Four-Pepper False Start Glog

While I'm (successfully) growing plenty of herbs at the moment, the important stuff is obviously the peppers... and, since I'm pretty sure I baked the first set of seeds I attempted to germinate due to underestimating the power of my seedling heat mat after moving it into the grow tent, we're calling that a swing and a miss and moving on with Batch #2.
 
Tomorrow night they'll get the coffee-filter-in-a-baggie treatment and a hopefully-more-comfortable place in a lovely fluffy towel on the mat.

 

[PaulG]

You have plants everywhere,
and they all look great.



Thanks, Fish, I didnt notice

 

[internationalfish]

You have plants everywhere,
and they all look great, Fish.

 
Aww, thanks, ya ol' pube topper, you. 

 

[internationalfish]

Basically, holy crap. These manganji seeds really, really want in on the grow.
 

 
The guy on the right came up with severe helmet head, but I had them under a cover, and for me that's almost always kept the seeds soft enough to come off fairly easily. Worked here as well.
 
I planted something like 8-10 of them, assuming the germination rate would be poor, coming from a pod that had obviously been picked when it'd just barely started to ripen. Clearly not the case. While it's still up in the air whether any of these would grow true, I'm pleased with their enthusiasm.
 
The sucette de Provence have not germinated at all. Which I'm not broken up about. The coir has plenty of moisture in it; I'll let it sit until it dries out, and if nothing comes up by the time that happens, I'll start some corno di toro.
 
And where are my net pots, Amazon?! China isn't that far from here! Get your act together!

 

[internationalfish]

After putting this off for longer than I should've, the bonchi experiment finally got potted up.
 
It's not as rootbound as I expected, but they're still packed in there pretty good. Not the best picture, but it was damn hot out there, so it wasn't as leisurely as I'd prefer.
 

 
Almost there...
 

 
...and done. Oh look, fish, you managed to stick it in nice and off-center. Great work, jackass.
 

 
It's sitting in the shade out there for a while; probably bring it in and leave it in the entryway overnight, harden it off over the next few days. Monday's a holiday! It's the observation of "Mountain Day." Hooray for very large rocks!

 

[internationalfish]

Emptied out my first ferment! Made it almost a month before I couldn't wait any longer.
 

 
It didn't make a whole lot of sauce, but I randomly managed to get it right at the upper end of my heat tolerance. So that's lucky. Also looking forward to cooking with the happy pepper dregs.
 

 
I am thinking of ordering either a decent blender or a food mill, though. This turned out reasonably well, but it took longer than I really want to spend on such a small amount of sauce. It's going to be a much bigger pain for the big ferment, which is several times as large as this.
 
Anyway. I think it's shaping up to be a chicken wings in the air fryer night.

 

[CaneDog]

...and done. Oh look, fish, you managed to stick it in nice and off-center. Great work, jackass.

 
Too funny 'fish 'cause that's exactly what I was thinking when I saw that 
 

Emptied out my first ferment! Made it almost a month before I couldn't wait any longer.
 
It didn't make a whole lot of sauce, but I randomly managed to get it right at the upper end of my heat tolerance. So that's lucky. Also looking forward to cooking with the happy pepper dregs.
 
Anyway. I think it's shaping up to be a chicken wings in the air fryer night.

 
This is such awesome man. Chicken wings with homegrown homemade hot sauce. Just doesn't get any better than that!
 
OK, yeah, it does get better than that, but that's still pretty damn good!

 

[internationalfish]

OK, yeah, it does get better than that, but that's still pretty damn good!

 
With homemade Creole seasoning as well!
 
Batch #1 has been marinating for a few hours. Got a buddy stopping by around 5 to help me with them.
 

 

[lespaulde]

That's gonna be awesome, enjoy the goodness!

Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk

 

[internationalfish]

That's gonna be awesome, enjoy the goodness!

Thanks! We mysteriously ended up with three friends stopping by instead of one. So I'm busy on the air fryer, but that's where I like to be.

 

[internationalfish]

Not too long ago I stared some chocolate hab salt. Going to give it a while and then dry it out, see how this works; it's just a quartered pepper in with some salt.
 

 
Today I figured I'd get rid of the peppers that have been piling up over the last week or so; already got plenty of sauce in the works, so I'm finally starting up the dehydrator.
 

 
Clockwise from top right: Day-glo devil's tongue, lemon drop, hawk's claw and SLR, and chocolate habanero.
 
My office is already starting to smell peppery.
 
[edit: Also just ordered a high-powered blender from the US, since that's less than half the price, even with shipping and import duties. It'll replace my little food processor and hopefully make sauces easier.]

 

[internationalfish]

Finally got a decent blender, and holy crap. I was a bit nervous because it came from the US, and the power difference can mess with things sometimes, but it doesn't appear to have caused any problems here.
 
Loaded it up with my second batch of fermented peppers and gave it a whirl.
 

 
Despite having thrown basically whatever ripe peppers I had in there (including those mutant purple UFOs and probably some chocolate habs), the color came out amazing.
 

 
After simmering it for a while, it darkened up a bit, though not as much as it seems like in this picture. Gonna need to order more bottles; I still have a bigger batch of peppers fermenting that needs The Treatment.
 

 
The flavor is very similar to this Pain is Good garlic hot sauce, and so is the heat. Pretty freaking toasty, friends. Well, to me, anyway.
 
I also pulled the plants out of the bottom of my tent. You can see they're happy to keep the leaves growing, but not so much on the pods... I gave up on the lemon drop (left), since it was freaking vining its way all over the place. Also culled the ghost and chocolate hab that were down there, since they were just irritating fruit-free shrubs. So the CGN 21500 (right) has the run of the bottom shelf until some of the other seedlings up top get big enough to move down. If it's not setting fruit by then, it'll get replaced, too.
 

 
And if nothing still fruits in the tent on the next round... I don't know. Maybe I should just find another hobby for the off-season.

 

[internationalfish]

Today I potted up a couple of plants to take in to the office, replacing the ones that were so embarrassingly bug-infested I forced them into a retreat. This time it's coir+perlite and they'll be getting weekly rounds of hydro fertilizer, so hopefully this works out better. 7JPN on the left and kung pao on the right (indoor so-far-non-producing CGN 21500 skulking guiltily in the back).
 

 
My outside CGN 21500 -- one of the bug-ridden office evacuees -- is doing reasonably well outside.
 

 
And here we have yet another addition to the that's-not-right club, something that was supposed to be this caribe and now very clearly isn't. This is less annoying than some of the others, partially because I started it as a Kratky experiment and just stuck it in a pot of dirt outside when I gave up on that, but it's still a little irksome to keep seeing more and more plants that aren't what they were supposed to be.
 

 
And on the *deep breath* Fatalii gourmet jigsaw x large red Jamaican habanero F1 *gasp*, the single pod that's been sitting there for... I don't know, something like two months now? I finally gave one of my friends a couple of plants I'd been growing for him, so a little more clutter on the balcony has been cleared out. Still got a hawk's claw that's waiting for its Forever Home.
 

 
I had a few to pick from for random bits to end this post on, but decided this was at least topical.
 

 

[CaneDog]

Marketing genius!  Somebody is destined for the big leagues!
 
Not Caribe looks quite cool.  I've been waiting for a particular pod to ripen for some time and it was 100% green this morning, but now almost 100% yellow not even 8 hours later.  Hopefully Fatalii gourmet jigsaw x large red Jamaican habanero F1 decides it's time to flip the switch.

 

[internationalfish]

Marketing genius!  Somebody is destined for the big leagues!

Haha, yep! I'm on pins and needles for their breakout hit, "CONVENIENCE STORE IS CONVENIENT."
 

Not Caribe looks quite cool.  I've been waiting for a particular pod to ripen for some time and it was 100% green this morning, but now almost 100% yellow not even 8 hours later.  Hopefully Fatalii gourmet jigsaw x large red Jamaican habanero F1 decides it's time to flip the switch.

Yeah, the yellow mystery pod does look pretty cool. Hoping it's a happy accident like the day-glo devil's tongue.
 
I think the hab x jigsaw is going to end up being way too hot for me, but Justin at WHP said it's one of the tastiest peppers he grew that year, so I still want to give it a shot.
 
I started giant white hab and white devil's tongue seeds in rockwool last week; once those sprout (hopefully they do sprout, unlike all of the other G.W. habs I've tried to germinate) I'm all set up to start Wee Kratky: The Next Generation.
 

 
Also, I picked up some garlic that's supposed to be stronger than the normal stuff here. We'll see. I'm going to start a few directly and give most of them a few weeks in the fridge first; apparently they need that to form respectable bulbs? I hope the internet isn't dicking with me this time.
 

 

[PaulG]

And if nothing still fruits in the tent on the next round... I don't know. Maybe I should just find another hobby for the off-season.

Dont give. Up yet, Fish!

Your. Blended sauce looks great.

 

[internationalfish]

Dont give. Up yet, Fish!

Your. Blended sauce looks great.

 

 
Thanks! It came out better than I expected.
 
Seriously, though, if this tent continues to be a no-pod zone, I'm gonna lose my shit this winter.

 

[internationalfish]

A pod! In the tent!
 

 
Now this has happened before, but it's rare... so maybe, just maybe, this CGN 21500 will start producing?! That'd be a REALLY welcome development.
 
From outdoors, a little harvest. From left to right: Korean peppers, not-caribe, and CGN 21500.
 

 
And this Fatalii gourmet jigsaw x large red Jamaican habanero F1 finally saw fit to ripen! Buuuuuuut not to the color I was expecting. 

 

 

[PaulG]

Be patient, Fish, the Fatali-Habanero cross might
produce something more to your liking in the
subsequent generations!

 

[internationalfish]

Be patient, Fish, the Fatali-Habanero cross might
produce something more to your liking in the
subsequent generations!

 
If the chinense flavor is really strong, I'll probably hold off on growing it out; already got some other things I want to try that seem more likely to pan out. If not, though, I'll probably see what happens over a few generations.
 
For now I'm trying to get giant white hab and hopefully-white devil's tongue seeds to germinate in rockwool, and man, for some reason they seem completely disinterested. But then I've gotten used to really fast germination with other types, so maybe I'm just being too impatient.

 

[internationalfish]

One of my maybe-white-devil's-tongue seeds in rockwool is hooking. So hopefully that's a start.
 
In the meantime, I've started my garlic growing experiment. This stuff is... enthusiastic, even just a week and a half in.
 

 
I thought I read garlic was supposed to have small, shallow roots. Maybe Okinawa garlic is different? Okinawa people are certainly different, but I didn't expect their garlic to be as crazy as they are... anyway, this seems like a good start to me.
 
Here are the current seedlings. Aside from the 7JPN in the back, these are more for flavor than spice; friggitello, Manganji, and shishito. They seem to be doing OK, despite all the leaf weirdness. They're getting hydro nutrients and growing in mostly coir with a touch of perlite.
 

 
This is the current bottom shelf in the tent. On the left there's the garlic. In the back, my CGN 21500, which is finally putting out pods! A fair amount of them, in fact, and it's also growing quickly. The two in the white pots are destined for the office; kung pao on the right and 7JPN for dramatic effect.
 

 
So things are looking pretty decent here. My balcony peppers have gone nuts with the growth after the hot weather broke, but the pods aren't quite there yet; still working on getting isolated buds right. Should be easy enough soon when everything starts setting. I've gotten a few of my Japanese coworkers excited about both hot sauce and growing peppers, so I started a Slack channel for them to post their pictures; it's me and three middle-aged women right now, which I think is awesome.