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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.
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My daughter personally doing the transplant.
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Her aim is better than mine, and so it turned out perfectly.
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Next up was taking out the lemondrop seeds from peppermania.
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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.
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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.
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The heating pad works extremely well, and once the cells are covered the top clouds up in no time.
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A happy early jalapeno seedling in his new home. I thought I heard "feeeeeed meeeeee" coming from that direction, but I'm not sure.
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That's it for today, folks! Welcome to my new glog :welcome:
 
Devv said:
I'm glad the wife bought you a PH meter, and although it may be a hint (probably) it will go a long way towards helping you make long term sauces.
 
I've been looking for one locally, none to be found. I would appreciate the make and model number so I have a baseline to search on.
 
We made it past the hump...LOL even the students who do the announcements asked "do you know what day it is", seems that video had a huge impact!
 
Enjoy the rest of the week!
 
It is the Hanna HI 98127 or 98128 (I have the instruction manual handy, but the instrument is put away at the moment). Just so you know, some people on boards like this trash the Hanna, often because they feel much cheaper units will do the same thing. My requirement was that it is waterproof and actually designed for food, which comes from my days working in the food industry. A lot of the cheaper testers are not made for food, and can give inaccurate results. When my wife researched the different testers she was impressed with this one because it is also made to take temperature into account in the readings. This prevents different readings between very hot (when you bottle) and cool (when it is stored on a shelf), which is extremely handy.
 
Good luck in your search! 
 
Stefan_W said:
 
I have tried most of the methods for ripening pods once the frost hits. I have found that hanging the plant, or bringing the pods inside and cover with newspaper, etc, all work best if the pods are slightly ripened already. If they are really green they will still ripen, but they will never taste right. Also, I found the heat does not build in the same way as it does on live plants that are still in the ground. There are all sorts of different opinions on that topic on these boards, but I will always follow what my taste buds tell me :)
 
I hope you have a great week too!
Arrr! You are spot on, I found that out the hard way :/ Hope you had an awesome pirates day mon!
 
stickman said:
Excellent points Stefan, and not ones I'd have thought of on my own... Thanks for sharing!
 
No problem! I'll keep you updated as I experiment with the PH tester, which should be starting soon.
WalkGood said:
Arrr! You are spot on, I found that out the hard way :/ Hope you had an awesome pirates day mon!
 
Arrrrrr!
patrick said:
It looks like you're enjoying your grow this year Stefan. That is wonderful.
 
It turned out far better than I could have hoped for. It was strange with all of the late frost and biblical conditions, but I ended up with loads of pods in the end so i can't complain. Thanks for stopping in :)
 
Stefan_W said:
 
It is the Hanna HI 98127 or 98128 (I have the instruction manual handy, but the instrument is put away at the moment). Just so you know, some people on boards like this trash the Hanna, often because they feel much cheaper units will do the same thing. My requirement was that it is waterproof and actually designed for food, which comes from my days working in the food industry. A lot of the cheaper testers are not made for food, and can give inaccurate results. When my wife researched the different testers she was impressed with this one because it is also made to take temperature into account in the readings. This prevents different readings between very hot (when you bottle) and cool (when it is stored on a shelf), which is extremely handy.
 
Good luck in your search! 
Thanks Stefan!
 
They maybe pricey but if it's a quality device it's worth the extra. I hate the cheap junk that's everywhere, it just doesn't last.
 
Have a great weekend and I look forward to your reports on the product.
 
Devv said:
Thanks Stefan!
 
They maybe pricey but if it's a quality device it's worth the extra. I hate the cheap junk that's everywhere, it just doesn't last.
 
Have a great weekend and I look forward to your reports on the product.
 
Yeah, I completely agree. When you buy cheap stuff you really dont save any money over the long term because you end up paying for the same thing again and again. I tend to go for quality in exchange for having less things. 
 
Have a great weekend too! I hope you feel better soon.
 
Devv said:
The like is because it's back up and running..Hard drive or the OS?
 
Neither is fun...
 
The OS completely crapped out, and the drive ended up being corrupted in the process. I was running dual 40 Gig solid states that were built for speed, and this is the first issue I had with them. I normally back stuff up, but of course over time a person gets lazy and I lost a couple of important files that are irreplaceable. The new OS now will not recognize one of my old partitions, and I have almost a TB worth of data that is in limbo at the moment. On the plus side, as I am reinstalling and fiddling with the new setup many things are working far better than they did before.
 
Yeah, no fun at all. It is eating up a lot of my free time.
 
I sent ya a PM.
 
And the solid state drives rock! I have a work laptop with one really saweet! I've since ordered the admins 3rd gen I7's with 6 gigs ram and solid state drives. Can't get any faster unless we go server class.
 
Devv said:
… And the solid state drives rock! I have a work laptop with one really saweet! I've since ordered the admins 3rd gen I7's with 6 gigs ram and solid state drives. Can't get any faster unless we go server class.
So true, you can get them a little cheaper if you go run dual but you might loose some speed. My i7 is running 8 ram, 32 solid state and 500 hd. The same set up with full solid state drives was like another grand and I couldn’t justify for a fun lappy and work runs all apples which aren’t my cup of tea but they run fine for their needs.
 
The solid state drives are pricey, but fun! And I agree, the Apple can do the work, especially since they went with the BSD core. The only complaint is that they don't play well in a Micro$oft environment, which we are forced to use because of the software requirements. Cost is a big factor too!
 
Devv said:
The solid state drives are pricey, but fun! And I agree, the Apple can do the work, especially since they went with the BSD core. The only complaint is that they don't play well in a Micro$oft environment, which we are forced to use because of the software requirements. Cost is a big factor too!
Outside of work I never touch apples, only eat dem ... I'm all about open source which I fear windows will be moving away from over time, Ubunto FTW ^_^
 
Hah! I use Centos at work wherever I can. Hooked up with Redhat in 97, after NT 4.0 crashed daily...cool real cool Linux is the sheet! Been running it for close to 10 years on "my" (now old) PC.
 
Linux is outstanding if you are into computers. Apple is outstanding if you are afraid of computers. Windows is outstanding if you enjoy engaging in hand-to-hand combat with your computer on a regular basis.
 
Stefan_W said:
Linux is outstanding if you are into computers. Apple is outstanding if you are afraid of computers. Windows is outstanding if you enjoy engaging in hand-to-hand combat with your computer on a regular basis.
LOL well said my friend! I couldn't have said it any better!
 
I finally got my computer up and running again the way I like it, plus I have been spending my evenings tearing down the garden and getting ready for winter.
 
The only pepper plant left in the ground is the yellow brain strain. I was going to pull him, but he exploded late in the season and I wanted to see if I would get any ripened pods (this was the plant that was near dead and had two tiny leaves on it in early June). As it turns out, patience paid off and I have some pods for tasting.
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The plant is really strange. We are at or below freezing every night now, and have been for the better part of two weeks, but it keeps going and kicking out pods. No real leaf loss to speak of either. It just chugs away despite the cold. I have about a dozen more pods on the plant that are near ripening (shot of one o f them below). It is actually the largest pepper plant I have ever grow, which is shocking considering it was about 2 inches tall and badly damaged a short while ago.
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Just to change the topic for a moment, I have been drying out seeds over the past week and a half and I will be sending out seeds to those I promised them to in the next couple of weeks.
 
I have also been giving a lot of thought as to whether I'll have a glog next season. I'm moving almost completely away from the superhots and more toward medium and sweet peppers so that everyone in the family can enjoy them. In the end I will be much more happy incorporating my grow into meals for everyone than having freezer bags of supers stored away for my own personal use. I'm happy with this decision, but I'm not sure whether the grow will be interesting to people on a hot pepper forum. If I do decide not to run a glog I'll be sure to poke my head in and check out how my friend's grows are doing throughout the summer.
 
Canadian Thanksgiving is this weekend, so happy Thanksgiving everyone! 
 
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