Operation Golden Garden 2014: Let's Get Started!

stc3248 · Jul 2, 2013

I think the pain made you babble less! Maybe you should have mama hit you in the stomach with a baseball bat from here on out when you start to take a vid!!! :rofl:

Hoping you can get some good sunshine and a few warm dry days in the near future!!! Mainly because I will be over that way on Vaca and don't wanna deal with too much rain. I could really go for a good ole southern thunder boomer or two while I am there...lets schedule those late in the evening after I am done playing golf...

RocketMan · Jul 2, 2013

Matt, I am so psyched to see the plants podding up for you. Can't wait to see the harvest to come. Yeah, my maters are not liking all this rain either and I heard somewhere, maybe from Rick that it has to be getting below 75dF in the evening for them to set fruit or something. Hopefully we'll both still get to pull a few.

Pr0digal_son · Jul 2, 2013

Awesome on the pods. CC plants can take awhile to harden and cooperate. Good to see they adjusted smoothly.

MGOLD86 · Jul 2, 2013

stc3248 said:
I think the pain made you babble less! Maybe you should have mama hit you in the stomach with a baseball bat from here on out when you start to take a vid!!!

Hoping you can get some good sunshine and a few warm dry days in the near future!!! Mainly because I will be over that way on Vaca and don't wanna deal with too much rain. I could really go for a good ole southern thunder boomer or two while I am there...lets schedule those late in the evening after I am done playing golf...

Lol, don't give her any ideas, I am sure that she would love to hit me with something more often than not! It is warm and sunny today, but clouds are rollin in. Ill keep my fingers crossed for some sun :pray:

RocketMan said:
Matt, I am so psyched to see the plants podding up for you. Can't wait to see the harvest to come. Yeah, my maters are not liking all this rain either and I heard somewhere, maybe from Rick that it has to be getting below 75dF in the evening for them to set fruit or something. Hopefully we'll both still get to pull a few.

Yea, I am really excited about it. I couldnt believe that I was getting a few to set but when I went out there after the storm and saw all of those pods hanging, we are really in full swing! Interesting about the maters, hopefully it turns out ok for us!

Pr0digal_son said:
Awesome on the pods. CC plants can take awhile to harden and cooperate. Good to see they adjusted smoothly.

Thanks John, that was my experience last year with them. I don't think I let them go long enough before putting them in the ground, then we got hit with some crappy cold/rainy weather and they took a bit longer to recover. This go around they look great!

Well, pulled a bag of peppers out of the freezer and they are defrosting on the counter as we speak. Dehydrator is fired up and ready for them! Ill post some pics later for ya'll. I am excited about this one, already got a name and a plan picked out for it. Ill explain later.

MGOLD86 · Jul 2, 2013

So I broke into the freezer today and started to scan through all the options. I wasn't sure how the weather would hold up so I didn't start up the smoker and instead grabbed my "last harvest" bag. This was the bag that I just pulled everything that was ripe off the plants the day or so before I deployed. It has TS and TSMBs, Bhuts, 7s, Primos, Douglahs, ButchTs, Assams, Jonahs, Infinities, Brains, and a whole hell of a lot more. This got me thinking....What about throwing everything in there, willie nillie, and seeing how it turned out? Then...I thought...what if I took ALL the pods that people sent me throughout the season in there as well?? This thing could quite possibly be a freaking nuclear bomb!! So...I created "Golden Dust: Kitchen Sink" powder! This could end up lasting me for quite some time and will definitely just get HOTTER AND HOTTER!!

WalkGood · Jul 2, 2013

Whoa that sounds like one mean powder, should be awesome mon :woohoo:

Devv · Jul 2, 2013

I can't see anything going wrong with all those different pods, the name of the game is hot!

Besides, you do have to make room for this years goodies!

peppernovice · Jul 3, 2013

Finally got caught up. It's seems you've been busy, despite still being at half speed. Hope the recovery is still on track. I'm not sure if your always so creative, or if the pain meds are helping.

I can't wait to hear how that "golden dust" turns out.

Tim

MGOLD86 · Jul 4, 2013

WalkGood said:
Whoa that sounds like one mean powder, should be awesome mon

Thanks Ramon! I am hoping it works out well for me, and there should be plenty to share around and let everyone get a taste!

Devv said:
I can't see anything going wrong with all those different pods, the name of the game is hot!

Besides, you do have to make room for this years goodies!

Yea, a lot of the time I try and account for flavor, but there are only a few flavor profiles you get and in this case I just wanted to see how hot I can make it. More than that, I would love to get something that hits you all over, not just in one spot. A few seasons back AJ was talking about a powder that really hit you everywhere. I would love to have something like that! I am hoping that with all these varieties, all the different burns, that I can get close. Also, if I just keep adding to it, it should NEVER RUN OUT!!! :dance:

peppernovice said:
Finally got caught up. It's seems you've been busy, despite still being at half speed. Hope the recovery is still on track. I'm not sure if your always so creative, or if the pain meds are helping. I can't wait to hear how that "golden dust" turns out.

Tim

Thanks Tim, I know the feeling. I missed a day on here and ended up only getting through HALF of the GLogs that I wanted to. I didnt even get a chance to get on mine and respond/update. This place is nuts this time a season! LOL, the pain meds probably helped a bit, but I am off those now. I figured I love booze too much and the wife told me I was turning into a zombie! I guess that is what narcotics do. Funny...I don't remember them being like this in high sch.....er....nevermind!

Well no plant shots today, I have some other stuff. First off, Happy 4th everyone! I was planning on taking a trip down to SC to pick up a boatload of fireworks, but that didn't work out. I didn't feel like getting on 95 for a few hours in my current "state". One does not just "jump on 95"....So we are still gonna have some friends over and BBQ. I have a pork shoulder (I know, I know, I ALWAYS do pork shoulders....). But there is only going to be about 6 or so people over, and I didn't feel like trying something new with company. Also, I am shooting my first BBQ video and I wanted to do it on something that I knew. No pics, but there will be a video at some point in the next few days. (I am gonna have to figure out how to edit a bit better, do some voiceovers, etc). I think it may be time for a new video camera. Does anyone shoot with a GOPRO? I know that they can be pretty great, but I wasn't sure if anyone has used them for non-action sports.

Anyways, here are some pepper goodies! I got a PM from Rick asking if I would be interested in some Alphanerdz Douglah Seeds that he had extra. Original source was Trippa, straight from down under. I am really excited about these, I grew the BB Douglah seeds I pulled from Silver Surfer's pods, but it is great to have some that came from a different source. That is always a good idea for varieties that you really want to grow true.

Also, I commented in the Reaper thread about some gnarly elongated pods that Devv was growing, and he was kind enough to send some seeds (AND PODS!) my way. I know what you are thinking, and no. I may feel boatloads better, but I have to hold three spots on my stomach every time I cough, hiccup, etc. There is no way I am chancing it with doing a pepper review! The last thing I need is to get the hiccups, have to blow my nose, and simultaneously get cap cramps. F that.

BUT, I will give them a wittle bitty baby taste and let you know how they are

I mean, come on...I am a chilihead!

Now for the non-pepper stuff....Guess what folks...someone just kicked the door down at amateur hour and graduated to the PROs!

Yuuuuup! That is a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and Cuisinart 12 Cup Food Pro! I had some gift certificates to Willams-Sonoma that I saved up (c'mon, some of their stuff requires a second freakin mortgage to get...) and my mom got Jess and I the mixer for our 5 year anniversary. My wife has been on a "lets see how fat we can get Matt" kick lately. There hasn't been a day of non-baked something on the counter. When the cookies run out, there is cakes, when that runs out, fudge, I can't get a break! The good news is that I have 5 more weeks of "no-exercise", and at that point I can put things back into gear (slowly Brent...

) and get ready for some schools that I am gonna head to over the next few months. So BRING IT ON! There is avalanche fudge she made last night on the counter in front of me right now...it is taking a lot not to get into it....at 8 am!

Anyways, I have talked enough, time to get back on the meat and dial in the smoker. Food is on and I am just messing with the vents to get me around 225. Please pray that the weather holds up this time!! lol.

And keeping with the the theme of the day, please take a second to remember those who have fallen fighting to make sure that we keep our freedom. I just wanna highlight one of the guys, Sgt Justin Hansen, who died just about a year ago while taking it to the enemy in Badghis Province, Afghanistan. This guy is a true hero and even though they don't publicize the specifics of our servicemembers' actions overseas, I can tell you that this guy was a F'n warrior. RIP Brother.
https://www.facebook.com/lovehansen54?hc_location=stream
https://www.marsocfoundation.org/

DocNrock · Jul 4, 2013

Man, so freakin awesome those plants are podding up for you! Glad to see you getting that dehydrator going. I made a mix powder last year and it was quite possibly the best one I've made as far as versatility. About 1/4 of the pods were smoked so it had a nice mellow smoky tone. Either way, it's gonna be great!

Happy 4th!

WalkGood · Jul 4, 2013

Hola Matt, awesome gear you got, bet you’ve already been testing it. Great gifts from Rick & Scott, that’s super nice of dem! Hope your recoup time is going well and I can’t wait to see the finished pictures of your powder … Have a great 4th mon!!!

stickman · Jul 4, 2013

Hope the seeds do well for ya brother... My Douglah plant is starting to kick azz! I think it's a heavy feeder... I put the recommended amount of Happy Frog Tomato fertilizer in the promix growing medium when I potted up, but possibly all this rain leached enough of it out that I was getting mild chlorosis in the leaves. Added about a pint of diluted GO Bio Thrive Bloom formula with a little molasses and it kicked up into fifth gear... grew another set of leaves in about 4 days and the flowers started sticking. It also seems to like lots of heat and high humidity, so I think it'll do well for you down in NC.

Congratulations of your 5th anniversary and the new kitchen gear. If your wife likes to bake bread, she'll be charmed by the dough hook and a mixer motor strong enough to deal with the dough for 2 full-sized loaves. We don't buy bread during the winter 'cause we have one too. The Cuisinart food processor with the wide gate on top and the 12 cup capacity is a big step up for your sauce-making bro'. Good on ya!

MGOLD86 · Jul 4, 2013

Knock Knock.

DocNrock · Jul 4, 2013

MGOLD86 said:
Knock Knock.

Who's there?

MGOLD86 · Jul 4, 2013

Freedom. Thats who's there.

DocNrock · Jul 4, 2013

Great looking 4th feast!

Fremp · Jul 4, 2013

dayum!

MERICA!

stickman · Jul 5, 2013

I be Lovin' that "Bobby Q" with all the fixins Matt! Enjoy...

MGOLD86 · Jul 5, 2013

DocNrock said:
Man, so freakin awesome those plants are podding up for you! Glad to see you getting that dehydrator going. I made a mix powder last year and it was quite possibly the best one I've made as far as versatility. About 1/4 of the pods were smoked so it had a nice mellow smoky tone. Either way, it's gonna be great!

Happy 4th!

I am still amazed about the pods. I am hopin we will see some color soon! :dance:

The powder sounds great. I haven't really decided whether I am gonna do all straight dehydrated or a few smoked...But based on your batch it may be smart to do a few in the smoker. I really do love that smoke! I have some pecan wood coming, and as soon as it is here I got about 10 bags of yellows that are gettin the smoke treatment!

WalkGood said:
Hola Matt, awesome gear you got, bet you’ve already been testing it. Great gifts from Rick & Scott, that’s super nice of dem! Hope your recoup time is going well and I can’t wait to see the finished pictures of your powder … Have a great 4th mon!!!

I gave the food pro a whirl yesterday and it was like a light went on! NO MORE shredding cabbage by hand! Thanks Ramon, the pods are about dry so I should get to grinding tomorrow!

stickman said:
Hope the seeds do well for ya brother... My Douglah plant is starting to kick azz! I think it's a heavy feeder... I put the recommended amount of Happy Frog Tomato fertilizer in the promix growing medium when I potted up, but possibly all this rain leached enough of it out that I was getting mild chlorosis in the leaves. Added about a pint of diluted GO Bio Thrive Bloom formula with a little molasses and it kicked up into fifth gear... grew another set of leaves in about 4 days and the flowers started sticking. It also seems to like lots of heat and high humidity, so I think it'll do well for you down in NC.

Congratulations of your 5th anniversary and the new kitchen gear. If your wife likes to bake bread, she'll be charmed by the dough hook and a mixer motor strong enough to deal with the dough for 2 full-sized loaves. We don't buy bread during the winter 'cause we have one too. The Cuisinart food processor with the wide gate on top and the 12 cup capacity is a big step up for your sauce-making bro'. Good on ya!

Thanks Rick! We are hoping to get the bread truck rolling soon. I am really feeling some ciabatta! I saw a sick meatball sub on triple D. The chef made it with fresh grinded meatballs, fresh baked ciabatta bread and a basil/parmasean pesto, I haven't slept right ever since that episode!

DocNrock said:
Who's there?

Great looking 4th feast!

Thanks for indulging me. Had a few last night....

Fremp said:
dayum!

MERICA!

Hellz yea!

stickman said:
I be Lovin' that "Bobby Q" with all the fixins Matt! Enjoy...

It was awesome. I am really gettin the hang of the pork thing. I should have woken up about an hour earlier, but 530 was early enough...

Well folks, I am gonna test the word count today. I decided to try something new with my youtube channel, and I have considered starting a blog. It is called "Matt's Chats" and ill talk gardening, peppers, and other related stuff. The first episode is In ground and container gardening. I am still working through the kinks, but I think it came out decently. Ill post the vid first, and if you wanna read my write-up it will be below. It is a bit...."me"....ish, so it won't hurt my feelings if you scroll through the sidebars... :lol:

First off, there is no RIGHT way to garden. There are many extremely successful gardeners that use both methods, and I think that we often get wrapped up in watching other gardener's grows and try to replicate them to a T. Just understand that this is not always ideal, and sometimes not possible. Environmental factors may preclude you from doing something EXACTLY as someone else, and you may be forced to vary your approach. Think about it, what if they are using PROMIX and you cannot find it for the life of you and are not interested in paying 100% or more of the product price for shipping. What if you are getting regular rainfall and have no use for dripline or other forms of irrigation systems (more on that in another episode!). The bottom line, and what I will recommend up front is take what you like about someone else's methods and modify them to fit your means. Use an entire season or two to practice, remember, gardening is a lifelong endeavor and you are going to tweak things along the way. There is no wonder why you scan the GLogs and the...more "seasoned" growers have these amazing gardens right out of a magazine. THEY HAVE BEEN DOING IT FOR YEARS! Greg, AJ, SS, etc. These guys have tried and true methods to their craft, and they are the ones I watched, you should be following, learning, and asking questions to in order to get you going in the right direction.

So without spending the whole time talking ABOUT gardening, without any direction, lets jump into the two most popular ways we do it, in the ground and in containers. For the purposes of this, raised beds will be a subset of the ground, since there are a lot of similarities and mutual requirements to ensure things like proper drainage, nutrient uptake, and soil ecosystem. I personally prefer going in the ground, I find it exponentially easier to manage, and I would feel comfortable going on a week vacation and not having anyone come and check on my plants. There are a ton of benefits of going in the ground, and only a few (but sometimes big) drawbacks.

Primarily, growing in the ground is an investment. Think about it as "buying in" to future generations of great plants. Now this isn't necessarily the case if you chose to go the synthetic route, you could still get great results but you will likely destroy the ecosystem that you are building up in the soil, the one that you are "buying into". But that is only one factor of in ground growing. Another, and a HUGE benefit is root development. Think about it like this. When you are growing your seedlings, and they are in those tiny 1x1" cell trays, they are only going to get so big before they need something bigger. The ground gives the plants MORE than enough room to spread out and get comfortable. And guess what, more root spread and bigger roots, bigger canopy and happier plant. There are exceptions to this, which I will cover later, but on the whole you have the ability to grow bigger plants, more easily when they are in the ground. Depending on your soil (which could also be a limiting factor), you can go longer between watering and will likely have better drainage. There really is no need to add drainage enhancements to your groundsoil, where as when you are container gardening it is almost always required. If you have poor draining soil, you can a lot of the times remedy that with digging down a couple feet, breaking up the soil and ammending it. Growing in the ground takes work, not necessarily MORE than container gardening, just different. You need to get the soil checked through your county AG department, you may need to amend the plot, a benefit is you can just spread ferts over the plot and work it in.

The biggest drawback to growing in the ground, and what may force you to go a different direction is your native soil. What if you live in Ga and have that notorious GA clay? What if you have soil that is way off the charts and you don't feel like putting the work into it? What if you just don't want to dig up your back yard? Then raised beds or raised rows may be an option for you. I must warn you, I am not a fan of raised beds when you have the ability to go in the ground. I would much prefer putting in the extra work and maybe getting a few nights in the doghouse from the misses than going above ground, but like I said, sometimes it is just not possible. With raised beds a huge mistake a lot of growers often make is not prepping the soil below the bed. They are under the impression that you can just mow the grass down really well, put up your box, and fill. WRONG! You MUST prep the soil floor. If nothing, just get in there with a garden fork and shovel and break up the soil to help drainage. This is where it is similar to going in the ground, and filling it is when it is more similar to the container garden. It can quickly get expensive when building raised beds, materials, soil, tools, etc. can change your mind quickly. But if done right, it can be extremely clean looking and be just about and sometimes just as successful as going in the ground. You could fill it similar to how you would a container, but maybe go a little less on the drainage agents because the subsoil will help, or you could fill it with a mix of compost and topsoil. But I will tell you this, if you dont fill it properly and dont prep the subsoil it can spell disaster!

The other side to this is container gardening. This is super popular and you can get awesome results when done correctly. I know A TON of growers that do this and they are pulling harvests that sometimes rival some of the top in ground growers. What if you live in an apartment? What if you rent? What if you dont have space? What if you dont want to invest in the labor and materials to go in ground or raised? Then container gardens can be a great option for you. You can find 5 gal buckets for next to nothing, you can make up a big 'ol batch of soil to fill them with, and they can be moved around in the event you get some nasty weather (something the in ground crowd cant do). Conversely, there are still drawbacks to growing in containers, and they are soil, money, water, plant size, and space. You are still going to have to purchase soil (which could cost a fortune depending on which direction you go), work on your mix, and practice until you get the right mix for your environment. Some mixes may be too heavy and hold onto water for way too long (no bueno!). Some mixes may be too light and you are forced to go out every day and water, unless of course you have an irrigation system installed. But in the same right, what if you have a good mix, water one day, and get hit with a T-Storm the next. Your good middleground soil could get too much water and the containers will almost always react negatively to this situation. Not the end of your garden, but if it happens over and over again it could be a bad thing. Plant size is also attributed to the size of the roots, and with smaller containers (less than 5 gal) could result in smaller plants. Now, 5 gal is the standard, but I have seen grow bags as big as 50 gal. With that big a bag, this would be a non-factor, but for most growers, they go with 5 gal. Also, I have seen plenty big plants in 5 gal, and if you are going for the compact ease of a container garden this may not even be a drawback, it may be a benefit! Lastly, space. Some plants can get pretty damn big (averaging 3-4 feel in diameter for the canopy) and you need to account for this. You are probably not going to get 20 plants on a 10x5 balcony. It is not necessarily a "drawback" persay, more of a planning consideration. I will throw this in as a benny, there are plenty of "container-focused" forums out there....and those dudes know how to grow in containers, often indoors, in the basement, with hi-tech security systems. I definitely spend some time cruzing those boards for helpful info.

Whatever you decide, know that there are always going to be benefits and drawbacks. There is no end all be all method for gardening. There are purists on each side of the spectrum, and even at that there is always room for change, growth, adaptation. I mean, what if you have been growing using a single method for a decade and decide to move to a place that forces a change in your gardening style? That's what I mean when I say there is no perfect way to do it. Find what works for you and then challenge it more and more every season. Dont settle for being the "best" in ground grower or the "best" container gardener, keep learning, reading, and experimenting.

GA Growhead · Jul 5, 2013

Couldn't have said it better!