Sulsa's 2022 grow log

As already stated in my welcome thread i'm fairly new to growing peppers. This is gonna be my second year of growing them.
Last year was quite a succes, started out with ten variaties that i could find locally and ended up with a garden full of lush plants and dito harvests. The climate here is not ideal for growing peppers, especially the 2021 season was quite wet arround here. Hoping this year will be a bit more favourable.

The plan for upcoming season is all about diversity in varieties. I'm trying to find the peppers i like the most and find good use for in the kitchen. Also cutting down on the number of plants per variety so i will not have to proces tons of peppers wich i don't really like.

Below my growlist for upcoming season:

Capsicum Pubescens (sowed 1-7-2022)

5x Rio Hualaga
5x Mini choco

Capsicum Chinense (sowed 1-15-2022)

5x Bonda ma Jacques
5x Bahamian goat
5x Habanero red
30x Adjuma yellow

Capsicum Frutescens

20x Chabai green

Capsicum Baccatum (sowed 1-15-2022)

5x Lemon drop
5x Aji mango
5x Sugar rush peach
5x Rainforrest

Capsicum annuum

5x Jalapeno el Jefe
5x Greek pepperoni
10x Cayenne
10x Cayenne #1 (big and beautyfull off pheno that popped up last year, giving it a try...)
5x Rawit
20x Piquillo de Lodosa
20x Kapia
20x Dulce de Espagna
5x Ancho negro

Most of this plants will be grown in containers in my backyard. I also have about 300 square meters of vegetable garden in wich i will grow a few varieties in open field. Did this last year with sweet peppers and this turned out pretty good.

First hook for this season... Rocoto mini choco (7 days after it hit the dirt )

 

[Tinkerbelle]

hubba hubba

 

[MarcV]

That looks extremely delicious! *drool*
Don't forget to post the recipe!

I have grown piquillos in the past too but I usually ate them fresh from the plant, including the though peel...

Are all the peppers that you grow for your personal consumption? Must be quite a harvest!

 

[Sulsa]

Are all the peppers that you grow for your personal consumption? Must be quite a harvest!

Most of it will be processed and consumed within my household, i do give some away ofcourse.
I'm used to proces lots of veggies from my vegetable garden so the peppers just add to that.
I freeze much whole, chopped up into chunks or mashed. I dry and smokedry some. Also lots of canning like sambals, chutneys, salsa's, curry etc. I'm still experimenting a lot since this is just my second year of growing peppers, but i learn fast and have some experience in preserving veggies and herbs.

 

[Sulsa]

Solid 100F in the shade today, measured the temperature in the sun around 1400hrs... 133F!
Plants sure look like they had enough for now, gonna give them a refreshing shower tonight.

 

[MarcV]

Have put mine in a shadow location on sunday evening. Currently we have 38.4°C/101°F shadow temperature.... very unpleasant outside right now but the pepper plants are holding remarkably well. Time for a bit of rain if you ask me...

 

[Sulsa]

Have put mine in a shadow location on sunday evening. Currently we have 38.4°C/101°F shadow temperature.... very unpleasant outside right now but the pepper plants are holding remarkably well. Time for a bit of rain if you ask me...

I don't have enough shaded places for all of my plants, the little shade i have is reserved for the rocotos cause they seem to suffer the most. For next year i might change some things in the garden so i will be able to use some shade cloth on days like this. Some rain would be welcome for sure, especially for the vegetable garden. I'm getting tired of watering till 10 pm every single day!

 

[MarcV]

With this kind of weather I'm happy that the neighbors have a large oak tree in their back yard!
It's actually hotter here then it is in south of France or Spain!
https://weathermap.netatmo.com/?zoom=6.260835354109459

 

[PaulG]

You folks are definitely under the Heat Dome. We had the same
thing last summer June (116˚F - 46.7˚C), Over 110˚F for three
straight days. The pepper plants didn't like it, but they threw
the gnarliest pods ever!

I feel your pain.

 

[MarcV]

Luckily things will cool down a bit tomorrow hopefully with a bit of rain...

 

[Sulsa]

You folks are definitely under the Heat Dome. We had the same
thing last summer June (116˚F - 4c.7˚C), Over 110˚F for three
straight days. The pepper plants didn't like it, but they threw
the gnarliest pods ever!

I feel your pain.

Gnarly pods sound good to me!

Luckily things will cool down a bit tomorrow hopefully with a bit of rain...

Hopefully the wind turning west will push the heat away or else we will have high heat and high humidity.
I personally like these kind of temperatures as long as the humidity is low.

 

[Sulsa]

Found a little surprise hidden under a lot of foliage. My very first ripe Ancho negro!
It allready started to dry a bit, wich is good since i will dry and vacuumseal most of the anchos.
One step closer to a good Mexican mole!

 

[Sulsa]

Last year i bought some Frutescens seeds that did quite well. I don't know what variety it is exactly...
I bought it as Chabai green curry. Chabai is the indonesian pronuncation of the cabe peppers as far as i know.
They do make a great green curry though. When ripened to red they become very soft with a horrible taste and screaming heat. Altough scoville wise they are not near habanero level, they do hurt in a very unpleasant way.
I harvest them green obviously. This year they are doing great again and are now starting to set their first pods.

 

[Maximus1984]

Little update on the purple stemmed cayenne. Been keeping an eye on this plant daily and i think i know what happened here. Despite isolating the peppers last year with meshbags fhere must have been a cross with the jalapenos that were standing quite close to the cayennes. The purple stems also appear on the jalapenos as is variegation and dark green foliage. Also the peppers forming have some jalapeno looks to them. They are more shiny and smooth surfaced also they look more straight and bulky compared to the normal cayenne shape. Think that the wind managed to blow some pollen through the meshbags wich might have resulted in a jalapeno/cayenne cross.

First the normal cayenne also from seeds from last year
Thin long pods with some curling and a bit bumpy skin sometimes

Pods on the possible cross look a bit different

Variegated leaves wich i never seen on the cayenne, but pretty much on all the jalapenos

Succesfully hand pollinated some flowers cause they might be good, you never know

Clearly meshbags give no guarantees on isolating 100% I also have some Adjumas that turned red while supposed to be yellow. They must have crossed with the hab red close to them. They lost a lot of taste from the adjuma but gained on scorching heat from the red. Not exactly an improvement. I took off all the meshbags and will continue hand pollinating from now on!

Hi Sulsa,

I'm currently growing some Cayenne's from seed and they look quite chunky like your 2nd round.

I'm new to growing peppers but maybe they are a different pheno of cayenne if that's possible?

Lol to me, the ones I have look a bit Jalapeño like too....

 

[Sulsa]

Hi Sulsa,

I'm currently growing some Cayenne's from seed and they look quite chunky like your 2nd round.

I'm new to growing peppers but maybe they are a different pheno of cayenne if that's possible?

Lol to me, the ones I have look a bit Jalapeño like too....

Hi Maximus,
Those sure look totally different than "normal" cayenne indeed.
Just went out to take some real time pics, first are the possible cross and the second a bit more true to pheno.

 

[Maximus1984]

Hi Maximus,
Those sure look totally different than "normal" cayenne indeed.
Just went out to take some real time pics, first are the possible cross and the second a bit more true to pheno.

The more 2nd, more typical looking pheno are definitely longer and thinner looking.

I wonder what it is I have been given lol
I'm guessing my ones are not going to have much heat, but is what it is I suppose.

Kind of the reason I popped some late Habanero seeds 5 days ago lol

 

[Sulsa]

Kind of the reason I popped some late Habanero seeds 5 days ago lol

It looks like you will fit right in around here!

 

[Maximus1984]

It looks like you will fit right in

 

[Sulsa]

Harvested the last of the runted little pods and my first lemon drop today. Next year i will remove early fruitset on the chinense till temperatures are above 18C or so.

Next round of chinense will be bigger and better!

 

[Sulsa]

Pretty much all the peppers are loading up nicely
The annuums

The baccatums are really productive, sadly the color of the aji mango and lemon drops are the exact same color as the leaves and are well hidden under the foliage. Impossible to make a picture to show the huge amount of pods hiding inside. The sugar rush have a more bright color and make for a better picture.

 

[Sulsa]

Time for a little update from the Netherlands. Just had two weeks off work to do some painting on the house and restoring my dormers. A lot of work, but it all looks brand new again!
Not much happening on the pepperfront, just a lot of watering and waiting on some colored pods. Most plants throw some incidental ripe pods, but other than that still loads of green pods.
The rocoto mini choco finally stopped growing and flowering and the pods on the lower branches are showing some color. Incredible productive little plants if you ask me, they just kept on flowering and setting pods even in the highest of temperatures. Plants became around 3 feet tall and i counted 112 pods on one plant and 98 on the other.

Another big producer is the sugar rush stumpy it is loaded with pods top to bottom and slowly starting to show some color on the lower branches

Open ground peppers also doing just fine. The row of Adjuma turned into a nice hedge that would look great in everyones front yard if you ask me. Underneath the foliage there is a lot of candy... if all turns out well i probably won't have to grow adjumas next year!

Not the best picture of the enormous amount of pods hiding underneath, but it's kinda hard taking a good picture when you are flat on your belly surrounded by fragile branches everywhere

The Piquillos also start to color so in a couple of weeks from now i probably will be back in the canning bussines