Sulsa's 2023 Glog

Here we go again!!!!
Looking back at the 2022 season i can only conclude that it has been a succesfull and very productive season, wich ofcourse fueled the pepper madness in me even more!
Fact is i grew way more peppers than i can possibly consume or give away under normal circumstances and it would be wise to cut down a bit on the amount of plants in the coming season. I decided to get rid of all the overwintering plants and start all fresh this year.
No plants to take care of this winter, no fungus gnats all over the place and in my humble experience the overwinterers did not outproduce the fresh seedlings but did need more space. Pound for pound the seedlings were more productive.
Plan was to cut down on the varieties too, but as we all know that's just not gonna happen.
I really didn't have to grow 12 Adjumas last year, wich resulted in over 10 kg of frozen adjuma mash in my freezer so cutting back on the amount of plants per variety it is!
I also decided to start sowing a few weeks later to prevent the plants being in need of repotting to the final pots before they can stay outside day and night. This will save me a lot of carrying in and out big plantcontainers every day.

This afternoon we had some rain and with not much else to do i dug up all my pepperseeds and sat down to make some decisions and make the provisional growlist of 2023

Chinense:
Aji charapita Iquitos (semillas)
Perola laranja (semillas)
Mako akokosrade (semillas)
Goronong (semillas)
Lemon starrburst (semillas)
CGN 21500 (semillas)
Fatali ( SineNomine)
MOA Scotch bonnet (SineNomine)
Papa dreadie Scotch bonnet (SineNomine)
Papa Joe's Scotch bonnet (SineNomine)
Nebru 7 pod (SineNomine)
Bahamian goat (2022)
Adjuma yellow (2022)
Bonda ma Jacques (2022)
BMJ x Adjuma F1 (hand pollinated cross i made last year)
Trinidad perfume (semillas)
Habanada (semillas)

Annuum:
Thai orange (semillas)
Cayenne #1 (2022)
Thunder mountain longhorn (semillas)
Jalapeno biker Billy (semillas)
Buena mulata (semillas)
Piquillo (2022)
Kapia (2022)
Ancho mulato (semillas)
+1 other sweet pepper i still have to decide on.

Pubescens:
Rio Hualaga (2022)

Frutescens:
Prik khee nu (semillas)

I still have a couple of weeks to decide the amount of plants per variety and wich varieties will be grown on open ground in the vegetable garden and wich in containers in my backyard. For now the waiting game has started and besides cleaning the growspace and other preparations only thing to do is dreaming of bountiful harvests!

Here's to a great season!

 

[Sulsa]

Think i will start hardening off outdoors very soon. Growspace is getting crowded and some edema starts to appear on some plants. Temperatures outside are starting to get pepperfriendly,

 

[Sulsa]

Mixed up the potting soil today.... about 1500 liters this time!

Started out with recycling the potting soil i used last year. Last fall i emptied all pots and got rid of most of the roots.
Ended up with approximately 750 liters of clean soil, mixed it up with 200 liters of compost and a lot of cow manure to help composting the remaining roots. Left this all winter to settle. Today i mixed it all up with another 200 liters of compost and about 300 liters of fresh potting soil. Added a couple of bags of crusher sand mixed up with lavameal and 6 kg. of granulated organic fertilizer npk 4-6-10 + 2 mgo. Mixed it thoroughly by hand. Ofcourse both compost and potting soil were sifted to get rid of any course organic matter. It sure is one hell of a job..... and so i decided:

 

[ahayastani]

No pain, no gain

 

[Ratatouille]

Everything for your plants.

 

[Sulsa]

Everything for your plants.

No pain, no gain

The sacrifices we make for our precious!


Been keeping the anuums outdoors during the day for the past week.

With the annuums out of the growcloset, the chinense have a bit more space.
These will also go outside during the day once the daytime temps are just a little bit higher.
Spring comes slow this year.....

 

[Sulsa]

All plants are outdoors now. Lights are off and growclosets are cleaned out and ready for the 2024 season.

Todat they experienced their first ever rainshowers and although they seemed to like it they probably received more water today than they had in their entire life until now! hope this turns out well....

 

[Sulsa]

Hardening off is done and i potted up all hot peppers... way more than last year and with less space in my backyard due to my new chicken coop i'm in for a challenge this year.

Most of the chinense:

Annuums and a couple more chinense:

More chinense and in the back the sweet peppers that will be planted in the alotment garden once the temps are just a little bit higher:

All are covered at night and in rain with those little greenhouses i bought last year, very handy!

Planted the rocotos together in a big 100 liter tub:

Allready loving the cgn 21500... look at that black branches and purplish marbling in the leaves

My grow set up always seems to produce quite compact plants wich i think is great for the chinense, but for the sweet peppers it's a bad thing because the first peppers will touch the ground this way. Although i grow on ground covering foil in the vegetable garden it still could cause some rot if the weather is wet for a while so i tried to give these a bit more length this year by keeping them close together and feeding them a little more nitrogen. It seems to have worked out cause most of them reached a stem length of about 30 cm. under the first flowers nodes.

 

[CaneDog]

Nice! That's a lot of work and the plants look super healthy!

 

[Sulsa]

Long overdue update from the Netherlands..
I have been in and out of the hospital the last two months. Had anti biotics for 4 weeks straight and had some surgery done last week. Must say surgery sure helped a lot and besides a leaking drain hanging out of my body i'm feeling pretty good right now!

On the pepperfront things pretty much went the same as my health....
After transplant plants rapidly started to suffer a lot. Pretty much all chinense leaves turned some weird golden yellow and started to develop all kinds of spots and other blemishes. Growth stagnated on all the plants.
I figured the compost i used might have been a bit too salty and i used a lot of it. Started flushing the pots out rigorously after i figured that out, resulting in soaking wet soil and with a long period of cold nights they didn't really wanna dry out stagnating the growth even more. Since i didn't had much time or energy to take good care of my babies this kept on going for a couple of weeks. The last two weeks temperatures were more pepper friendly and i decided to pick off all leaves that were affected (pretty much all of them) and started them on a routine of pottasium nitrate and epsom salt foliar spray. This sure was going great, they revived and began to grow some nice lush green growth.
Ofcourse all of this set me back at least a month or so, but i was back on track and there was hope again.

Then after a couple of months of no rain at all, thunderstorms hit my garden a few hours ago. Complete with crazy amounts of downpoor and rough winds and as a special bonus some big ass hailstones hammered my garden.
Almost all plants are ravaged! Branches broke off all over the place and almost all plants have had pretty much all their leaves torn up!

Haven't been to my vegetable garden yet, but since that garden is out in the open, completely exposed i fear the sweet peppers will share a similar faith as my backyard plants. Pity, cause they did quite well besides suffering a bit from the cold nights a couple of weeks ago.

We will see if and how they recover, but this will set me back at least a couple more weeks on top of the month i was behind allready!

 

[Sulsa]

Most plants seem to recuperate well after the hailstorm, they do look like s*** though... torn up leaves with brown edges everywhere and all the broken branches make the plants look very ragged.

The only ones that were sheltered for the hail were the Rio Hualaga and the Orange Thai. Protected by the hedge they came out with hardly any damage.

Some plants starting to set pods, so there is still hope!

Buena mulata

Goronong

First KSLS pod

 

[Sulsa]

Sweet peppers in the vegetable garden starting to pod up nicely. Hail damage was less severe for them, just torn up a lot of leaves but no broken branches at all. Plants on open ground are a lot tougher.

Ancho mulato

Goccia d'oro

Piquillo de Lodosa

Peperone Lombardo

Very bushy plants

D'asti giallo pod that has some serious tanning going on being fully exposed to the sun. The little bumps and dents are caused by hail.

 

[Sulsa]

Update: Still struggling healthwise... had surgery again two weeks ago and hopefully things will finally go better now.
Been absent a lot on the forum this season, but i'm still following along with most of your glogs though.

Summer has been not very pepper friendly so far. lots of rain and often temperatures between 15 and 20 C.
We had some good days but nothing like the past few years. Spring wasn't much better so growing peppers has been a challenge so far.
Nontheless most plants are starting to produce pods nicely and coloring has started. Last year i was allready harvesting lots of peppers at the beginning of August. Just hoping for some nice weather in the next 2 months so most pods will ripen before frost comes!

CGN 21500:

Buena Mulata:

Goronong:

MOA SB:

Bahamian Goat:

Habanada:

KSLS:

Perola laranja:

TML (spaghetti tree...):

Mako akokosrade:

BMJ x Adjuma F1:

Fatali:

 

[CaneDog]

Good wishes to you, Sulsa. And the peppers are looking great despite the not-pepper-friendly weather.

 

[Downriver]

Plants look great @Sulsa, and loaded with pods. Hope the weather holds out for ya. Surgery is no fun. Hope it was successful and you feel better soon.

 

[Sulsa]

First substantial harvest this season!!!

Sweet peppers from the vegetable garden.
About 2 1/2 KG. of peperoncini Lombardo (when green a bit too bitter for my taste and when red they are very sweet but when colors just start turning they are at their best, complex in flavor and not too sweet! )
Some Piquillo de Lodosa and the first Giallo d'Asti and Ancho Mulato (allready tossed about a dozen of the latter due to BER )

The Giallo d'Asti produces heavy pods! (this is a rather small pod, compared to others still hanging on the plants!)

And some hot peppers from the backyard.
Clockwise, starting top left: Goronong, BMJ X Adjuma, Fatali, KSLS, Bahamian goat and MOA SB

Soon we will be mashing, freezing, drying, canning, roasting and smoking again... happy times!

 

[Downriver]

Nice haul @Sulsa. That Piquillo de Lodosa is an interesting pod. I might give that one a grow next year. Hope you continue to have nice harvests this season.

 

[Sulsa]

Nice haul @Sulsa. That Piquillo de Lodosa is an interesting pod. I might give that one a grow next year. Hope you continue to have nice harvests this season.

I'm a big Piquillo fan! One of my favorites for sure.
I always roast them fast and hard with a roofing torch and then skin and can them (sometimes i freeze them too)
Just roasted about 6 kilo of them a couple of days ago and still much more to come!
Some pictures of the process in my 2022 Glog: Piquillos
If you want seeds i would be happy to send you some!

 

[Sulsa]

CGN 21500 changing colors

Same for the Mako akokosrade

Prik Khee Nu finally started a few pods... was afraid they would never produce any fruits!
Counted a grand total of 12 pods on three plants... they look yummie though!

 

[Sulsa]

The Bahamian goats are once again and by far the most productive Chinense in my garden.
Unbelievable how much pods such tiny plants can produce!

My chickens always like harvest day... moving the pots around reveal loads of worms and other critters for them to snack on!

The Papa Joe SB produces 100% perfect pheno four lobed pods. Too bad that flavorwise they are nowhere near the MOA SB.

This weeks harvest

 

[Sulsa]

Pepper processing again! Started out with these this morning:

Most of them are processed, still running a loaded dehydrator of Fatali right now. The smell coming out of my kitchen can be smelled way down the road!

Earlier this week i also took care of a ton of sweet peppers coming from the vegetable garden (sadly didn't take any pics, sorry...)
Since the Piquillos are producing like crazy this year and i still have a shitload of canned and frozen piquillos from last year i decided to make some piquillo powder. First i charred them up as i always do with my roofing torch in my kettle grill. After completely charring them i closed the lid and gave them some smoke (cherry and apple) just for 5 minutes or so and took them out to cool off. After skinning, deseeding and washing them up i cut them in rough chunks to end up with some course flakes. After about 16 hrs in the dehydrator they were bone dry and ready for packing. Had to taste some, so i milled a little batch in my spice grinder

This stuff puts all commercially sold paprika powders to shame!
I always have had some high quality sweet hungarian paprika powder and pimenton de la Vera in my kitchen inventory, but nothing even gets close to this. Truly sweet like putting a spoon of canesugar in your mouth and after the first blast of sugar the piquillo flavor hits. For those of you that don't know the piquillo flavor, it's very complex and rich and all of that taste is present in a very concentrated way in this powder. After the taste explosion it all melts together and leaves you with a very umami aftertaste that lingers for a while. No acrid or other nasty flavors are present unlike other paprika powders. This powder is actually tasty enough to snack on! Ofcourse all types of paprika powder have their own uses, so i still will be using the ones i always used, but this (sweet pepper) powder encourages to do some experimenting in the kitchen!