January 2007

This interesting final entry is carried over from December 2006

12-25: Merry Christmas! To all those who envy me for the late growing season I've been enjoying, you can rest assured that the Habañeros have come to an end for the season. I harvested the last 74 Caribbean Red Habañeros from them today and sometime next week I'll be cutting the bushes down. Time, the repeated frosts and the mystery pests have all taken their toll. There is no fruit to speak of remaining on the plants and the leaves are cascading from the bushes. All told, I harvested 2,041 Habañeros! That is a LOT. They sell them in packages of about 10 for a buck fifty so that gives my Habañero harvest a street value of about 305 Dollars American. A packet of seeds costs about 3 bucks, a bag of mulch 5 bucks, a bag of manure 5 bucks, a box of Miracle Grow 5 bucks, a bag of Ironite about 3 bucks... that gives me a profit of 285 dollars. Now if you subtract my wages... crap, I owe me money! But hey, it's a labor of love and you can't put a price on love! Plus think of all my friends who get their mouths flambeaued, how can you put a price on your friends writhing in pain?

1-1: Happy New Year! While most of you schlubs are buried in snow with icicles growing off your noses and hoses, I'm here on the edge of the Mojave desert surrounded by blooming flowers, tweeting birds and flying insects. Although the Caribbean Red Habañeros are now officially exhausted, the Thai Dragon chilies are still producing albeit at a reduced rate. Today I harvested 98 murderously hot Thai chilies and set them to dry in the oven.

1-7: Today I cut down the Habañeros and in the process found 15 small or green chilies that I harvested and dried. I cut the plants down a little early because I wanted to remove plant material that last years pests have most likely laid eggs on. Later I'll use dormant spray on the pots. As far as the Thai Dragon chilies, 162 chilies found their way into my drying oven. I've been eating green chilies every day too!

1-13: 129 Thai chilies were harvested today. They were in pretty good shape despite the nasty freeze we had the night before. They are drying away now in a nice warm oven.

1-14: OK, that's it for the Thai chilies. We had such a hard freeze last night all the Thai chile plants died, every leaf destroyed. I harvested what I could salvage, 400-500 chilies but even the best fruits are still pretty damaged. Several nights of killer frosts have occurred (leaving ice stalagmites under the dripping faucets) so I cut down the bushes. This officially ends the 2006 growing season. This was my best year yet and I believe I own most of my success to the abundant sunlight the crop got this year from the neighbors tree getting pruned and the tree in the street being removed by the city. The neighbors tree blocked the morning light and the street tree blocked the early afternoon light.

End of 2006 Growing Season

Beginning of 2007 Growing Season

1-22: The Seeds my wife ordered from Burpee have arrived today. Two packages of Caribbean Red Habañeros and two packages of Thai Dragon. Yep, I liked them so much that I figured I'd really like to have a second year of them. I may start them indoors as early as next month! Eat your heart out New York City and Seattle! At least my boiling hot summers have SOME benefit.

February 2007

2-7: I've sterilized the Jiffy brand Greenhouse 72 sprouting tray today with hot water and some household bleach. I let it dry on the jacuzzi deck in the weak sun then I put the remaining 36 peat pots into it and added 3 cups of water. That might be too much, I don't have the instructions anymore. I bought the small tabletop greenhouse last year and seem to have lost them and the website doesn't have a PDF. No biggie, it isn't that difficult, I'll just pour the excess water off tomorrow after the pods have expanded. There is a light bulb hanging over the greenhouse and an aquarium thermometer inside. I'll adjust the temperature to be 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit by raising or lowering the light bulb (it is in a small fixture hanging by a doubled-over plastic band that I can adjust with the aid of a small clamp.)

2-8: I wound up adding another cup of water after all. Today I have planted the seeds into the peat pods, 2 seeds per pod. I planted 18 pods with Red Caribbean Habañeros and 18 pods with Thai Dragon chilies. It's pretty much a waiting game now, though I plan to keep adjusting the height of the warming light over the greenhouse on my workbench in the garage. This morning the temperature was down to 60 degrees so I lowered the light all the way down. The lens of the 60 watt incandescent plant light is 13 1/2 inches from the top of the greenhouse. There was frost on the roofs this morning, and you may be wondering why I started so soon. Last year I planted the seeds at the end of March. By the time they went into the ground, it was hot. This year I want to give them time in the ground when it is only warm. I should have bigger plants and more fruit from the longer growing season this will afford me.

2-16: 7 days later, just like clockwork, the Caribbean Red Habañeros have started to sprout! 10 pods have sprouted with a total of 16 sprouts.

2-17: Today we have 21 sprouts in 12 peat pods on the Caribbean Red Habañeros side and we have a sprout on the Thai Dragon side this morning! Yippie!

2-18: This morning there are 27 sprouts in 15 peat pods on the Habañero side and 2 sprouts in 2 pods on the Thai Dragon side. I appear to be ahead of last years sprouting times, beating the both the Habañeros and the Thai Chilies. I'm a week ahead of last years Thai chilies which took 2 weeks for the first sprout to appear. I've got to get busy and start amending the planting pots.

2-19: Today I found 31 Habañero sprouts in 16 peat pods and 4 Thai Dragon chili sprouts in 4 peat pods. I have taken the hot incandescent light off of the green house and I have placed the greenhouse several inches under a 48 inch shop light fixture with two 40 watt florescent plant light tubes in it. I have attached lengths of aluminum foil that connects the sides of the lamp housing with the top of the workbench the greenhouse sets on thereby completely encompassing it. It keeps the warmth AND the light in. Also today I went to a hardware/nursery store and bought two bags of steer manure and bag of peat moss as soil amendment. Soon I start adding that to the pots.

2-21: Today there are 11 Thai Dragon sprouts in 7 peat pods and 32 Red Carribbean Habañeros in 17 peat pods!

2-23: There are now 13 Thai sprouts in 9 peat pods and 33 Habañeros 17 peat pods.

2-24: I have started amending the soil in the 5 gallon pots in preparation for the seedlings. When the plants died from the frost I cut them down so that there was only 6 inches or so of plant stem sticking out of the soil and I've stopped watering them since then leaving the soil fairly dry but still damp enough to not be dusty. That is the condition they are currently in. I take each pot and empty it into a wheelbarrow. I break the root ball apart and knock all the soil out of it, then discard the root into our green waste container for recycling. I rub the clumps of dirt between my gloved hands, breaking all the clumps up. To this I add a large double handful each of peat moss, steer manure, and Kellogg Amend. Finally I add a single handful of Ironite. I mix this with my hands until thoroughly blended and then pack it back into the 5 gallon pot. I put two heaping double handfuls into the pot, level off the top and then pack it in as hard as I can with my fist putting all my weight on it. I continue that process until all the dirt is back in the pot. This leaves about an inch at the top for watering. The soil will soon settle further and be consumed so that by the end of the year there is 4 to 6 inches from the top of the soil to the top of the pot rim. I did 6 pots today, a lot of work.

2-25: I did 6 more pots today, bringing me to the halfway point. I watered the pots I've amended to jump start their biotic processes in anticipation of planting the seedlings. I've been having trouble with the wheelbarrow's wheel, it keeps going flat. I worked some silicone rubber into the space around and between the air valve and put vaseline between the tubeless tire and the rim. Hopefully that will do the trick. I should apply soapy water to the wheel with a paint brush to check for leaks, but I didn't have the time today.

2-26: 6 more pots. This is work! The wheelbarrow's wheel seemed to be at full pressure.

2-27: Bad new from the Thai Dragon side of the greenhouse. Only 15 seeds have sprouted in 10 pods. I need 12 pods for a full planting. I will risk separating 2 pods that have 2 sprouts to make up the difference. This is the first time I've ever had problems with Burpee seeds. Almost every single Habañero has sprouted, 33 plants in 17 pods, so it's not the conditions, the conditions are identical.

2-28: Rather than risk tearing apart a peat pod with double sprouts, I replanted the barren Thai Chili peat pods today, this time with 3 seeds apiece. I didn't use all the seeds my wife ordered during the first planting, in fact I had only used one of the 2 packs. I used that extra pack to reseed the sprout-less pods. There were 8 barren Thai Chili pods. There is about a two week separation in the planting, but by the middle of the season you couldn't tell the difference between them. Also today, I used a gauge to recheck the wheelbarrow wheel, 4 days ago it was at 20 PSI and today it is at 17 PSI so it looks like it's time to buy a new wheel. The wheelbarrow itself is about 20 years old and this is it's second wheel.

March 2007

3-4: I amended the last 6 pots today. I also went back through the pots putting a little bit of Deadline slug and snail killer under the pots. Slugs like to rest their during the day and when they come out to eat, why there is this nice tender seedling somebody planted on their roof! Well... DIE YOU BABY EATING MOLLUSK!!

3-5: I almost destroyed my entire crop today. It is time to start hardening the seedlings by setting them in the sun briefly. I recommend doing this to seedlings you've started indoors. My mistake was not watching them more closely. I figured I the sun was low enough, it was 7:30 AM so I set them out for an hour and a half, in by 9. Well I went out there early, after about an hour and 10 minutes and all the leaves were drooping, the main stems were double over and many of the leaves were fried around the edges! I was afraid that I had killed them, they looked terrible. Well, it turns out I set them out for their first sun when they were too dry. I brought them back in under the plant light, gave them a good drink of water, misted the leaves with purified water and put the cover of the greenhouse back over them. A few hours they all looked alive and well although many leaves were still crispy around the edges. So, make sure they are well watered before you give them their first sun!

3-6: I've watered the empty pots again today in preparation for the seedlings. I won't be able to soak the pots this well for several weeks after the seedlings are planted for fear of burying them under or covering them with loose soil and organic debris. I want the pots to be nice and wet to start with, it gives the organisms a good start on the new organic material I amended the 5 gallon pots with plus the seedlings won't shrivel in the sun with their undeveloped root system. The seedlings spent another hour in the morning sun today.

3-7: Another watering for the 5 gallon pots. It is not as excessive as it may sound, the pots are so full of dirt that there is only room for an inch of water to be put into the pot at one time. The seedlings spent another hour in the early morning sun today. There is another seedling that has sprouted bringing me to only one short for the Thai Chilies.

3-9: Another round of soaking the pots in anticipation of planting this Saturday.

3-10: OK this is the big day. I planted all the chilies this morning. I didn't break up any of the Thai peat pods because I was afraid I would hurt one of the few there were to plant and I am one plant short as a result. I mixed up a gallon of half strength Miracle Grow for Vegetables and soaked the roots of each seedling after they were planted. This helps prevent shock and the water helps the soil bond closer to the newly inserted peat pod. This year I planted the Habañeros in the back row and the Thais in the front row. Normally the Thais are the tall ones, but last year showed me that when compared to one another, this species of Habañero is decidedly taller than the Thai Dragons. After planting I filled up my pressurized insecticidal soap sprayer with purified water and misted the seedlings a couple times through the heat of the day. Just before dark I lightly sprinkled Bug Bait onto the 5 gallon pots. A visit by a single millipede at this fragile time of life means a dead seedling and I just can't afford that this season.

3-11: I went around the house today testing all the sprinklers. The weather is warm enough, it was 93 degrees here today! I adjusted the drip line on my chili pots. From now on they are getting watered automatically via drip line. The seedling got another misting midday with purified water.

3-12: Last misting for the seedlings. They have all taken off nicely and they just love the heat.

3-14: YAY! I have a single Thai chili sprout from the re-seeding I did February 28th! Man, the Burpee Thai Dragon seed lot this year was a bust! Habañeros were great, the Thai's had the worst sprouting ratio of any seed pack I've ever bought. 16 sprouts from TWO combined seed packets. Shame on you Burpee!

3-16: Argh! Some little beastie crawled up into one of my pots and chewed on the side of the stem of a Habañero. It fell over on it's side and will have to be removed because there is only a hair of stem left to give it life support. The good news is that it was a double sprout, both seeds in the peat pod sprouted so I don't have to replace the peat pod with one of the backups still in the greenhouse. I took the can of Bug Bait and sprinkled all the pots liberally then sprinkled it all around the base of the pots and all over the bark covered plastic they are resting on. When the plants have grown past dying from a bugs night snack then they can eat all they want, I like to share my bounty with almost everything, but for now... OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!

3-17: Today I seeded the lawn and I have set the sprinklers to go off for 5 minutes 8 times a day. Why do I mention that here? Because I have to turn the drip line off of the peppers, 40 minutes a day is just too much water, I don't want to rot their roots. So for about a week I'm going to start watering the chili sprouts by hand. I have a shut off valve that effects only the garden chili pot drip line so a simple crank of a valve and the chilies are isolated from the automatic watering system.

3-19: The weather has cooled way down giving us daytime temperatures in the 60s and nighttime temperatures in the 40's. The chilies are still growing, though slowly. This reprieve in the heat will give them time to develop a good root system to support their foliage for when the hot sun comes out again in a couple of days. After the last round of Bug Bait I haven't seen any more damage to the plants.

3-22: The first weeding happened today, not much to report. Several pots had volunteer sprouts of unknown origins and are now in plant heaven growing on God's window sill.

3-24: I planted the sole Thai chili that sprouted from an entire packet of Burpee seeds. It was this years lot too. Get your act together Burpee! That brings the Thai Dragon pots to full strength of 12 pots.

3-25: Interestingly, one of the plants appears to be a mutant. The worst case scenario is that I'm in a Science Fiction movie and will soon be strangled by it's twisted branches and slowly digested in the warm sun like a bee in a pitcher plant. Best case scenario is that it will produce more hot fruit than the others. Most likely though, the mutated, twisted and stunted plant will not be a good producer, prone to disease and other problems.

3-27: I did a little more weeding today, about a third of the pots had spearmint sprouts in them. So far that appears to be the only weed sprouting. I don't miss all the grass and oxalis from the years before, that's for sure.

3-29: The new sprout is doing well. The average height of the Thai Chilies is now about 4 inches, and about 3 inches for the Habañeros. The weather has been very cool with many of the days quite cloudy, the nights getting down to the 40s, the daytime temps up to the 60s or low 70's. All seems to be going pretty well. It will warm up soon and the well established peppers will be ready for the growth spurt.

3-30: I checked the leaves for the infestation of thrips or whatever they were last year that so punished my poor little peppers. So far the leaves I've checked are clean. There is no fooling around this year, I'm going to use some serious insecticide if they show up again because it probably they survived in the soil of the pots. Nothing else in the yard showed signs of this infestation.

3-31: OK, this was unexpected! 8 of the Thai Dragon chilies have flower buds on them! 50 days after planting their seeds, with the plants only 4 to 5 inches high, there are flower buds. My stars, they grow up so fast don't they? Soon they will be romping on the floor of my belly.

April 2007

4-3: No new flowering pepper plants. The weather has been cool this last week. Foggy or overcast mornings followed by bright sunny afternoons. I did a little more weeding today. Mostly it was spearmint sprouts with some spurge sprinkled around. Not much in total actually. Putting down the solid black plastic last year cut back drastically the number of weeds growing around the pots, and hence, seeding the pots.

4-5: I found aphids on one of the Thai Dragon chilies. I mixed up a little bit of Safer Insecticidal Soap and sprayed the one plant. Two days later they were gone.

4-6: I did a little more weeding today. It is typical that lots of little sprouts come up out of the soil. Most of it has been spearmint, some oxalis, a touch of spurge and a few blades of lawn grass.

4-8: Two more Thai Dragons have flower buds! None have opened yet. None of the Caribbean Red Habañeros have buds yet. The weather has remained quite cool and cloudy with only bits of sunshine in the afternoons. In unrelated news, the greenhouse started heirloom cherry tomatoes already have fruit, 6 tomatoes of various sizes from BB to small grape. They are also growing in a 5 gallon pot os amended soil, only in a different part of the yard. Just thought you'd like to know.

4-9: I found more aphids, this time on one of the Habañeros. A quick spray with insecticidal soap should do the trick. I haven't seen any ants so far this year. They typically "farm" the aphids, tending to the births, locating good feeding locations, and protecting them from predators. In return they drink a substance called honeydew from the aphids. When ants are involved, getting red of aphids is a lot harder.

4-10: One of the Thai chili plants is a mutant. It sprouted with curly, joined together leaves that grew in a twisted mass. If I had more plants to choose from I would have yanked it up and replaced it. As it is I have moved the plant to the least productive location (read most shady) of the chili garden. This last week however, normal looking shoots have started growing out of it. Was it some sort of virus infection causing the deformity?

4-14: I picked a couple of leaves and examined them through a microscope. I still see no signs of the microscopic pests that were such a bother last year. So far so good anyway. I have some Malathion in case they show up again. I won't let that debilitating infestation happen again.

4-15: The first flower bud has opened on the Thai Dragon chilies! Another won't be far behind, possibly even today. I had planted the seedlings last year at about this time, sometime towards the end of April. This year I wanted a head start and boy did I get one. This years crop is in the ground blooming while last year at this time they were seedlings barely sprouted in a greenhouse! There were a LOT of Thai chilies on the bushes when the frost killed them. Hopefully this year I have bought the time to harvest them before the first heavy frost of Fall.

4-16: The 11th Thai chili has flower buds on it, only one more to go. Upon close inspection, none of the Habañeros have buds yet.

4-17: Three Thai chilies are flowering! I hope I can finally get a really big crop of Thai chilies. I just burn right through those. The Habañeros last longer, I still have Habs from 3 years ago. Next year I think I'm just going to grow Thai chilies.

4-20: 8 Thai chilies are flowering, 11 have buds.

4-24: It's been very cool lately, nights in the 40 and 50's, days in the 60's and 70's. Lots of overcast weather. It started warming up today, up into the 80's. This is going to last till Sunday then dip back down into the 70's. The chilies love hot weather, they probably won't flourish until it's too hot for me.

May 2007

5-3: Today I fertilized the chili pepper pots. I used Miracle-Gro Tomato Plant Food but it is for all vegetables. This brew weighs in at 18-18-21 for Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potash. I wet the leaves then soak the soil in the pot. I can do 5 pots with a 2 gallon mix, refilling as necessary. I'll be doing this every 2 weeks now starting today.

5-4: I weeded the pepper pots once again. About a third of them had some weed sprouts in them.

5-5: None of the Habañeros plants have flower buds yet. All 12 of the Thai Dragon chilies have flower buts on them. 10 of them are flowering, and ... wait for it ... 6 of them have chili pods growing on them! Woot! It's official! The Thai season is now in session! In a couple more weeks, I can probably start munching garden fresh Thai chilies!

5-9: I checked the chilies today. There are no flower buds on the Caribbean Red Habañero's yet. On the other hand the Thai Dragon chilies are out of control. All twelve plants have flower buds! Eleven of those have open flowers. Ten of those have fruit! It's not as grim as it sounds for the Habañeros, it took 3 months last year for the Habañeros develop flower buds. As it stands the Habañeros are growing normally. The same could be said for the Thai chilies, 3 months after sowing their seeds they all had flowers and some had fruit.

5-11: I guess all I had to do was mention it. Today I spotted flower buds on 4 of the Caribbean Red Habañeros! This is shaping up to be another great year for chili peppers. So far so good anyway. I'm attributing last years success to more sunlight, the tree blocking the afternoon light was cut down and the neighbors tree that was blocking the morning light was pruned back to the main trunk. The one tree is still cut down, and the other has not returned to it's former self yet by even a quarter.

5-13: Two more Caribbean Red Habañeros have flower buds bringing it to a total of six. We had a nice hot week last week, sometimes reaching up into the 90's. The peppers love it.

5-14: Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I'd save myself three thousand of them and show you some pictures of the peppers. Here is a pic of the entire bed with thai chilies in the front row, Habañeros in the back row and miscellaneous veggies in the middle. There is a little grass growing in the front, that is from when we seeded the lawn, it will come right up because it has no root structure, it is only in 1.5 inches of loose bark on solid black plastic. Next is a picture of the tallest Thai pepper, it is 25 inches tall from the top leaf to the bottom of the 5 gallon pot. You can see a couple of chili pod growing on it. I had to remove the pot from the bed onto the patio in order to get some definition of the plant due to the confusing green foliage in the background. Finally we have the fiery Caribbean Red Habañero. This plant is 19 inches from top leaf to the bottom of the 5 gallon pot it is growing in.

5-16: Two weeks is up, now it's time to fertilize the chili pots again, so that is what happened today. Everything gets Miracle-Gro, including the tomatoes and coffee plant that I'm growing on the side and haven't told you about.

5-19: I went around the garden and measured the chili plants. The the tallest Thai Dragon is 17.5 inches tall, the lowest is 13 inches. Most of the Thai chilies tend toward the higher measurement. The Habañeros, which are typically slower starting and lower growing, max out at 10 inches high at the highest and 8 inches at the lowest. Again, most of the Habs tend toward the higher measurement. It's going to be a good year.

5-22: All the Thai Dragon plants now have open flowers, and 11 of them have fruit. I expect the 12th to develop fruit too as there is going to be lots of sun this year too when the spring gloom finally burns off. 8 of the Habañeros have flower buds, however none of the flowers has opened yet.

5-31: All of the Thai chilies are producing fruit now! All of the Habañeros have flower buds but none of them are open yet. Also today I have fertilized all the chili pots, every other week seems to be coming pretty fast these days. When I was a kid, it was a life time. Now that there is a big chore at the end, 2 weeks is here before you know it! All May the weather has been chilly nights with very cool and cloudy in mornings, clearing to warm and sunny afternoons on most days.

June 2007

6-1: One of the Habañeros has an open flower!

6-4: All 12 of the Habañeros now have flower buds, and 8 of them have open flowers. It won't be long now before there is blistering hot fruit growing on them! By the way, Habañeros are making inroads into the mainstream culinary appetites of Americans. Last week while grocery shopping I saw a bag of Oberto Habañero beef jerky. I couldn't resist, so I bought a bag. To give them credit, I could plainly taste Habañeros in the jerky, although the heat must have been from the lesser known Woosie variety, grown by little old ladies with lace collars and white gloves who nibble finger sandwiches with a pinky raised. Caribbean Red Habañeros are grown by little old ladies with anchor tattoos and pierced nipples who scarf live warthogs with their skirts raised.

6-5: There are well over a dozen Thai chilies that are ready to eat. I'm going to let the first batch ripen to red before I pick them. This even though I love the green chilies just as much. It's just that when they redden, it's the sign that the Thai chilies are officially in production ready to start eating. I'll eat as many green Thai's as I can and the ones I can't eat get picked and dried when they are red.

6-6: This morning I spotted a Thai chili changing color! The first ripe red Thai chili is just a day away!

6-10: 3 Thai chilies are now red. I suppose I could harvest them now. Perhaps this weekend, I'll harvest the red ones for drying and some green ones for chopping up and putting into Thai fish sauce.

6-11: 9 Habañeros have open flowers now. I haven't spotted any fruit on any of the plants however.

6-13: I fertilized the chilies today. Using one tablespoon of Miracle-Gro for Tomatoes to one gallon of water. Each pot got about two thirds of a gallon of fertilizer.

6-16: I just harvested the first 7 ripe Thai chilies! I chopped them up and put them in an omelet. Mmmmm... I mean "yow ow ow!"

6-17: All of the Habañeros now have open flowers on them. It is pretty hard to get back to them and search through their bushy branches to look for fruit because they are in the back row and I have to wade through Thai Chilies and drip lines to get to them. I'll keep an eye out around the edges though. I suspect that the easiest to get to will be the first to grow fruit as they are the most developed. of the plants.

6-21: I've harvested 12 Thai Chilies, one from each pot. These are full grown ready to eat green chilies. I estimate that there are hundreds of chilies on the Thai Dragon plants. Time to start getting busy eating them fresh. I'll let the ones that I can't eat fast enough turn red. I'll harvest them and dry them for making hot sauce next year. Today I'm going to make some Thai Chilies in Fish Sauce. I'll put it on my Thai grown Jasmine rice that I'm going to cook up for lunch. Good eatin' starts today!

6-24: The Thai chilies are loaded with peppers. I decided that it was time to take another set of pictures of the garden. Here is a close up showing how laden the Thai chilies are with fruit. This is the entire garden with a yardstick as a reference. The garden is 3 pots deep by 12 pots long. There is nothing growing in the center row between the Thais and the Habañeros.

6-27: Time to fertilize again! I've started giving every pot two thirds of a gallon of Miracle-Gro for tomatoes. I know I said I did that last time but I wrote that before I did it and it turned out that the soil hadn't settled down enough to fit that much liquid in a watering. Now it has and 2/3 is what they got! What is left over in the watering can gets sprinkled over the plants. Miracle-Gro calls it "foliar feeding". At least it is not as bogus as Arm and Hammer telling you to just pour their baking soda down the drain. This stuff is designed to go onto the leaves.

6-30: I finally noticed a Habañero growing on one of the plants so I went back in there and eyeballed them. In all I found chilies growing on 10 of the Habañeros! Looks like this years hab crop isn't going to be a bust after all.

July 2007

7-2: I harvested some ripe red Thai chilies this morning. The Thai chilies are laden with fruit, this is about as good as I've seen them get. This is the first real harvest, though it was small. It yielded 45 Thai chilies. I hope the plants can keep this up, it will be a real bounty this year if they can.

7-3: Because the weather has been climbing up into the hundreds this week, I turned on the drip line system today and checked the flow of the drippers. Almost all were fine, I turned a few up and unclogged one of them. It just can't get too hot and sunny for them, but they still need the water to enable them to withstand that.

7-5: 41 more Thai Chilies were harvested today. Nice big red plump ones. The ones harvested on the 2nd are dried and stored. The harvest is well under way!

7-6: I've added a running count of all the chilies that I harvest this year. It's a small table just above the diary entries for January. So far Thai chilies 117, Habañeros zip.

7-7: OK, it's official, the last two Habañeros have been spotted with fruit so now all 24 chili plants have fruit on them. I've had years where only half of the plants had fruit. I think I owe all of this success to more sunlight which was sadly lacking in the early years of chili growing.

7-8: A nice juicy harvest this morning. 94 Thai Dragon chilies were given up to me to see as I see fit. Which in this case is to de-stem them, wash them, dry them, store them, then eat them some time on down the line. Thank you God!

7-10: 134 bright red Thai Dragon chilies were harvested today. I broke a branch while harvesting. They are so laden with fruit this season that they are very fragile! I need to be more careful but this is a difficult season, abundant fruit, large fruit and it is all packed into small plants early in the season. The break was not clean (it didn't snap in two) and hopefully I can help mend it. I tied the broken branch to a stake and I've wrapped the cracked section with tape. I want the chilies on it to ripen at least.

7-11: Another day of fertilizing today. This went down pretty much like the last time.

7-12: The branch that I broke back on the 10th is holding out just fine. We have had two very hot days since the branch broke and the leaves haven't wilted a bit. I'm glad I tried to fix it.

7-14: 233 Thai Dragon chilies were harvested today. It is soooo gratifying to look down at a big pile of bright red chilies and think to yourself that with just a little bit of effort, you can bring forth the bounty of the earth. I've de-stemmed them, washed them, counted them, and set them to dry in the oven at 130 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 54.5 centigrade)

7-17: 190 more Thai chilies were harvested today! I'm picking them as fast as I can dry them.

7-19: The broken branch from the 10th is doing great, putting out new growth and flowers. Don't be afraid to try to fix something like that rather than just give up and cut it off. My two priorities in performing that repair was seal and support. I tied the branch up in place onto a stake in the ground for support then I bound the break with plastic to help seal it to protected it from drying out and moisture loss. It was a clumsy job with the branch not held exactly in place because I figured it was hopeless but worth a shot. Next time I'll be more careful to do a better job.

7-20: 300 Thai Dragon chilies harvested! This is starting to become work. For some reason, this years crop consists of many very large chili pods. The only thing that I did different this year was to start the seeds a month early. The soil, light, water, and fertilizer is the same. Already I have two quart bags of dried chilies, this last harvest will fill a bag on it own!

7-23: 282 more plump ripe red Thai Dragon chilies were harvested this morning. I can barely keep up with drying them in the oven!

7-25: Today I fertilized all the chilies. It is starting to get very difficult to get the Miracle-Gro for Tomatoes delivered to the pots. At this stage in the season, the plants are very bushy and you can't even see the Habañero pots. I risk breaking branches getting the 2 gallon watering can close enough to water the pots. I need to find a watering can with a very long neck. Time to search the internet!

7-26: 360 bright red, plump and juicy Thai Dragon chilies were harvested this morning. I am drying them at full capacity now. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the Habañeros when they start ripening. I suppose I can use the lower ovens but I just don't have the trays to dry them in. I guess I can buy some of those disposable aluminum cookie sheets and use them for the rest of the season. Because they don't wash well, very delicate, I can give them to my wife this winter for her to use as seeding trays. Note to self: Stop thinking out loud in your online diary. PS: stop writing notes to yourself in your damn diary too!

7-29: Another big harvest today. 324 chilies! That's a lot of burned mouths.

7-31: For some reason, most likely low ambient humidity, the last batch of chilies dried in only 2 days as opposed to 3 so I harvested a comparatively small number of chilies today. 137 chilies managed to ripen in those two days and today they are drying in my oven.

August 2007

8-2: Another quick but small harvest today. I picked 129 Thai Dragon chilies, removed the stems, cleaned them and set them to dry in a rack in the oven. There is no sign of the Caribbean Red Habañeros ripening up yet. The Habañero bushes are very large and laden with fruit. This is how they should have been last year but for the pest that infested them. I'm not sure how I'm going to get back there to harvest them, it's a solid block of chili plants.

8-4: The last batch has dried and the next batch is picked. This time I got 120 chilies. I have about 8 quart bags of dried Thai chilies so far this season. I'm thinking that perhaps next year I will grow about half of the chilies that I have planted this year. I grow plenty to last through the next year, in fact, I just finished the last of the 2004 Habañeros and have started in on 2005. This is with giving them away and eating them every day. Dried chilies store extremely well but this is getting ridiculous. After the first few years of floundering around and having bad harvests, I've learned the tricks I need for a great harvest and I don't need to grow so many plants.

8-6: YOW! I just noticed that some of the Caribbean Red Habañeros are starting to show color. Hopefully within the next two weeks I will be able to start harvesting them.

8-7: 162 Thai Dragon chilies harvested today. I have 10 quart ziplock bags filled with dried Thai chilies, and this is probably number 11 in the oven drying right now.

8-8: I fertilized the chilies today, I sort of screwed it up. I ran out of Miracle-Gro for tomatoes, which was OK because I didn't have the long necked delivery system I need to deliver the fertilizer to the Habañero pots in the back. The Thai chilies were completely fertilized with Miracle-Gro in the pots and the leaves sprinkled, but the habañeros only got the leaves sprinkled. I need to get on the ball.

8-11: OK, it's official. It is now Habañero harvesting season! This morning I picked 50 bright shiny red Caribbean Red Habañeros. They are absolutely beautiful: blood red, plump, shiny, unblemished skin. Along with those I've also harvested 100 Thai Dragon chilies, 20 of which were green. I chop the green ones up and put them into a small container of fish sauce. It is frighteningly hot on the rice and steamed veggies I cook for lunch each day.

8-14: The last batch of Habañeros are still drying but the Thai chilies were ready to bag and store so I did that and picked 66 more ripe red Thai chilies. That's a pretty low count. I hope the Thai chilies produce more, they seem to be a bit stunted this year. The chilies look normal, it's just that the bushes are very small. I guess that remains to be seen. Meanwhile a butt load of Habañeros are ripening and will be ready to harvest by the time the last batch is dried.

8-15: The Habañeros in the oven are not dry yet but there are too many waiting on the bushes ripe for the picking so I picked them anyway and will figure out some way to get them all into the oven. I got about twice as many as the first time, 105 monster hot chilies!

8-18: 96 Thai Dragon chilies and 108 Caribbean Red Habañeros were harvested today. That's one hell of a basket of hot. It sucks to be my tongue.

8-22: Yow! 217 Habañeros were harvested today along with 82 Thai chilies. There is barely room in the oven for them. I have only one rack in the oven but the two cookie sheets I have will just fit into the slots for additional racks so I have filled them up with Habañeros as well as the two wire colanders underneath them on the rack proper. This is just the start of a bumper year for Habañeros. There is so much fruit on the bushes that they cannot support themselves and they have all sagged down to the ground or over the Thai bushes. I staked them up, but I didn't do a good job of it at all, I just don't have the proper tools. I should think a metal wire tomato cage would work great, but it is too late to install them at this stage of the growing season. I will do that next near though, when I first transplant them into their growing pots.

Also today I have fertilized the chili pots. Ironically, the heavier growth of the Habañeros have helped me get fertilizer into the pots! They were so fruit laden and thereby sagged over that the pots were once again visible and accessible.

8-27: I received an email today that I think I should share here in this journal. Ken wrote and said, "I loved your diary. It answered most of my questions. I only have 2. Why do [you] use the oven to dry them instead of natural, and how long in the oven" Here is my reply:

Thanks!

There are a number of reasons I use an oven to dry my chilies. Time is one, they dry quicker in an oven in temperatures of 120 to 130 with a consistently low humidity than on my patio at temperatures ranging from 65 to 100 with humidity ranging from medium to dew point. During the peak of the season I would not have enough room to dry them all. Control is another reason, I can more easily sort the dry chilies from those that need more time when I am sorting a smaller batch that is drying in the oven and I can exactly control the temperature they dry in so I have a more uniform drying scenario. But the most important thing is cleanliness. In an oven there is little or no dust to settle on them bringing with it microbes that will cause spoilage when stored for long periods. No flies can land on them, no insects can lay eggs in them, no birds can peck at them and expose them to bacteria, mold and mildew. They also become drier. The air in an oven is much more dry than outside air, and the drier the chili the longer it will store and the better it will taste when finally eaten.

You see, you cannot wash the chilies AFTER they are dry. They need to stay clean during the drying process.

The drying time varies from chili to chili. The big Habañeros can take up to 4-6 days, the small Thai chilies will dry in about 2-3 days. Drying time varies depending on size, moisture content, and ambient temperature. A chili is dry when you pinch it between your fingers and it crumbles rather than bends and flattens. You don’t have to crumble them all or even one of them, you will very quickly learn to tell just by gently pinching a chili between your fingertips whether or not it is dry. Remember, an intact, unbroken chili will store a LOT longer than a broken or crushed chili. The skin is an effective barrier to pathogens that cause spoilage.

8-28: Another huge Habañero harvest today. 285 Habañeros and 202 Thai chilies. The old batch was not ready to come out of the oven so I had to use the lower oven for the first time ever. This is the biggest Habañero crop I've gotten. I'm thinking of scaling back the number of plants I grow next year. The Thai's are another deal altogether. They started out gangbusters, with huge fruit ripening fast. After that initial rush of harvest, they slowed way down and the fruit got much smaller. The plants are rather small in comparison to last year, never quite reaching their full potential.

September 2007

9-1: Another big Habañero haul this morning. This is just starting to be the hottest part of our year in the desert blighted eyesore of inland Southern California. September is always the hottest month. Today it was 106 degrees, yesterday about the same and we can expect much hotter before the month is over. I had to get out early to do the picking and by the time I got back inside I was hot and sweaty. The sun has been so hot that some of the more exposed chilies have gotten sunburned. The leaves love it but the fruit should really be a little protected from the full brunt of the sun in the hottest part of summer. Especially here. Once again both ovens are pressed into service in order to fit all the chilies.

9-2: I saw some cookie sheets at the grocery store and decided I should get a couple more to help with the giant Habañero harvest I'm having this year. I didn't know offhand what length cookie sheet I needed so I had to wait until I went home to measure the oven. Today my wife went back to the store to get some groceries and she picked me up a couple cookie sheets. She accidentally got two different brands, one slightly different from the other. One of the sheets fit perfectly into the slots of the oven racks. It was as if they were custom make to fit in those slots. I ran back to the store, returned the one cookie sheet and bought 2 of the others. Now I can fit about twice as much into the top oven as I could before! SCORE!

9-3: Another giant Habañero harvest this morning. Because of this double harvest I'm back to using both ovens to dry the harvest. Today I picked 237 smokin' hot Habs. We've had some very hot days for that last week, every day at least 105 degrees and going as high as 110. I'm sure this has something to do with the speed at which they are ripening. Although the leaves love the heat and the sun, some of the fruit that is openly exposed to the full effect of the direct sunlight was damaged, sunburned if you will. This manifests itself as a bleached color on the sun side of the fruit in it's early stage and as a dry parchment patch of exocarp extending into the mesocarp with the nastiest cases including the endocarp. (see diagram) Forutnately there is very abundant foliage on the plants this year so sunburn isn't much of a problem.

9-4: A small harvest of 81 Thai Dragon chilies today. Not very good but the bushes are loaded with Thai chilies waiting for the next cycle. The weather started cooling today and will stay that way for a week, a welcome relief from the blazing heat wave at the end of August. Normally September is the hottest month here so it looks like the last week of August and the first week of September got swapped. I bought one more cookie sheet to replace the rack that normally stays in the upper oven. Underneath that is yet another cookie sheet so there are a total of 5 drying shelves now in the oven. The lowest cookie sheet sits right on the bottom of the oven so I have insulated it so that the chilies aren't burned. I bought a set of two disposable aluminum cookie sheets, one fits snuggly into the other. I took a sheet of aluminum foil that was just a little oversized in comparison to the bottom of the cookie sheet then crumpled it a bit. I pulled the foil open so that it lay across the entire bottom of the cookie sheet (still a bit crumpled) then I pushed the second cookie sheet down on top of it. Now there is some insulation between the bottom cookie sheet and the top cookie sheet. I use this bottom sheet as the last stage of drying before I bag them because it gets the chilies super dry. The drier they are, the longer they will store.

9-6: 79 Thai chilies picked today. The bushes are full, but they aren't ripening up just yet. It doesn't really matter, I've been eating them green too with fish sauce. Goes great on jasmine rice.

9-7: 167 big red plump Caribbean Red Habañeros were harvested yesterday during the relative cool of the late afternoon before the sun went down. Enough of the last batch of Habañeros were dried that I could combine 4 pans into 2, then load up the empty two with a fresh harvest. The new drying system is going great, I never could have processed this much fruit in one oven like last year. The harvest appears to be slowing down a bit, there was this deluge of fruit when they started ripening, and now that the first batch has been picked the plants are steadily reducing the numbers of peppers ripening. It will probably continue to slacken off until winter stops it completely.

9-10: An even 200 Habañeros were harvested today, so once again the oven is packed full of drying Habañeros!

9-12: A person named Sumita emailed me today with a problem they are having with ants. Here is the email:

Hi,

I had planted Thai chili pepper in my backyard garden. For past month or so it is attracting lots of ants and i suspect that the fruit is not coming because of it. Would you happen to know how to get rid of them? Would appreciate your response.

Unless you live in Central America or the northern area of South America and have leaf cutter ants, then the ants you have are not after your plants. The ants are working with a small nectar producing insect called an aphid, and the aphid is after your plants. The aphids have piercing mouth parts that they use to suck the juices out of the leaves and tenderest stems of the pepper plants. As the aphids feed, they produce a drop of nectar which the ants drink as their primary food. In return the ants tend to the aphids, carrying the new born aphids to the most tender parts of the plant and the ants protect the aphids, including keeping small pollinating insects away from the chili pepper flowers.

It is the aphids AND the ants that are hurting your plants. If you kill just the ants, more ants will come to tend the aphids. If you kill just the aphids, the ants will bring more aphids to feed on your plants. You need to kill both the ants and the aphids in order to solve your problem.

When I have this problem I use a combination of Ortho Ant-Stop for the ants and Insecticidal Soap for the aphids.

The Insecticidal Soap is in a liquid form and you spray it on the leaves. The aphids prefer the growing ends of a plants branches, where the leaves are tenderest and juiciest. Make sure you spray under the leaves too. Follow the directions on the Insecticidal Soap bottle. Let the spray dry before using the Ant-Stop.

Ant-Stop is a fine powder, sprinkle it lightly around any known ant hills nearby and in a foot wide circle around each plant. You don’t need to fill in the circle, just draw a line around each plant. Ant-Stop is very powerful and the ants only need to walk across the line. Try to keep the Ant-Stop dry until the ants are gone. Like any powerful poison, it can leach into the ground and be taken up by your plants, so use as little as possible. Remember, for every bad insect in your garden there are dozens of good ones too.

You may need to repeat the treatment, but if the ants are all gone, use only the spray to kill the aphids. Same with the ants, if they are killed in the first treatment then concentrate on the aphids. Remember you are fighting a symbiotic relationship, not just ants or aphids. They work as a team and must be defeated as a team.

9-13: Today I harvested 208 Thai chilies. The bushes are so loaded with green chilies that my wife commented on it, and she doesn't care about the chilies! Also I fertilized the chili pots this morning after the harvest. The Habañeros have been staked back and heavily harvested so they are not blocking the fertilization watering can with their drooping foliage as badly as before. It was possible today to get to the pots and put the right amount of Miracle-Gro for Tomatoes into the pots.

9-17: Another 209 Thai Dragon chilies are harvested today. This batch of Thai chilies are smaller than the fruit I picked during the first harvest. Still, there are lots of them and they are very hot. Soon they will start ripening very quickly. This September is much much cooler than last September which say temperatures in the hundreds almost every day. Today for instance the temperature was 84 degrees Fahrenheit.

9-21: For the first time since the harvest has started, there is nothing in the drying oven. There would be, except that it is raining outside and I don't want to harvest chilies in the rain. It has been a very cool week with temperatures in the 70's-80's. I've turned the automatic sprinklers down by 50%.

9-22: The sun came out on Saturday so I used that break in the weather to harvest 151 Thai Dragon chilies and 100 Caribbean Red Habañeros. The oven feels loved again.

9-25: Another 49 Habañeros and 261 Thai chilies were harvested today. The Thai bushes are loaded with fruit, waiting to ripen and the Habañeros are now covered with new flowers! If the warm weather holds out long enough, then there could be a whole new crop of Habañeros. Last year I harvested chilies until the middle of January. That's 3 and a half months away, plenty of time for some new Habañeros to ripen.

9-26: I fertilized the chilies today. I never did find a long spouted watering can. It would have come in handy today. I need to get busy and order one from the internet.

9-29: 52 Habañeros and 434 Thai Chilies were harvested this morning. Remember I said the Thai chili bushes were loaded? This is the logical extension of that.

October 2007

10-2: 400 more beautiful red Thai chilies are picked, de-stemmed, washed and put into the oven for drying at low temperature. It's a lot of work picking and processing that many chilies!

10-3: 38 Habs have ripened, been picked, processed and set to dry in the oven. it seems the abundance factor of the Thai and Habañero have swapped places. There are a number of green Habañeros and lots of flowers. If the warm weather holds out (and it usually does) I should have another good harvest in store.

10-6: Another great Thai chili harvest! 428 Thai Dragons were picked along with a paltry 7 Habañeros. The Habañeros are gearing up for another good harvest a couple months down the road, hopefully the warm weather will hold out that long. As it is though, I have a very large box of Habs and another of Thai chilies. I have all I need to keep me and my friends in hot sauce for the next two years!

10-9: It just keeps coming. Today I harvested 500 Thai Dragon chilies! A paltry 4 Caribbean Red chilies were found on the other bushes. This is the Thai chilies time to shine!

10-10: Time to fertilize again. Nothing new to report. It was a simple case of rote mechanics as I applied the Miracle-Gro in the manner described earlier.

10-13: Another harvest! 328 Thai Dragon chilies and 17 Caribbean Red Habañeros. Stemmed, cleaned and in the drying oven.

10-16: I'm a harvesting machine! Today I scored 367 Thai Dragon chilies from the garden, along with 20 Caribbean Red Habañeros. It's going to be a warm winter!

10-20: 489 more Thai Dragon chilies were harvested today! Only 4 Habañeros, but there are starting to be lots of green ones starting to show up on the bushes.

10-24: The smoke from the Southern California fires has darkened the sky for days, the acrid stench permeates everything, and tiny white, gray and brown ashes rain down on everything. The sun shines with a wierd redish-brown half-light that is hard to describe. I rinsed the leaves the chili pushes with water today. There seems to be no noticeable harm done to the garden, I'm sure though the plants would like it if the sky was brighter and the air cleaner.

10-25: 301 Thai Dragon chilies and 4 Caribbean Red Habañeros were harvested today. It is slowing down a bit now, and I expect the next harvest to be even smaller.

10-26: I was a couple days late fertalizing the chili plants, which I finally go to today. First it was windy and then it was too smokey to work outside. Plus I wanted to wait until after the ashes quit falling so that I could rinse the leaves with the hose before treating them with Miracle-Gro.

10-30: 122 Thai chilies were harvested today. As promised, the Thai harvest has slowed down. There is still a respectable number of chilies on the bushes but it is not near as loaded as it was. There are lots of new flowers, but I'm not sure there will be enough time in this season for them to ripen up in time to beat the winter frost. We'll see.

November 2007

11-7: The Thai chilies have slowed waaaayy down. Today I harvested 191 chilies and I expect the number to be lower and slower next harvest. So anyway, these are picked, stemmed, washed and in the oven for drying.

11-15: Well, it's been over a week now but I finally got another harvest in. I picked 226 Thai Dragon chilies, and they are now de-stemmed, washed and in the oven drying. There are a lot more on the bushes and I've been eating them green all season long by chopping them up, mixing them with fish sauce and putting that on my rice and steamed veggies. Awesome good and nasty hot. I will have some Red Caribbean news for you in several days. A number of those chilies are showing color, the bushes are becoming loaded with a second wave of fruit!

December 2007

12-7: Finally a harvest again, but I waited a little long between harvests. Too many things were going on, big building projects and Christmas decorations have thrown my gardening schedule way way off. I picked 411 Thai Dragon chilies and 356 Caribbean Red Habañeros. There are a bunch more that have ripened while this batch is drying in the oven. I only have so much room, so they will have to wait a little.

12-12: We had a light frost last night. It was nothing the plants couldn't handle, but still it means colder days and less growth of chilies.

12-13: A mere 25 Thai Dragon chilies were harvested today. There are lots of Thai chilies, they just aren't ripening very fast in the cooler weather. That's not a problem, because I'm eating them green: chopped up and bathed in fish sauce. On the other hand, 222 Red Caribbean Habañeros were harvested.

12-17: A bit better Thai Dragon harvest today, 110 chilies harvested. LOTS of Habañeros ripening up, soon I will have another big Habañero harvest to report. We've had a very light frost every night this week. I hope the weather holds out, I'd hate to see a hard frost destroy all the chilies on the bushes.

12-19: A whopping 409 Red Caribbean Habañeros were harvested today. In addition there are at least that many orange Habañeros turning red that will be ready to harvest soon. Most likely you are shoveling the snow out of your driveway, or nestled in front of your fireplace keeping the icicles off of your nose. Now while I suffer cruelly hot summers, our winters are temperate enough that I'm still growing food in my garden. It's a trade off, you should see my air conditioning bills!