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

 

[meatfreak]

 
She really loves her maters   She is actually a bit frustrated at the amount of hots and superhot peppers this year because she can't try them all, so I am re-working my balance for next season. In the end though, this look, and the fact that she goes out with me every day for mini-harvests, is what it is all about. She planted every seed for every tomato and pepper plant, and she takes great pride in the fact that they are all kicking butt right now. 

Well tell her she did one hell of a job then! That's one impressive tomato My daughter is also a big fan of maters, she even eats them more then we both do. Although she's still very young, we're trying to get her involved in gardening as well. It's what you said,
 

 
I see it as values, and a way of approaching life. There is more to what we are than just hopping in a car, going to the supermarket, and picking out crappy genetically modified stuff. I love the Earthiness of growing things, and getting in touch with our nature.
 
I definitely agree with you 100%. 

 

[Devv]

+1 there!
 
Get the kids involved and teach them...

 

[Stefan_W]

 

Well tell her she did one hell of a job then! That's one impressive tomato My daughter is also a big fan of maters, she even eats them more then we both do. Although she's still very young, we're trying to get her involved in gardening as well. It's what you said,
 
 


 

 
I'm glad to hear you are teaching your daughter all about gardening. Gotta keep raising the kids well

+1 there!
 
Get the kids involved and teach them...

 +2
I had some jalapenos that I needed to use up, so I decided to make deconstructed poppers. By deconstructed I mean that the jalapenos are added into the fill to make a spread.
 
One dozen ripe jalapenos, 250 mL of cream cheese, a cup of assorted type of shredded cheese, and the spicing I usually use for poppers.

 
The jalapenos were fully ripe, and were just starting to go soft. This is pretty much the tastiest stage. 

 
I diced the jalapenos and added them to what is normally the filling for my poppers.

 
Everything was mashed together into this wonderful spread. 

 
I absolutely loved it. My wife did as well, and although she complained it was too hot for her she could not stop eating. I think they would work best as a spread on toasted bagels, but I did not have one handy to test this theory out. First thing tomorrow I'm going to hit the donut shop and get one so I can test my theory out. 
 
This one is a keeper. 

 

[stickman]

Nice Stefan! You know it's good when they say it's too hot but they can't stop eating it!

 

[Stefan_W]

Nice Stefan! You know it's good when they say it's too hot but they can't stop eating it!

 
Exactly, that is the biggest compliment you can get. 

 

[GnomeGrown]

 
Holy poppers!
 

 

[WalkGood]

Stefan, I love the “deconstructed popper” idea, great job mon! It sounds awesome and I’m sure to make some very soon as I have some Jals ripening red now but the pods are too small this time of year to use for real poppers and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, thanks for posting.
 
 

 

[Stefan_W]

 
Holy poppers!
 

 
Thank you! They were definitely tasty and hot enough for me, 

Stefan, I love the “deconstructed popper” idea, great job mon! It sounds awesome and I’m sure to make some very soon as I have some Jals ripening red now but the pods are too small this time of year to use for real poppers and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, thanks for posting.
 
 

 
Awesome! I'm sure you'll love them, especially as a spread. 

 

[Stefan_W]

The overnight temps are going to plunge later this week, so I may be facing the end of the growing season. I am planning to pull a bunch of pods tomorrow and start getting set for the fall tear down.
 
I decided to use the peach bhuts to make a sauce today. The peach bhut was very hot, almost the same as red bhuts. I found the taste very slightly better, with a bit of a fruity undertone to it. It gave me this weird reaction though, because I started to sneeze like crazy after crewing it. Never had that happen before.

 
So the peach bhuts were cooked with spiced rum, apple cider vinegar, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and mango.

 
The end result was a lot like jam, except very hot. 

 
The consensus among people trying it this evening after it was ready was that this was my second best tasting sauce ever, because a mango sauce I made last year. I personally rank it ahead of last year's mango sauce but behind my tabasco sauce last year. In any event it was very good, very sweet, very addictive (I ate a big bowl by myself after it was done), and pretty darned hot. Of course the heat can be ramped up even higher with more pods in it, but I have to keep it sane so that everyone can handle at least trying a small sample. 
 
Thanks for stopping by!
 

 

[WalkGood]

Looking great Stefan, does look like jam as you say ... I've done a lot with mango but not a cross with blueberries, strawberries, blackberries ... da rum does seem like a very nice touch too, great job mon
 
 
 

 

[stickman]

Nice job Stefan... I make a spiced Peach jam this time of year with Serranos from my garden because  I only want a little zip.

 

[Stefan_W]

Looking great Stefan, does look like jam as you say ... I've done a lot with mango but not a cross with blueberries, strawberries, blackberries ... da rum does seem like a very nice touch too, great job mon
 
 
 

 
To be honest, the mango kind of got lost in all of the strong berry flavours. I decided to toss the berries in because they were nearing the end of their shelf life, and the took over the place. But it was still a very very tasty sauce!

Nice job Stefan... I make a spiced Peach jam this time of year with Serranos from my garden because  I only want a little zip.

 
Not everything has to be superhot to be good. A little zip is a great thing
I am at home sick today, and I wont be able to visit everyone else's glog until I rest up a bit more. Even though I am sick I was forced to go out and harvest as many peppers as I could, because the overnight low is dipping all the way down to 6 tonight. At this point the plants are likely to drop all of their leaves, and I was concerned about pods dropping everywhere. If they make it through tonight and tomorrow the good news is that it will warm back up to normal for the weekend.
 
I have individual shots, but it would take too long to post (this where the feeling sick part matters) so I am sticking with group pics.
 
These are the pods picked a few minutes ago.

 
The aji lemondrops are in the middle. I picked 53 today, which means that I have pulled a total of 209 from this single plant so far. Considering the brutal growing season I would say it is a big producer. At 7 O'Clock are some jalapenos, working clockwise to the far left of the the two orange pods are madame jeanettes, just above the MJs are my first 3 mako akokosrades (yellow with a bit of gnarl), above those are some peach ghosts, above them are a pile of red and yellow 7 pods, at 2 O'Clock are a pile of peack scotch bonnet longs, at 4 O'Clock right beside the lemondrops are my first 50 or so tabascos, and to the right of those are a pile of not tobago treasures and tobago treasures. At 5-6 O'Clock at the very bottom of the picture are my first three Jonahs (picked slightly early to save them from dropping). Framing the entire deal is 156 ghost peppers from the overwintered plant, which makes over 160 pulled so far. There  are at least 100 pods left on it that are still at various stages of ripening. Overwintering rulz!

 
About 10-12 ghost pods were in the 3 inch plus range. I could not fit them all into the same shot without losing perspective of the size, so I only used 8 of them in this shot. 

 
That is the harvest so far. Loads of sweet peppers and tomatoes coming later on tonight, which I will not post here. Going to collapse on the bed now. Thanks for having a look! 

 

[stickman]

Love the pics but not the "mung"... get well soon!

 

[PIC 1]

Stefan, the harvest shots and the food prep is over the top........way cool.
Man you sure make the tastiest looking dips.
The jam looks interesting...........spiced rum and fruit..........I'll have a glass of that with some jam, cream cheese and crackers on the side....

 

[Stefan_W]

Love the pics but not the "mung"... get well soon!

 
Thanks man. I felt brutal all day, but I think I may be shaking it now. I took tomorrow off for Sofia's first day of school, and I am not missing that for anything. 

Stefan, the harvest shots and the food prep is over the top........way cool.
Man you sure make the tastiest looking dips.
The jam looks interesting...........spiced rum and fruit..........I'll have a glass of that with some jam, cream cheese and crackers on the side....

 
Thank you very much
 
The "jam"-type stuff that I made is pretty awesome. Once it cooled off it got even better, which is another jam-like quality that it has. I am wishing now that I canned it, because I would use that on my toast or bagels all winter long if I could.
 
I do love my dips. We watch TV shows every night after my daughter goes to bed, and we are all suckers for snack food. Dips are handy, because I can just serve some plain chips with them and away we go. I've experimented most with dips and wings. 

 

[Stefan_W]

I am going to start a running list of what types of peppers I would consider growing again, and what types I would overwinter. As I add new items over the next few days I will put them in bold so that the running list stays intact.
 
Bahamian Goat Pepper:  Will not grow again. The taste is actually pretty good, but to my taste buds it is almost the same as the tobago treasures. The treasures produced 20 large pods before the first medium sized goat pepper ripened, which means that treasures are a far better option in a small garden space.
 
Butch-T Trinidad Scorpion: Will grow again. Call me crazy, but I actually really enjoy the taste of these pods straight up. The high heat level means it takes less pods to make up a batch of sauce or, alternatively, it gives me the option to raise the heat level of a sauce into the stratosphere. Plus the pods look really cool, which I love. This is a keeper. However, I am not sure it will make it into the top 3-4 superhots, and I only plan on growing that many next year. 
 
Peach Scotch Bonnets Long: Will not grow again.  My body does not react well to scotch bonnets. I have tried hotter peppers and survived, but for some reason bonnet produce weird reactions in me (this type actually made me sneeze non stop for 2 or 3 minutes). I decided to try the peach variety for two reasons. First, the bonnets I had before were less than fresh and having fresh pods makes a huge difference with respect to flavour. Second, peach varieties are usually a bit more mellow and tasty. Well, the pods from this plant tasted exactly the same as any other bonnet to me, and did all the same nasty stuff. Having said all of this, the plant is a big producer, and if you like scotch bonnets to begin with this is definitely the plant for you.
 
Peach Bhut Jolokia: Will not grow again. I want to start off by saying that the taste of peach bhuts is slightly better than the reds I have been growing. However, I have pulled 3 or 4 peach bhuts so far, with another dozen or so coming, while I pulled over 150 pods off of my red bhut. That difference in production overrides the small taste difference because of my limited growing space. 
 
Madame Jeanette: Will grow again. Easily one of my favourite new plants this year. The pods are a mix, with some looking like orange habs while others have the truer shape, which is like an elongated mini bell. I have had 6 different people taste them, and all raved and asked me to make some sauce for them. Can't say enough good things about this variety.
 
I will end here for now and continue the list later on. 

 

[stickman]

Thanks for your impressions on some of the peppers you've grown this year Stefan... I'm also a Northerner with a short growing season and a small garden space, so this is exactly the kind of feedback I'd be looking for. I'll return the favor shortly, when my season's over... too busy dealing with the harvest now...

 

[Devv]

Sorry you're not feeling well, but I loved the dip and the jam-sauce!
 
You're very creative with your cooking and it's different than what we do here, which makes it a huge bonus. I love to try new things!
 
Get well soon!

 

[Stefan_W]

Thanks for your impressions on some of the peppers you've grown this year Stefan... I'm also a Northerner with a short growing season and a small garden space, so this is exactly the kind of feedback I'd be looking for. I'll return the favor shortly, when my season's over... too busy dealing with the harvest now...

 
I hope it helps. We can compare notes and help each other out, and hopefully each of us can make good selections heading into next year's grow.

Sorry you're not feeling well, but I loved the dip and the jam-sauce!
 
You're very creative with your cooking and it's different than what we do here, which makes it a huge bonus. I love to try new things!
 
Get well soon!

 
I do love to experiment in the kitchen. I use recipes once in a while, but I find that things almost always taste better when I wing it.
 
Thanks for the well wishes, I am feeling better today and I hope I will be close to healthy by tomorrow. I've pretty much resigned to the fact that my work week is over, and I'll start fresh on Monday. 

 

[Stefan_W]

I'm going to add a couple of reviews to my running list. The new items will be in bold. I will continue adding to this list as I try new pods that have recently ripened. 
 
Leutschauer Paprika: Will grow again. I love paprika peppers, but I have had some issues with the thick fleshed varieties with bugs making the pods into their homes. This is the thinnest walled paprika I have ever tried growing, and it is a gem. The first few pods were stunted, probably from late frosting and cold, but after that it was nothing but nice sized cone shaped pods. The Leutshauer is also the hottest paprika variety I have ever grow, with the heat level being around jalapeno level. That is not a huge amount of heat, but it is enough to put a little bit of zing into any paprika powder you make from it. Speaking of making powder, the pods dehydrated far better and faster than other paprikas because of the thin walls. Definitely a great plant, and one I will keep growing for years to come.
 
Aji Lemondrop: Will grow again. I was on the fence about growing this variety because everything I read said that it is a very long season plant. I was even warned by the seller that I may not get any ripe pods due to our short growing season. Things got off to a bad start with late frosts that set my peppers back 5 weeks, and I expected the worst. I could not have been more wrong. As soon as the summer heat kicked in, the plant went into overdrive and set hundreds of pods. I have been picking them consistently for weeks now, and I have pulled over 200 off of one plant with at least another hundred pods still there waiting to ripen. Having loads of pods is well and good, but it does not matter much if the pods do not taste all that great. I have to be honest and say that I was not sure exactly how to use them at first. I discovered that they work great as a pick-me-up in the banana peppers I make and can each season, and the pepper jelly I made with the lemondrops is the single best pepper jelly I have ever tasted in my life. This is definitely on my must grow list. I was originally planning to overwinter the plan to kick start it next season, but I have now decided against it. I will end up with at least 300 pods this year from the one plant, and if I can do that in one season why bother taking up one of my limited number of overwinter spots with it? 
 
Bahamian Goat Pepper:  Will not grow again. The taste is actually pretty good, but to my taste buds it is almost the same as the tobago treasures. The treasures produced 20 large pods before the first medium sized goat pepper ripened, which means that treasures are a far better option in a small garden space.
 
Butch-T Trinidad Scorpion: Will grow again. Call me crazy, but I actually really enjoy the taste of these pods straight up. The high heat level means it takes less pods to make up a batch of sauce or, alternatively, it gives me the option to raise the heat level of a sauce into the stratosphere. Plus the pods look really cool, which I love. This is a keeper. However, I am not sure it will make it into the top 3-4 superhots, and I only plan on growing that many next year. 
 
Peach Scotch Bonnets Long: Will not grow again.  My body does not react well to scotch bonnets. I have tried hotter peppers and survived, but for some reason bonnet produce weird reactions in me (this type actually made me sneeze non stop for 2 or 3 minutes). I decided to try the peach variety for two reasons. First, the bonnets I had before were less than fresh and having fresh pods makes a huge difference with respect to flavour. Second, peach varieties are usually a bit more mellow and tasty. Well, the pods from this plant tasted exactly the same as any other bonnet to me, and did all the same nasty stuff. Having said all of this, the plant is a big producer, and if you like scotch bonnets to begin with this is definitely the plant for you.
 
Peach Bhut Jolokia: Will not grow again. I want to start off by saying that the taste of peach bhuts is slightly better than the reds I have been growing. However, I have pulled 3 or 4 peach bhuts so far, with another dozen or so coming, while I pulled over 150 pods off of my red bhut. That difference in production overrides the small taste difference because of my limited growing space. 
 
Madame Jeanette: Will grow again. Easily one of my favourite new plants this year. The pods are a mix, with some looking like orange habs while others have the truer shape, which is like an elongated mini bell. I have had 6 different people taste them, and all raved and asked me to make some sauce for them. Can't say enough good things about this variety.