• Blog your pepper progress. The first image in your first post will be used to represent your Glog.

+ growyourown + 2023 + YEAR OF ALL FIVE +

what up pepper peeps? your boy growyourown here with a bold proclamation:

i challenged myself to try to grow all the five major pepper species for the first time; wish me luck!
(and give me advice, i could use it)

to begin, let's forget what i did last year.
(just like i said last year)

doing the big five became the goal because there are so many pepper types and flavours i have not experienced before, and that by working within those parameters for this year, i have a chance to grow and discover types of peppers which are mild enough that my wife may also enjoy.
(she taps out at habanero heat, but said she'd try the 20-30k range, hoping she might step up to 50k)

let's take a look at what we got going on:

BACCATUM
  • Aji Cito – 50k -hottest baccatum has to offer
  • Aji Omnicolour – 20k -nice looking plant/pods, milder
  • Sugar Rush Peach – 15-25k -very good reputation, milder
FRUTESCENS
  • Purira – 300k -had no ideas about any specific frutescens, just went for the heavyweight heat
  • Lotah Bih – 300k -above reasoning, plus "granddaddy of ghost/superhot" hype on website
PUBESCENS
  • Rio Hualaga Orange – 100k -name is familiar, believe it's a popular rocoto among members here
  • Ecuadorian Pepper from Hell – 50k -cool name, and they were selling it cheaper than other C.pubes
ANNUUM
  • Florida Bird – 100k (free seeds) -free, and quite hot
  • Hawk's Claw – 30-50k (free seeds) -free, cayenne-esque
  • Bolivian Rainbow – 30k -nice looking plant/pods, milder

that's what i bought specifically for this year. plan is to start a 12-cell tray for each category above.

obviously that's only four species, so also on board will be (2 or 3 12-cell trays comprised of):

CHINENSE
  • Alligator Tongue – 100-???k (free seeds) -free, give 'em a whirl, heat level on site literally said "hotter than hab but less than ghost"
  • undecided others from my seed stock -choose several types and do 2-3 seeds of each
MORE ANNUUM
  • generic jalapenos -but i've never actually grown them from seed, waffling on whether to once again just buy cheap greenhouse seedlings in may
  • "Portugal" (x hab?) -i grew some plants called simply "portugal" in 2021, my mom took some pods and grew their seeds in 2022 which according to her were much hotter than what i gave her so i suspect a cross and habs pretty much surrounded where these were located. the portugal pods were typical annuum a la hungarian wax with big broad shoulders leading straight down into a long curled body, but the pods she gave me back (from which i got these seeds) were the same curled shape but not as wide around at the top and with a bit of a corkscrew/twist up near the shoulders instead of the usual stark straightness of wax or jalapeno.

!!_BONUS ROUND_!!

WILD / ANN. V. GLAB.

  • Dwarf Chili Tepin – 50k -free seeds from 2021, never tried yet, what better time than when doing a big variety grow?
peppermeme.jpg

should be fun; my plan is to start the first round of seeds (all but the annuums) the last weekend of january, then do a couple trays of the annuums a few weeks later when some of the first batch are done sprouting. i don't want my plants to outgrow the 4" pots i have before it's time to put them out again, so i hope starting this much later (i was very eager in 2022) will be the sweet spot, but i have zero experience with bacc. and pube. so i hope my timing works out considering my indoor conditions and later my outdoor environment.

thanks to everyone joining me on this journey. next we speak i will have sown something...

toasting to a prosperous 2023, and wishing great success to all!
 
pic from a few days after my last post:
IMG_20230317_230044.jpg

apologies - i'm back to my old ways, it seems - for no updates for a month plus. truthfully, i've been suffering silently this whole time. i only mean that plant-wise; everything else in my life is going okay, just having sub-par results with my grow. the plants that are actually alive are mostly all doing well, but low initial germ rates and premature deaths of sprouted plants have put me well below where i'd hoped to be.

like many of you, my annuums just did not germinate very well overall, and my newfound nemesis the frutescens had only one seed pop (out of two rounds of 10 sown) who then failed to ever put out a leaf. i'm going to have to start more if i want to achieve my goal of growing "all the five", which i feel i must resolve to accomplish, no matter how meagerly it turns out.

i also had some problems with young plants getting leggy and/or dying in the germ dome trays while waiting for others in the trays to pop. i am toying with the idea of going the rockwool route next year for easier removal of sprouted seeds, but i have no experience with it and tend to just do what's easiest and most comfortable.

then on top of that, a few weeks ago, the cardboard force field surrounding my plant table was breached. cat was able to sneak around it using the newly unguarded window sill and proceeded to stomp and/or bite several of the young fragile plants that had been recently moved into 4" pots, many of whom succumbed to the trauma received. that was several weeks ago, but things came to a head the other day when i went back to that room to see that my daughter had been able to tear down the cardboard and climb to the table.

as a result of this (and ulterior motivation to make room on the table for a late third round of seeds of the kinds that have done me poorly), i decided to bring out the cheap greenhouse shelving unit my mom gave me as a gift and move everything into it. however, having not fully completed the erection and transfer on the night i started it, the next day my daughter once again got onto the table and stripped off some leaves from a couple of the smaller plants and nearly de-potted one of the most robust plants (SRP that germinated first of everything).

after making some hacks to the greenhouse to enable it to have 2 tall shelves instead of 4 incredibly short ones, and installing my main grow light on the top shelf and some cheap led bars (that i acquired for myself at christmas) with zip ties onto the second shelf, i did end up with a decent-looking setup for the plants that remained:

IMG_20230405_221341.jpg


the lower shelf has all the tallest and most-developed plants (including 2 "non-peppers" removed from the shot), since to hang the big light took away some of the added "roof" height available for the upper shelf. also on the lower shelf i put all of the pubescens so they can receive less light overall (crappier lights plus shading from the canopy of the larger plants) and the temperature is likely lower because heat rises, and they in particular seem to be doing well in this position.

there are still some problems with the setup though, namely excessive humidity. there are no ventilation flaps built into the unit, and i also have no fan running inside currently. plan is to order a couple cheap fans to stick inside, and to make my own vents once i figure out a strategy to do so. anyone got tips for diy'ing this?

in the meantime, i have been leaving the zippers undone or the whole door completely open during the overnight periods when i have the lights going, as after the first night being fully enclosed there was condensation AF inside the cover. i have been putting an obstacle in front of the unit so the cat can't munch on foliage of the lower shelf, and then i do zip it closed with the lights off for the daytime when i am at work and in the evening when my daughter is in the vicinity.

**new development and in keeping with my luck, while i was typing this (flashbacks to the super bowl) my daughter opened up the zipper to the tent and messed around inside. the only plant badly damaged was one of the two weeds i have going (thank goodness?). figured out a way to secure the zippers to prevent future incursions**



so, my situation is i need to start some more seeds (can't be too late, can it?). these frutescens m'f'ers need to sprout me a few so i can achieve my goal of doing the big five, and i also want to retry a few more of the ann. and bacc. where i didn't get good representation.


the ones that are going are going good though, and i feel i can see there has been a positive change in growth having them in the greenhouse tent for the last week. i didn't want them to take off big too early anyway, so i am on good pace with the way things are going now as the plants have a month to have a growth spurt in their new space.

other good news, we are scheduled to have a day of 22C temps coming up shortly (12-19C earlier this week too), so hopefully the winter might be done enough this year to consider going outside earlier than the typical "may 24th weekend" standard in this area.

reminder, i need to get some dirt for my new outdoor containers, three more of the same type pictured in my previous glogs. i need a bunch more plants so i can fill all this new space. (i actually need to space the plants out more than i have been, i think, but there's always room for more [devil emoji])

hope you're all doing well; i have been reading along in everyone's glogs and i like what i see.
-GyO
 
I think your plants are doing rather well. They seem to enjoy their surroundings.

As for high humidity, I can't help there. I have way to much condensation as well, even though I use fans. I've survived by occasional crossing my fingers for good luck. 🤞
 
small update, as i hadn't taken attendance on what the actual plants were that had made it to the tent, so here's that:

  • 2x Bahamian Goat (2021) (C)
  • 2x DBxBS? (2022) (C)
  • 2x C22 (2022) (C)
  • 2x 7LCxBBG? (2022) (C)
  • 1x ? Purple foliage Mystery (2022) (C)
  • 1x Oracle (C)
  • 3x JPGxBJW (C)
  • 3x Bombay Morich Orange (C)
  • 2x Borg 9 Yellow (C)
  • 1x Alligator Tongue (C)
  • 1x Hawk’s Claw (A)
  • 1x Florida Bird (A)
  • 2x Dwarf Chili Tepin (AvG)
  • 3x Rio Hualaga Orange (P)
  • 2x Ecuadorian Pepper from Hell (P)
  • 4x Sugar Rush Peach (B)
  • 3x Aji Cito (B)
for a total of 35 individuals, and all surviving well, so no complaints there. untimely fates for several along the way, but they who made it are looking good and let's just hope they don't stall too much in the 4" pots because the weather is wacky and i don't know if i will get outside any earlier than normal.


and now the news is i want to say thanks to so many, but especially @Tinkerbelle and @Ratatouille for inspiring me to plant more seeds. i was getting lazy and thought about giving up on my dream for this year, to do the five, but then i remembered you gotta be in it to win it, and it's never too late!

so soaking now in some tea and water with a couple drops of lemon juice (see how you inspired me?) and into cells tomorrow will be:

TRAY XI

  • 4x Bolivian Rainbow – 30k (A)
  • 2x Hawk’s Claw – 30k (A)
  • 2x Florida Bird – 100k (A)
  • 4x Aji Omnicolour – 20k (B)

TRAY XII
  • 5x Lotah Bih – 300k (F)
  • 5x Purira – 300k (F)
  • 4x Portugal (x Hab?) (2022) (A/C)

(note: save for 1 each of florida bird and hawk's claw, who are among the weakest, none of the varieties i am sowing have any surviving specimens currently in the tent)

12 trays of 12 seeds, though, means i will have sown 144 seeds down, and with 35 survivors plus max 26 new potential plants (likely far fewer), is not even 50% seed/adult plant ratio. is that bad? but considering i still consider myself a novice, everything that does eventually grow is really a noteworthy success, right?

stay funky,
-GyO
 
history repeats itself.

put those seeds down like i said, and had excellent results using the tea plus-a-bit o' lemon soak with 15/24 seeds popping after 10 days or so. even 4 of 10 of my goal-crushing nemesis frutescens had showed up. thought about taking some pics and making a post in the next day or two. later, i came to find my daughter had once again gotten to the plant table and yanked and strewn about several of my little babies.

damage control mode, i quickly stuck them back into any unoccupied cells in the starter trays. as a result, i have very little idea which of these surviving plants are which. it sucks that i will not know until much later now whether i did in fact grow any frutescens to fruition, although i suspect from memory of the look of the sprouts that at least 2 of the 4 are among the dead that obviously resulted from the latest carnage.

just did a head count, 10 of the 16 (after the incident i wound up having two plants in one cell so a new one must have sprung) are still okay, 2 are alive but weak (i suspect - but hope not - that these are the only two remaining frutescens), 2 almost certainly dead, and 2 m.i.a.

these 10 survivors need to be potted up to 4" pots this weekend. thankfully nice weather coming too, and i can take all the older plants outside to begin hardening.

and as i always say, the ones that were doing good are continuing to do good. all the plants grew appropriately since the last post, as you can see when i post this pic:
pmay.jpg

fun fact: the "blacked-out area" plant above had been transplanted from its 4" to another 7"ish pot meant for household plants, and in which i had been dumping contents of failed seed cells from earlier. well, wouldn't you know, something came up in that pot alongside that pot. so there's yet one more mystery now, but also closest i've had to a volunteer.

the astute can also see from that pic that i have a fan situated under the lower shelf. there was no good cheap small fan to like hang inside on the shelves, so i got an actual useful for other things fan (like for a small room) for the same price, and i just have to put it on low and take it easy. the upper shelf has a garbage bag so that when i water it doesn't get on the lights for the lower shelf, but as such means only the lower shelf gets fan blowingness (blowerocity?). i've been rotating plants up and down as appropriate.

and now i realize i still have to announce about my planting-out intentions. i have 5 raised containers in my yard from last year, and plan to start 2-3 more that i didn't have before. i got promix all-purpose in compressed cubes (=4cu.ft.) times 4, and 12kg bags of mushroom compost times 4. along with remaining soil from existing containers which i plan to mix together with the above and redistribute among all 7-8 containers, any other amendments you'd recommend? my well water is on the harder side.

we are still 2-3 weeks from going outside as per the usual standard, and since the weather hasn't been conducive to hardening off, we aren't ready any sooner anyway probably. thusly i have time to accept and implement any advice i receive.

you guys kick ass; let's get to success in 2023! (sorry my text amount is so much)
 
just for posterity, here's some old group pics of each type taken a day or two before plant-out which was over three weeks ago since i suck at updating this thing (see my next post i'm also preparing right now), ordered by number of living specimens and then subjectively by best growth among varieties with that many members.

4x sugar rush peach (also first pods winner, but really should have re-up-potted these late april when i was doing the last round of seeds)
IMG_20230526_204643.jpg


3x jay's peach ghost X bhut jolokia white (notably poor performer last year, 0 ripe pods)
IMG_20230526_210224.jpg


3x bombay morich orange (notably poor performer last year, 0 ripe pods)
IMG_20230526_210519.jpg


3x rio hualaga
IMG_20230526_210816.jpg


3x aji cito
IMG_20230526_211008.jpg


2x dragon's breath X brain strain
IMG_20230526_211210.jpg


2x borg 9 yellow (notably poor performer last year, 0 ripe pods)
IMG_20230526_211454.jpg


2x ecuadorian pepper from hell
IMG_20230526_211723.jpg


2x 7-pot lava chocolate X 7-pot bubblegum
IMG_20230526_212011.jpg


2x bahamian goat
IMG_20230526_212204.jpg


2x c22 (notably poor performer last year, 1 ripe pod)
IMG_20230526_212353.jpg


2x dwarf chili tepin (crazy height disparity between these two)
IMG_20230526_212518.jpg


(L-R) gator tongue, oracle
IMG_20230526_212733.jpg


(L-R) hawk's claw, mystery purple, florida bird
IMG_20230526_212910.jpg

on to the new post-outside-going post... gimme a minute to do it up
 
welp, yeah sorry guys, another 1.5 months with no update. things are going real well though, i just never make the time to post. may 28th was dirt day for me, and all of the below-shown plants went out to the raised beds. the latest round of starts (late april's anonymous due to being menaced by my progeny A/B/F-type?) were still too little and unhardened to be in this first pic, but i just planted them in the beds today and they are in the following pics.

last days of may:
IMG_20230602_160819.jpg


and some from today:
IMG_20230624_140122.jpg
IMG_20230624_140137.jpg
IMG_20230624_140145.jpg
IMG_20230624_140151.jpg

i remembered after surfing the non-hot section of the site that it is okay to post cannabis pics, so no blacked-out areas in the photos!

so you can see we are doing good. nearly all the smallest ones you see are either greenhouse-purchased from may 22nd or the late-april seed starts. mystery purple foliage has a very compact growth habit this year again, i am thinking OW bonchi with this one if it is cute enough, as i had thought of doing last year but just never did.

horizontal-oriented boxes at the back, going left to right, contain:

#1 - 3x rio hualaga, 2x borg 9 yellow, 2x DBxBS
#2 - 2x e.p.f.h., 3x bombay, florida bird, gator tongue

vertically-oriented boxes left to right, each box listed top to bottom:
(PP=purchased plants)

#3 - ABF?, 8x jalapeno (PP), 3x red beauty bell (PP)
#4 - ABF?, 6x jalapeno (PP), 3x cayenne (PP)
#5 - s.r. peach, 2x d.c.tepin, 3x JPGxBJW, 2x 7LCxBBG, s.r. peach
#6 - s.r. peach, 2x aji cito, ABF?, aji cito, 2x c22, 2x b.goat, s.r. peach
#7 - hawk's claw, oracle, ?purple foliage, tabasco* (PP), ABF?, tabasco* (PP), 3x ghost (PP), cannabis

square box at bottom left:

#8 - cannabis at centre, 3x ABF?, ABFC? (discarded soil volunteer)

for a total of 69 pepper plants (nice!) and a lowly 2 cannabis (one of which is delayed because the stem got nearly split in half by someone; i had to stake it up and pray for its recovery, but it pulled through and is starting to bulk up after being outside in the bed for close to a month now)

tabasco* is in bold because does that mean i cheated on growing ALL THE FIVE by buying a frutescens plant to raise, since i wasn't sure anymore which of my late-april plants was which and if any frutescens had in fact survived? but i had to do it, especially since of the 4 pots they had out for sale for $4 each, all were small but the one i bought actually had two seedlings in it and might allow me to achieve my goal, if they grow up enough to make fruit.

VALIDATION PLEASE!

i hope you are all having a good season and doing well in other areas of your lives too. i am really happy i got this done. i hate being such a seldom poster

-GyO
 
since i'm into it, here's the possible identities of the 9 ABF? plants that made it into the ground today.

15/24 seeds were up apparently according to my records, astonishingly. should have paid closer attention to whether any cells were not messed with, and therefore true to what i had recorded.

anyway, here's the chances of any plant being something:

4/15 aji omnicolour (B)
2/15 lotah bih (F)
2/15 purira (F)
2/15 portugal x hab (A/C)
2/15 florida bird (A)
2/15 hawk's claw (A)
1/15 bolivian rainbow (A)

so we'll see.

and @Simcows to directly answer your question on types we are both growing: confirmed i have one good-sized gator, a mediocre bird, and then possibly another bird or two in the bush. earlier omnicolours didn't make it, but 4/15 chance there is at least one of my 9 lates is one. i wish i had more because i wanted to be able to refer to them as AOC like that spicy congresswoman.

greets,
-GyO
 
At least with the Florida Bird it is super easy to tell once they get going a bit, all of mine have small leaves.

I could always start you an omnicolor cutting if you want... you would have to come to the city for it though!
 
Apologies in advance for the wall of text; difficult to do an update covering 3 WHOLE MONTHS -jesus h. christ that’s a long time - without using a lot of words.

Classic GyO, another super long delay between posts, but really nothing noteworthy has been going on.

I’ve barely had to water the beds all summer; in fact, after several initial waterings following plant-out in late May, I did not even water the plants for probably 6 weeks due to the amount of rain we’ve had this summer. And then still only maybe 6-8 waterings since then, only when they begin looking droopy.

Earliest pods were sugar rush peach, but rightly so as they were sown in the first batch of seeds at the end of January, before i learned of the baccatum fast growth tendency. The 4 plants i have, have continued to grow and put out pods despite my initial worries after they began fruiting before they went outside to the beds. Earlier this week i cut up and froze about 25-30 ripe pods. A good 50 or so remain on the plants now but many are still in the white/light yellow phase.

Best-producing single plant is an aji cito (baccatum, sown late february), which after plant-out took a while to get to growing, but now has sprawled out over other plants and into the open space between the beds and there are more than 100 pods on it, and a couple more dozen on the other two i have of this type.

Best variety performance-wise (besides the above) is a pubescens, the rio hualaga. These plants have also spread themselves out and upwards (and notably into the shade behind the planters), and several dozen nicely-sized pods have formed among the 3 plants growing there. Praying for a late frost this year, as none of these bad boys have begun to colour up yet. I am super excited to try these, as (also with baccatum) it is my first time growing this species.

Anyone have tips for making the best of green rocotos, in case i wind up with many unripe ones at end of season? Smoking them, perhaps? My neighbours are friendly enough they might let me do a batch on their smoker if i asked.

Apart from those best performers, i have gotten some success from types on which i failed previously. Borg 9 yellow and bombay morich orange have made and ripened a handful of pods (versus 0 last year). I got a couple of oracle pods, but they only went to dark yellow this year, whereas the scant few from last year went fully red.

Ones i did get some last year and now again are DBxBS, a single *what i thought was 7LCxBBG based on my notes, but it conflicted with the planting outdoors placement records so now by pod shape i think it’s more likely to be apoc-choc-scorp or choc. bhutlah when i might have had it down as being bahamian goat* (with a few more unripe on the way), and “purple foliage mystery”

-thinking it might truly be PdN or at least heavily influenced that way, as i saw someone’s pictures of that type recently on this site, and that is probably likely what would have been used to make the purple colour in the “reaper purple” strain i was supposed to have had seeds for when this obviously not-reaper showed up in last year’s grow, and from which i saved seeds.-

Other new grows this year that produced some ripe pods already, were gator tongue and (from greenhouse seedling) generic ghost, around 5 pods each.

All of the above ripened pods (except SRP) were put in the dehydrator this week, with the intent (since i won’t have epic harvests of any single variety besides SRP and aji cito) of making a single “2023 powder blend”, and for saving seeds of course. I still have five other powders I’m using from the last couple years, so i am not in need of several additional types and will just blitz it all up together. If a shit-ton of aji citos do ripen up i might dry some out and do a powder from just them, but i also might just halve and freeze them all to use for cooking or possibly a hot sauce.

i did of course get some pods from generic cayenne and jalapeno along the way, but nothing special and those seedlings never really took off before or after planting out, and not much more will be forthcoming, and that’s whatever.

Dwarf chili tepin was a surprise, the taller of the two plants is putting out a handful of really tiny pods, and one was a dark orange colour so i plucked and ate it right away, and holy was it ever hotter than i had expected. Had to be approaching habanero level.

In the same vein, i did have a tiny florida bird pepper go orange on me, and i intended to taste test, but a day later it was very wrinkly and i daren’t eat it in case it’s gone bad. Plus it claims to be hab-level so i was wary of just eating it after the previous tepin encounter.

Still no love at all from several varieties: JPGxBJW, C22, bahamian goat (?ing myself now if it even is that since i had mystery-ish chocolates in the place i had this recorded to be), and most of the ann/bacc/frut daughter/cat-tampering mysteries. Much of it has to do with other plants overgrowing the smaller ones around them.

For sure though, of the a/b/f uncertainties mentioned in my glog, at least 3 seem to be b/ aji omnicolour and 1 is for sure a/ florida bird (based on growth/flowers/colour habits and pods showing on those 4 plants).

Also nothing came of the “backup frutescens” tabascos i bought at nursery; they were overtaken by one of the weed plants and other nearby peppers, so i fear my quest for ALL FIVE may be unsuccessful.

When the 3 AOCs were coming up, i had hopes that they might prove to be frut. types, but the flowers are full-on baccatum, five-petaled white with yellow-gold accents.

But so i did learn some things this year (which is not over yet, ripen you m’f’ers), namely:

Baccatums are a hardy species. SRP (started earlier) was a best producer, aji cito proliferated BIG time in the beds, even the late omnicolour grew itself through/around competing plants to do its best. Baccatum are the Hufflepuff of peppers, i think.

Rocoto/pube plants can/will do great here (plants grew out and fruited real well in my somewhat shady backyard beds), but maybe need to start seeds right @ jan. 1st to get ripe pods in a season. Some might be going lighter green than the dark olive they started at, and hopefully they continue to colour up, but round here i don’t always have another month from now before frost to let them go. This year i may have only 2-3 weeks to go, as i heard they forecast a below freezing night somewhere thereabouts.

So i feel like i need to start:
- jan1 - pubes
- jan21 - chins
- feb21 - baccs/anns/fruts

for most effectiveness in start time vs max out 4” pot (but i will up-pot the best ones who come early) vs plant outside.

NOTE to Fucking Frutescens – you evaded me this year. Next time i try, i will grow you – mark my words. If i have to throw a hundred seeds at it, you will not prevail at not living. Why don’t you want to live? You primadonna-ass peppers, of so many i have, you’re just like “nah bruh”

so that’s my rant. Overall, I’ve done okay, just holding out hopes for good ripenizement percentages on the plants that still have dozens of peppers hanging from them. We shall see.

pic of the beds with pubes and a-cito overtaking everything:
IMG_20230925_175751.jpg


greets,
-GyO
 
SEASON ENDED 29/10.

pulled everything that sunday as they called for a couple nights in a row of minus temps. it was very cold halloween evening and began snowing just after my daughter and i got back in from trick-or-treating. i had to put up a tarp and space heater for one night in mid-october, but very well worth the effort to give the rocotos and others a couple more weeks to live, and the results were meaningful.

got this many rio hualagas that day (and here's a cool pepper-in-pepper that was actually ripe too and i didn't notice it at first):
IMG_20231105_154051.jpgIMG_20231105_155752.jpg

i had 4 peppers ripen earlier in the season and taste was BEAUTIFUL on them; very sweet flavour with nice even heat. at first i was like "this is sweet like a carrot" but a second later i decided it's way better than a carrot, and flavoured more like an orange bell pepper, but even better-tasting. then i remembered the persimmon fruit, and how i was blown away the first time i tasted one. i don't remember what they exactly taste like, but i do remember it being unlike any fruit i'd eaten before, and these peppers gave me the same kind of feeling. it's very thick-walled too like a bell pepper which makes it texturally more enjoyable to eat.

anyway, of that big-ass bowl, only half a dozen were orange and a couple turning on harvest day, but after a week in the bowl, once i finally got around to processing there were 25 ripe, another 10 yellow, and maybe 30-40 remained green.

i was cutting all the other peppers too that evening, and it was getting late so i left all unripe peppers for another day, which turned out to be 6 days later, and surprisingly i had at least half of the remaining rio hualagas go to at least yellow, and many more of the aji cito and SRP also coloured up nicely after this extra time spent in a cardboard box, and thankfully very few overall were rotted.

e.p.f.h. there were around 40 unripe ones, none of which ripened up even after two weeks in the same box.

aji cito yielded more than 200 golden-ripe pods from 3 plants, got a fair amount frozen and thinking about using in a sauce.

SRP was definitely a winner for total ripe mass, the early season picks and the final pull each yielding a large freezer bag about 75% full, and this will definitely be used in place of jalapeno in much of our cooking next year. SRP from last pick:
IMG_20231105_174012.jpg

i also dried several dozen of the earlier-season pods of various types to obtain seeds. i was lucky to have borg 9 yellow grow a few pods this year (vs. 0 off multiple plants last year), so it was really sweet to get some seeds to keep trying to grow that one in the future.

IN SUMMATION, my season was very positive; not blockbuster but not lackluster. i've been thinking about ways to improve things: timing my starts better, re-up-potting the biggest boys who max out their space prior to planting outside, and i feel like i should try adding fertilizers of some kind in my raised beds to increase plant size.



also i've already ordered my seeds for next year:
-giant yellow rocoto for a milder spice for the wife and large enough to sub as bell pepper in cooking
-fuck you frutescens fucks: hijo puta madre and malaga bird, mid heat level for species, hopefully i can get one frut to fruit this time
-the rest are a secret to be revealed when i open next year's glog!

i'll be dropping the pubescens over christmas break, main chinense a month later, additional chinense and baccatum late feb, annuum throughout march. and frutescens from the first time and as long as it takes to get a few decent plants...

thanks for looking in. thank you to 2023's pepper yield and here's to a prosperous 2024 season!
-GyO
 
thanks for the kind words. i was quite surprised how well they ended up doing; there was a long spell where pods just remained green with no hint of colouring up and i was sure i was going to run out of time. the sturdiness of the pods definitely helped them not go mushy post-harvest during the ripening/being lazy period between harvest and processing, which yielded a couple dozen "extra" ripe ones. the picture is from a week after harvest, just as i began to do my first round of processing, so it was very pleasing to see that many had turned colour. but then to have the majority of the rest also come around in the following week was icing on the cake!

undoubtedly if it had been like last year and i had to yank everything at the end of september instead of late october, that i would have missed out on a lot of the success i ended up having. hence the commitment i've made to getting an earlier start for them as well as the chinenses which did rather poorly compared to the pubes and baccs.

this christmas holiday, the moment the tree comes down, the seed table is going up! take down the christmas lights, bring out the grow lights!
 
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