Smokenmirraz Melbourne Miracle

Hi, I'm Smokenmirraz and I live in Melbourne, Australia.  The miracle part of the topic title is getting weather warm enough to grow super hots!  I'll try to add updates once a month or so.
 
I've grown chillies from seed in the past, but these days I'm not that motivated.  At the moment, most of my focus is on growing super hot chillies in 10 gallon pots purchased as seedlings from a local hardware store.  The garden bed has habaneros, jalapenos, and some kind of thai birds eye, tomatoes, herbs, eggplants, and lots of dwarf beans.
 
Currently growing:
 
- Chilli Trinidad 7-Pod Yellow in it's third year of growth and a fantastic producer.
- Chilli Trinidad 7-Pod Pink in it's second year.
- Chilli Carolina Reaper x 2.
- Chilli Trinidad Scorpion Butch T x 2.
- Chilli Naga Bhut Jolokia Red x 2.
 

 

 
 

 

[smokenmirraz]

Just ran a pH test on the sauce with two cheapo calibrated digital meters.  Red meter: 3.86.  Yellow meter: 4.0.

 

[smokenmirraz]

While the Melbourne Spring is playing up outside (just had a hail storm), I made up some kim chi using a simple recipe:
 
- 1 Chinese cabbage soaked in 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of water for an hour then washed and drained
- 1 cup of korean chilli flakes
- 6 cloves of garlic coarsely chopped
- half a bunch of spring onions coarsely chopped
- 1 daikon radish julienned
- 1 sheet of nori coarsely broken up
- 1 tablespoon of fish sauce
- 2 teaspoons of glutenous rice flour cooked with 1 cup of water
- 2 teaspoons of sugar
 
All ingredients were mixed then shoved into a 3L glass container to ferment.
 
I cooked some rice and added a small serve of the un-fermented kim chi... tastes good so far
 

 

[Thegreenchilemonster]

Yum, good looking kimchi!

 

[smokenmirraz]

Cooked up another batch of the fermented chilli sauce.  This time the Yellow 7 pot and red capsicum sauce started from June 4.  I used the finest mesh on the mouli thingy and added a couple of jars of water to help dilute.  This time I ended up with 10 x 250ml bottles and half a jar for the fridge and pH test:
 

 

[smokenmirraz]

Can't edit my post above, so I'll add here...  
 
Just tested the chilli sauce and it has pH of 4.0 on my cheapo meter.
 
The kim-chi has spent 4 days fermenting on the kitchen bench, so I'll move that back into the fridge and taste test tonight.

 

[karoo]

Best way to start a new season , get rid of last seasons leftovers.
Very smooth looking sauce.

 

[PaulG]

Awesome looking sauce, Smoke!

 

[smokenmirraz]

I couldn't resist buying a chilli seedling from the local hardware chain store.  Not clear labelling, but it looks like it's supposed to be a Naga Bhut Jolokia of some sort:
 

 
 
I also discovered the wonders of kefir this week, and I'm fermenting my second batch in the photo below:
 

 

[smokenmirraz]

I'm back for the 2018/2019 season in a new rental with slightly better backyard for chilli growing 
 
This season I have:
 

• a few overwinters that were started as late seedlings (Naga Viper, Trinidad Scorpion Butch T, Serrano, Jalapeno)
• a couple of more advanced plants as 1 year overwinters (Capsicum annuum super chilli, and unknown Thai chilli)
• a grand mumma Trinidad Scorpion 7 Pot Pink overwinter that is at least 3 years old now and looking a little haggard... lost it's Trinidad Scorpion 7 Pot Yellow sibling last season
• a couple of new super hot seedlings from the local hardware chain (Naga Bhut Jolokia Ghost Chilli Red, Trinidad 7 Pot Brain Strain Red)

 
Looks like dropbox has stopped public sharing of images since I last posted here, so all the images I posted from previous seasons are dead links now