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Guru's Garden - Traveling the World in Search of Peppers

Just starting this glog now so it's one less thing to do in a few months when I'm knee deep in compost and getting things in the ground.
 
Not much to report at the moment. Strains yet to be determined, but I'll probably end up growing too many like always...lol
 
 
Only thing that's going on right now is a clean back patio and the chickens doing their part turning over my compost pile on the daily. Intersted in seeing how the soil microbes appreciate the added chicken poop!
 
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Hope everyone has had a decent winter so far and here's to happy germination!
 
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EDIT UPDATE: This glog has turned into an ongoing overwintering, greenhouse and soil building how-to!
 
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Update time!
 
Sorry for taking so long to post back! It's been sort of crazy around here. My wife broke her ankle skating, had to have surgery, can't put pressure on it for three months. Then she will likely end up needing some therapy to walk again. Between that, rehearsing for shows, and recording new material for Votive, and landscaping... it's been nuts. 
 
Anyway, things are starting to ripen up in the garden and the pods are PUMPIN
 
 
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Yellow 7 Pods Overwintered
 
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CGN 21566
 
 
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Mini Rocoto
 
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7 Pot Bubble Gum
 
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Coyote Zan White
 
 
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to be continued...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Malarky said:
That bubblegum looks like an evil little strawberry.
Glad the seeds I sent are turning out!
Hope your wife has a speedy recovery. Rub some cap oil on that ankle to increase blood flow.
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It does look like a strawberry! ha Bet it don't taste like one though! I've tried to get her to do the pepper powder in petroleum jelly before, she won't go for it. LOL
 
Thegreenchilemonster said:
Looking oh so nice! Your picture quality is fantastic as well.
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Thanks! Was using a small led array for the garden shots to fill some shadows and a nice strobe on the patio plant shots. 
peppamang said:
Looking great! How does the mini rocoto taste? I'm growing it for the first time. 
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Awesome. Be careful though! They are so juicy, that when you bite into them, they POP and choke you a bit with the airbrorne cap liquid if you're not ready. 
Juligris said:
What an incredible grow!
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Thanks! 
karoo said:
Great pics!
Excellent grow.
Quite a monster on that last pic , and two good plants! :lol:
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Those are my patio babies. No shade cloth, just huge containers and stinky, compost drenched soil. 
 
RPM55 said:
The garden looks GREAT Rich. Awesome pics as well.
 
Sorry to hear about your wife's ankle, I hope she has a speedy recovery.
 
Best wishes, Robert
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Going to be a long road, but she has a good support team! Thank you. 
 
 
 
Datil said:
Awesomeness!!
I wish a quick recovery to your wife Rich!
 
Fab
 
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Thank you! 
 
 
Thanks for the well wishes and compliments guys. I really can't believe things are going this well so far. With as much as I've been absent from the garden, I guess my weekly check ups haven't discovered any issues! At first there were some tomato horn worms present, but we hunted them all down and removed them. I think the shade cloth is keeping a lot of moths and aphids from landing in their normal horde fashion. 
 
I'm noticing a huge difference in growth and vigor with the shade cloth. All foliage is VERY lush, leaves are HUGE and the best part is NO WILTING from 12 noon to 5pm! Now its just, good ample lighting and rain every few days! 
 
It has been so rainy the past couple of weeks that I've had to get in there and stake up most of them because they all fell over! The ground was so saturated that I could push a 4 foot bamboo stake all the way into the ground! Now thats just nuts...
 
Took me a couple days but I read through this whole thing, It was a good one, wealth of information. I particularly like that you brought seeds back from Peru! Pretty gangster lol
 
A couple more shots from the second batch of harvests, some close ups on pods:
 
 
Bubblegum 7
 
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Charapita
 
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CGN21566 Ripening
 
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Aji Lemon Drop
 
 
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Sri Lanka Smuggle "Chili Red"
 
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Coyote Zan White
 
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Sri Lanka Smuggle "Cobra/Pumpkin/Scorpion"
 
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Peru Smuggle "Giant Rocoto"
 
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Yellow 7
 
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Fatalii
 
 
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Caterpillar 
 
 
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Needles to say, we've been filling up gallon jars for some sweaty, no salt, cold, dark mash...
We will let the peppers do their thing, in a dark, cool, location with the lids barely on, just loose enough for gas to escape. 
 
Once the peppers are drowning in their own sweet sweet funk, we top off with the vinegar of our choosing, salt to taste and then age for years...
 
Later on down the road, when we crack them open again, that essentially becomes our base for other sauce ideas OR we prefer to blend and eat as is. Thats it. Thats my sauce. Simplicity is DIVINITY. 
 
 
Aji Lemon Drop getting ready for mash
 
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Whoa, that's an interesting way to age the peppers!  How'd you learn/figure that one out?
How long do you usually ferment them before adding the vinegar?  And do they ever spoil doing it that way?
 
Jubnat said:
Whoa, that's an interesting way to age the peppers!  How'd you learn/figure that one out?
How long do you usually ferment them before adding the vinegar?  And do they ever spoil doing it that way?
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I've been doing it this way for the past 15-20 years. Learned early from my father, then when I got into my young man years, met a guy that liked peppers as much as I did and he introduced me to c. chinense. Hoyt Saxton was his name and my sauce has been better ever since. We've spent the passed 18 or so years trading knowledge, seeds, and researching fermentation. We learned long ago, that the best ingredient for sauce is TIME.

I go straight from plant to jar, no washing. I want all those naturally occurring bacteria/yeasts to be present when I crowd the jar with the fruit. Think of this as pepper wine.

When I first started, I'd get a failed jar here and there but usually due to not filling the jars enough. Things to look out for are molds, foul smells and discolored fruits, etc ***Note" - one mans "foul smell is another man's heavenly aroma" so that bit is subjective. Follow your own nose.

You want as little oxygen as possible. CO2 production is critical for the colonization of the benificial bacteria/yeast. A jar constantly producing co2 won't go bad.

To fully submerge the peppers takes around 2-3 months,
 
That awesome!
So, whole peppers go into the jar, and then over the course of 2-3 months, they break down and become submerged in their own liquid?
Do you ever stir them as they're fermenting? Or have to scrape mold off the surface?

Do you notice many differences in flavor between this and the more standard salted mash?

This sounds really interesting...
 
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