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

Mezo`s "super hots" Glog including the 'big' solar dehydrator.

The is thread with the humungous solar dehydrator. :D

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G-Day, im Mez or Mezo & im new to this part of Australia having come from Perth (Western Australia) where growing chili peppers is so easy (except the heat).

I live in the border ranges in northern New South Wales (bordering Queensland) and its a mixed bag of temperate & tropical conditions, the summers are very hot, wet & humid, the winters are dry & sunny.



Average daily temps.

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And average monthly rainfall.

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Aussies reading this will already know this, but people in other country's probably paint a picture of Australia as a hot dry/dusty land but this is far from the truth, up north its full blown tropics with a wet season & 100% humidity (yuck). Down south its freezing cold & snow during winter, out west its a dry heat like in the Mediterranean & in the middle of Australia is desert country.

So im now growing for the first time "Super hots" and for a very important reason, whilst working away in Perth i had a double heart attack wich has left me permanently disabled, sadly they are unable to operate on me (bypass/stent) as its to far gone, so having worked all my life (Electrician) im now at the age of 45 claiming a disability pension & i hate not being able to work.

Now i take shovel fulls of dam tablets to keep my heart pumping & id rather not be taking any but right now there no option i have to take them or ill drop dead on the spot. After much reading i found out that cayenne powder has all sort of benefits to your health & well being, especially to your cardio vascular system. I had read that cayenne powder can stop a heart attack in its track & i put this to the test (twice) and yes it does work where the medication (Nitrolingual) had no effect.

So anyone reading this who spots a friend having a heart attack just flick some chili powder in a glass of water as fast as you can & get them to drink in right down, fast. It works within 30 seconds of drinking it & it saved me from two more attacks already.

So there's my life story in a nutshell & some sound advice on how to save a heart attack victims life.
And this ladies & gentlymen is why im growing "Super Hots" to make high heat cayenne powder for cooking to improve my circulation/remove fats & as a "just in case of emergency"

OK on with the first of my "Hots" the Bhut Jolokia, the reason i chose this was simple i just Googled "whats the hottest chili" and up popped the result, however further reading on the interweb i found threads from this forum & names like the Butch T, the Douglah & Brain Strain.

So ive ordered them from pepperlover.com after so many people gave such great reviews, Bhut in the meantime lets look at my Jolokia`s.

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Must admit i just love the shape & color of these babies.
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More soon,

Mezo.
 
'least possums are free meat nomnom :rofl:
:rofl:
You are welcome to eat them nova ... personally I wouldn't touch the diseased little shites ...they are the main source of tb outbreaks among cattle ... main thing they use them for is plucking the fur and blending it with wool for clothing
 
:rofl:
You are welcome to eat them nova ... personally I wouldn't touch the diseased little shites ...they are the main source of tb outbreaks among cattle ... main thing they use them for is plucking the fur and blending it with wool for clothing
Or for dubbing flies to fish with...
 
Hummm, I did not know that there were Possums in Oz. Don't think you have Armadillo's though. Had a friend from Louisiana that called them Possum on the Half Shell.
 
Ive been lucky with possums, they are here on the property but young Tess sleeps under my trailer (caravan) and keeps guard at night, Grrrrrr.

Mezo.
 
I would have figured you'd let Tess into the caravan at night. Giant snakes, giant spiders, giant everything! LOL

If she wants in she`s welcome, she has a little bed in here but she prefers to be under the van for some reason? even when its freezing cold & wet, daft sod.

Mezo.
 
Wish my bloody dog would sleep outside. It sleeps on the floor below us but has, what I can only assume to be, night terrors. Yipping and barking and kicking the wall near her bed all night long.
 
How you going with temps inside the marquee lately Mez?
I left for work this morning and it was 1 degs...which is a tad chilly!
I still had shorts and t shirt on though, in true ex-pat styleeeeeee.......
 
How you going with temps inside the marquee lately Mez?
I left for work this morning and it was 1 degs...which is a tad chilly!
I still had shorts and t shirt on though, in true ex-pat styleeeeeee.......

Only drops down on clear nights Nee, its been raining heavy the last few days so the overnights are up at the moment.
but Inside the tent is like a river running through it, soggy squelching mud.

Lowest this week is 8.9°C & the highest was 19°C.

Had a tap on van at 1am from Trish concerned the 4 stroke water pump was going to get washed down stream, its a mission to uncouple it & drag it to higher ground. I kept checking the rain radar on my phone watching for a big downpour through the night but it never came, even the water was lapping at the base of the pump.

Still the rains easing up today & there are sunny days returning through to next week (plants need it).But the solar dryer is still working in winter (got a load in there now) but on rainy high humidity days like this week i keep the vents closed. And i still have pods ripening outside & inside the tent (not many now though).

Mezo.
 
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Hey Mezo...I was out stringing tomato plants up all day...and found Tito the Wonder Toad...with his little burrow under a tomato plant. I told him he should be proud not to be seen as a pest here in the States.
 
Hi Dave,

I did think of that, normally i have both ends of the wedding marquee zipped closed to stop the chickens going in. That morning (nice sunny & calm) i decided to open it up so the plants could get some fresh air, its only for an hour or two they get sun on them at the end & as it makes its way around the bushy one is in the shade (or furthest from the light).

So light was ruled out, it can only be something the plant is feeding on? possibly a pest in the soil eating at the roots? When i re rejuvenated the potting mix i dug out loads of these white grubs (big suckers) and tossed them to the chickens as i was doing it in the wheelbarrow, im certain i got them all but possibly i missed one?

They look like this.

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Mezo.

just read this now.. yer right.. GRUBS they are.. here for me they are japanese beetle larvae... they can make someones lawn turn to SOD...
horrible.. last year they consumed all my pepper plants.. and i ended up planting nothing in that area... ill check out tomorrow what i used ...to get rid of them....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iembNT77zro unless u plant nothing there for 2 years.. then they will exist... thats why most of my grow is in containers.... good luck with them.. they SUCK the life out of anything....

good luck with the grow..

denniz
 
OK its been a few days since my last update, as you know im battling ants & there buddy`s aphids.

Well the ants seemed to have vanished? but aphids are here by the thousand, ive nuked them four times with white oil. It does work if you find the little buggers but even after trying to spray under every leaf they was still there, plus they had laid there eggs on the underside of the leaves.

So its a war you want eh? :flamethrower:

So i gave the big plants down the middle a swift haircut. :party:

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That was hard work & my arm is killing me doing all the snipping, six plastic shopping bags of leaves in to the compost bin. And some plants never had any aphids on at all, but it was only a matter of time before they spread.

Be interesting to watch how quick they grow back, and hopefully bushier as well.

Mezo.
 
Looks good mez looking at this has just given me a self uppercut I have close to 50 odd seedlings going at the moment where the fooks am I going to put them all......AHAHAHA
 
Im going to do a ring of coffee grounds right around the tent in the morning, ive got six garbage bags of the stuff sitting here so ill be going well overboard with them, that should stop any more ants or slugs from coming in & then its just a matter of finishing off any stragglers left inside.

Ive still got a stack of re-potting to do yet.

Mezo.
 
Wow aphids suck! I completely understand the WMD approach.

I've got only 6 mature plants at the moment. A seventh one that was sitting right next to them just got chucked because aphids started to get a hold on it. Now I am checking the others every day for a sign of aphids. The trashed plant had had a good run so its not a big loss but!... I have hundreds of seeds I'm starting right now and I can't afford to be battling aphids on all of them right from the start of the season. If I see one more aphid I'm going to bin all six and spray the area down!

Don't want to sound negative but even after everything you do to eradicate them ants can store the eggs in their nests and bring them out to farm them when they see there is an opportunity. The best thing you can do is keep your plants healthy cos sick plants get attacked first.

I hope you get them Mezo. :flamethrower:
 
Ive a lot more work to do with the aphid battle, they have jumped ship & are now on the younger plants.

Its freezing cold here, this is the ride on mower parked by my door.

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Im sitting here with a coat on blowing steam out my mouth typing. LoL

Just been in to check on the plants but its fine in there, chilly but no frost or anything & the sun is just popping up from behind the mountain so she`ll be warm as toast in there soon. I had a quick look under some of the younger plants leaves & yep aphids.

It is much easier to control them on smaller plants, problem i have is the amount of plants im growing it takes ages.

Mezo.
 
Take no prisoners Mezo. This is a Search and Destroy mission. J

I have some bean plants at the end of my deck that the kids started growing and promptly forgot about and I just noticed some little ants on them. No aphids seem to be there but I’m about to fire the artillery on the whole yard. Hopefully controlling the surrounding area like you’re doing around the outside of the tent will prevent anything getting to the plants that matter. Now we’ll see who draws first blood.
 
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