Turbo 2014 Pepper Growing: An Anecdotal Methodology

bpwilly · Sep 5, 2014

Looking good. Like seeing that shape on the MOA!

Glad the Congos are growing for you. Last year mine were very short and wide. I had one that was about 10 inch tall and 30 inch wide. Was a challenge to stake up so the pods stayed off the ground.

Those Fatalii's can be used to make a killer Fatalii/Pineapple Jam!

turbo · Sep 8, 2014

I'm starting to see some ripening action. Pulled these yesterday morning. 5 paper lanterns, 1 beautiful fatalii, and two congo trinidads

turbo · Sep 9, 2014

Now we're heating up!!! Actually its cooling off outside, but I'm starting to get more peppers!

Went out this morning and I'm seeing a lot of color developing on my peppers. This morning's pull (clockwise, starting upper left): Cayenne, lemon drop, paper lantern, (really small) fatalii, chocolate fatalii, MOA, congo trinidad, trinidad scotch bonnet

I find its hard to tell when the chocolate fataliis are ready to be picked. I planted them in the middle of the raised bed, surrounded by other plants, so its hard to get light in there to see if they are ready. This morning I used a flashlight and found 6 ready to go.

This baby is my pride and joy. My MOA (donated by BPWilly) grew into a big beautiful plant...with one pepper. Tons of flowers, but I only got one pepper from it. I'm pretty sure its my fault vs the plants. Probably too much nitrogen, though the plants around it didn't have a problem. I've got egg plants on two sides of the MOA and they produced like crazy! But I'm going to harvest all seeds from this guy and try again next year.

Anyway, if a plant is gonna put out only one pepper, it better be a good one, and this guy couldn't be prettier. It looks like a flower, and is beautifully symmetrical. Cant wait to see how it tastes. Not gonna cook this one. Its goin in ma belly!

I like the little curled up scorpion tail

ribbedturtleneck · Sep 9, 2014

Quality, not quantity. The plant must have been a perfectionist.

turbo · Sep 11, 2014

Was taste testing some peppers I got at a local farmer's market (turns out they are most likely bhuts) tonight. Found that a good Porter beer worked better than milk in easing the pain.

New beer from Stone Brewery: Smoked Porter with Chipotle Peppers. Seemed appropriate to go along with tonight's peppers. The Chipotle works really well with the smoked hops in this Porter. Really loved this beer.

bpwilly · Sep 11, 2014

Turbo.
I love the shape of that MOA. Must be the luck of the draw, because the remaining MOA plants have not produced and classic shapes like that. Way to go. Sorry there is only one, but it is a keeper!

Nice find on the beer. I think Chipotle goes with so many things. I used it in a Brisket rub, and it has become my favorite.

turbo · Sep 11, 2014

I just got a box of peppers from Jusplayn: a crap load of Brazilian Starfish and Aji Pineapple, and two surprise extras (in perfect condition I might add!). I was thinking about growing Brazilian Starfish and Aji Pineapple next year because I liked the Aji Lemon so much. This saves me the trouble of tracking down seeds and the risk of growing something I've never tried before. I ran into that with my Chocolate Fatalii this year...really not that tasty.

Not sure yet what I'll do with these. Depending on the flavor a fresh sauce, or maybe use them in a Thai sweet chili sauce recipe I've been playing with. Can't wait to try them out!

juanitos · Sep 11, 2014

let me know what you think about the lemon vs pineapple flavor.

turbo · Sep 11, 2014

juanitos said:
let me know what you think about the lemon vs pineapple flavor.

Wow, I really like the Aji Pineapple! I was skeptical if it would really taste pineapple'y but it really does. Its super tasty. Heat wise, it seems a bit less than the Aji Lemons I've been growing. This is a really good pepper for people who like good flavor and some heat, but not too overwhelming. I think it would be great to use in a Thai sweet chili sauce. The pineapple flavor would work wonderful!

turbo · Sep 13, 2014

Its getting down in the low 50's at night in Seattle now. The plants in my raised bed are doing fine, but the potted ones are suffering. I'm pulling my favorite 5 pots into the garage each night (I'm lazy) and leaving the rest to fend for themselves.

Since its mid September and I've only got 3-4 more weeks of plant friendly weather left and the plants in the raised bed have a really dense growth, I decided to start selectively trimming them back a bit to allow sun to make it down to the lower branches where the peppers are. 2 of my 3 paper lantern plants have ZERO peppers on them, so they got cut down to 6 inch stumps. I haven't been a big fan of of the peppers on my two chocolate fatalii plants, so any branch that didn't have a pepper on it also got cut. Cutting back these four plants really opened up the bed nicely, and allowed much easier access to peppers in the middle.

There is a lot of good color developing on my habs, scotch bonnets, and congo trinidads. But the fatalii and aji lemons are taking their own sweet time to ripen

turbo · Sep 18, 2014

We, only a few more weeks of warm'ish weather left and my little Reaper isn't going to do much else, so I decided to turn it into a bonchi while its still healthy and happy. My wife is Japanese and we inherited a lot of her parents gardening pots, and they have a lot of really old bonsai pots.

Gave him a pretty substantial hair cut. All the way down to the base of the first primary Y branch.

It had a pretty substantial root ball...very nice! But somehow I need to fit it into that pot

After working out as much soil as I could, the roots were about 15 inches long. Had to cut them back to about 6 inches

Here he is all situated in his new home. I tried to expose the very top level larger roots. I love how that looks

I'll probably pot up another 2 or 3 plants as it gets closer to October. Not sure which ones. My MOA has a pretty thick trunk with a lot of splits in the first 6 inches, so it might be a good candidate. A white hab would also be a good bonchi since its a pretty low dense plant, with nice small fruit.

[UPDATE] I just remembered that there is a bonsai store/nursery a couple miles from my house. I've never been there, but now I can't wait to go check out what kind of goodies I can get for my bonchi.

turbo · Sep 24, 2014

Went out yesterday and pick my largest pile of peppers of the season so far. My Fataliis are really starting to ripen fast, and I've been picking about 2 Trinidad Scotch Bonnets every couple of days for the past couple weeks.

Maule's Cayennes are huge beasts. Too bad the plants didn't grow very big and I've only got a few peppers each. I would have loved to have a big harvest of these babies!

The 4 Scotch Bonnets I bought at a local nursery have been pretty decent producers. Not a lot of peppers, but they are all good sized and beautiful.

This little 7-Pot Jonah is starting to ripen. Hopefully it'll give me a few ripe pods before it gets too cold

This is a picture of two Aji Lemons planted next to each other. There are hundreds of pods between the two...all green

I love me my fatallis!

My Trinidad Scotch Bonnet has also been a star producer. Lots of pods that are actually getting ripe

2 of my 3 paper lantern peppers didn't produce pods at all, but the third is packed. This picture doesn't really do it any justice. Its starting to show a bit of color. Lets hope it ripens in time.

juanitos · Sep 24, 2014

man u need a green house or smth, plants look great just need some more heat it seems.

turbo · Sep 24, 2014

Brought in my Reaper Bonchi inside and put it under my t8 lamp. It really took off and started to fill out new leaf and branch growth. I took this picture after trimming off 2" of new growth, and a few of the older, larger leaves. Its starting to take shape into what I have in my mind. I do need to get some bonsai wire, so I can start shaping the branches.

turbo · Sep 29, 2014

Sometimes simplicity is best

Last spring I had 6 Paper Lantern starts ready to plant outside. I planted 2 in pots and 3 in my raised bed. The sixth I gave to a friend.

All summer long I fussed over my plants. I hand mixed my own potting soil. Moved the ones in pots from this location to that in my back yard, trying to find the best combo of sun and shade. Watched their leaves change colors and shapes and guessed what nutrients it needed. Fed them this and that based on the best info I could tease out of the inter-webs. I waited patiently for the pepper harvest madness to begin.

Meanwhile, my friend who had my 6th Paper Lantern promptly planted it in a 5 gal bucket full of Miracle Grow and put it on her back porch, watered it every now and then and didn't pay much attention to it at all.

Fast forward 5 months and my two Paper Lanterns in pots never grew a pepper bigger than 1 inch. Two of the ones I planted in the raised bed didn't grow a pepper at all, and the third only started growing peppers in early September. Its now heavily weighed down by dozens of green unripe pods.

And my friend's plant? She has been pulling handfuls of beautiful ripe pods from hers all September.

juanitos · Sep 29, 2014

Keep it simple stupid.

It's hard for me us guys who really care and enjoy to leave them alone haha. I love how people trash MG when people consistently get decent / good results from it. Pods look like they are beggin to be on a sandwich.

turbo · Sep 29, 2014

juanitos said:
Keep it simple stupid.

It's hard for me us guys who really care and enjoy to leave them alone haha. I love how people trash MG when people consistently get decent / good results from it. Pods look like they are beggin to be on a sandwich.

Yea, I've had such bad getting my potting soil mix right for my region the past 3 years. I think next year I'm going to skip the headache and go the simple MG route. It'll be a good experiment. If it works, yay! And if it doesn't work, I won't be worse off than I have been the last couple of years.

turbo · Oct 5, 2014

I may have made a huge mistake today. I was cleaning up my garden for the winter and I pulled up a brussles sprouts plant and I s#it you not, a HUGE swam of aphids takes off from the plant. They flew around for a bit and then landed back in the garden, but this is only 15 feet from my pepper bed. I hope they all stay in the veggie garden and continue to leave my peppers alone. I've had the worst problem with aphids this year in my veggies, but luckily they have stayed away from my peppers.

Anyway, this morning I pulled a pretty good pile of peppers. Clockwise from the top left; big hab sun, fatalii, aji lemon, choco fatalii

The cold and rain hasn't seemed to hurt my pepper plants. They continue to ripen. It'll probably be a while before we get an actual frost this season.

Love my Fatalii peppers. Best plant of the lot

I had the worst luck with cayenne peppers this year. The plants just didn't grow very big and only started growing peppers in mid Sep. But they sure are beautiful, eh?

turbo · Oct 6, 2014

Bonchi Update

My Reaper has been inside under a T8 light for about three weeks now, and its filling out nicely. I was able to work some soil out from one if the upper roots and work a little stone under it.

This is my two year old Rocoto pepper. I cut it way down and re-potted it as a bonchi for its second over-winter. I'm not sure I like how I potted it, so I may give it a month to fill out a bit and get its strength back and re-pot it into a much smaller container. This plant has never flowered...not sure why I keep it.

Two weeks ago I cut my MOA down to about 6 inches tall and left it in the raised bed so it would grow a new round of leaves. Yesterday I dug it up and potted it as another bonchi. It has a really good set of thick roots. It also has a really nice thick base, about 2 inches thick (the picture is a bit too dark to see it). I'm most excited about this guy, I think in a few months it'll look really cool.

These guys are two little ornamentals I picked up back in the spring. Not bonchi, but still pretty cute little plants

turbo · Oct 7, 2014

Are you sure this is October? My peppers seem to be thriving in this weather. Lower 50's each night, upper 60's in the day, lots of dew in the night so I don't have to water anymore.

Pulled this bunch last night. Left to right. aji lemon, yellow fatalii, choco fatalii, trinidad scotch bonnet, big hab sun

My two aji lemon plants have a good 100 pepper each that are starting to turn yellow. The next week should be pretty good if this keeps up