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Tokyo off-season 2021-2022: More Tent Fun

OK! As we get rolling on the next phase of this ongoing series of marginal successes and impressive failures, let's take stock.

Currently happy, healthy, and producing fruit:
  • Casados
  • Sugar Rush Peach
Recently rooted via coffee filters and just planted in coir:
  • Jamaican Red Hab (hi Paul!)
  • Sugar Rush Cream (hi Paul!)
  • Zapotec jalapeno (hi Mr. White!)
  • Huacho Amarillo (hi... whoever sent me this as an extra on an order!)
No hooks yet:
  • Carolina Reaper (hi Alejandro!)
  • Caribe (see Huacho Amarillo above)
Below you have today's work. There are five seeds in each one, and all but a few have hooks, so the prospects seem pretty good for healthy plants, and probably extras for some more fruitless (mwahahaha) experiments besides. There's even a Sugar Rush Cream that put its cotys out before I even knew anything had happened, so that's an impressively ambitious little guy. We will watch his career with great interest.

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Yes, I know you can see my sexy leg in this picture. Control yourselves! I'm married!

I was expecting to wait longer for these seeds to get started, as all of them are several years old, but they've been very enthusiastic; I'm not concerned about the reapers yet, as those take forever to do anything, and I think the Caribe is one I've tried to sprout from this batch before and might just not be viable. But we'll see.

As is tradition, I'll leave you with a completely irrelevant photo. A friend of my wife's recently gave me my first Gundam model; here it is, in all of its 13-cm-tall glory.

gundam.jpg
 
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The new kids on the block are doing well! I'm particularly stoked about the three-coty JA red hab.

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It's not that easy to see here, but there is a hook from the Zapotec jalapenos, and the SR cream is one I'm really hoping comes in well. To clarify, almost every seed in these actually did kick out roots, so I do expect at least three or four sprouts from each variety.

Happily, the remaining two varieties that are still in their coffee filters are also getting started: Caribe and the infamous Carolina Reaper. I'm seeing roots in at least three seeds in each one, so they'll get their own little planters tomorrow or early next week. So it seems like we may be en route to a pretty good 2022!

Today I used up the last of the hydro nutrients I've been employing for the last few years (not the same bottles, but the same type) and am going to be using General Hydroponics' Flora concoctions on this batch, when they reach the legal drinking age. I'm more than a little nervous about the change, but it seems like a pretty safe bet. If nothing else, as long as they don't somehow kill my Casados and SR Peach, I can't possibly be worse off than I am now.

To leave you with a thought: I don't know how many Thanksgiving turkeys were cooked in Tokyo this week, but the count is at least one. It came out a bit tough, but then this is not the kind of thing I usually cook -- and it's really just an excuse to make and consume a ton of gravy anyway, so I declare success.

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Yeah, what @Downriver said!

Interesting that your JA Red Habanero has a tri-coty.
That is actually more common with those than any
other type I've grown. Also get some that fork at a
very early stage. Hoping those do well for you.

Have you and Alejandro got a seed request together, yet?
 
Downriver said:
The youngsters are looking spry @internationalfish lol. Must be the magic of the mini leg lamp, haha.

And you did Thanksgiving proud with that bird. Congrats!
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Thanks! Haha, yep, it's a major award.

PaulG said:
Yeah, what @Downriver said!

Interesting that your JA Red Habanero has a tri-coty.
That is actually more common with those than any
other type I've grown. Also get some that fork at a
very early stage. Hoping those do well for you.

Have you and Alejandro got a seed request together, yet?
Click to expand...

Got another hab that opened up; just two cotys this time, but it looks healthy. Also two hooks for the jalapeno, another for SR Cream, and a helmet poking out for the Huacho Amarillo. So things seem to be going well.

I don't think the seed thing is likely to work again; my parents have tried to send a couple things over, and they've been told they can't send any kind of food. If that's the case, chili powder seems unlikely to get through. :(
 
Last night, I got back from three days in Hokkaido (the northern island of Japan), which wasn't nearly as fun as it should've been, solely because of the people I went with. Which sucks. But the plants survived, and I did meed this lovely young gentleman.

PUPPY.jpg


Also, the beer brand Sapporo is named for the city where we stayed, and they sell a local-only brew called Sapporo Classic. It's not bad, but it's not exactly a life-changing experience. Again, not bad at all, and I did enjoy it -- along with a chocolate-filled snack called Koala's March, proving once again that I am a 40-year-old child.

sapporo.jpg


My sprouts survived, and I figured I might as well show them here, before the trip and upon return.

progress.jpg


They're not exactly sprinting to the finish, but a few in there have true leaves, so that's a good start; that SR Cream in particular is probably going to get his own home today, as far ahead as he is. Not pictured here: Carolina Reapers and Caribe, both of which had at least one seed that had put out a root, but neither of which has produced a hook yet. Even if neither variety actually produces a plant, we'll still be in good shape, though.

I'll keep one of each, then likely two or three total for another (far smaller than previous) round of experimental Kratky failure, but the rest will go to my reverse pepper dealer, Alejandro, once they've grown up a bit.
 
Starts are looking very nice, @internationalfish, I can
definitely see the growth over the time you were gone.
Looks like you are off to a great start! True leaves on
the JA Red Habanero! :woohoo:
 
PaulG said:
Starts are looking very nice, @internationalfish, I can
definitely see the growth over the time you were gone.
Looks like you are off to a great start! True leaves on
the JA Red Habanero! :woohoo:
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Yeah, definitely happy to have solid progress on those habs. Between these newbies and the one Alejandro took previously, I'm hoping we can get this strain in particular going and spread it around in Japan. :)
 
Went ahead and moved the apparent winners to their own quarters.

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Started them on weak nutrients as well. So hopefully things will pick up from here. The SR Peach and Casados are fruiting up nicely as usual, and the former has at least one ripe fruit (which will get seeded and then go into a batch of mapo tofu this week, I think), so we should be all ready to start a new batch of hot sauce once I process the one that's currently fermenting, which is on the calendar for this Saturday.
 
These little guys blew up; they love those nutrients.

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They're not anywhere close to the light, but it's intense enough that they're staying nice and low. They'll presumably be ready for bags in early or mid January.

Finally got around to processing the last ferment I set up. As usual, I boiled it down too far, and now it's... pepper paste. It's not bad, just kind of a chore to pour.

paste.jpg


We took a weekend trip to Osaka, about a third of which was spent with doctors after the guppy faceplanted on the floor of a train station (he's fine, just a black eye and a few tiny cuts; the vacation was the only serious casualty). The hotel room we got was really nice, though, so for a while Sunday morning I decided to play cat and occupy the window.

cat.jpg


Hope you weren't expecting to see the view. Remember, cats are jerks! 💔
 
Osaka looks like a pretty big city.

That window sill would be good for peppers,
if it faces south!
 
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Ah yes, the look through a Japanese hotel window looks familiar to me. I went to Japan a couple of times for a work project at Nisshin Steel, way back in 1997. Our hotel was in Sakai, not far from Osaka. Those were the days... I'll never get to do that anymore...
 
MarcV said:
Ah yes, the look through a Japanese hotel window looks familiar to me. I went to Japan a couple of times for a work project at Nisshin Steel, way back in 1997. Our hotel was in Sakai, not far from Osaka. Those were the days... I'll never get to do that anymore...
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I was in Japan for work in 2012: Kyoto (OK, that was not for work), Hamamatsu and Nagoya. My view from the hotel in Hamamatsu was very much like that in internationallfish's photo, but with less high-rise buildings. I was amazed by the bullet trains, especially by their punctuality (you know how it is where I'm from). One could follow their light in the darkness, like a cat following laser pointers :)
 
PaulG said:
Osaka looks like a pretty big city.

That window sill would be good for peppers,
if it faces south!
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Third biggest in Japan by population, yep. Second is Yokohama, but I don't really go there, as it's one of those places where I'd expect people to assume I was military personnel, which... isn't always great. Also, their Chinatown sucks.

MarcV said:
Ah yes, the look through a Japanese hotel window looks familiar to me. I went to Japan a couple of times for a work project at Nisshin Steel, way back in 1997. Our hotel was in Sakai, not far from Osaka. Those were the days... I'll never get to do that anymore...
Click to expand...

Hey, maybe some day! I don't think they're currently allowing tourists in, but I'd guess within the next year or so restrictions will let up. A lot of places here depended on foreign tourism dollars more than they wanted to admit, I think.

ahayastani said:
I was in Japan for work in 2012: Kyoto (OK, that was not for work), Hamamatsu and Nagoya. My view from the hotel in Hamamatsu was very much like that in internationallfish's photo, but with less high-rise buildings. I was amazed by the bullet trains, especially by their punctuality (you know how it is where I'm from). One could follow their light in the darkness, like a cat following laser pointers :)
Click to expand...

I freaking love the bullet trains here. It's like taking a plane, but relaxing, and without the exhausting security processes. Also, there are girls pushing carts full of booze and snacks past you every twenty minutes or so. What's not to love?!
 
Just over a week of development:

latest-kids.jpg


Holy balls are these growing fast. I think this might just be the first time I've actually gotten the nutrients right, because I'm not used to this level of success.

Not really much else to say now; just waiting for some of my Casados to ripen, because I've got a bunch of finally-ripe SR Peach, so it's going to be time for another sauce soon. So let's end on another high note: Our local 7-11 is currently carrying freaking amazing fries.

freaking-fries.jpg


The image cannot possibly convey how perfect and crispy they are. Ugh, so, so good.
 
Well, Alejandro picked up my extras yesterday, so we're down to six plants in the tent! The four new kids continue to do impressively well, and I should be moving them into their own one-gallon bags fairly soon.

kids-again.jpg


That'll put the tent back at two levels (currently only using the top), which means the lights will both be on and alternating day and night. Which should probably cut down on how much I have to use the wall unit heater in my office.

Speaking of heaters: We're currently getting a rare decent snowfall! This is the view from my front door as of about ten minutes ago.

mmm-snow.jpg


News footage from Tokyo Station about an hour ago showed people clearing snow with wheelbarrows and making snowmen, which was pretty awesome.

While I do wish I had even a single window in a position where I could sit in a chair and look out of it (newer Tokyo houses really suck for windows unless you're rich, and we're, uh, not), it's at least still nice to be able to walk out to the convenience store and enjoy a nice dusting.
 
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