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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
 
 
 
Click to expand...
Amazing fruit set on that manzano.  Is that an OW?  I've had a bloom on one of mine, which is an improvement over last year.  Baby steps, I guess.
 
My Manzano's hate it here, glad to see yous are doing well.
 
Congrats on the first G-kid! The first is the special one, we have 4 and don't play favorites, but the soft spot is for the first ;)  Just wait until 4 G-kids come over to visit at once and your house is turned upside down...LOL
 
The garden is still going I see, but with Tom's winding down the rest is soon to follow. Then it's break time, or should I say rehab time, but it's totally different adventure ;)
 
ribbedturtleneck said:
Those rainbows are quite striking. Beautiful plants.
Click to expand...
These are striking plants, I'm looking for the strain that has wider shoulders on the pepper. Thanks.
 
Sawyer said:
Amazing fruit set on that manzano.  Is that an OW?  I've had a bloom on one of mine, which is an improvement over last year.  Baby steps, I guess.
Click to expand...
Thanks, John. No I seeded that one back in early or min-January. That one did pretty good for just a few hours of direct sunlight a day. The one in the planter next to it towers way over me but  very little fruit set.
I looked in the row garden and found a nice sized yellow manz. I'll get a pic and may pull it tomorrow.
Our summer was pretty average temp and rain-wise. We usually get more days in the nineties, but not this year. That surely helped.
 
Devv said:
My Manzano's hate it here, glad to see yous are doing well.
 
Congrats on the first G-kid! The first is the special one, we have 4 and don't play favorites, but the soft spot is for the first ;)  Just wait until 4 G-kids come over to visit at once and your house is turned upside down...LOL
 
The garden is still going I see, but with Tom's winding down the rest is soon to follow. Then it's break time, or should I say rehab time, but it's totally different adventure ;)
Click to expand...
Yeah, Rehab time is  welcome here. November may see me with a backpack taking a few days off in the mountains.
 
 
 
I'm pulling peppers wholesale now.
 
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A pile of JA Habs
 
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A mound of MoAs
 
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And whatever these Padron impostors are
 
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And most of my Jalapenos.
 
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Jals didn't get much attention along the way. Plants weren't large but they held their own with good sized fruit. Great taste and the Billy Bikers had some decent heat to them.
I'm gonna smoke the red ones, no question.
 
I got some cover crop sown.
 
GmOTtGpl.jpg

 
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I put some lettuce on the end of this bed and the cover and drip line are helping it chill.
 
The cover and drip has really helped the brassica bed for the last month..
I pulled my first Wong Bok, with barely any bug bites.
It was tasty too.
 
GTNEh7El.jpg

 
Thanks for reading.
 
Beautiful looking stuff you got there TJ! I'd have a hard time pulling up whole Chinense plants with so many unripened pods on them, but if you're serious about planting a nitrogen-building cover crop before it gets too cold, I guess you have to. Great job! Katrina had a great smoked Jal sauce recipe posted on THP a couple of years ago. If you don't already have one in mind for yours, you might want to look it up.
 
Cheers!
 
JJJ,
Your plants look awesome as always. Probably will be pulling mine up soon, maybe get another couple weeks in the ground.
 
In Summary.....
 
Thanksgiving is upon us, and I've much to be thankful for in 2014: two healthy grandbabies born 3 weeks apart, a good harvest, and a slew of THP comrades to swap gardening ideas with.
 
A lot to catch up on, and where to start?
 
Bhuts
 

 
I pulled very few of these along the way. Just pulled them all and processed them all together.
 

 
a lot got dried, some fermented.
 
Same with the not so hots, plus eating them fresh.
 

 
I took several of the sweet peppers, put them in air tight totes and in the fridge(s) like the manzanos here...
 

 
That pepper is great. "It belongs in a museum!"
Some of the sweets are two months old and still fine.
 
J. Saw sent me some tater onions, shallots and walking onions for my menagerie.
 

 
Much appreciated!
 
Fall crops could have done a little better.
 

 
A little more than this, but not much for 3-4 plants. I've got a few cabbages in the beds yet. Even some brussel sprouts that might make a mess or two.
Lettuce has been hit hard with this November. We've already had a low of 14 degrees. Carrots did OK, I got almost a bushel. Tomatoes wore me out.  We ate our last two a couple of days ago. I've still got one little bunch of Piennolos hanging inside pick in September, but they are starting to raisin a bit. Got my garlic in the ground a couple of weeks ago and mulched, about 275 cloves. An early snow crushed and made a mess of the asparagus beds that now needs to be cleaned up. Potato harvest was down, at least 20% but made about 2 bushel. The shitakes made one strong flush...
 

 
...especially for 5 year old logs.
 
I grew a few bushel gourds...
 

 
.... came out about half bushel size :) Onions produced abundantly, but I could not get them to cure properly for the life of me. I don't even wanna think about it.
 
But ending on a brighter note, let's not forget alcohol.
I bottled at least 7 dozen 750ml bottles of meade. The plain honey and water came out the best, but the other 5 dz bottles are drinkable  :D
That freed up carboys for cider....
 

 
I paid 50 bucks for a truckload to scavenge at an orchard on November 1.
That and some wild apples I gathered(not shown) made my total about 39 gallons.
It should be ready in April. I'll keg carbonate a lot of it and bottle a lot more than I have been.
I'm now thinking grapes in the spring.... Riesling, Chambourcin, and Cabernet Franc, do decent enough around here...and a few Concords I've been promising my wife for 25 years. Well that's the dream at this point.
 
Next year.....
 

 
...has already started. Some early seeds I saved are up and coming.
 
Overall I'm cutting my gardening back at least in volume -or that's the plan ;)
Only 3-4 dozen pepper plants. I've all but got the numbers and varieties, and sowing dates figured out.  About the same in tomatoes. I'll add one maybe two 100' rows of raspberries to the patch. They make some dynamite meade, and dried, are the best thing ever in home-made granola. Yield this year was 9 -10gal  of red and about 1-2 of black. I could go through 2-3 times that in a year. I plan on converting the 60-70'  MoA and Hab row of this year into small 2.5' x 4' raised beds some for perennial crops like horseradish, thyme, rhubarb, and odds and ends annuals. 
 
I've about got my SeedBase organized and labeled. I'll get that posted for your perusal when Glog 2015 gets started.
If you've got any you need now for an early start, just let me know. 
 
 
Thanks for reading
JJJ
 
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