The last summer of my 30's: Spice and herbs on the balcony

39 is a multiple of 13, and that makes it cool.
 
That very important point out of the way, I've actually started planting for the season, so I figured I might as well start migrating to a new thread. How is it that I've gone through three glogs here already? I feel far internet-older than I should.
 
Rather than leading with the full plan, which I've already beaten to death in the winter thread, here are the first victims.
 

 
Yep! Not peppers. I'm going to try some companion plants. After some wicked aphid and stink bug infestations made my life less pleasant last year, I figure not only could this help keep them out, it wouldn't be bad to have some herbs. They're at least as stupidly expensive to buy in grocery stores here as they are in the US, so it couldn't hurt. These two are basil, since that's the only thing I can actually buy so far; later I'm planning on peppermint, bay laurel, chives, Thai basil, and possibly holy basil.
 
They're all getting planted alongside the garlic, which I've had growing for the better part of a year, but which has failed to yield any kind of useful bulbs. Doesn't matter, though, since the scapes are still awesome, and they're also supposedly supposed to be good against bugs. And, really, I just love garlic.
 
The first two actual peppers to go outside will be the only two mature plants I have in the tent right now, Friggitello (pepperoncini) and Sugar Rush Peach. They're both fruiting like mad, and I'm looking forward to bagging them up (from 1 gallon of coir to 5 gallons of soil) in the coming week.
 

 
The SRP in the front really is just that awesome. While it takes a frustratingly long time to ripen, it is an excellent variety -- right at the top of my comfort zone for heat -- and it really is leaning that far over thanks to pod weight. The Friggitello in the background has one particular pod, with the white tape on it, that should be a cross between these two. I'm hoping that's the start of two or three more interesting grows that should mostly occupy the tent this summer.
 
Perhaps the first real sign that this summer grow has started will be when I'm sitting on my balcony, wearing my jinbei and having a drink in my little canvas tailgating chair, watching the plants grow. I promise pictures, whether anyone wants them or not. 

 

[internationalfish]

Since the last update was all doom and gloom, I'm starting the next page with something a little more upbeat. Turns out Google's browser doesn't work with Google's photo service at the moment, so thank you, Firefox, for making this post possible.
 
Tent's looking OK. I plan on hitting it with another soap and neem assault, whether it needs it or not, but everything is alive. Expectations are low at this point.
 

 
My Friggitello x SRP seeds don't look to be viable at all, so that's a real downer. But we're not here for that, this is a positive update. So we're leaving plant territory.
 
We had a couple friends over for a cookout and one of them brought a snack. Mr. Beef Jerky turned out to be really underwhelming, but you can't fault his name.
 

 
We got a Costco membership to go with our new deep freeze, and I just made a whole lot of pork. My wife was extremely pleased with the pulled pork sandwiches. Unfortunately, we can't get decent BBQ sauce in the stores here, so I had to make my own. It was OK.
 

 
Finally, I don't intend to post many pictures of my son on the web, but this one isn't likely to disrupt his job hunting two decades from now. So here you go. My wife decided it'd be a good idea to give him an empty bottle of non-alcoholic beer, and he was enthusiastic.
 

 

[PaulG]

He’s a handsome young fellow, ‘Fish!
 
Starting them out slow is a good idea.
 
Baby steps!

Is that red hair, or is that the lighting?
 
Nice pods on the top shelf, BTW.

 

[internationalfish]

He’s a handsome young fellow, ‘Fish!
 
Starting them out slow is a good idea.
 
Baby steps!
Is that red hair, or is that the lighting?
 
Nice pods on the top shelf, BTW.

 
Thanks! It's hard to say exactly what his hair is; mine has always been dirty blond, but my wife is 100% Korean, so there's no reason he should have anything but dark brown hair. I imagine it'll darken up in the next few months.
 
Yeah, those Lemon Starrburst are ripening up really nicely. Of course, I'm a lazy-ass slacker and still haven't even tasted one, so hopefully I actually like them...

 

[internationalfish]

I got a bunch of ripe KSLSB. Unfortunately, after reviewing the official page for the cross, I don't think a single one out of four plants is on-pheno.
 

 
So that's really disappointing. Going to ferment a sauce with them anyway (still haven't tried one, though).
 
Aside from that, I failed to eradicate my thrips infestation, and we've hit the rainy season with no real growth on most of my outdoor pepper plants. Basil and mint are growing like crazy, of course, so I guess that's something.

 

[podz]

 
It does make sense that they want phytosanitary certificates for imported seeds. It just really sucks that those aren't priced in a way that's reasonable for consumer seed purchases (80USD for one if you're getting it in the US, I think it was last time I looked) and that there are just so few sellers domestically with any kind of interesting stock. Certainly not the kind of craziness we like to grow on this forum.

 
Imports are not their concern - it's the ability to sell certified clean goods.

 

[internationalfish]

Imports are not their concern - it's the ability to sell certified clean goods.

 
I don't think I said anything that contradicts this, and I didn't say anything about what they should or shouldn't be concerned with. I just said it sucks that it's not viable for individual consumers to pay for the appropriate certification.
 
Anyway... in better news, despite the infestation, most of my tent plants are finally podding up. Hooray for ID!
 
Another 3xThreat? I don't really need one; at first I was thinking this was CGN 21500, but I don't remember those starting purple...
 

 
The following three pictures are all from different plants, and I think all three are probably ghosts? That'd be more than I was expecting, so it's a good thing I have at least one friend that'll happily take a hot plant off my hands.
 

 

 

 
The alma paprika in the tent is doing a heck of a lot better than the one on the balcony, so I'm thinking this will probably be one that gets a larger coir bag on the top shelf, so if the outdoor plant just never gets going I'll still have one of these to pull pods and seeds from. Just checked the balcony; the one out there is a total loss.
 

 
Went out to check on the balcony plants... my pest control efforts seem to have largely failed. As mentioned, the alma is destroyed, and the jalapeno is not doing any better than it was before. As you can see (alma is all the way in the back, basically invisible, and jalapeno is front left): 
 

 
Then there's the Palermo Red. Which is apparently just as delicious to bugs as it is to humans.
 

 
So that's... pretty awful. Going to try changing it up and hitting these hard, but being the rainy season, it's hard to keep any kind of insecticide on them for long... despite the attacks, the Friggitello and SRP are growing and podding, so there is at least production.

 

[ahayastani]

 
So that's... pretty awful. Going to try changing it up and hitting these hard, but being the rainy season, it's hard to keep any kind of insecticide on them for long... despite the attacks, the Friggitello and SRP are growing and podding, so there is at least production.

 
I don't like to use pesticides, but when my plants are hit by an infestation, I aim for pyrethroid insecticides. Their action is immediate and their stability in the environment is not very good (they degrade over time and won't persist in the environment). They kill everything, including pollinators. 

 

[Tybo]

Your lemon starrburst pods look more on pheno than mine.  Mine are looking like yellow habs!

 

[internationalfish]

I don't like to use pesticides, but when my plants are hit by an infestation, I aim for pyrethroid insecticides. Their action is immediate and their stability in the environment is not very good (they degrade over time and won't persist in the environment). They kill everything, including pollinators. 

 
Interesting, thanks. Always good to have more information.
 

Your lemon starrburst pods look more on pheno than mine.  Mine are looking like yellow habs!

 
Haha, ouch. I did try mine; pretty good flavor, so that's a relief. They went into a ferment with a bunch of garlic, some onion, and a couple stray pods that were feeling directionless.
 
I also made mapo tofu with my Nanbu pods; those things are REALLY nice. Great flavor and more heat than I expected. Those I used to make chili oil that got mixed in, and the heat was perfect (my wife did NOT agree, so... more for me!).

 

[internationalfish]

Now that I think about it, I wonder if that first plant might be naglah rather than ghost. I did start a couple, but I'm not sure if any of the seeds made it, and it doesn't really look all that similar to the other two. 
 

 

[Mildfruit]

I got a bunch of ripe KSLSB. Unfortunately, after reviewing the official page for the cross, I don't think a single one out of four plants is on-pheno.
 
 
So that's really disappointing. Going to ferment a sauce with them anyway (still haven't tried one, though).
 
Aside from that, I failed to eradicate my thrips infestation, and we've hit the rainy season with no real growth on most of my outdoor pepper plants. Basil and mint are growing like crazy, of course, so I guess that's something.

 
First of, beautiful plants all around. Always good to see a follow indoor grower having succes! 
Im also a "victim" of the off-pheno KSLSB, as my only plant is showing the same pheno as yours. However, the taste is splendid and I think a sauce with them would be great. Hot sauces dont care for phenos  
Maybe we can get lucky and find a fellow member here with correct phenos, but again still risky with a unstable plant. 

 

[internationalfish]

First of, beautiful plants all around. Always good to see a follow indoor grower having succes! 
Im also a "victim" of the off-pheno KSLSB, as my only plant is showing the same pheno as yours. However, the taste is splendid and I think a sauce with them would be great. Hot sauces dont care for phenos
Maybe we can get lucky and find a fellow member here with correct phenos, but again still risky with a unstable plant. 

 
Thanks! I'm mostly happy with the way things are going in the tent. Outdoors, the infestation is just... surreal. I just got in from picking some pods and scrubbed down like I was going into surgery, as well as isolating the haul; everything out there is just coated in vermin.   Gotta spray down the tent again, since the thrips didn't get the message, but it's not nearly as bad as the balcony.
 
I'm planning to thin the herd a bit and give away some of my duplicates, as well as upgrading a few plants to 1-gallon bags of coir. It's looking like the primary tent lineup is going to be CGN 21500, alma paprika, nanbu, and either ghost or naglah. I think I have two or even three corno di toro yellow growing, but they're not producing or even flowering... if the Palermo red outside survives the bugs and starts putting out fruit, it'll be an easy call. But I won't know on that for probably another two weeks or more.
 
I've got wood chips on the way for the outdoor plants, though I think I'm going to stick with perlite on top of the coir bags, just to avoid risking further contamination.

 

[internationalfish]

So... been a while. 
 
Things have been way past hectic here. The wife took over the outdoor peppers a while ago since I didn't have the energy for it, and everything is about done for the winter anyway. One last little haul from the Sugar Rush Peach; it's been a really sparse season thanks to my general failure to take care of anything. A tiny jalapeno snuck in there; that plant is one that's basically produced nothing. I don't think I'm going to grow anything at all outdoors next year.
 

 
My tent plants didn't escape the suffering. They've been getting sporadic watering and feeding, but despite being stuck in tiny planters indefinitely, they mostly kept growing really well (at least in the foliage department). Pulled just a few pods off while pruning aggressively. Lemon Starrburst on top with a bunch of wow-I-left-that-on-the-branch-too-long Nanbu, as well as some unripe ones... aside from that, one alma paprika, an unripe CGN 21500, and a way-short-of-ripe maybe-Ghost.
 

 
It took a while to dig through and cut them all down to size today; most are getting tossed, and the ones being kept lost most of their leafy greens. Planning to move these into 1-gallon coir bags tomorrow, give the tent a good cleaning, and then get back on the hybrid train with the now-empty bottom tent shelf.
 

 
Mature plants I'm keeping are one each of KSLSB, CGN 21500, alma paprika, Nanbu, and hopefully-either-ghost-or-naglah. I'll probably start a new off-season glog if I get as much work done tomorrow as I'm planning.
 
Hope everyone's doing well here.

 

[PaulG]

You made the most of the tin-can grow,
my friend 
 
Maybe once your son is 18 you will have
more time for peppers!
 
I checked your new grow log - good luck.
I am always interested in someone's kratky
experiment!

 

[internationalfish]

You made the most of the tin-can grow,
my friend 

 
The cans were fun. And they actually ended up a lot less rootbound than I expected; much easier to tease apart than the ones in the little square planters. Those were a real pain.
 

Maybe once your son is 18 you will have
more time for peppers!

 
I can only hope. Kids tend to stay at home well into their mid-late 20's here, so as soon as the little bastard hits his teens, it's off to the convenience store for a part-time job. Daddy needs a new pair of... net cups!
 

I checked your new grow log - good luck.
I am always interested in someone's kratky
experiment!

 
Thanks, gonna need that luck if past is prologue. Though I'm pretty much spot-on the way Khang Starr does it now, so if it doesn't work this time, I'm gonna demand my money back for all those... uh... free and extremely informative videos he put out about budget hydroponics! That inconsiderate bastard!