PeriPeri's Grow Log 2012: South Africa

RocketMan · Jan 15, 2013

WOW, just gt through my first walk through your garden, very nice. Lots of great colors, flavors and heat levels there and that ignite looks pretty interesting. Can't wait to see it get some pods on.

RM

PeriPeri · Jan 15, 2013

Thanks RocketMan, I have scoured the internet and found very little on the Ignite. It certainly is the smallest chilli bush I ever did see. It also keeps flowering, but no pods yet. Will have to keep you posted.

Stefan_W · Jan 17, 2013

Wow, what a great looking garden you got going there! I will definitely be watching the rest of the season. Very nice work

kiddc · Jan 17, 2013

WOW, what a great and prosperous farm!

WalkGood · Jan 17, 2013

Lourens, I just got caught up again and only have one thing to say … Over 1000 plants, I wana be there for your harvest party man and don’t forget to get the pickers to sign release forms

Few things I noted among the thousands of things I read:

Ever ting is exploding and loads of beautiful activity, I love it!!!
Holy Whoa, pods galore and den some ...
Ignite, lol the flower is a third of the plants size, this one should be at home in a pot
Golden Orb spider, looks like our banana spiders here and ours get about palm size as well. Here they bring you good luck in your garden and eat all the bad bugs, but at this point I don’t think you need luck but help in harvesting ...

Ok so I lied about saying just one thing to say

Edit: Keep up the great work, can't wait to see some harvest shots ....

PeriPeri · Jan 18, 2013

Stefan_W said:
Wow, what a great looking garden you got going there! I will definitely be watching the rest of the season. Very nice work

Hi Stefan, thank you! Now if only I could do with the chillies what you can do in the kitchen!!

kiddc said:
WOW, what a great and prosperous farm!

Thank you and welcome kiddc!

WalkGood said:
Lourens, I just got caught up again and only have one thing to say … Over 1000 plants, I wana be there for your harvest party man and don’t forget to get the pickers to sign release forms

Few things I noted among the thousands of things I read:

Ever ting is exploding and loads of beautiful activity, I love it!!!

Holy Whoa, pods galore and den some ...

Ignite, lol the flower is a third of the plants size, this one should be at home in a pot

Golden Orb spider, looks like our banana spiders here and ours get about palm size as well. Here they bring you good luck in your garden and eat all the bad bugs, but at this point I don’t think you need luck but help in harvesting ...

Ok so I lied about saying just one thing to say

Edit: Keep up the great work, can't wait to see some harvest shots ....

LOL... what pickers. I would ask my kids, but that is classified as child labour these days

That Ignite is a mystery to me... the lady that sold me the plant told me something about it being small - but I mean... REALLY! There's small and there is small and that is like a pimple on a flees arse lol

Hye no lying on this glog! As punishment you will have to go and eat a ButchT!

More pictures this weekend my friend. I simply can't wait! It has been raining lots in the last two days. I hope the seedlings I transplanted last weekend made it through the heat!

Stefan_W · Jan 18, 2013

I'm looking forward to seeing the next batch of pictures

WalkGood · Jan 19, 2013

PeriPeri said:
... More pictures this weekend my friend. I simply can't wait! It has been raining lots in the last two days. I hope the seedlings I transplanted last weekend made it through the heat!

Looking forward to seeing and reading ... don't forget some of the food pics

Jamison · Jan 19, 2013

HOLY SMOKES! You are gonna have soooooo many pods man. Plants look great. Good job!

PeriPeri · Jan 19, 2013

Stefan_W said:
I'm looking forward to seeing the next batch of pictures

Thank you Stefan, it has been raining here pretty much all day. Loving it as the soil is getting a much needed soaking. I will go through tomorrow to check on things. Will take tons of pics as per usual

WalkGood said:
Looking forward to seeing and reading ... don't forget some of the food pics

Hmmmm, kitchen - me - food... lol

Jamison said:
HOLY SMOKES! You are gonna have soooooo many pods man. Plants look great. Good job!

Hey Jamison - thank you... going to need to grow more arms and hands for picking

Ok, talking about picking.

What is the protocol? Pick the ripe ones with or without the stalks? To break off or to cut with scissors?

Is it best to pick them when they are fully ripe - or when they are almost ripe?

Trippa · Jan 19, 2013

I guess the picking thing depends on the variety, how many you are needing to harvest and what you plan on doing with them.

Some varieties are simply too tough to pick by hand without risking damage to the actual plant , for this reason I always cut my pods off plants but especially if I have never grown them before. At a pinch I hand pick some types which are easy and also my wild Brazil as they are too small to worry about cutting each pod off.

Cutting is also obviously slower so if you have a whole bunch of pods to pick (ie you look like you will!!) You will likely want to hand pick.

I also find pods with the stalks on keep much longer without going mushy and for that reason I always leave the stalk on. Plus it makes for a neater plant

PeriPeri · Jan 20, 2013

Hi Trippa, thank you for your advice. Yea, I can imagine cutting every pod is pretty impossible and the repetative hand strain from cutting all those would be killer lol So I will save the scissors for the chillies with the tougher stalks. Good advice!

Ultimately I want to harvest seeds from all the verieties and make sauce with the flesh. I fear harvesting will be a logistical nightmare as they will all ripen at different times. So I had thought I would refrigerate or freeze all the harvested ones untill I have them all together. I imgine keeping all the different types separate would be a good idea so when it comes to making the sauces I can mix and match/experiment. Not sure if freezing them will be a problem at all? I am thinking that seeing I am going to be boiling the chillies to make the sauces - the fact that they are frozen won't be an issue? Or is this a problem? In any case, I would like to create 2 variations of the sauce to keep things relatively simple. Hot and Mild. It will be a blend of my 2013 vintage.

I have a friend with a spice business, so I am hoping he will give me advice on making sauces that will keep ie what preservatives to use?

Getting ready to head out now... still overcast and raining here... nice long soak for the chillies - I'm loving it - no need to water. Can concentrate on the other stuff

stickman · Jan 20, 2013

Hi Lourens
If you're planning on making sauces, frozen pods shouldn't be a problem. My Serranos pumped out a ton of pods last year, and I preserved the end of the harvest by chopping them up and putting them in many snack-sized ziplok bags, and putting the smaller bags in one big gallon-sized bag. For me, 3 Serranos per dish is about right, so that's how many I put in each of the smaller bags.

PeriPeri · Jan 20, 2013

Hey Stickman! I was transplanting the last of the nursery babies into the inside area... and I followed your tip, so everyone has a stick next to it. Seems to have worked a charm on all the others I transplanted last week... looks like your trick is working a charm on the old cutworm

Thanks!

Phew... all day I have been thinking... if its a problem freezing the harvest as I go - I am screwed! LOL

Going to post more pics tonight (local time)...

Jamison · Jan 20, 2013

Really depends for me. I just grab at the end of the stem with my fingers and bend opposite of the way its growing or leaning, and they usually just snap off clean by the node, if that makes sense to you. I'm not great at explaining things. I had a hard time doing that last year tho with an aji lemon plant so I usually got the scissors out for that guy.

GA Growhead · Jan 20, 2013

My TSMB were super hard to pull of at the stem/node connection. All five plants were that way. Scissors would have been helpful. Everything else i could easily lift and pull, and they would break right off. I have to agree that hand pulling is the quickest way.
I let pods, when keeping for seeds, stay on about two weeks after turning final color to make sure the seeds are going be viable. Sometimes more or sometimes less, each variety will get soft at different time frames after turning. With the brown pods, i let them go the longest, after reading speculation of bad germination rates possibly being cause by early picking. I would assume white pods could also be picked early because of color unknowingly.
Picking right before completion of final color is suppose to be the peak of heat before the conversions into sugars really starts up.
To each his own when picking though. Taste a few at each stage from almost to completely ripe and see what your taste buds tell you.

Hope to see some pictures and glad you got some rain. I would get mad growth after a good down pour.

stickman · Jan 20, 2013

PeriPeri said:
Hey Stickman! I was transplanting the last of the nursery babies into the inside area... and I followed your tip, so everyone has a stick next to it. Seems to have worked a charm on all the others I transplanted last week... looks like your trick is working a charm on the old cutworm Thanks!

Glad to hear it Lourens... I got the tip from Highalt here on The Hot Pepper, and it worked so well for me I thought I'd share it. When the stems get about as thick as a pencil and start to get a bit woody you shouldn't have to worry about cutworms any more... then it's time to think about staking up the chiles that get top-heavy...

PeriPeri · Jan 21, 2013

Sorry guys... I meant to upload last night, but we had a hectic storm that caused havoc with the internet connection!

Without further ado:

Growth has been great. All the seedlings I transplanted last week that looked like limp dying lettuce have survived and with the rain - increased in size two fold. I'm so glad to report that the nursery is now empty - phew. This is the first end of the line for this growing season!

It's a beautiful sight for me to behold... I would never have imagined saying this before!

Definately a time for a wee celebration... with my trusted friend Windhoek Lager, which is our locally brewed Namibian beer. Not a lot of people know this, but South African Breweries is the second largest brewery in the world - we like our beer on a hot day

Not half bad for a small country such as ours.

Just on an off-chilli topic... the Petit Pans seem to be doing ok... although I may be renaming these Grand Pans

Talking of giants - remember the Giant African Land Snail? Well I found two unwanted customers in my enclosed area. Time for the flame thrower me thinkst!

Sucking nutrients straight from the roots he was... so tonight we are having snails!

So while I am on the pest conversation thread... something has been nibbling at my Bij Jims... but I reckon this was a rodent. I think this will only affect these peppers as everything else is just too hot. But it is a great shame when you see nice big peppers being nibbled and just left t rot. But I imagine there will be more cases like this...

But then there are plenty more to be had...

Overall, the outside area is doing great, what with all the rain and the new sprinkler we installed. There have been some fatalities at the start that left bare patches in amongst the bushes outside, but I have started filling these with Habaneros and Fataliis from the inside area... and they are doing just fine seeing they get quite a bit of shelter from the bigger siblings

Baby Belle/Pimetos are about 1,4m in height now. Same with Big Jim plants. Long Thai and Peri Peri plants are about 1,2m there abouts. Even at spacings of 45mm - 60mm... its very close... but then I did double plant many of the plants.

Monkeys have been skirting the field. Mostly they go to the Goose enclosure next to the inside area for left over scraps that are chucked in there... but I am sure they will give the chillies a go to. So this is my DIY monkey repellant

Lets get close up... the mysterious ignite... that micro chilli bush HAS A CHILLI lmao... its so bloody small! I just can't wait to try this one. I think this has got to be the smallest chilli plant I have ever come accross... check out the chilli on the right hand side. Looks like a yellow/tabasco type colouring.... Anyone know anything about this chilli... let me know!

PeriPeri · Jan 21, 2013

Can't post more pics... someone leave a comment please

stickman · Jan 21, 2013

HI Lourens

Bump...