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Windchicken Grow 2012

Looks like I'm getting a late start again this year...Should be setting seeds to sprout in the next few days....Anyway, here's the order I made from Beth this morning. It's not really my complete grow list, because I'm planting lots of saved seeds (from my 2011 Grow and from trades with my THP friends) for the first time this year. Also, I don't know that I will plant everything from this order, but I am excited about some of the new varieties:

Peppermania%205Jan2012.jpg


Absent from the above list but going in the ground this year:
Trinidad Scorpion
Congo Trinidad
True Jamaican Scotch Bonnet
Thai Chile (Garden Bird Seed variety)
Nambe Pueblo
Birgit's Locoto

Several bird types from THP friends, including, but not limited to (because I can't remember them all right now):
Texas Chiltepin
Prik Ki Nue
Siling Labuyo
Cumari do Para

Edited 1/9/2012 to add the following:

Last minute order from Hippy, plus some other trades I had forgotten about:
Yellow 7 Pot
Douglah
Malagueta
Pusa Jwala
 
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windchicken said:
Thanks, Stefan! It won't take many NB plants to grow enough pods for me and all my friends! Probably one plant would easily produce 300 pods per season....

I read the same thing about the Mexicans using pecan for smoking Jals, so I've got that part right, but the Chipotle my wife brings home from the store are whole pods packed in a can with Adobo sauce. So I'm not sure if mine is authentic or not, but it sure smells awesome!

The first time I smoked Jals I left them whole...It went very, very slowly, and took A LOT of pecan branches. After 8 hours I finally just gave up and put them in the dehydrator. This time I split them in half, and it went faster—after 8 hours probably 2/3 of them were completely dried. Zapotec is an especially meaty chile, in the same neighborhood of beefiness as Jalmundo, so there's A LOT of moisture to be removed. The dried pods are very small, about the size of Thai Chile

I'm still learning about smoking chiles...It seems like I always have far more Jalapeño than I can use, so this year I decided to just grow extra and make Chipotle. If you make some maybe we can compare notes...I love my Weber!
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Same here, Gary. Still gotta learn a lot about smoking chiles as well. I smoked mine for 9 hours, but I used Oak since I didn't had Pecan at hand. I'm pretty happy with the result and I send a pod to a buddy to try and he loved the smell and looks of it. You didn't place them at direct heat did you? I had dry mine further in the dehydrator after smoking them first.

IMAG2097.jpg


Still got more to smoke but not enough time at the moment, doing jalapeno poppers now :)
 
meatfreak said:
Same here, Gary. Still gotta learn a lot about smoking chiles as well. I smoked mine for 9 hours, but I used Oak since I didn't had Pecan at hand. I'm pretty happy with the result and I send a pod to a buddy to try and he loved the smell and looks of it. You didn't place them at direct heat did you? I had dry mine further in the dehydrator after smoking them first.

IMAG2097.jpg


Still got more to smoke but not enough time at the moment, doing jalapeno poppers now :)
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Those are beautiful Stefan...I can almost smell the smokey aroma!

I dried mine over indirect heat, by building a small fire of hardwood charcoal and green pecan branches on one side of the grill, right up against the metal "belly," and placing the chiles on the other side of the grill, on a perforated sheet of aluminum foil. I put the lid on, but left it "cracked" to allow some air in, and to force the smoke to flow across the chiles. It took several pecan branches and 1/2 bag of charcoal for 8 hours of smoke. I'm pretty sure it was not too hot, because it took so long to dehydrate the pods....Like yours, after smoking they needed another several hours in the electric dehydrator.

I finally tasted one of the dried pods a couple days ago...Wow! Barbecue heaven! I will definitely be growing a Chipotle-dedicated long row of Jals next year!

Trippa said:
Awesome pods and glog man. I am just sorry I only just stumbled across it now. Nice work
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Thanks, Trippa, and thanks for looking!
 
I'll send you one of those medium-size Priority Mail boxes of nice green smoking branches if you like...Nothing like pecan smoke!

Gary
 
The big garden in the country was finished off by several consecutive frosty nights back in the early part of this month, but my plants at home have been dodging Death by Deep Freeze since then. However, I think I heard my little babies in the back yard and the driveway cry out about 2:00 am this morning, when the temp dropped the lowest yet...The old 2012 Grow will probably really wind down now. (Time to get ready for Germination 2013! Yay!)

Maybe I was anticipating last night's freeze when I made this video of the home garden last weekend. My hands were shaking really bad, and I hate the way my voice sounds, but here goes...The YouTube version is as blurry and pixelated as ever, so I included a link below to the 960 x 540 version:


https://dl.dropbox.com/u/61900856/PepperPix/11Nov2012/TDay2012ChileVid.mov
 
Nice video, Gary. I think it's great, man. Sounds peaceful at your place.

Hell yeah @ green chile cheeseburgers!

Wow @ the Aji Amarillos. Shame they ain't gonna make it.

At least you can (did?) strip the CA Wonders and use 'em.

You plan on overwintering anything, Gary?

We dipped down to mid-30s last night, but once again I seem to have escaped death.
 
Thanks Eric!

The green chile cheeseburgers were great. It was my first time to make them or even eat them, so it was a real treat. The roasty/spicy flavor is almost narcotic to me...There will be lots of pods destined for green chile in future!

I let my brother take a nice basket of green Aji Amarillo and Cal Wonder home last night, so that was fortunate.

I was planning on overwintering all those plants in the driveway, but I didn't bring them in last night, so they may be goners...9 plants of Yellow 7, 6 Scotch Bonnet, 5 Trinidad Perfume, my 3-year-old Caribbean Reds, 2 Cumari do Para, and my 3-year Chiltepin....The only plant in the house was the NagaBrain. In the country I had set several plants inside, so they are safe: 5 Congo Trinidad (pic 1), 2 Bahamian Goat, 1 Texas Piquin, and one mystery chinense that I believe is Cheiro Recife. So, maybe 10 plants will get overwintered, maybe a few more....That's probably enough. Probably the Chiltepin will be fine, even if the frost does kill the branches.

How many are you keeping?
 
I haven't decided yet for sure. But probably just 4-6.

My Fatalii X, 4YO Chocolate Hab, White 7-Pot, Trinidad Scorpion CARDI. Then maybe a Bih Jolokia and a Yellow Bhut or Peppadew. The NOT Yellow Bhut in my backyard has a HUGE canopy and trunk (and probably 100 pods on it right now in various stages of ripening), and I want to keep it. But I think I'm going to cut it back and try and cover it. I hope I can keep it alive in the ground since the root system is clearly very good. If it doesn't freeze TOO bad, I think I might be able to get away with it. We'll see...

Do you think your 3YO CR plant is salvageable. That'd be a shame to lose the ol' girl.
 
Just for the record I don't think the video sucked :party: Giant trees full of lovely pods in late November. How can that be a bad thing. Thanks for sharing G man!!!!
 
Eephus Man said:
I haven't decided yet for sure. But probably just 4-6.

My Fatalii X, 4YO Chocolate Hab, White 7-Pot, Trinidad Scorpion CARDI. Then maybe a Bih Jolokia and a Yellow Bhut or Peppadew. The NOT Yellow Bhut in my backyard has a HUGE canopy and trunk (and probably 100 pods on it right now in various stages of ripening), and I want to keep it. But I think I'm going to cut it back and try and cover it. I hope I can keep it alive in the ground since the root system is clearly very good. If it doesn't freeze TOO bad, I think I might be able to get away with it. We'll see...

Do you think your 3YO CR plant is salvageable. That'd be a shame to lose the ol' girl.
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Sounds good. It would be so cool if you could keep that in-ground Bhut alive through the winter. Definitely a dream worth pursuing!

Despite the frost on the windshield of my truck, not 3 feet from the old CRH plants, there was no discernible damage to any of the driveway or patio plants....Maybe the concrete served as a "heat island." The in-ground Bondas suffered a little frost bite on the tender growth, but for the most part they are fine.

I took these pix of one of the driveway habs when I got home from work yesterday. Across the way is my Chiltepin and a couple other little chinenses:

crh.jpg


Driveway Hab, one of two third-year overwinters. The grot on the leaves is sap from an overhanging Crape Myrtle:

crh2.jpg


romy6 said:
Just for the record I don't think the video sucked :party: Giant trees full of lovely pods in late November. How can that be a bad thing. Thanks for sharing G man!!!!
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Thanks Jamie! You put things in perspective for me—It's not about me, it's about the chiles!
 
That Chiltepin is NUTS!! Totally cool. I guess I'm gonna have to grow one in a pot just for kicks next year.

My intent was to germinate a bunch of them and then xplant them to the yard, since they were gathered not far from here. I want a chile forest at my house!! lol.
 
I like it! I could plant a Chiltepin orchard, with the bushes in a nice grid pattern. An OCD chilehead's heaven!

Believe it or not, that plant was the runt of the litter, hiding under a weed sprout at germination time. I didn't even notice there was a chile plant in that plug until later on in the summer. After the first year the other 4 plants from that sowing were potted up into a whiskey barrel that I neglected to perforate. They lived for several months in the barrel, until the heavy rains came at the beginning of the third year and swelled the staves until they sealed off, and the plants drowned. This little guy had been in a decorative pot from the grocery store, because I didn't want to throw him out. Now he's the survivor...
 
Very nice plants for the time of the year, Gary! I'm joining you on the dedicated Jala row for Chipotle next season ;) It's great stuff, I use it a lot. I flaked a couple of the pods :D
 
meatfreak said:
Very nice plants for the time of the year, Gary! I'm joining you on the dedicated Jala row for Chipotle next season ;) It's great stuff, I use it a lot. I flaked a couple of the pods :D
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Cool! We can compare notes next year, then. How did you get your Chipotle to flake? I tried using a molcajete, but the flesh is not really friable enough to break into small pieces. I ended up mincing it with a sharp knife...

Eephus Man said:
Great story, Gary. Ain't that how it goes. The best laid plans...
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I was just thinking about that. Usually the plants I have big plans for don't do well, and it's something I planted at the last minute that ends up being the rock star....
 
I used a electric coffee grinder, they are like leather yes but the grinder still cuts it due to the high speed. Only needed to press the button like milliseconds :) First ones came out like a sticky powder :lol:
 
Dem tepins I just eat and spit . All da flavor ( which is the best) without the seeds sticking in your throat. Also great in mixed drinks:) Okay not really :rofl:
 
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