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

 

[stickman]

Chin up Stefan... they may not be pretty to look at right now, but in a month's time they'll be loaded with side branching and your plants will outproduce everybody's that didn't undergo such drastic modification!

 

[Devv]

Wow! bad luck, so sorry to see the hammering your grow took!
 
They are young and alive, I feel they will come back strong and produce well.

 

[stickman]

Hi Stefan, we haven't heard from you for a few weeks... just wanted to check in and see how things are with you. I hope they're OK and you've just been busy. Please give our best to your family too. Cheers!

 

[Stefan_W]

Hi Stefan, we haven't heard from you for a few weeks... just wanted to check in and see how things are with you. I hope they're OK and you've just been busy. Please give our best to your family too. Cheers!

 
Hey Rick, thanks for stopping in! I was out of town this past week, but really overall the pepper growing just wont be there this year. After things started to turn around for me the overnight lows dipped to 3 or 4 again, which set everything back one more time. Then over the past few nights the lows have been sitting at about 6 or 7, which is far too low for peppers. Some of my plants re-grew their leaves and will give me something in the end, but I am going to write off about 1/3 to 1/2 of my pepper plants shortly. Basically, if they are still sticks with a tiny leaf or two on them at the end of June I am better of pulling them and putting in kale or something else that grows fast enough for me to use. No point in having a green pod harvest. 
 
This has easily been the worst growing summer I can remember, including the time I spent in Winnipeg. I could have put out my pepper plants on June 1 and they would have ended up dropping their leaves due to the cold nights. These years happen, I guess.
 
I hope things are better in your neck of the woods. If I recall correctly you have a way better setup for protecting plants when weird weather strikes.

 

[stickman]

Aw man... that's the B-word for sure! Don't let me forget... when things start rolling down here I'll pull together a care package of hots and paprika-types for you. Cheers!

 

[Stefan_W]

Aw man... that's the B-word for sure! Don't let me forget... when things start rolling down here I'll pull together a care package of hots and paprika-types for you. Cheers!

 
Thanks, you're awesome!

 

[WalkGood]

Stefan, I see a lot of new growth in the close up pics (last pics previous page) ... you will get pods. I just lost more than half mi white Bhut to a storm, sure I was down the whole first day. Started a few clones, planted some in pots and noticed one pod on what was left of her ... wife, kids and house are fine so life goes on ... a lot of peeps had it really bad from the tornados, I thank god for what we have and life goes on. Spread a little pixie dust and thank the pepper Jah that you'll still have a fighting chance and IMHO you will be picking pods brethren, have a great weekend!!!

 

[DocNrock]

Dude, I hope things are coming along in the garden of Stefan...

 

[Stefan_W]

I'll try to post a few new pics later on. I found that the plants I started way early are doing a bit better, while the peppers that I started the latest (the sweet peppers) have to be replaced. I figure it has to do with maturity and stem thickness. 

 

[Stefan_W]

It has been a while. Although many things in my garden are doing quite well, pepper growing has been depressing. The overnight temps in May kept dipping close to the freezing point, which led to the plants shedding their leaves. Then there was the hail. The another near freezing period out of nowhere. The latest was this past week, where the temps dipped below the safety point for peppers 3 nights in a row. As a result my peppers are at least one month behind in terms of growing temperatures, and they have to grow back their leaves before kicking into gear. Not good.
 
This first shot is of sweet peppers, the california wonders. The sweet peppers have done poorly so far because they were the last ones planted, and as a result they did not have the chance to thicken up like many of the others.

 
Peach scotch bonnet on left, madame jeanette on the right. These two have been growing back leaves slowly, but each of these plants was far bigger and better looking in early May when they went outside. They will definitely make it though, and I am guessing I'll get pods to ripen from these plants.

 
The overwintered bhut. My overwinters are doing great in general, although they are a bit behind due to the cold weather. At least I did not have to worry about leaf drop with them.

 
The aji lemondrop is doing spectacularly well considering it was just a stick three weeks ago.

 
This is the overwintered tabasco, which is also doing great. 

 
Now for the bad stuff. This jonah was starting to come back prior to the last cold snap, and had grown a couple of leaves. He went back down to being a 2 inch long stick with no leaves, so I was forced to pull him today. I really wanted to have a taste, but there is simply no way he will grow enough to put out a pod in time to have it ripen before the fall.

 
A couple of my morugas are also in rough shape. I'm planning on giving plants that look like this until the end of June before making a final decision on whether to pull them. 

 
The butch-t in the back left is doing really well. The two tabascos up front are making a turnaround, but considering how long tabasco pods take to ripen it is touch and go whether anything comes from these plants. The other plant in the back row is one of the two yellow 7 gigantics, which are not looking particularly gigantic at the moment.

 
The plant on the back right is the giant jalapeno Sofia and I planted on Jan 1st. Beind huge saved this plant, and it is easily doing the best out of all of the pepper plants. It actually started to pod up heavily, but dropped them all when the temps dipped a few days ago. It is already podding up again.

 
Some evidence of how things are going well in other parts of my garden. I made some rhubarb pie with Sofia this afternoon, and it was excellent. 

 
Thanks for taking a look! I hope to catch with other glogs over the course of this week. 

 

[Pr0digal_son]

That Tabasco is going to put out 1000's of pods! You're are going to hate that thing around September.

 

[roper2008]

Sorry to hear that Stefan.  When I was strolling through your pics I was hoping your jalapeno and tabasco
made it.  You need them for your nachos and hot sauce....You never know what's going to happen year
to year.  I did not have the best pepper season last year, too much rain early on made for leaf diseases.
I hope all that chilly weather is behind you now.
 
I forgot to add.  That pie sounds delish!! A lot of men can cook on this forum.  Very cool.

 

[Stefan_W]

That Tabasco is going to put out 1000's of pods! You're are going to hate that thing around September.

 
I sure hope it does! I ended up with about 250 usable pods on this plant last year, and it was not close to enough. Thanks for the encouraging words!

Sorry to hear that Stefan.  When I was strolling through your pics I was hoping your jalapeno and tabasco
made it.  You need them for your nachos and hot sauce....You never know what's going to happen year
to year.  I did not have the best pepper season last year, too much rain early on made for leaf diseases.
I hope all that chilly weather is behind you now.
 
I forgot to add.  That pie sounds delish!! A lot of men can cook on this forum.  Very cool.

 
 
You should see the steak dinner I made tonight! Organic potatoes cooked in rosemary from the garden along with lemon, salt and pepper, fresh BBQed garlic bread, mushrooms and garden fresh chives, and spinach from the garden with farmer's market baby carrots and cukes. It was really amazing.
 
The overnight lows just aren't picking up much, so I don't expect huge yield's this year from the peppers. At least the tomatoes, garlic, peas, berries, spinach, and carrots are all going strong. I don't like missing out on trying out pepper varieties, but I'll survive so long as all my other crops are doing well. Thanks for stopping in!

 

[Devv]

Sorry to hear you're having such difficulties this year, it's certainly been a weird weather this year for most everyone.
 
Hopefully you'll be surprised and get some production.

 

[Stefan_W]

Sorry to hear you're having such difficulties this year, it's certainly been a weird weather this year for most everyone.
 
Hopefully you'll be surprised and get some production.

 
Thank you! All I really want at this point is a couple off of each plant so I can taste them. That way I know whether to grow a particular variety again next year when things are more normal. 

 

[WalkGood]

Don’t loose da faith brethren; I know you’ll have loads of pods … BTW great pictures! Hope you have a killa hump day ^_^

 

[Stefan_W]

Don’t loose da faith brethren; I know you’ll have loads of pods … BTW great pictures! Hope you have a killa hump day ^_^

 
I've got a four day weekend coming up, and the weather is looking better (although still cold at night). Nothing I'm too excited about though, I'm having some dental work done tomorrow and I figured I would just take Friday off too while I'm at it. Thanks for popping in!

 

[Devv]

 
Thank you! All I really want at this point is a couple off of each plant so I can taste them. That way I know whether to grow a particular variety again next year when things are more normal. 

 I hear ya!
 
I can't imagine the obstacles you have up there, so far north. I was raised in NY, but have only grown in Tejas.
 
As far as I'm concerned ANYTHING you succeed in growing is a major feat!

 

[GA Growhead]

I'm pulling for you Stefan!
Hope the Dentist doesn't hurt you to bad!

 

[Stefan_W]

Time for a mini update. The overnight temps are still frustratingly low, and are about what I would expect in late April. But at least the daytime temps are climbing, which is helping a lot. I ended up pulling more plants that just will not have the time to produce anything and replacing them with odds and ends from the garden centres. The plus side of buying them at this time of year is that you can often get them at a buck or two per plant. The downside is little or no selection.
 
This is my overwintered tabasco, finally greening up. Still no pods though.

 
The ghost pepper plant is also looking pretty good, but also no pods.

 
All of the plants in pots along the fence made it. My guess is they get a bit of radiant heat from the interlock overnight, which gives them a bit of an edge over the ones I put in the garden area.

 
The Butch T is actually looking good comparatively speaking, and I expect him to start podding up very soon.

 
The giant jalapeno that shrugged off the cold snaps and kept its leaves is really starting to pod up. I actually have never seen this many pods on a jalapeno plant before.

 
This is just a quickie update. Have a great father's day tomorrow everyone!