eLuke's 2015-16 Sth East AU Season Summary

Hi Guys,
 
My season is almost over, and it's been a busy one. I didn't really have a chance to post a glog, but I was taking photos throughout the season, so I'd thought I post a photo summary for the record (and mine)....Plus this forum has given me a lot so I thought I'd give something back and I'm very interested in peoples comments and suggestions for improvements for next season....
 
2015-16 Growlist:
- Rocoto Red
- Choc Habs
- Padron
- Dragon Pods
- Pineapple Baccatums
- Cumari
- African Bird
- Jalepeno
- Thai Prik
- Bulls Horns
- Pasilla
- Trinadad Scorpians
- Carolina Reapers
- Green Fire
- Tezpun
- Turkish Long
- Kashmiri
- Dorset Naga
 
Note: For the last two years I have sourced some of my pepper seeds from a supplier on eBay. I wont name the vendor, but suffice to say the variability in those seeds, especially compared to the photos provided was significant. There was even variability from plant to plant in the same seed packet. I wont be wasting my time with ebay suppliers again, and lesson learned, you get what you pay for.
 
I had great success with the heated seed germination frame this year.
Some of the plastic is looking a bit sun damaged, so I will replace that in a few months ready to start again in July.

 
 
The grow box was also a great success last year. I was surprised at how thick and lush the folliage on the plants was. I will definitely be doing this again this season.
The flouro-light bank provided the perfect amount of light. I am still amazed that I did not suffer an outbreak of bugs like Aphids, but I'm pretty much convinced now that with the grow box being outside, there were some many predatory insects attracted to the lights that no sap sucking bugs had a chance. I never really thought of this as a benefit at the time, but it makes sense to me.

 
 
This season I planted peppers using 3 different methods [wicking beds, raised beds and grow pots].
The raised beds worked very well. In previous years, I had struggled with my raised beds because they had been invaded by tree roots from the next door neighbours trees.
This season I re-worked the beds, lining them with geo-textile material to prevent tree roots from getting into the soil. In addition, I added a drip irrigation system.
One mistake is that I didn't fully appreciate the difference the new beds and irrigation would make to the vigour of the peppers, there was not enough space between plants, and for the next season I will drop down to two plants per row.  This photo was taken at the start of Dec 2015.

 
Here is the same bed from early Feb 2016. Things were getting a little cramped!

Here is the same bed at the start of this month (April). Crowed but still productive and healthy.

 
 
Here is a general overview of the vege garden itself from the start of Feb. In the rear left we have some muscatel grapes (netted), there are two long wicking beds, and then four raised beds.
This season I grew most of the usual suspects, apart from lots of peppers there were tomatoes, corn, beans, cucumbers, melons, potatoes, herbs, etc.

 
I'll post some more photos tonight.
 
Cheers
Luke
 

 

[Chilima]

Looking good there mate.

 

[Sizzle Lips]

Very nice indeed....great set up .......plants look beautiful.

 

[dragonsfire]

Great Looking Bushes!!

 

[eLuke455]

This season I wanted to grow some additional plants that I did not have space for in the beds.
 
After a bit of research, I settled on "root pouchs" from a great guy called Rob with a website www.bitsouttheback.net
He has lots of great ideas so check it out.
These pouches work on the air pruning principle.
 
Here is a pineapple baccatum. You can never have enough of these! Apologies for the crappy photo, its not my speciality.

One problem with these pouches is that water evaporates more quickly from the soil in them. This is a good thing in one sense as it keeps the roots cool. It is sometimes difficult to keep enough water up to them. I ended up putting plastic pot saucers underneath each one, which helped capture water that ran off during watering, and then allowed it to wick back up. The 16 liter size (shown above) was big enough to grow out any pepper and get a reasonable size plant and harvest, certainly good enough to determine if you want to grow it again. However, if you want production, then I would go for the 30 liter size, to get a bigger plant and more pods.
 
I made up my own potting mix for these pots, consisting of
 
20% coconut coir
10% perlite
10% vermiculite
20% compost
30% potting mix
5% fine mulched lucern hay
5% fine mulched pea stray
 
Cheers
Luke

 

[eLuke455]

As noted by others in the forums, you do need to keep up the ferts when using pots - and you can see in this example of a c.reaper that the leaves are showing signs of lack of nutes.
Unless this occurs early to mid season, or there are clear signs of low yield, I dont get too fussed. Here you can see there are still plenty of pods that justify a good supply of baby wipes are kept in the freezer at all times.
 

 
 
I am also growing peppers in one of my wicking beds shown below. My previous attempts to grow in this location have constantly been thwarted by persistent tree roots from next doors property.
The beds looking a bit untidy this late in the season - some peppers have been blown over in the wind due to lack of staking (my fault). The ghost pepper on the left and the chocolate hab in the center have been the stand outs.

 
On the far left of this bed, hidden by the toppled over ghost pepper is one my of "Big Jim" sweet peppers. I am totally amazed with how awesome these peppers taste and grow. They have a sweetness and depth of capsicum flavour beyond anything I have tasted in the shops. They were robust, suffered from little to no pest damage, I will definitely be growing these again.

 
In my earlier photo I mentioned the grapes under the netting. These are the muscat "Black Hamburg" variety shown below. They are very easy to grow, I have not sprayed, other than an occaisional compost tea as per the recipe on this site, you can also pick grapes for at least 2 months which makes it very useful for an extended eating season, they remain ripened on the vine for a long time without degredation, and apart from eating fresh they make excellent dried raisons to go with your favourite cheese or salsa...As noted by the netting, birds love them too, and I have occaisionally found one my daughters inside the netting sitting on the straw mulch eating grapes with a grin from ear to ear....

 

[Bumper]

Nice grow.  What was your yield on the muscat grape, I am a fan of these with cheese, and have a couple of sunny corners I can put one in... 

 

[eLuke455]

Hi Bumper,
 
I'm not good with yield measurements but my vines are approx 8 years old and on average I estimate about 15 bunches (as shown in photo above) per vine. This year was exceptionally good, and I was pruning off bunches to keep the size of the grapes big. I have three vines, trained up (rather than out) to maximise production vs space.
 
------------------
 
This year like last year I grew 4 x Padron peppers shown below:

 

 
I find Padrons to be incredibly versatile - you can eat them young, small and green as the Spanish do in Tapas, fried in olive oil with salt.
 
Alternatively you can can let them ripen to red and they do pack some heat..
 
Heres some of the harvest from earlier in the season

I use this combo in my standard charcoal roasted salsa recipe - Starting top left and going clockwise, Big Jims, Ripe Padrons, The very first choc habs still a tad green, unknown bird eye type pepper, green fire (ripe), jalepenos with a few pineapple baccatums in the center. I regularly roast these over charcoal, togther with onions, eggplant and chop it all up into a hot salsa that is dressed with garlic, parsley, basil, olive oil and balsamic.

Awesome stuff on its own on a biscuit, over steak, eggs and bacon, you name it...
 
Dried ripe Padrons are also my goto pepper from hot paprika

 
These guys were dried in an oven set to fan forced 60 deg C over 2 a few days. They make great tasting mild heat paprika which I love to use on everything and anything, but specifically where you are looking for a great reflection of "dried chilli" taste with heat. I'm think I might try them the next time I make a vindaloo.
 
Cheers
Luke

 

[dragonsfire]

Awesome looking peppers

 

[Jase4224]

Nice to see some more pics of your grow Luke, looks like a great garden and crop. Your pot mix was superior to mine as I used WAY too much coco and the results show in your crops.

I'm trying 6 different potting mixes next year with 10-20% perlite I'll let you know the results since you could most likely purchase any potting mix I can get here.

I'll be trying out those grow bags too.

Your reaper plants looks packed

 

[eLuke455]

Hi Jase,

It's the first year I have used coco in both pots and wicking beds. My opinion on the pots is that the most critical aspect is having a good saucer, so that water is collected and wicks back into the pot. In most cases, hand watering of pots (and bags) adds water too quickly and most gets lost to run off. By having a saucer, you allow the water to wick back up. I could hand water until the saucer is full, then come back in three hours and the saucer is empty as water has wicked back into the soil. Also, any nutes delivered by liquid feed are not lost out of the pot. its all trial and error and i have heard other problems about rotting due to excess moisture. I guess you just need to find the right balance.

Cheers
Luke

 

[Jase4224]

Yeah I was surprised when you mentioned you used saucers as I thought this would not be good for the plants, but if you only water enough for it all to wick back up than I guess they're not really 'sitting' in it..

 

[eLuke455]

Jase, I can't comment on plastic pots, I have only used the grow pouches or reusable shopping bags, which evaporate water quite a bit faster than pots due to the surface area (and keep the roots cooler in the process).
I wait until I can see no standing water in the saucer before watering again.
 
-------------------------------------------
 
Below is my "Kashmiri Red" chilli - They turned out a lot thinner than the photo shown on ebay, so I really dont have any confidence they have grown true to type. However, they do ripen to a very deep red (this picture does not reflect that), they dry very well, and make good powder. Think I will try these in a Vindaloo curry as well.
 

 
 
This was is called "Thai Prik Ki Nu" and we use it in Asian soups and curries and is good to coat in chocolate and serve to unsuspecting mates for a giggle.

 
Aji Pineapple. Without a doubt my favourite fresh eating pepper, packs a punch but with flavour. Prolific is an understatement, I have kilograms of pods this year.
Currently hunting down a good fermented sauce recipe that really reflects the taste of Aji Pineapple, so if anyone has one, let me know.

 
Edit: This sauce looks worth trying. http://thehotpepper.com/topic/43908-aji-amarillo-and-aji-pineapple-mash/
 
Till next time,
Cheers
Luke

 

[eLuke455]

Harvesting continues (and in many ways ramping up)...
 
A brilliant spell of 20 to 25 deg C weather here is a bit warm for mid-Autumn in Melbourne, but hey no complaints...
 

 
From top left (clockwise), Pasilla, Choc Habs, Aji Pineapple, Kashmiri, Rocoto, Thai Prik and Cumari
 
Something very odd just happened with the Cumari - I cut off the two peppers growing over the top of it to expose it to more light, and all the ripe Cumari fruits on the plant, changed from yellow (as shown above) to whitish yellow, almost a sun bleached kind of white. Very odd.

 

[eLuke455]

Decided it was time to harvest the pots and dump the soil back into the garden beds. Here is a C.Reaper ready to go.
 

 
The root ball from one of the Chocolate Habs

 
The rocoto keeps growing and growing but very few flowers setting fruit

 
The harvest with Ghost, Choc Habs, Reapers and Aji Pineapple

 

[Sizzle Lips]

Nice bounty of peppers.....choc habs ......my favorite fresh eating pepper.