Stickman's 2013 Glog - Time To Pull The Plug on 2013

I'm pulling things together to get ready for my next growing season. I bought NuMex variety seeds from Sandia Seed company in New Mexico, Hot Paper Lantern Habaneros and Antohi Romanians from Johnny's Select Seeds in Maine and Korean varieties from Evergreen Seeds in California. Due to the unbelievable generosity of a number of THP members I've also gotten seeds to a wide variety of chiles from around the world. Special thanks to BootsieB, stc3248, romy6, PaulG, SoCalChilehead, joynershotpeppers, highalt, cmpman1974, smokemaster, mygrassisblue, Mister No, chewi, KingDenniz, orrozconleche and most recently and spectacularly, Habanerohead with a great selection of superhots and peppers from Hungary!

There are eleven varieties of Hungarian peppers in here, mostly the early, thick-fleshed, sweet ones that range from white through yellow to purple and red.., plus Aji Lemon Drop, BJ Indian Carbon, Naga Morich, Bishop's Crown and TS CARDI Yellow! Now I just have to go through my seed bank and match the space available to what I want to grow. Thanks Balázs!

 

[poypoyking]

Looking better and better stickman. I can't wait to get my peppers in the ground and growing. My patience is about done

 

[landracer]

Looking awesome! I'm not in the dirt, yet, for the most part - got hung up doing some other stuff this weekend :/
 
It's been a little windy, here, but we have a lot of trees and it's somewhat hilly, so that helps. My house blocks the prevailing wind to the garden, so that should help.
 
Any idea if green tomatillos will pollinate purple ones? I only have 2 purples, and one might not make it...

Hi Sean - Greens will pollinate purples. Plus your purple can self.

 

[HillBilly Jeff]

Looking food SM

 

[stickman]

looking great Rick ... time will start flying by now and you will be soon munching the first pods of the season.  Well done ... dedication paying off 

Thanks Trippa, I'm definitely looking forward to it! Mmmm fresh salsa!

Rick, this is just astounding! That hoop-house, Agrabon, black mulch, excellent soil, has surely worked! Love the Maya Red . . . heck love all of them but I have heart-soft-spot for Caribbean habs--tomatillos looking great--Douglah  . . . heck: everything. I haven't caged anything yet, or staked anything yet, got rains, don wanna compact soil but if sun comes out today, toma's, toms, peppers, EVERYTHING gets wood'n wire. Thank you: inspiring!

Hi Annie, thanks for stopping by. Not compacting the soil is a major goal of mine too... Hope things dry out a little for ya, but not too much!

Hi Sean - Greens will pollinate purples. Plus your purple can self.

Hi Sean and Stephen, +1 on this... Tomatillos don't care where the pollen comes from for them to make fruit, but if you want the offspring to grow true you need to sequester the flowers to avoid cross-pollination. Can't wait to see pics of your garden

Looking better and better stickman. I can't wait to get my peppers in the ground and growing. My patience is about done

Thanks Ben, I hear ya about getting antsy... Hope the weather up your way isn't too extreme... My kid sister up in Eau Claire, WI was telling me about the tornado warnings there a couple of days ago. Good luck with your plant-out when you can make it happen...

Looking food SM

Thanks BD... Y'alls plant-out shows mine up for being small change. Respect man...

Spent some time after work rigging up drip irrigation for the plants in my backyard.
 
Hose timer

 
From the hose timer it goes around the corner to the pots lined up along the south side of the house

 
Closeup of the dripper setup in one pot

 
From there it runs along the small herb  bed where I installed a circular sprayer

 
And from there it runs along the big herb bed where I have the pepper overflow.

 
 

 

[DocNrock]

Glad to see you have pods setting, Rick!  That must feel awesome.  Love the dripper system.  I need to rig something like that up here. 

 

[SeanW]

Good to know, I'm likely only going to end up with one purple. The greens sprouted like mad, the purples were stubborn for some reason. I have to separate the greens out, I have a bunch of them in 2 solo cups, but I should be fine. I'm looking forward to seeing my garden, myself

 

[highalt]

Looking better and better stickman. I can't wait to get my peppers in the ground and growing. My patience is about done

 
+ 1
 
 
 
" from there it runs along the big herb bed where I have the pepper overflow."
 
Don't see any herbs, did you mean to say, "The bed designed for herbs that was taken over by my pepper obsession"?  

 

[PaulG]

Hey, Rick!  Your plant out looks great, buddy, lots of flowers and pods!  
Looks like your hoop house and mulch really did the trick for you.  I'm
glad to see someone is getting decent weather - we've relapsed back
into March-like weather here - high today 48!  Fortunately the nights are
not down into the 30's. Yet.  Last june we had three nights in a row 35,36,37,
so I'm gun-shy about planting out.
 
I like your watering can idea, how's that workin' for ya?  I'll be looking forward
to your appraisal of the Air-Pots vs. Root Pouches at the end of the season.
Keep up the good work, buddy - you make ChiliNation proud!

 

[stc3248]

Ahhh....the pepper overflow! Love it! Good job on the drip system as well...only way to go!

 

[Devv]

Rick that drip system should work great off the house supply, glad to see you got it setup.
 
Keep on keepin' on!

 

[stickman]

Glad to see you have pods setting, Rick!  That must feel awesome.  Love the dripper system.  I need to rig something like that up here. 

Thanks for the good vibes Doc! I hope the drip system removes one of the worries of growing peppers in pots, and it does it while conserving water use... win/win!   It was surprisingly affordable too.

Good to know, I'm likely only going to end up with one purple. The greens sprouted like mad, the purples were stubborn for some reason. I have to separate the greens out, I have a bunch of them in 2 solo cups, but I should be fine. I'm looking forward to seeing my garden, myself

Hi Sean
   The tomatillos are pretty quick growers... Mine already have a stem almost as thick as my thumb. I'm glad I have the cages set up over them before they get any bigger.
   I hope the weather this weekend isn't too extreme... We just had torrential rain and pea-sized hail pass through here about 5:30pm, and the radio was squawking about tornado warnings. The worst of it passed just south of us, and I didn't hear of any high winds, so it looks like we dodged the bullet.

 
+ 1
 
 
 
" from there it runs along the big herb bed where I have the pepper overflow."
 
Don't see any herbs, did you mean to say, "The bed designed for herbs that was taken over by my pepper obsession"?  

Good one Bonnie! If I can't take it I shouldn't dish it out, eh?   Actually, the 4x4 foot herb bed is still there... I just added 4x6 feet onto it for the overflow peppers, so yep, the pepper obsession more than doubled the herb bed to accomodate the extras. I've got Mache, Genovese Basil, Epazote and Cilantro in that herb bed and Dill, Summer Savory, Sage, Italian Flat-Leaf Parsley, Mint and a potted Rosemary in the other.

 

[Peptacular]

Nice setup, I'm jelly!

 

[stickman]

Hey, Rick!  Your plant out looks great, buddy, lots of flowers and pods!  
Looks like your hoop house and mulch really did the trick for you.  I'm
glad to see someone is getting decent weather - we've relapsed back
into March-like weather here - high today 48!  Fortunately the nights are
not down into the 30's. Yet.  Last june we had three nights in a row 35,36,37,
so I'm gun-shy about planting out.
 
I like your watering can idea, how's that workin' for ya?  I'll be looking forward
to your appraisal of the Air-Pots vs. Root Pouches at the end of the season.
Keep up the good work, buddy - you make ChiliNation proud!

Hey, Paul's in the house! Glad to have you stop by buddy. I saved the seeds from those Aji Omnicolors you sent me, and though the plants aren't very large they're covered with pods... some are 2 inches long and almost 3/4 of an inch around.
The modified water bottles "planted" next to the veggies in the community garden seem to be doing their job. We've been getting convection showers every afternoon/evening for the last few days so I haven't had to water with the hose, but they still function like self-emptying rain gauges.

Ahhh....the pepper overflow! Love it! Good job on the drip system as well...only way to go!

You got me sold, brother! I've pretty much got it set up for "fire and forget" mode, but gotta get another 3 emitters to finish the job.

Rick that drip system should work great off the house supply, glad to see you got it setup.
 
Keep on keepin' on!

Thanks Scott! I only have one Douglah left and I don't want to take any chances on shocking this one to death by forgetting to water it, like i did the other.

Nice setup, I'm jelly!

Oh... as in weak in the knees?       How're they hangin' in VA Taylor?

 

[romy6]

Looking good Ricky Ticky Tack!

 

[Peptacular]

Oh... as in weak in the knees?       How're they hangin' in VA Taylor?

A little bit of that as well. Your hose is way bigger than mine lol jk. On a serious note that drip system has me drooling with envy.

Not bad. A bit wet and humid which is casuing me problems, but I'm just glad it's finally staying warm! Cucurbits and some of the tomatoes joined my 4 early pepper transplants in the ground. Ill prolly start up a glog tomorrow.

 

[stickman]

Good enough Tay... good luck with your grow this season!
 
I went outside to check on the garden(s) and found damage from the storm yesterday was minimal. I did lose an Italian Eggplant that snapped off flush with the ground... the shortest one. I didn't stake it because of that, and it had the thickest stem of all of them. Oh well, I'll just have to buy a replacement at the Farmer's market this weekend.
 
Time for the report from the Dawn Patrol...
I think the fastest growing pods in my garden are the Hungarian Tomato peppers. They set their first pods on Monday and are already they're the  size of a penny.

 
The Almapaprika isn't far behind it

 
The second Chilhuacle Negro is flowering up

 
The in-ground Criolla Sella is behind on pod production but it's gonna be a much larger bush, and I think the pods might end up bigger as well.. at least initially. I'm debating on whether or not to strip the pods off of the potted Criolla Sella after the initial pull to let it get a bit more size, but with the one in-ground looking to be a bigger plant, why mess with it?

 
The Chimayo' is going to be a big producer again this year

 
The Yellow 7 in-ground is getting pretty leggy, so I pinched off the primaries to encourage side growth.

 
The Orange Manzano is growing more slowly now that it's outside, but I like the color of the new growth better.  Both the Pubiscens chiles have put out a few blossoms and promptly dropped them... sounds pretty common. I'm already thinking about how to shade them during the summer heat.

 
Happy Thursday all!

 

[Trippa]

Looking good Rick!!  I forget but did you get any Hot Fish started at all in the end??

 

[stickman]

Hi Trippa!
   Yeah, I did get one to pop. It's currently one of my runts, but I intend to kick its keister with a shot of fish emulsion.

 
The same for his little buddies too! Feel free to give 'em an a$$-chewing if you need the practice Shane...

 
The Butch T and Scotch Bonnet I got from SeanW I'm less worried about. The Habaneros I planted last year were at about the same stage at the end of May.
 

 

[WalkGood]

Whoa you've been a busy farmer Love dat irrigation rig you made, I'll have to give dat a go one of these days ... for now I'm still saving rain and hand watering. We have way too much chlorine in our city water :/
 
Great job brethren, lovin dat look ... Hungarian Mater looks like it’s going to taste out of this world ... WG does backflips \o/
 
 
 

 

[SeanW]

The storms this weekend are annoying - we were supposed to be clear of it by tonight! Plant out in the rain will suck, so I might have to push out to Memorial day. NWS isn't reporting any tornado-esque weather for me, hopefully you won't have any of that mess out by you. Just rain. My yard is dry, and my sprinklers aren't really set up, yet, so everything is liking the water. My little plants would like the sun, though!