocoto and Rocopica varieties are up already.....Really excited for 2024!

 

[ahayastani]

Good luck in 24
Do you actually experience (severe) frost in the Channel Islands?

 

[Drunken Bee]

Do you actually experience (severe) frost in the Channel Islands?

It varies - some years we just barely get one or two light frosts a year, others we get minus five or six. Last year was bad enough to frost burn all the bananas in the big greenhouse (which is unheated) but all the chillis survived.

Perhaps worth being clear I'm in the British Channel Islands in the Channel between England and France rather than the nice warm ones off the coast of California just in case there is any climatic confusion on a global forum

 

[Drunken Bee]

A few pics from the tail end of the year -
Aji melocoton chucking out pods by the dozen - this plant is probably 4 years old.

Jalapeno Maylon - a pod I missed until this weekend which corked spectacularly

Rocoto Oculto CLEF is about 8 foot high! The background here gives a good view on the scale of the greenhouse....

 

[Drunken Bee]

Just sowed batch 2:
Chacoense purple flower
Cap691
Aji charapita

 

[Drunken Bee]

Did my traditional batch of new year’s eve seeds yesterday:
Chupetinho black peach
KS Lemon Starrburst
Aji sugar rush peach stripey
White Morouga
And a couple more seeds of two of the rocotos that are showing no signs of life yet

Whisper it as it’s a long way away from green leaves yet but that is a loop on one of the Capsicum flexuosum seeds - this is my fourth go at germinating this species and it’s the first sign of life so I’m wel chuffed!

 

[Drunken Bee]

That flexuosum loop has completely disappeared.
I’ve got sugar rush stripey, charapita and chacoense up though

 

[Drunken Bee]

Some baby rocotos….
Mini olive and de la selva rojo Arequipa

 

[Tinkerbelle]

wow that is some greenhouse - what else you growing in there?

 

[Drunken Bee]

wow that is some greenhouse - what else you growing in there?

It's a beast isn't it?
I only have a little section - most of it is operated by someone who grows indigo commercially. My section has bananas, figs, tamarillo, mountain papaya and passiflora as well as a few other bits and is a sort of ramshackle foodforest in a greenhouse in design.

 

[Tinkerbelle]

course you get a nice temperate climate in the Channel Islands

 

[Drunken Bee]

course you get a nice temperate climate in the Channel Islands

alas frost today and snow last week. I've not dared look in the greenhouses yet!

 

[Drunken Bee]

Since people expressed an interest in what else I’m growing I thought I’d share a few pictures….
The most successful thing are these physalis ground cherries/ physallis - they were here when I got here and are a massive pain to be honest…

They take over and perennialise in the greenhouse and if not kept in check will overgrow everything else. This pile is all groundcherry

 

[Drunken Bee]

A slight cold-fried dwarf Brazilian banana

Some ripe turkey berries / devils figs / Thai pea eggplants. Poisonous at this stage as I understand it. We eat them green.

slightly grumpy tamarillo and very grumpy red dacca bananas not enjoying this week's cold! You can see some physallis seedlings on the ground too -they are a big problem.

 

[MarcV]

Wow that is quite a greenhouse!

 

[Drunken Bee]

Wow that is quite a greenhouse!
It’s pretty special - I’m just renting a bit of it but I’d love to someday own one and live out all my tropical plant dreams at once!

 

[Drunken Bee]

Baby flexuosum after a load of failures. Please let the seed cap come off

 

[ChilliCrosser]

Baby flexuosum after a load of failures. Please let the seed cap come off

Just try and keep a water droplet on the seed casing if it sticks on. Most will then free themselves without any surgery attempts.

And that greenhouse space….oh my.

 

[PaulG]

Nice grow going, DB. I hope to see some more of your wild varieties in the
Wild, Indeed thread!

 

[Drunken Bee]

The Flex is up and leafing out nicely.

First annums went in this morning:
- Thunder Cacho Brown
- Pippin's Golden Honey (have decided I'm definitely gonna have a real think about doing a Horace Pippin tribute grow next year)
- Petit Marseillais

Still to go:
- Capia
- Romanian Sweet
- Jalapeno - Billy Biker
- Jalapeno - Farmers' market
- Purple Haze
(doubtless some others I've forgotten)....