Pulpiteer 2013 Grow Log

Jeff H · Oct 3, 2013

Pulpiteer said:
Yellow Manzano (Hooda)

Your Monzanos look exactly like mine, but for some strange reason, they don't look as plump and round as the ones in Stickman's glog. I wonder if there are different varieties.

Sawyer · Oct 4, 2013

Great updates, Andy, that pork has me drooling and it's pushing midnight. How do you like that 7P Congo SR Gigantic? Mine was one of my earliest producers and has been one of the most prolific.

Pulpiteer · Oct 4, 2013

Jamison said:
Oh man, what an awesome glog! Wish I would have caught this sooner!

Thanks Jamison!

Jeff H said:
Your Monzanos look exactly like mine, but for some strange reason, they don't look as plump and round as the ones in Stickman's glog. I wonder if there are different varieties.

Mine is a bit small. Manzanos should be more plump. I'm wondering if it is because my plant is not old enough. If I could successfully overwinter one, I think the pods would be larger.

Sawyer said:
Great updates, Andy, that pork has me drooling and it's pushing midnight. How do you like that 7P Congo SR Gigantic? Mine was one of my earliest producers and has been one of the most prolific.

Thanks Sawyer! I tried a couple of slices of that 7P congo and the flavor surprised me. It was sweet, almost like a sweet pepper. But then of course a lot of heat followed. It was different than I expected in a good way. The plant did pretty well for me. It was a tough year here so it's hard to gauge how it would be normally, but it produced several pods that are ripening now. The one pictured was one of the best ones - huge and very nice looking. What did you think of the taste?

Sawyer · Oct 4, 2013

Pulpiteer said:
Thanks Sawyer! I tried a couple of slices of that 7P congo and the flavor surprised me. It was sweet, almost like a sweet pepper. But then of course a lot of heat followed. It was different than I expected in a good way. The plant did pretty well for me. It was a tough year here so it's hard to gauge how it would be normally, but it produced several pods that are ripening now. The one pictured was one of the best ones - huge and very nice looking. What did you think of the taste?

I kind of ragged on the taste in one of my earlier posts in my log, but it was the first super I had tasted. I really can't tell a lot of difference in the various 7s. They have a reasonably good flavor to me, but the heat is so overwhelming I can rarely detect subtle differences in taste. Given the early pod set, large pod size, prolific podding, and vigorous plant, this one is likely to make next year's grow list.

stc3248 · Oct 4, 2013

Great stuff as always Andy...Love the ground cherry race you got going on with the kiddo!!! I'm sure you let her get her fill, better than eating candy corn!!! The pod shots are amazing, and I will try to get to your reviews this weekend once I am home again. Great season in spite of the early trouble and late start!!! Your processing is top notch too, but that pulled pork takes the prize!

Pulpiteer · Oct 10, 2013

Sawyer said:
I kind of ragged on the taste in one of my earlier posts in my log, but it was the first super I had tasted. I really can't tell a lot of difference in the various 7s. They have a reasonably good flavor to me, but the heat is so overwhelming I can rarely detect subtle differences in taste. Given the early pod set, large pod size, prolific podding, and vigorous plant, this one is likely to make next year's grow list.

The heat is overwhelming, you are right about that. I do tend to like the yellow 7's best. But they mostly taste like pain.

stc3248 said:
Great stuff as always Andy...Love the ground cherry race you got going on with the kiddo!!! I'm sure you let her get her fill, better than eating candy corn!!! The pod shots are amazing, and I will try to get to your reviews this weekend once I am home again. Great season in spite of the early trouble and late start!!! Your processing is top notch too, but that pulled pork takes the prize!

Thanks Shane, it's fun! She does love those ground cherries. Good to hear from you!

Here's an update:

First, I've been dehydrating some scotch bonnets:

Now, some garden type work I've been doing. I think I put up a picture a while back about a bare patch that I was trying to help out. It was in a spot of the yard that had been torn up by some work the city did, and the fill they put in didn't fill up with grass. In fact, it looked kind of like this:

It was not that exact spot, but one that looked just like it. Dry, hard ground. So I put down cardboard and newspaper to suppress weeds and hold moisture, layered compost on top of it, then buried some mint, planted a lot of clover, dill, radish, and a few other things. and let it grow. Here is what it looks like now:

The clover should return next year. It fixes nitrogen in the soil. I can't grow anything of any height in that spot, but I can put in some herbs next year. It turned out pretty decent. Just a little experiment.

I picked my first Tobago Scotch Bonnet Yellow (pepperlover) today. What a cool pepper. Nice size. Beautiful. It smelled like a scotch bonnet/yellow hab. I was surprised by its heat - lots of oil on the inside. The taste was very good. I like the yellow habanero types, so this worked great for me. Very good pepper.

In the garden - things have really picked up. My plants are still shorter than last year, but at least I'm getting more and more ripe pods (as evidenced by the Tobago Scotch Bonnet). Here is one that has been producing all year. It's just a basic serrano (pepperjoe), but I've used it for smoking peppers and adding just a little heat to things I'm sharing with non chileheads.

These Bahamian Goat Peppers (aji joe) have been beautiful as they ripen!

The Goats Weed (pepperlover) that I have is beautiful. What a cool plant!

Here is a nice shot of some Yellow 7 Pots ripening. This gives you an idea of how things are progressing with a lot of my plants now. This warm fall and the frost holding off has helped salvage the season for me.

Finally, here is a Yellow CARDI scropion (Romy6). I almost didn't grow these this year, but decided to and I'm very glad I did. First, it has produced wonderfully even in a tough year. Second, I've gotten some beautiful pods - great shape and color from it. Finally, I enjoy the taste. It's hot, mind you, but it's got a definite fruity kind of vibe to it. Definitely a Caribbean Yellow hot pepper.

Alright, that's all the fun I've got for tonight. I'm not sure how I'm going to catch up processing. I think I'll freeze a lot and dehydrate a lot. We'll see.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by!

MGOLD86 · Oct 10, 2013

Holy cow Andy! I knew things would turn around for ya. Really beautiful pods and harvests, awesome chow shots, and great sauce recipes! See, no need to worry, everything has a way of working itself out!

Pulpiteer · Oct 17, 2013

MGOLD86 said:
Holy cow Andy! I knew things would turn around for ya. Really beautiful pods and harvests, awesome chow shots, and great sauce recipes! See, no need to worry, everything has a way of working itself out!

Thanks Matt! It did work itself out. We were blessed with a warmer fall than normal, and that really saved things for me here. In fact, the frost is still holding off, for a bit at least, so peppers are still coming in.

And with that being said, here is some news on that.

A wide shot of the garden - really feeling better about it now. It's come so far and if now so full!

You can see the Jerusalem artichokes, up near the house. After a good frost or two, I'll dig them up and harvest the tubers. They grew wonderfully. It's my first time with them, I'll have to post what a harvest looks like. Here is a close up of a flower:

One final 'non' is a mini-pumpkin gourd that I grew for the kids. They're fun.

And now for some individual peppers.

Here is a regular Red Ghost pepper (pepperlover) that grew huge. Very nice looking pepper:

Here is a Bahamian Goat Pepper (ajijoe) - very cool. Several had stingers, not sure if that's normal.

Peach Lightning Habanero (ajijoe) these were really slow to get going, but I was pleased to find some came in!

Tobago Scotch Bonnet Orange (pepperlover) more orange than this picture shows.

White Bhut Jolokia (pepperlover) these turned out awesome! They were a late addition and I was not sure how they would turn out, but they are a very cool creamy white:

I finished off my tomato plants the other night, and harvested a bunch of peppers:

Finally, here's a big shot of the pepper harvest from the other night. This was a good one! 33 varieties, I think.

There we go - thanks for stopping by!

Spicegeist · Oct 17, 2013

Wow, that's a lot of peppers, nice haul!

stc3248 · Oct 17, 2013

Nice haul Andy! Wow...strong finish my friend! Those should keep you plenty warm through winter. Can't wait to see some of your artichoke and other non harvests.

PIC 1 · Oct 18, 2013

Wow Andy.......that harvest is a Cornucopia!
I like the house shot with the autumn colors on the trees behind it.
The mini pumpkin gourd looks interesting. Glad to see the Bonnets getting used, I've also dried many to be used in winter marinades. Good luck with whats left in the season.

Pulpiteer · Oct 18, 2013

Spicegeist said:
Wow, that's a lot of peppers, nice haul!

thanks Charles! I gave some small slices of that Brain Strain x aji cross to some high schoolers at a bonfire I was at last week and you should've seen them freak out. They panicked and then ran into the house and drained a gallon of milk. It was pretty awesome.

stc3248 said:
Nice haul Andy! Wow...strong finish my friend! Those should keep you plenty warm through winter. Can't wait to see some of your artichoke and other non harvests.

Thank you - yeah, these will keep me busy for sure! And I'm excited to see what that Jerusalem artichoke produces as well. Fun stuff.

PIC 1 said:
Wow Andy.......that harvest is a Cornucopia!
I like the house shot with the autumn colors on the trees behind it.
The mini pumpkin gourd looks interesting. Glad to see the Bonnets getting used, I've also dried many to be used in winter marinades. Good luck with whats left in the season.

Thanks Greg! Those scotch bonnets grew awesome and really produced well this year. Thank you so much again for those seeds! I think the bonnets will be the majority of the powder that I am doing. Good taste and a nice heat level. The superhots are nice enough to powder, but then you've got a spice that only a few people can handle, so these should work well.

Pulpiteer · Oct 24, 2013

Today this happened:

See the little snowflakes on the leaves? Garden season is ending.

Luckily, I've been hard at work, both harvesting and also getting some overwinter peppers prepped. We'll see how I do. I have tried this twice and both times been beaten by aphids. So, this year I am copying one of THP's masters - Greg (Pic1). Here is his post where he explains it.

I basically did the same thing.

materials:

Dunk in dish soap solution for 30 seconds, then briefly in diluted bleach. Spray off with a hose.

Then pot it up. Soak the dirt. Spray with organic insecticide. Put in a garbage bag and leave in the garage for 3 days.

I brought them inside tonight. Didn't have time for a picture, but hopefully I'll have some updates to do.

And in the spirit of totally copying Greg, I tried my own version of a photo that he did last year as well. I have bags of peppers that are in various stages of ripening that I pulled before the frost. Here are a couple of my ripe ones. Not as many peppers there, but fun nonetheless.

Earlier in the week I tried my hand at making spicy pickles since I still had some cucumbers hanging on in the garden. I'm excited to see how these turned out:

Finally, my oldest and my third child have birthdays in October, so we've had some presents and celebrations. Here are all 4 of our kids together. You can probably tell that our baby is growing like a weed. He is heavier at 4 months than our others were at 9. He's a load.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pulpiteer · Dec 4, 2013

I've neglected things here, just been busy. I'm trying to slowing catch up on other glogs as well as continue to process and use my harvest. Fall is a busy time around the church too as programs pick up and what not. So, excuses aside, just a few shots to let you see what's been going on.

First, Pic1's process of debugging seems to be working wonders for my overwinters. I'm several weeks into it, and so far, no aphids (fingers crossed).

I brought in:
2 Red Rocotos
2 Yellow Manzanos
1 Scotch Bonnet Montego Bay
1 Scotch Bonnet TFM
1 Tobago Scotch Bonnet Yellow
1 7 Pot Yellow
1 HP22B Carolina Reaper
1 Red Bhut Jolokia

Unfortunately, I did not have time to label the pots when I brought them in.

Here are the two manzanos, one rocoto, and a chinense of some sort.

And here are the rest. As you can see, I had one that did not come back to life, but 9 of 10 isn't bad for all the shock they went through to get in there.

I've got some sort of issue with two of the plants. Not sure what it is. It looks similar to what was going on in the garden, but it's more extreme inside. Here is the worst of it:

This one is not so bad:

So, to try to help out, I took the leachate from the bottom of my worm bin system and added a bit of water from my fish bowl, the threw in some air stones and aerated it for a day. The reviews online about using the leachate (as opposed to compost tea from the worms) was very mixed. From what I gathered, the big danger is harmful anaerobic bacteria that may form in the leachate. Mine was not in an air tight container, but I thought I'd bubble it up anyway. It formed a nice head, so I'm thinking I'm ok. I diluted it to 50% with water, then did a foliar feed. The next day I used some to water the pots. If I remember correctly, the first day brews up different microorganisms than the second, so I'm hoping for a diversity of good guys to help the plants. I'm thinking that maybe this can help my sick plants. If not, I'll try something else. These over wintered plants are like playing with house money in a way, because I'll grow a bunch from seed next year anyway.

For Thanksgiving I threw together a little cranberry relish that I thought I'd share. The heat will depend on how many peppers you add (obviously). I wanted people to try mine, so I really kept it manageable.

Ingredients:
Can of pineapple, a tart green apple, 1 orange, 1 bag of cranberries, 1 Scotch Bonnet, 1 Bahamian Goat pepper.

Throw it all in a blender:

Very tasty on turkey. The fruits blend together nice. I dropped some off at the dinner we did at the church. I put a sign by it to warn people. The funniest "praise" that was shared in church last Sunday morning was from one of the church ladies who didn't see the sign and tried the relish. These folks think I'm half crazy and it's a lot of fun.

I found a great way to save that last harvest you get where the peppers are not quite ripe or even green. Paper lunch sacks in the garage where it's cool. Here are some of those as well as some frozen peppers:

Then it was a long night of chopping other ingredients, like sweet potato, pumpkin, apples, peppers, garlic and carrots:

Then into the pickle jars for fermenting. I didn't include whey for a starter this time. I hope it still works.

I've got more pictures of jellies, but I'm at my picture limit.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hendrix1326 · Dec 4, 2013

Here's a bumpsky for ya, Andy! Awesome pics, you've been busy, my friend!

Pulpiteer · Dec 4, 2013

Hendrix1326 said:
Here's a bumpsky for ya, Andy! Awesome pics, you've been busy, my friend!

Thanks Karl!

Here are some jellies:

I made a Strawberry/blackberry and White Bhut jelly

First 7 cups strawberries, 1 cup blackberries

5 White Bhuts. I went with white bhuts because I really liked the flavor of them, and thought it would blend. I went with 5 because that's all I had. Plus I wanted it tolerable.

I added 8 tablespoons of powdered pectin, the concentrated stuff they started selling last year, and brought the fruit and peppers to a boil.

Then I added 6 cups of sugar. Brought to a boil again. Then canned.

Also, a Cranberry/Pomegranate and Rocoto/Manzano jelly

3 cups of Cranberry/Pomegranate juice
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup chopped rocotos and manzanos
6 tablespoons of powdered pectin
Brought it to a boil.
Then added 7 cups of sugar. Boil again.
Ladle and can.

Peppers:

And the finished product:

Ok, that's all the pictures I have for now. It's been a few late nights, but I've got a ton of jelly now and some big batches of sauce that will hopefully ferment.

Oh! I almost forgot - I've received some wonderful packages from Rocketman and PaulG - so thanks to both of them.
From Rocketman - two wonderful hot sauces and from Paul some hot powders and seeds from the "Giant White Habanero".

Very cool and thank you both!

meatfreak · Dec 5, 2013

Good stuff, Andy. OW's looks fine, I would just remove the leaves that have those spots and keep an close eye on those plants. I found another trick to ripen of the unripe or halfripe pods at the end of the season. I cut the entire branches of, strip all the leaves and put it in a vase with water. That way the pods stay firm and even the seeds will be viable once the pods have ripen. Not only will you get ripe pods, it also looks pretty neat

The wife liked it a lot so it's a win-win situation :lol:

A member on the dutch chili forum came across this trick by accident. These pods were entirely green and like this after almost 2 weeks.

Hendrix1326 · Dec 5, 2013

Great job, Andy! White Bhuts are definitely a tasty pod, I tried 2 different ones (both Pepperlover

) one from my garden and one from Mike (pepperchronicles on YouTube), and they were pretty good. I also tried the Giant White Habanero for the first time this year from Robert Slade Russell, and it was awesome! I am developing quite a love for white tinted pods this year, got a chance to try a few good ones. Can't wait to see the progress headed into next year!

Hey, Stefan! Great tip on the pod ripening procedure, next year I may implement that to give it a try, as I am thinking about 75 varieties next year for mine, so a new experiment would be a welcome addition to the garden endeavors!

romy6 · Dec 5, 2013

Wow Andy I have been neglecting this awesome glog for far too long. Amazing how you turned a mediocre start to the season into a outstanding finish . The Birthday shot with your beautiful kids was priceless. Thank you for sharing that. The spicy pickles look to die for. And the nice harvests you had are always colorful and prolific. Really digging the white bhut berry jam. That has to be a tasty treat on some fresh hot banana bread smothered with butter. Oh my

Have a safe and wonderful Christmas with the Family. :party:

meatfreak · Dec 5, 2013

Hendrix1326 said:
Great job, Andy! White Bhuts are definitely a tasty pod, I tried 2 different ones (both Pepperlover ) one from my garden and one from Mike (pepperchronicles on YouTube), and they were pretty good. I also tried the Giant White Habanero for the first time this year from Robert Slade Russell, and it was awesome! I am developing quite a love for white tinted pods this year, got a chance to try a few good ones. Can't wait to see the progress headed into next year!

Hey, Stefan! Great tip on the pod ripening procedure, next year I may implement that to give it a try, as I am thinking about 75 varieties next year for mine, so a new experiment would be a welcome addition to the garden endeavors!

Your welcome, Karl. It was a bit to late for me as well since I already had harvested and removed 99% of my plants :lol: