ivplay's glog

I probably won't do a full blown grow log, but thought I would post some of the pics from my pepper plants for this year.
 

Bhut Jolokia pods.  This plant is putting out large amounts of peppers!

Purple Tiger.  These little guys are a bit spicy, but not so much that I can't use them for my friends with lower tolerances.

Says it is a peter pepper.  Not a distinctive shape, if it is.

Trinidad 7-pod.  One lonely pod on this guy so far.

Yellow bhut.  Two pods on so far. 

Red Savina plant.  This one is still growing, but so far so good.

 

[MeatHead1313]

Nice harvest! Obviously the plants are loving the NQ weather. Hoping you miss out on any cyclone activity, similar to hurricanes they can cause a massive amount of damage. Are the pods on the left the orange habs as they look different to the regular orange habs we get over here?

 

[ivplay]

Pods galore! Awesome harvests!!

Thanks, Nick!  The plants are really coming into it now.  The Trinidad 7-pod seems to be the most liked pepper for the fruit flies, as I haven't had a pod make it to maturity in recent weeks.  They all have developed the soft spots and then rotted on the stem, falling off eventually.  Frustrating!
 

Nice harvest! Obviously the plants are loving the NQ weather. Hoping you miss out on any cyclone activity, similar to hurricanes they can cause a massive amount of damage. Are the pods on the left the orange habs as they look different to the regular orange habs we get over here?

Yep, the weather has been pretty good here.  They just upgraded us to a cyclone watch, but at the present time it looks like it may only get to a category 1 and it will stay quite a bit north of us.  I hope it stays that way, and all we get is some nice rain out of the system.  The sugarcane is soaking up all of this rain right now, and with a few days of good sunshine we will be looking much better.
 
The orange habs are indeed the peppers in the left in the picture.  They are not the type of orange habs I grew in the states, as those were bright orange more like the fatalii in the picture.  These start as a white pod with streaks of purple through them, and eventually mature to the almost mustard-yellow color you see in the picture.  They are not nearly as photogenic as the orange habs I grew in Montana and North Dakota, but the flavour profile is good and the plant is pretty prolific.  Maybe the orange habs are different here, or perhaps the seller of the habanero plant I bought had a mislabeled/crossed parent. 

 

[Penny]

Nice harvest indeed!!

 

[ivplay]

I haven't been keeping up nearly as well as I should have been, as life caught up with me.  We had family here from December 5th to February 17th (different family at different stages) as well as a cyclone and the onset of the rainy season.  My red bhut pumped out a tonne of pods, and going into the cyclone was preparing to go another round with flowers all over.  With the cyclone came a LOT of rain (7" in one day, and much more over the week that we were affected) and the red bhut was stressed.  The plant dropped all of the flowers and most of its leaves due to too much water, and is just now growing some green back.  I see some flowers coming on, but I have lost a good month out of it.  All that being said, I have used a lot of the peppers, and still have three ziploc bags filled  with dried red bhuts.  Overall that plant has been kicking out some great production.
 
The cyclone didn't affect my mustard hab, red savina, yellow bhut or trinidad 7-pod nearly to the same extent.  They slowed, but didn't drop all of the leaves and flowers.  I was happy to get another harvest out of them yesterday, with some still turning.  A pic of them should be below:

 
My fatalii is finally coming on, with about 15 pods in various stages of green to orange.  The tepin bush is growing like a weed, and I have a bag of dried tepins, some tepin-garlic paste, and some pickled tepins from the harvests.  The paste is quite hot, and the pickles are aging right now.  To tell the truth, I am a bit afraid of the heat that may come in those babies.  I pickled them with some carrot sticks and red pepper batons, as well as some garlic cloves.  Hope that it turns out great.
 
My purple tiger didn't fare well at all with the cyclone, and I don't think it is coming back.  That's alright though, as my wife has another one planted in her area as she liked the variegated leaves.  I am happy, momma is happy, all is good with that.  I have two thai chilli plants that are doing well, one that is ornamental and HOT and one that is longer, more meaty pods and mild to medium heat.  As I said they fared through the cyclone and wet season alright, and I am seeing quite a few pods coming off of them now.
 
I started a bonchi project a few weeks ago with a mucho nacho jalapeno plant that one of my friends was going to throw out after the cyclone stressed it.   I talked him into letting me have it, and I potted it up and have been babying it ever since.  It is a bit bonsai pot, but was the right price and looked good.  If it goes well I will post more pics later.  For now, it is starting to pop out some leaves and looking like it might make a go of things.  Hoping everything comes through on it.  That about brings you up to speed on my glog, and will try and be better about posting any changes or updates.

 

[ivplay]

Hey everyone, haven't updated my own glog for a long time, but that was more to do with the fact that everything kind of tapered off.  We had lots and lots of rain with Cyclone Dylan, and that caused lots of havoc with the plants.  Then Cyclone Gillian/Hati came close for a near miss and dumped lots of rain, slowing everything down yet again.  The last cyclone, Cyclone Ita, was a category one when it passed by here out at sea, and again we got high winds and lots of rain.  Net affect is that I haven't really had much in the way of exciting pods to show pictures of for quite some time! 
 
An update is still in order, though, so here are a few pictures:
 
First, this is the pepper patch.  The two plants in the back are getting quite tall, with a yellow bhut on the left and trinidad seven pot on the right.  In front of those and slightly shorter is a red savina on the left and a mustard habanero on the right.  These have been doing well throughout as far as healthy plants, but the pods have dropped off dramatically.  The yellow bhut is closing in on 2 meters high.
 

Next photo is of some trinidad seven pods that are coming on, better late than never:

Next is the second red savina that I planted, and then topped and stripped.  It is coming back quite nicely:

Next is my favorite plant of the year, the red Bhut:

What's that?  You can't see it?  Oh yeah, that is because the wet weather along with something else killed it.  Whatever happened to my red bhut is also happening to my fatalii, which I have pics of next:

Here is a close up of the branches.  They are discolored and turning yellow or brown, like the plant is dying from the inside out.

I am not sure what is going on.  Anyway, on to happier things.  It is fall in Queensland, which means you can plant again if you would like.  Next if my tomatoes that we put in pots today.  One is a beefsteak, the other a black russian. Also in the pic is a pot with some ginger and galangal.

ANd finally, I have a bunch of babies growing up right now.  My favorite is this guy, a TS Moruga.  It started with three cotyledons, then came out with three leaves as opposed to two in the first bunch.  It is growing like a champ so far.

I probably wont have a lot to show for a while, but that is what is going on in my backyard!

One more update.  The pot-n-all plants that I planted were for the most part extracted from their little pots as I don't really care for them.  There was one plant that I didn't remove, which was a purple tiger.  The plant never did do all that well, and it eventually kicked it.  When I pulled it out of the ground, here is what I found.  I will never leave a plant in the pot-and-all again!
 

 

 

[thirdcoasttx]

Total bummer about the red bhut and fatali the rest of your grow is looking damn good tho!!

 

[ivplay]

Time for round 2 planting; I love living in the tropics!  I have been growing some seed into young plants in anticipation of the cooling weather to get them in the ground.  The following picture has TS Morugas and Bahamian Goats from Cartz, Chocolate Scorpions and Purple Blotchy Bhuts from THSC, a red bhut from my own plant, and a few Aji Lemons from Sarge. 

 
The next pic is my favorite of the new batch, a TS Moruga.  It popped up with three cotyledons, and then had two sets of three true leaves pop in a row.  It is very healthy, and hoping that I get a tonne of peppers off of it.
 

 
I also have some Biker Billies from Cartz, Broome chillies from THSC, and more red bhuts going in smaller pots just about ready to pot up.  I have some more bahamian goat seeds germinating along with some Chocolate 7-pods from THSC.  Lots of grow requests from friends wanting plants, now  that they are able to try mine out.  Thanks for stopping by!

 

[MeatHead1313]

Nice looking round 2 plants! That TS Moruga looks super healthy. Sucks about the cyclone trouble though. Hopefully next summer will be more kind to you. Best of luck with round 2. 

 

[Runescape]

Had no idea where Queensland is...(Australia apparently). How do the fall temps compare to the summer ones?

 

[ivplay]

Nice looking round 2 plants! That TS Moruga looks super healthy. Sucks about the cyclone trouble though. Hopefully next summer will be more kind to you. Best of luck with round 2. 

Thanks MeatHead!  I am debating putting the TSM in a pot or the ground.  I haven't grown them before so not sure how big of a pot they would need, but if they are like the Yellow Bhut I have going that is over 6 feet tall, I don't think the pot will work.  I was pretty bummed about the cyclones, particularly when the red bhut died.  That was my favorite plant by far, and a great producer.  The good news is I have lots of seeds and a bunch of babies on the way to replace it. 
 

Had no idea where Queensland is...(Australia apparently). How do the fall temps compare to the summer ones?

Summer temps were highs of 32-40 C (90-105 F) and lows down to 25-28 C (75-85 F).  The fall is nice here, with highs around 25-28 C and lows down to 15-20 C (60-70 F).  Since we moved here two years ago the coldest we have seen it was 9 C or just under 50 F.  I used to plant out my toms and peppers around 40 F in Fargo to get the most out of the season, although admittedly that was with waterwalls to protect against frost/freezing temps.  The biggest impact of weather here is the cyclones and the massive rainfalls they bring.  Since January 1st we have had over 50 inches of rain, and a lot of it came within two or three days.  Most of my outside potted plants got wet feet and root rot, and my red bhut which was in ground had the same issue, or so it looked.  I am loving it here, as in Fargo we didn't have a long enough season to get the superhots to throw pods, and at that time I didn't even think about overwintering.  The garage and basement were barely above freezing, and I am not sure how the plants would have taken to it!