Sawyer '14 - Seed Offer

Sawyer · Apr 15, 2014

Hey, y'all. I know I've been mia lately; sorry about that. Everything is still on track, more or less; details later. I promise an update within the week.

Right now, I hope everyone who can, is watching the eclipse. It's pretty awesome, the first of four total lunar eclipses over the next two years.

Svetlana · Apr 15, 2014

Wow ! 1130 plants !!!!!
This must ask a lot of time to take care of all these babies!
And I imagine the fantastic harvest when all plants bear fruit !
Good luck

PaulG · May 4, 2014

Update is a week overdue : )

Hey, John, can you tell me about these? Mainly height and sun exposure is what I'm wondering about:
Reaper
Funky Reaper
7 Pot Burgundy
Not White Yellow Bhut
Thanks in advance, buddy!

HillBilly Jeff · May 4, 2014

There was an eclipse??? Guess I will have to catch it on the next episode of cosmos.

Now when you do your next update, we need to see a pic for each of your plants to make up for lost time.

Devv · May 4, 2014

+1 on 244

Paul, the 2 Reapers got over 5' for me last season, well, all my supers did.

Sawyer · May 5, 2014

Can hardly believe how far behind I've gotten on this. And everything else, too. I can't quote all the posts since my last serious update, but I have "liked" them. I'll quote what's on this page and we'll go from there.

Svetlana said:
Wow ! 1130 plants !!!!!
This must ask a lot of time to take care of all these babies!
And I imagine the fantastic harvest when all plants bear fruit !
Good luck

Hi, Svetlana, yes, a lot of time. I haven't actually counted recently, but I think I'm up to over 1200 plants now. The previous count didn't include the jalapenos (I think) and I had a few successful OWs that weren't counted. On the other hand, I have lost a few due to inadequate watering. I had some flats where only the very end was getting sun through the window and I lost several plants in that very last row next to the window. Some of those I've saved, but lost a few.
I think I still have at least some of everything that germinated.

PaulG said:
Update is a week overdue : )

Hey, John, can you tell me about these? Mainly height and sun exposure is what I'm wondering about:
Reaper
Funky Reaper
7 Pot Burgundy
Not White Yellow Bhut
Thanks in advance, buddy!

Hey, Paul. Most of those got a late start for me last year and so did not get particularly large. The 7 Pot Burgundy is the only one I got planted in the first round and it did the best, by far. It was in ground and in full sun most of the day and didn't seem to mind as long as I kept it watered. The NWY Bhut were only two plants amongst my otherwise White Bhut, in pots, and they did quite well with full sun in the morning and filtered sun (silver maple shade) in the afternoon. Neither of the Reapers got very big for me, but they were among the last to go in the ground, so that's not a fair judgement. As Scott says below, they have the potential to be much bigger.

HillBilly Jeff said:
There was an eclipse??? Guess I will have to catch it on the next episode of cosmos.

Now when you do your next update, we need to see a pic for each of your plants to make up for lost time.

Yeah, it was awesome, too, Jeff. Perfectly clear sky here and great viewing from my front porch. It started around midnight and peaked around 3 AM. I watched until 3:30. Needless to say, I slept late that morning.

Pics will have to wait, but as long as group photos count, I should be able to show everything. Individual portraits? That ain't happenin'

Devv said:
+1 on 244

Paul, the 2 Reapers got over 5' for me last season, well, all my supers did.

That's what I'm shooting for this year. I was just getting ready to start planting out this week. We had a late frost no too long ago (killed most of my dessert apple blossoms) and last week it got down into the mid-30s. I think now it's safe to say the cold is behind us. However, I've been having some well trouble and after eliminating all the above-ground possibilities, I reached the conclusion I have to pull the lines out the well. That's not as big a pain as it would be for you, Scott, because my well is only 80' deep and the lines are 70'. Still, as best as I can tell, the problem is a clogged jet in the foot valve assembly. The check valve itself still works, so I'll be pulling lines full of water. I've done it before, but it sure isn't any fun. Plus last time I checked, my biological anti-rodent unit (read huge black rat snake) had taken up residence around the wellhead. I know it's not poisonous, but I prefer not to disturb it as much as possible.

Three of four red and both yellow Manzano OWs survived, as did a few assorted superhots that never made it out of 3.5" square pots last year. All but one of the potted OW attempts failed. The ones in the root cellar all froze with the zero-degree temps we had. I had one each brown ghost, brown 7 Pot, and Jigsaw in 5 gallon grow bags in the front room (with all the other OW plants, cacti, house plants, etc) that I am disappointed did not survive. They were doing well until they got infested with aphids. Either the aphids or my treatment(s) seem to have killed them.

I discovered keeping the plants in the germination flats under lights in a warm room is a better option than potting up to 3.5" square pots and putting them on a stand in front of a south-facing picture window with inadequate heating. That basically put the plants in suspended animation, while the ones still in the germ. flats continued to grow. Needless to say, those flats are extremely crowded now, while the up-pots are only now starting to grow now that I've move them outside for hardening off.

I also finally solved a massive aphid problem by collecting OWing lady bugs (from the corners of various rooms) and placing them on the infested seedlings. Last I looked there were very few aphids left and I had lady bug larva crawling all over everything. Still haven't solved the fungus gnat problem, but sticky traps seem to be keeping them in control.

The pepper plants alone are more than I have space for in the garden, and I have a fairly extensive grow list of grains (including some of Penny's) and vegetables, too. I've got a small open space (maybe 1500 sq. ft.) to the west of the house I'm going to till up (need to cut one or two wild cherry trees) and I've all but committed to tilling my front yard. I may also approach the local university about using some of their farm space in exchange for seed or collaboration.

I've been making sauces out of the purée from last year's harvest and have been getting some great response. The jalapeno seems to be the most popular (possibly because it's the least hot), but the brown superhot and red superhot sauces are also popular. I made a white ghost/habanero sauce that doesn't quite work for me, though it is good on eggs and chinese food. I know what I don't like about it, so will rework the recipe. I just finished a yellow scorpion sauce that I haven't tried yet, beyond tasting while cooking. I think I got it right, but will have to take it to the volunteer tasting panel (i.e., my drinking buddies) for feedback. It may be the hottest one yet. I've discovered the local university has a commercially certified pilot kitchen available to entrepreneurs that I'm going to take advantage of. For anyone interested, there may be a similar resource available in your area. Check out this link for more info. Given the positive response and the resources available for agriculture in Arkansas, this may turn into more than hobby. Stay tuned for updates.

Okay, time to pull some water lines.

PaulG · May 5, 2014

Woah, John. You are a busy guy!

Thanks for the info on the plants (and you, too, Scott).

JJJessee · May 5, 2014

Nice update, John.
Cant' wait to see this grow in ground and growing.
Hang in there. May is up-shift month.

HillBilly Jeff · May 5, 2014

Pics will have to wait, but as long as group photos count, I should be able to show everything. Individual portraits? That ain't happenin'

In a Sheldon Cooper voice.....Ahhhhhh

Devv · May 5, 2014

John,

The well digger that put our well in has a really cool jig for pulling and installing the well pump. He has a winch and 25' boom on the back of a 1 ton. The units 100% homemade; rams extend the boom and the winch motor is hydraulic. He uses collars to hold the pipe in place while he works the next piece.

I still remember the first time I pulled ours, around 250' of pipe, and full of water. Glad I was around 37 at the time, I wrapped both arms in ace bandage and got after it. I was pulling and had a guy managing the pipe, it was one piece of schedule 80 1 1/4" pipe. After 15' I was wasted, both of us just leaned back and hung on. We did it though!

As I replaced the pump I tied 3/8" nylon rope to the pump, I now use a block and tackle with a locking mechanism to do my puling.

Good luck pulling yours!

Sauces sound good; I have some Reaper puree which goes a LONG way!

Have a great week!

stickman · May 16, 2014

Hi Buzz, just stopping by to check in and ask how your garden's doing. Hope all is well.

Sawyer · May 16, 2014

Okay, time for an update. I hate it that I'm not keeping up here on THP and have no idea how others' grows are going. Hopefully things are growing well for everyone.

(This is relevant to growing peppers, because without water, there is no growing.) I finally got my well back online last Sunday, after a week of half pressure followed by a week of almost no pressure. (There's really no good reason for it to have taken that long.) I took two showers in a row, just because I could. (With my backpacking experience, I can bathe with less than a half-gallon of water, or some alcohol and a wipe, but it just ain't the same.) I wound up pulling the lines in the well twice, disassembling and completely cleaning two pumps, and reassembling one of them. (Still need to make a gasket for the second, to have a working backup on hand.) Scott, if the lines were much longer than 70', I'd definitely be trying to rig up a block and tackle as you describe. As it is, I really could have used someone to handle the top end of the pipes as I pulled up at the wellhead. I'd pull up 6'-8' at a time, then it would slide back into the well 3'-4' by the time I could get to the far end to pull it further from the well. Still, it wasn't too bad; just uncovering the wellhead was more disturbing (snakes, spiders, other creepy-crawlies). Here's what the foot-valve assembly looked like after I got it out of the well:

I'm told by an environmental engineer friend of mine the black stuff is likely a manganese compound. I saved some and will test it to see. I think there's at least some chance it's iron sulfide. For sure there's sulfur in there somewhere. I chipped and scrapped off quite a bit of the deposit, but eventually soaked the parts in a 20% hydrochloric acid bath. That quickly stripped the parts down to bare metal, but also produced a lot of hydrogen sulfide gas. It was so bad, I had to leave the back yard a couple of times, even with a wind blowing. Here's what it looked like after cleaning and reassembly:

Even though the outside looked awful, the ejector nozzle and venturi inside the assembly didn't seem to have much, if any, clogging. There was a thin layer of deposit on the insides that cleaned up fairly easily, and that, coupled with a similar deposit inside the pump, apparently reduced various dimensions enough to cause the reduction in performance I observed. At the time, though, I didn't think of that, and finding no gross obstruction at that end of things, I concluded the problem was with the pump. The last time this happened, 10+ years ago, I bought a new pump and motor, but still had the old one on hand. I (thought I remembered I) had cleaned that old pump up at the time to have it on hand in case of just this situation. So I swapped pumps. Turned everything on and the pressure began building, 5 psi, 10 psi, 20 psi, 25 psi, 25 psi, 20 psi, 15 psi; you get the picture. Turns out I hadn't cleaned the old pump. Dried out deposits broke loose, clogging both the impeller and diffuser as well as sending some crap down the well to well and truly clog the ejector nozzle. So out came the pipes again, much more quickly this time. With no deposits to remove, it was a quick matter to open up the valve assembly, remove the clog, and put everything back together. I opened up the old pump and cleaned it thoroughly (again, chipping, scraping, HCl soaking), but decided if I was going to all this effort, maybe I should do the same for the new(er) pump. It uses an o-ring instead of a gasket, so it was easier to reassemble, so it's the one that got reinstalled. Things have been working well since last Sunday, so I'm hopeful the well may be good to go for another decade. Here's a pic of priming at the wellhead:

And just for the heck of it, a shot down the well:

That's water only about 20' or so down. The well bore is 80' deep and the foot valve is 70' down. Only once has the pump sucked air and that was in a very dry summer when I forgot I was irrigating and left the pump running for about 5 hours straight. It recovered quickly after I shut it off.

The last two nights the temperature has gotten down into the mid- to upper-30s. That fact makes me feel a little less bad about the fact I have yet to put a pepper plant in the ground. I do have alliums (garlic, onions, shallots), snap peas, radishes, lettuce, turnips, beets, collards, mustard, rutabaga growing in the garden, maybe a few other things. Four specimens of three varieties of hops have finally become established at the back of the garden. Six of eight (or seven of nine) hops (ordered rhizomes) I had in #1 or #3 nursery pots last year survived, as did eight of nine in 3.5" square pots that I started from cuttings I got from the USDA last year (not all unique varieties). The pepper plants are mostly (excluding OW Manzanos, which are starting to grow rapidly in pots) in a holding pattern, mostly still in germination flats. Of all the various seeds I've started, I've found peppers to be the most tolerant of being root bound.

I've made some progress on cleaning up the garden, pruned the blackberries, removed a couple of out-of-place posts, chopped a bunch of bamboo. As soon as it's dry enough, it's ready to mow, then till. Getting the garden planted is one of two top priorities for the coming days. The other is making progress preparing for my upcoming June consulting trip to D.C. More or less the same thing as last year, but I'll only be gone for three or four days instead of a week.

More later.

Seacowboy · May 16, 2014

Feel your pain on the well issues. Our hunt camp has a hand dug 50' well that silts up every few clogging the foot valve. Have tried just cleaning foot valve by pulling pipe but it is short lived in staying cleared and me being the youngest has always earned me the task with getting lowered to the bottom and digging out what I can by hand into 5 gal buckets to be hauled up over my head till cleared. Not a fun experience but beats paying 5k plus for a new well. The water level usually hovers at 3' from the bottom so I can stand but reaching the bottom usually has me with an ear just in the water.

What dates will you be in D.C.? I'm right across the river, if you have the time and I'm not back to work in the GOM I'll buy the beers.

Can't wait for pics of the plant out when the temps finally warm up for you.

Jamison · May 16, 2014

Glad you got the well fixed and running! Gotta have h2o for everything. I'll be checking for any more updates.

Devv · May 16, 2014

I too am glad you got the well running! And just for labor too!

I've never seen a configuration like that. Mine looks like this hung at the end of the pipe.

The two lines, is one a return?

pic hijacked from the first well pump site I went too

They weigh about 50lbs or so.

Have a great weekend!

Pulpiteer · May 17, 2014

Wow, what an ordeal. I hope you're at the other end of it now. With all the stuff you're growing, here's hoping for some good garden shots for next time, instead of well problem shots!

Sawyer · May 27, 2014

Update time.

Seacowboy said:
Feel your pain on the well issues. Our hunt camp has a hand dug 50' well that silts up every few clogging the foot valve. Have tried just cleaning foot valve by pulling pipe but it is short lived in staying cleared and me being the youngest has always earned me the task with getting lowered to the bottom and digging out what I can by hand into 5 gal buckets to be hauled up over my head till cleared. Not a fun experience but beats paying 5k plus for a new well. The water level usually hovers at 3' from the bottom so I can stand but reaching the bottom usually has me with an ear just in the water.

What dates will you be in D.C.? I'm right across the river, if you have the time and I'm not back to work in the GOM I'll buy the beers.

Can't wait for pics of the plant out when the temps finally warm up for you.

Hey, Jason, thanks for stopping by. If I were you, I think I'd be recruiting a younger member for the camp. I'd rather not even think about going to the bottom of a well to dig out sediment. For that matter, think of the effort it took to dig a well with that large a diameter in the first place. Even the well where I grew up was only about 8" or 10" diameter.

I'm leaving late this coming Sunday for D.C. and will return the following Wednesday. It's a whirlwind trip, so I'll have to pass on the beers. Thanks for the offer, though. I don't like being away from my place this time of year, but at least it's not the ten day absence I had last year. I never did get caught up after that. (Still not, but getting there.)

Jamison said:
Glad you got the well fixed and running! Gotta have h2o for everything. I'll be checking for any more updates.

Thanks for checking in, Jamison. It's a little more than two weeks since I fixed the well, so I'm optimistic I won't have to deal with it again for awhile. (Fingers crossed.)

Devv said:
I too am glad you got the well running! And just for labor too!

I've never seen a configuration like that. Mine looks like this hung at the end of the pipe.

The two lines, is one a return?

pic hijacked from the first well pump site I went too

They weigh about 50lbs or so.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks, Scott, you and me, both. My pumping configuration is a so-called deep-well jet pump. It's "deep" only relative to "shallow", which in this context is down to about 25' or so. At that depth or less, you only need a single line, with a pump at ground-level that can suck the water up. Between about 25' and 100', as in my case, the pump is still located at ground level, but can only work with a "jet assist" down in the foot valve assembly. That's what the second, smaller line is for. As you surmised, it's the return line for supplying the drive water to the nozzle and venturi in the down-well assembly. That assembly looks a lot like the image here, though my configuration is more colinear. For really deep wells you need a submersible pump, like yours. I didn't realize they weigh as much as 50#. That would have complicated my task quite a bit. My foot valve assemble probably weighs no more 10# or so. Makes the line pulling a lot easier. Popular Mechanics has a pretty good article on the topic.

Pulpiteer said:
Wow, what an ordeal. I hope you're at the other end of it now. With all the stuff you're growing, here's hoping for some good garden shots for next time, instead of well problem shots!

Hi, Andy. As long as I only have to deal with it once every decade or so, it's not too bad. I like having control of my own water and not having water and sewer bills. (I have a septic system, too.) Still not ready for plant shots, but I'm getting closer. Probably after I get back from my trip next week.

Okay, I finally got most of the garden mowed and tilled. There's still a fairly significant chunk of it in the NE corner that's been overrun by bamboo, but that will have to wait for now. Here's a shot where I'm standing in the NE corner looking west, with my back to the bamboo:

The spring garden is to the left of this shot. The overgrown patch in the left middle ground is an old foundation of some sort. Plan was to burn the brush and plant tobacco inside the foundation, but since I just planted tomatoes in the narrow space to the right of it, the burning probably won't happen 'til fall. The unmowed strip on the right is where I have some hops growing, in desperate need of poles. The stump at the end of that strip is covered with a Mt. Hood hops. I'm showing this picture because the immediate foreground is where I've planted 246 chinense plants according to this diagram:

Numbers in parentheses are the numbers of plants planted. No number means 5 plants. I planted 10 NWYBJ first, then realized there would be no space left in the garden for anything else. I was going for 10 rows, 25 plants/row, but the asterisks mark missing plants. I may go back and put peppers there or I may fill the empty spaces with pyrethrum, T. cinerariifolium, for whatever repellent effects it may have while growing and to collect the flowers for future use.

I've got room for at least this many more plants in the main garden, habs/bonnets, jals, hatch-style, and/or miscellaneous. Then the rest will have to stay in pots.

The five squares on the left are five cherry tomatoes, appended to the ends of the spring garden rows.

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures, but I saw a pair of summer tanagers the other day. I hope they nest here, but given all the noise I was making mowing and tilling, I doubt that. Yesterday, as I was planting the peppers, something caught my eye and I looked up to see a whitetail fawn in the garden looking at me. It can't be more than a couple of days old and let me walk right up to it before hopping away. I guess it's in that short period after birth when the doe leaves them alone. On the one hand, I'm "yay! baby deer!", but on the other hand, I'm "boo! deer!" I've already had some plants cut down, by a rabbit, I think.

More planting this afternoon.

Seacowboy · May 27, 2014

Sawyer said:
Hey, Jason, thanks for stopping by. If I were you, I think I'd be recruiting a younger member for the camp. I'd rather not even think about going to the bottom of a well to dig out sediment. For that matter, think of the effort it took to dig a well with that large a diameter in the first place. Even the well where I grew up was only about 8" or 10" diameter.

I'm leaving late this coming Sunday for D.C. and will return the following Wednesday. It's a whirlwind trip, so I'll have to pass on the beers. Thanks for the offer, though. I don't like being away from my place this time of year, but at least it's not the ten day absence I had last year. I never did get caught up after that. (Still not, but getting there.)

diagram:

Numbers in parentheses are the numbers of plants planted. No number means 5 plants. I planted 10 NWYBJ first, then realized there would be no space left in the garden for anything else. I was going for 10 rows, 25 plants/row, but the asterisks mark missing plants. I may go back and put peppers there or I may fill the empty spaces with pyrethrum, T. cinerariifolium, for whatever repellent effects it may have while growing and to collect the flowers for future use.

No worries, next time around maybe. Hope you have a good trip.

I wish we could recruit new members but its hard to find hunters up here actually, the ones you do are very irresponsible or have no money to pay dues. The decent isn't bad since I control it with my seldom used climbing gear from years back, its the coming up part I don't like since I have to rely on them to pull me up, but the truck would do in a pinch.

Also thanks for teaching me something I probably should have already known or learned by now about the T. cinerariifolium, will be checking to see if the local nurseries have any left and get some seeds for next. Being gone so much when the bugs come and aren't dealt with immediately can lead to disaster quick.

The layout looks great and look forward to seeing it once all that hard work is done. I just picked up some herbs to get in the garden since I neglected to start those this year myself, gotta get there before thunderstorms roll in here shortly.

Devv · May 27, 2014

Interesting read on the jet pump design.

I see a ton of work went into tilling that large area, and the soil looks really nice.

250+ plants is going to make you one busy man!

capsidadburn · May 27, 2014

Space looks ripe John! Can't wait to see it flourish. I'm glad to hear your well issues are in contol. I suppose that's what I have to look forward to if I ever make it out away from town.

Have a great week!

Mike