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Siv's third time's a charm

My first year: http://thehotpepper.com/topic/70997-sivs-2019-first-time-glog/
My second year: http://thehotpepper.com/topic/73302-sivs-second-time-lucky-2020-glog/page-10
 
Planning is currently underway for year 3. I'll probably start seeds in February with a view to putting them out in March. My wife complained several times this year that I didn't grow enough peppers that she could use for cooking so this year I'm going to remedy that. I didn't grow any annuums last year so will be going for several this year. I'm not going to bother with pubes as they can't seem to take the Texas heat. I'm also not going to bother with baccatums this year either. I'm going to aim for 15-20 varieties allowing for 2-3 plants of each. I have way too many seeds so will try and avoid buying more!
 
The current plan:
Dorset Naga - only had one successful plant last year and I like the look so want to grow more
Bahamian Goat - my current all time favourite pepper
Orange Ribbon - a surprise favourite for 2020 and great raw
Leviathan Gnarly Scorpion - hot and great for sauces, hopefully this time they are leviathan as last year they were smaller
White Ghost - a favourite from 2019 and a failure in 2020; hopefully redeemed in 2021
Fatalii - I didn't get as many as I wanted in 2020 and I do like these
Antem Aci Dolma - new for 2021
Sadabahar - new for 2021
Buena Mulata - new for 2021
Bangalore Whippets Tail - new for 2021
White Thai - new for 2021
African Bird Orange - new for 2021 and another attempt at a piri piri type
Yellow Biquinho - new for 2021; haven't tried this style before
Clavo White F1 - new for 2021 and an experiment
 
For the hydro, I'm going to cut down on the number of buckets and move them back a little and separate them into three lots of seven buckets. This will give me a bit better control and will also allow me to add support between the pillars to cope with these plants as they grow pretty large.
 
For soil, I'm toying with the idea of replacing most of the grow bags with raised beds made from steel stock tanks. I put the bags on a tarp and while this keeps the grass down There are some spots where water collects and this led to a bunch of mosquitos. The pools of water also makes it annoying to walk between the rows. I'll have to think about this as it's a bit of an investment. I may do the tanks in the spots where the water is the worst and cut down the tarp coverage. I have a while though to think about this.
 
My wife wants me to grow jalapenos but I'm loathed to grow something I can easily buy whenever I want at the grocery store for little money. And we don't use them that often anyway. Perhaps an odd variety - I have Tiger Jalapeno seeds.
 
Any thoughts/suggestions from the community?
 
HeatMiser said:
That Sadabahar definitely caught my attention, since it looks really, really similar to the Mystery Pepper I am growing this year. Same pod shape, same clustering habit, same leaf shape. Peter Stanley has a tasting video with some very similar peppers, but his are named "Thai Dragon".... I really see no difference between his, yours and mine, haha - wondering if they are all the same.
 
The Sadabahar seeds are from Falatii and described as being from India. I think there is a tendency to label anything that grows upright as a thai chilli. It's pretty nice tasting when green and has a little kick but not silly. I think the wife will be very happy.
 
 
Mildfruit said:
Like the white thai! Is it from khangstar? 
 
I'm not sure on the origins of these - the seeds were from THP and I can't remember which one I bought as he does sell one labeled "KS White Thai". But it also looks like I have plants that are behaving like both types so I have no idea. By the way, they are so juicy with just a little heat. Good snacking pepper when white.
 
A little update on the hydros as it's still a bit too muddy to get to the raised beds.
 
Buena Mulata doing very well
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Lots of Bangalore Whippets Tails - these really need hydro - the one I have in soil, many peppers have touched the ground and are rotting.
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Tiger Jalapeno - I'm yet to see any tiger stripes, the only ripe one was full red
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Wiriwiri has caught up and is putting out lots of flowers now
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Thai - I guess I should pick these now before they all turn red.
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And finally one ripe Mammoth jalp. I should pick this soon.
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A couple of days ago, I picked a few and will be tasting over the rest of the week. Will be interesting to see the difference between the ripe red thai and the white ones.
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I used all the peppers I harvested to make a Malaysian onion sambal since we were making Nasi Lemak for Sunday lunch. It was spicy but not unbearably so and turned out so well that literally it was all scraped from the pan and finished by our guests. It's the jammy looking stuff on the bottom left of the plate.
 
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So while nice to have some good food, with the good comes the bad. My hydro Wiri wiri has the dreaded droopies. It's totally my fault - I start the buckets full and wait until the roots grow and the nutes drop to a lower level before opening the valve to the master nute supply. This one I totally forgot and the bucket was nearly empty and leaves drooping when I opened the valve. It quickly recovered and looked fine but a couple of days later and it's looking very sad. I took the plant out, rinsed the roots and have put it in a fresh bucket of nutes. We'll see what happens now but I'm not very confident.
 
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HeatMiser said:
The Dreaded Droopies strike again. It really sucks when that happens Siv. If you're still interested in saving the plant you can take some cuttings and cut the plant all the way down. 
 
I have 5 or 6 more wiriwiri in soil so I'm tempted just to let this one go. I should probably just pull it and stick it in the compost pile.
 
Speaking of soil, I ventured out to the raised beds and pulled off a few pods for cooking. I think I've gotten all the whippet's tails that were touching the ground so the next lot should be better. Lots of jalps and some sadabahar - the green ones look better on the plant than the red. I should pick a bunch of green and freeze them. The mammoth jalps look to be a good producer - I'll need to stuff one and see. The Big Jims are not as big as I expected. And finally, my first Antep Aci cross growdown pod - what a monster!
 
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I need to get out and harvest more often. Pulled these off today. The jalapenos are all a bit soft and some of the whippets tails have dried up. These are all going in the blender - I may make a big batch of sambal if I have enough lemongrass and ginger.
 
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Great plants and production, Siv!
Those Whippets are amazing.
 
I am sorry to see your Wiri-Wiri facing execution.
Good that you have more in the ground, but that
was such a beautiful plant with flowers and berries!
 
Good luck going forward, my friend. You
can have your heat wave back in Tejas. I'm
sort of over it.
 
More peppers! Buena Mulata (top left), Tiger Jalapeno (bottom left) and White Thai (bottom right). My tiger jalps start out a very dark purple and ripen to this nice deep red but don't have any stripes.
 
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It looks like we're gonna have 10 days of rain so no more harvesting for me!
 
I've been reasonably lazy with my peppers this year. Not nearly as attentive as I have in previous seasons. But today I decided to grab the kids and hit the dirt to pick as many as we can. Here's the harvest:
 
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Top left are supposed to be Clavo White but I guess they decided not to be. Not a superhot but may make a nice relish or salsa.
 
Next to the red collander are green and red Sadabahar. These are destined for the freezer - not much heat but that typical Indian green chilli flavour.
 
I was very happy to see a few LGS and Bahamian goat pods. Next year I'm going to put a load of LGS in - these guys seem to keep the bugs away.
 
In the middle some Jalps - yes, they taste so much better than store bought but even though the plant puts out a lot, more than half have to be thrown away as they're either soft or been eaten.
 
Top right are more whippets tails. I love these guys - unusual, tasty and prolific.
 
Bottom right are white Thais - with my laziness most are ripe but still firm and tasty. Sambal time.
 
One thing I love with Bahamian goats is the occasional stinger. I got three from this lot.
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Lots of pepper work, little in the way of updates from me. So here's a quick summary:

Picked a bunch - most of these have been frozen or blended into sambal and frozen:
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Made some sauces for a few friends, labeled in homage to their poker rooms:
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My first lot of hydros are barely hanging on. One buena mulata has dies and the rest are not up to much. Totally my fault again - the master float valve clogged up and I only noticed late when some of the plants were almost empty.
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My second lot of hydros are still going strong - it's interesting that these grew much bigger than the first lot and were started a couple months after. But in terms of pepper yield, they're about the same.
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And a bonus - these are red and orange Datils that came up as volunteers. I picked them clean a couple days ago to make sauce but they have grown really well in the spot where my 20 year old orange tree used to be.
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Thanksgiving means that the kids are off school for a week. It also means that our house is full of my daughter's friends. I took advantage and got them picking wilds from the forest that is my wilds bed.

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I picked from the other beds and we ended up with this haul:

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Rather amusingly the girls peer pressured each other into eating wilds. The wiri wiri didn't seem to be a problem but the jelly bean put one of them on the floor, gasping for milk.

There are still a ton of green peppers and even some flowers. We may have to repeat this in the New Year if the weather cooperates.
 
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