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JJJ Glog 2014.....in summary

Whew!
2013 Swirling down the Drain of Time.
 
Washing the 10x20s for a New Year.
 

 
 
By last October I was so peppered out  -40 some superhot plants and over twice that many mild and sweets. Didn't think I'd ever see the end of it. But, an early surprise freeze caught me off guard and I lost several mild and sweeties. I did get almost the entire superhot crop, dried, smoked, fermented, frozen or pickled. so I should have no dearth of heat to see me through to 2014 harvest.
 
I owe most of my pepper success in 2013 to YOU.
All the folks here at THP helped me from seed, to advice, to encouragement, to inspiration.  Couldn't have done it without y'all.
 
Some changes for 2014:
 

 
I'm moving my Cappy 1000 Pepper Incubator into my  basement utility room. Last year I had it in a minimally heated out building and the night times often dipped into the 50s or lower. And come to find out, baby peppers don't much care for that. They survived, they were just slow growers.
 
 
Dirt:
 
Fox Farms Ocean Forest will be my potting mix. It's organic and hopefully will be as good as the Miracle Grow Moisture Control and it can't be any worse than my home-brew last year which wasn't horrible but coulda been better.
 
Timing:
 
Instead of putting most of my seed in the ground in early February, I'm going to hold off until later on the Annums. The Chinensis at least some in early - mid January and some Manzano seeds earlier than that if I can find them. :rolleyes:
 
How Many for Plant Out?:
 
Not 140.
I'm devoting 2 raised beds -a 4x30 and a 4x16 to Sweet Peppers -Jimmy Nardello, King of the North, Gaint Marconis, Aji Dulce. About 26 plants. 
100' in my row garden. Probably 40 plant's. Haven't decided on the balance, Bhuts, 7 pot, Habs, Bonnets, Jalas, the usual suspects and a few odd balls.
66 plants +/- total. I totally neglected my maters last year(which given the season didn't make much difference), but this year I vow to do better by tomatoes. I hope to do 50 or so -all heirlooms, mostly paste.
I'll start several more of both than needed for selling and give-aways.
 
 
 
In related news....
 
My buddy up in Richmond grew a lot of peppers last year. He has a geodesic dome greenhouse. At the end of season he just dug up several of his pepper plants and moved them in inside.
 

 
They're looking pretty good for late December.
 
My last "harvest" of 2013 was 12/22/13; some Thai Chilis that I'd pulled the whole plants in October and just laid up on a table outside. Most had dried leather-hard.
 
I pulled, cooked, seasoned, ground and strained them into a sauce for Pad Thai for this winter.
 

 
 
Everything subject to change without notice.
(But I'll keep you posted)
 
Thanks for reading,
JJJ
 
 
 
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Yeap, Scott,  Spring is out there.
Somewhere.
Hiding under the snow for the moment.
But it holds things back, keeps new growth in check so a late frost doesn't get it.
May as well look on the bright side I guess :mope:
 
Yesterday I got my first Bacctum flower
 

 
From a Birgit growing in coir - not the tall one though.
Birgits are a lanky lot.
 
Yeah, the snow.
 

 
Typical March snow. First Snow, then Sun, then Both.
 
 
 
 
I sprayed my garlic with some alfalfa tea and a little seabird guano tea blended in.
 

 
 
 
Earlier, I had scooped up some snow to wet a bale of sphagum moss I had dumped into my big cook pot.
 

 
We had about 1.5" night before last.
It got down to about 20° last night.
The 10 day looks more spring-ish. Tonight will freeze but then 9 following are frost-free.  :pray:
 
The oats in the row garden are picking up.
 

 
I thought it would kill out below 15°, but apparently not. It had several chances this year. :D
The peas mixed in are a bit slower it seems.
 
Got these out of the ground yesterday.
 

 
Ishikura scallions. Nice mild flavor. Diced some up and put 'em in the cornbread last night.
 
Thanks for reading.
 
 
 
 
Pretty exciting here to see all the progress. ..bushy green..and purple ..plants......and the cider  !
 
Same here with the Manzano's or other pubes......the leaves tend to droop and curl under. I have a couple that I recently put under my mh lighting and possibly the warmth and maybe the color temp of the bulbs (7200k) has promoted the issue.
 
Dang snow !
Although the Spring Onoins wouldn't know the difference. It's suppose to hit 60 here this Sunday...I hope to accomplish something outdoors....besides putting some jerk chicken on the grill....ha
 
Cool photo of the Birgit flower............classic shot of the...one per node
 
Sorry 'bout the snow JJJ, hopefully it won't be much longer.
 
And may you enjoy the garden this coming weekend!
 
Despite the cold and snow, your grow charges forward. Scallions in March. Cool. I continue to be amazed about what lives under your hoop houses when it is snowing outside.
 
Thanks, guys.
 
Looks like my weekend plans are changing to: no camping due to weather.
I may moozy on up to Richmond to see friends where I can unload  gift some pepper plants. :)
 
I'm starting on this AACT (areobically activated compost tea) thing again.
 

 
I started off with some extra nutrients in the brew,
but on good advice, switched to compost and worm casting only after a few hours.
 
In about 24 hours it looked like this.
 

 
Looks like funghi to me. I hope they are the beneficial variety.
I sprayed a little on the peppers, but took the bulk of it to the garden to spread around 
 
where the comfrey is coming up.
 

 
supposedly it makes a good soil/plant treatment. We've just used it on people as salves so far.
 
I'm still voraciously reading InTheGarden's (aka Ganga Girl) enthralling and enormously popular thread, Easy Organic Soil Mix for Beginners on grasscity.com  I haven't read much else on the  site, but I don't think it's 100% devoted to lawn care,  strictly speaking.
 
Last year I grew 7 peppers in 25 gal containers. They performed, but less,way less than what would have been possible with a good mix me thinks.
So, I'm going to try to adjust this base and re-amend it following her guidelines. It won't end up perfect but I hope to get way down the road toward right.
Today I took 3-4 of the containers, measured and dumped them onto a mixing tarp. I stopped this first batch at 9 cubit feet and I still have that much more to go.
 

 

 

 
The logic here is to activate a varied and bodacious microbe colony to process the insoluble organic nutrients into plant-usable root chow.
This mix should "heat" very little if any. But the recipe calls  for 4 weeks or better of microbes-at-work to get it plant-ready.
My old mix was mainly old pine bark fines. Not the best or the worst, just cheap. 
It is closer to humus at this point, but could stand a significant infusion of earthworm castings, and I'm suspecting  it needs more in the way of sphagum moss and perlite to fluff it up. 
I don't think I followed a recipe last year, but I'll look. So I'll end up shooting from the hip again (as usual  :rolleyes: ) to bring it closer to normalcy 
 
Since the rains is a comin', and frost is in retreat, I revamped and repaired my irrigation tank intake.
 

 
It wouldn't hurt to drive a piece of re-bar to crutch that PVC.
 
Then I drove some salvaged sign posts at the ends of my peas, lettuce, and greens bed to string some trellis wire.
 

 
Moved some chinese celery in and jugged it to get things rolling.
I hope it doesn't cook while I'm away.
 
 Next week, lettuce and snow peas.
 
Thanks for reading
 
 
 
 
Did you wet that mix before wrapping it up? I'm going to try and make a organic mix myself this year. Your ingredients are on par with what I am going for.
 
Wow making your own dirt, really cool! I hope it kicks those pretty gals in to action mas quick!
 
The crushed rock? For minerals? Dang I'm doing things so much simpler, yeah I add amendments, but your so way out in front!
 
I look forward to seeing how all this comes together!
 
Looks like you don't stand still for long JJJ... Lots happening out your way! :party: Good luck with the sweet paprika, it's a Szegedi-type that was collected by HabaneroHead from his Fiancee's grandfather over in Hungary. Nice looking hard cider you made... I brewed beer for a lot of years but never had the patience for wine or cider since it took so long for results. I did my own infusion mashing in a modified Gott cooler and used liquid yeast because it had a cleaner taste.
   Nice to see flowers on your Pubes, your season's gonna be running on rails when it finally gets underway. Cheers!
 
Jeff H said:
Everything is looking good JJJ. Love the soil mix. I just might try something similar with the plants I will have in pots.
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I've been a cheerleader for Fox Farm's Ocean Forest soil all season. It just makes growing so easy. But it comes with a price tag -literally. 20 bucks for 2 cf which is essentially just 3 -5 gal pots worth. Not so bad when you're filling 2.5" pots, but by the time you've up-potted into 1/2gal pots just thirty plants eats a bag. The old "dirt cheap" expression gets a little limp.
 
 
Devv said:
Wow making your own dirt, really cool! I hope it kicks those pretty gals in to action mas quick!
 
The crushed rock? For minerals? Dang I'm doing things so much simpler, yeah I add amendments, but your so way out in front!
 
I look forward to seeing how all this comes together!
Click to expand...
Thanks, Scott. Yes, it is minerals but....
 
GA Growhead said:
The rock dust is also a foundation for good stuff to grow!
Click to expand...
...foundation is the bigger reason, as the theory goes. Microbes grow stronger and or faster by attaching to igneous rock dust for whatever reason. And of course in organics, microbes are the name of the game for soil health i.e. plant health. I've just gotta find the free stuff, even it will eat into you wallet. Another good thing, you can easily re-charge the soil and it just keeps getting better without too much additional expense. Soil is the ultimate infrastructure. The better the maintenance, the better the performance.
 
stickman said:
Looks like you don't stand still for long JJJ... Lots happening out your way! :party: Good luck with the sweet paprika, it's a Szegedi-type that was collected by HabaneroHead from his Fiancee's grandfather over in Hungary. Nice looking hard cider you made... I brewed beer for a lot of years but never had the patience for wine or cider since it took so long for results. I did my own infusion mashing in a modified Gott cooler and used liquid yeast because it had a cleaner taste.
   Nice to see flowers on your Pubes, your season's gonna be running on rails when it finally gets underway. Cheers!
Click to expand...
Thanks, Rick. and  for the seeds. I almost got to beer brewing -infusion mashing, counter-flow wort chillin', and the whole kit and kaboodle. but our local brewery came online about that time, i got kidnapped by a cider collective, and meade is just too darn "easy". (but yeah, six month wait). So the pressure  to brew lessened. I'll get to it someday, probably at a whim,  since the whole tweakiness aspect of brewing  is just to  hard to pass up. Plus, at the end you get beer. :)
 
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