Stefan_W's 2013 Pods A-Ripenin'! Glog

I am going to start the new glog for my upcoming growing season on a bit of a personal note. One year ago tomorrow (January 3rd) is the one year anniversary of the day that my daughter was diagnosed with a tumour that is lodged in the middle of her brain. The past year has involved treatments and hospital stays, and there were at least three different points when we were pretty sure she was not going to make it. But she is a fighter, and nothing could keep her down for long.

Sofia has personally planted every pepper and tomato seed that I have started in the past three growing seasons. She beat the odds last year to help me, and once again she is defying what medicine has to say to help me out this year.

We started a jalapeno plant about a week ago just for the sake of watching it grow, because we both love it so much. One of the jalapenos grew to the point that it had its firt couple of leaves, so we transplanted him into a bigger pot. While we were at it I decided to put in some aji lemondrops, partly because they take a long time to fruit up and I wanted to give them a huge head start.

This is the jalapeno plant. I pulled the second one out because we did not need it, and discovered that the roots had grown all of the way down to the bottom of the cell.

My daughter personally doing the transplant.

Her aim is better than mine, and so it turned out perfectly.

Next up was taking out the lemondrop seeds from peppermania.

I need a few extras of this type, so I asked Sofia to plant two seeds in each of the four cells. Two plants will be for us, and whatever else grows will be given away to good friends.

Two of the three tiers in my lighting stand are currently being used as toy shelves, which is cool for now. The lights are adjustable, and moved down to get close to the seedling.

The heating pad works extremely well, and once the cells are covered the top clouds up in no time.

A happy early jalapeno seedling in his new home. I thought I heard "feeeeeed meeeeee" coming from that direction, but I'm not sure.

That's it for today, folks! Welcome to my new glog

 

[WalkGood]

Wow I'm happy for you both and all others up north as well \o/ Now get some pixie dust in that soil and it'll warm right up

 

[DocNrock]

Wow Stefan, things are really coming along nicely! Ramon beat me to it, but I too love "Peach Beach!" Me thinks Sofia had a little Freudian slip thinking of summertime while she was making the tag in the cold of the Canadian winter.

That Giant Jal is, well, giant for it's current growing conditions. Gonna be a heavy producer, I bet. Same with that Yellow TSMB. I love it when a plant exceeds your expectations. The Johna might be a little "genetically challenged?" I have a Trinidad Seasoning that is behaving similarly. I'll keep it around while it is still alive. Who knows, your Johna might snap out of its funk and surprise you.

Sofia must love having a pepper that is her namesake. I don't recall reading about any Atomic Starfish this year; are you growing them again?

Love the shot of the Aji Lemondrop flowers. I think Baccatums have the coolest looking blossoms of all the pepper species. I was really surprised at how large some of my Baccatums have gotten so far. The two larges plants I have are an Aji Yellow and Malawi Peppadew, with the Aji Pineapple being fourth behind the Assam.

It looks like you are going to have lots of fresh powdered Paprika this year. My mistake was growing only one plant. Next year I will grow more. I can only imagine how aromatic Paprika from the garden will be compared to store-bought.

Happy to see that garlic popping up...Come on, Springtime!

 

[Stefan_W]

It's coming bro! The Iris andTulips are up here, and the Jonquils are starting to bloom. The Scallions I overwintered have grown tops about 15 cm long and I'm hearing peepers (Tree Frogs) at night.

We are only a couple of weeks behind you in terms of spring showing up, so I always watch your glog to see what is coming our way. I can't wait to get the show on the road!

Wow I'm happy for you both and all others up north as well \o/ Now get some pixie dust in that soil and it'll warm right up

It has been such a long and brutal spring I am happy for us too!

Wow Stefan, things are really coming along nicely! Ramon beat me to it, but I too love "Peach Beach!" Me thinks Sofia had a little Freudian slip thinking of summertime while she was making the tag in the cold of the Canadian winter.

That Giant Jal is, well, giant for it's current growing conditions. Gonna be a heavy producer, I bet. Same with that Yellow TSMB. I love it when a plant exceeds your expectations. The Johna might be a little "genetically challenged?" I have a Trinidad Seasoning that is behaving similarly. I'll keep it around while it is still alive. Who knows, your Johna might snap out of its funk and surprise you.

Sofia must love having a pepper that is her namesake. I don't recall reading about any Atomic Starfish this year; are you growing them again?

Love the shot of the Aji Lemondrop flowers. I think Baccatums have the coolest looking blossoms of all the pepper species. I was really surprised at how large some of my Baccatums have gotten so far. The two larges plants I have are an Aji Yellow and Malawi Peppadew, with the Aji Pineapple being fourth behind the Assam.

It looks like you are going to have lots of fresh powdered Paprika this year. My mistake was growing only one plant. Next year I will grow more. I can only imagine how aromatic Paprika from the garden will be compared to store-bought.

Happy to see that garlic popping up...Come on, Springtime!

I think the Jonah is going to turn around and get going again, but the question is whether this will happen in time for me to get a decent amount of pods off of it before our growing season is over. And yes, sofia absolutely loves her Sofia peppers

The Malawi Peppadew sounds interesting, where did you get the seeds for it? I found some pictures online, and they look a lot like atomic starfish except they are not flattened out. Speaking of which, I decided against growing the starfish this season. I am trying out a lot of different varieties, and I already know what atomic starfish are like so there is no point this year. Next year, when I have less space for peppers due to re-adding cukes and zukes, it will be in the running for a spot.

There is absolutely nothing like fresh dried and ground paprika. The house smells amazing afterwards (I wish I could say the same for a lot of the hots and supers), and it adds a wonderful flavour and aroma to anything you cook. The main trick to using it that I learned along the way is that it is much better to add it way later than you would add store bought paprika. So if it is a bunch of meat on the BBQ, sprinkling it on 2-3 mins before it is done does the trick. It doesn't matter as much for chilli and soups, where it just re-hydrates and gives everything an ultra-fresh taste.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[stickman]

There is absolutely nothing like fresh dried and ground paprika. The house smells amazing afterwards (I wish I could say the same for a lot of the hots and supers), and it adds a wonderful flavour and aroma to anything you cook. The main trick to using it that I learned along the way is that it is much better to add it way later than you would add store bought paprika. So if it is a bunch of meat on the BBQ, sprinkling it on 2-3 mins before it is done does the trick. It doesn't matter as much for chilli and soups, where it just re-hydrates and gives everything an ultra-fresh taste.

+1 to that! I'd only add that they seem to store the best if you dry and bag the pods, and grind what you need at the time rather than grinding them all at once when they're dried... oxidation isn't your friend, and grinding greatly speeds it up.

 

[GA Growhead]

+1 Rick. Grind as needed.

 

[Stefan_W]

Absolutely Rick! I grind all of the powders as I go.

 

[DocNrock]

The Malawi Peppadew sounds interesting, where did you get the seeds for it? I found some pictures online, and they look a lot like atomic starfish except they are not flattened out.

I got the seeds from Refining Fire Chiles (Duffy). I just went to his website to get the link for you and ran across a couple of interesting tidbits. He says the Peppadew is a trademarked pepper from Africa but sold his seed as a different but very similar pepper. He used to call it Malawi Pepadew on his site. Perhaps he got warned about using the name Peppadew as he now calls it Malawi Piquante.

http://store.myorganicseeds.com/Malawi-Piquante-Pepper-10-Seeds-P2821974.aspx

Also, he's selling seed for the Carolina Reaper. He says it is a cross between a Pakistani Naga and a Red Hab from St. Vincent's island. I guess the cat is out of the bag.

Regarding the powders, I grind them all at once just for convenience of use. Mine stay pretty fresh in a glass spice jar, but I put one of those little silica gel packs inside. I think keeping the humidity out of the jar greatly decreases the oxidation and helps with flavor retention.

 

[Stefan_W]

Refining Fire Chiles is a great site and resource. I love the detail in their explanations, and I often use their site when I want to know the origins of particular types of peppers.

A lot will be out of the bag with Carolina Reapers this growing season. I sold all of mine off with the warning that about 30% of them will not grow true. We'll see how close this projection is in the fall, when everyone is weighing in on what happened with their Reaper grow.

 

[WalkGood]

Thanks, now I’m craving powder


Edit:

Refining Fire Chiles is a great site and resource. I love the detail in their explanations, and I often use their site when I want to know the origins of particular types of peppers.

Agreed, I do like their site ...

A lot will be out of the bag with Carolina Reapers this growing season. I sold all of mine off with the warning that about 30% of them will not grow true. We'll see how close this projection is in the fall, when everyone is weighing in on what happened with their Reaper grow.

For a long time I felt the same untill I saw Laurens (Peri Peri) picures of the pods he grew. While not the same as the marketing pictures they used to sell it, it's close. Also he did a video taste test. I could see growing it, so I’m surprised you didn’t keep one just for the heck of it but I understand your reasons. That said, I prefer the Trinidad Scorpion and fortunately one of the ones I germinated popped so hopefully I’ll have those pods later this year and to me a few degrees of heat isn’t a big deal, lolz.

 

[Stefan_W]

Spring is definitely here. The temps are in the mid-teens, which makes it nice to be outside but still a touch cool to start hardening off the plants. Still, everything is looking great and I am guess-timating 2-3 weeks before my peppers are out in the garden for the summer.

The tabasco that I overwintered recognized that spring was here by the extra hours of daylight coming in through the window, and started to put out leaves.

The plants by the windows are doing ok, but they clearly need to be outside now. I mistimed a bit due to the late spring, and as a result some of the new plants are getting a bit scruffy along the top. You can see the ugly leaves on the tips of the tabasco plants on the left. Nice to see no snow outside though!

This is the Butch T. He was struggling a month or so ago so I moved him back under the grow lights, and he is really taking off. I suspect he will struggle once he goes out into the sun, but there isn't much I can do about that.

One of the two madame jeanettes that I kept. These are very cool looking plants, and they look quite different from the other peppers.

In the background of the last two pictures you will notice yellowed leaves. Those are from my paprikas. They ended up being the last ones that I up-potted, and as a result they got a bit root bound. The green will come back in the new growth that forms from here on in. This is a shot of one of the 6 paprikas I'm growing.

...and this is the root system.

It is hard to describe how well the aji lemondrop is doing. I have one medium sized green pod, about 5 or 6 tiny pods, and a couple of dozen flowers on it right now. I am hoping the pod is ripe enough to taste in three weeks, because I normally pull all of the pods when I transplant outside in order to allow the plant to focus on root development.

I ran out of room by the window a couple of transplants ago, so these guys ended up on the floor. The Jonah that was stunted is at the far end, and he is definitely responding to the natural light and putting out some decent growth.

A shot from last night. This shows the jalapeno, lemondrop, red moruga, yellow moruga, and goat pepper in the back. I managed to eat the second of the jalapenos from the giant jalapeno plant, and it actually tasted great! Very nice heat level, perfect for nachos. You can see the malformed leaves start up on the very top of the yellow moruga at the front left. Gotta get these bad boys outside!

Tabago treasure. Out of all of the sweet peppers, my three tabago treasures are looking the best. They still creep me out, because they are shaped exactly like a lot of superhots. The plant in the photo is in a 6 inch pot, and the photo tints yellow because it is under the grow lights.

That is just a sampling of the plants so far. The general gist is that they are all doing great, but really need to get outside sooner rather than later. This late spring is really throwing my timing for a loop, because I am normally half way through the hardening off process by now.

Thanks for reading and having a look!

 

[stickman]

Hi Stefan
Nice looking pics...
It's draggin' here too, but I see things beginning to green up outside, so it can't be much longer. Overnight temps. here are around 0 to 3 degrees C, as soon as they hit 5 degrees reliably I'm gonna plant outside under the low hoophouse.

 

[WalkGood]

Looking great Stefan, I hope you get the needed warmth sooner than later.

 

[DocNrock]

Come on, Spring!

I too am surprised you didn't keep a Reaper, but hey, you have favorites and limited space, so I get it. Everything you have is looking fine! Love the root system on that Paprika. It's going to take off when it gets outside! Everything will, it looks like.

I need to name my glog after yours (what was I thinking). Keeping up with as many plants as I have, the up-potting, etc., is a LOT of work. Hopefully it will be worth it in the end.

Come on, Spring! I just can't say it enough for my Northern bretheren.

 

[Stefan_W]

Hi Stefan
Nice looking pics...
It's draggin' here too, but I see things beginning to green up outside, so it can't be much longer. Overnight temps. here are around 0 to 3 degrees C, as soon as they hit 5 degrees reliably I'm gonna plant outside under the low hoophouse.

I always wait until the overnights are at consistently at 10 or above before putting the peppers out, but I am considering doing the tomatoes a bit earlier because they can handle the cold. I plan to let Sofia put our peas in this weekend, so long as it is isn't raining on us. Thanks for stopping in!

Looking great Stefan, I hope you get the needed warmth sooner than later.

Thanks Ramon! I hope so too. This extended winter and spring is really a bummer, especially with the plants ready and willing to head out to their full time homes. Thanks for stopping by!

Come on, Spring!

I too am surprised you didn't keep a Reaper, but hey, you have favorites and limited space, so I get it. Everything you have is looking fine! Love the root system on that Paprika. It's going to take off when it gets outside! Everything will, it looks like.

I need to name my glog after yours (what was I thinking). Keeping up with as many plants as I have, the up-potting, etc., is a LOT of work. Hopefully it will be worth it in the end.

Come on, Spring! I just can't say it enough for my Northern bretheren.

Yeah, you should definitely rename your glog! We all have many "what was I thinking" moments over the course of a growing season. My latest one happened when I was checking out your glog and wondering what possessed me to not grow the burgandy 7s I bought. Thanks for stopping by!

And now for something completely different. If anyone wants to check out a gansta version of this page, click:

http://www.gizoogle.net/index.php?search=http%3A%2F%2Fthehotpepper.com%2Ftopic%2F36682-stefan-ws-2013-what-was-i-thinking-glog%2Fpage__st__360&se=Gizoogle+Dis+Shiznit

English to gansta translations are always quite useful.

 

[DocNrock]

That's a riot, biatch!

 

[Stefan_W]

Fo shizzle!

 

[Sawyer]

Hahaha! That's forwarded to everyone I know (with a sense of humor).

 

[WalkGood]

ROFLMAO I had forgotten about that gansta site, yea that's funny stuff!

 

[Stefan_W]

Yup, it is definitely hilarious. A sense of humour is certainly required though, and I wouldn't share it with anyone who can get a bit prickly over stuff like that.

 

[PeriPeri]

lol that was funny man... Hey Stefan, them plants of yours are looking super fine. Glad to see things are warming up your side and good job on overwintering that Tabasco... going to be a major bonus. Good luck!