There are three tiny Cayennes. Aren't they cute? The reddish building in the background is where we keep the tractors and most other garden stuff.

























I'm gonna try and put these posts with pictures in better order from now on. What I want to do is put a picture here: Looks like I got it.










It's a picture of what I hope will be Bell peppers. For those of you who don't know all peppers start out green no matter what color they turn at maturity.

I'll hold off on pictures for a while until I get some more mature fruit. I am so encouraged by what's out so far.

Pretty fun stuff so far even though I spent a ton of time weeding today. The weeds are still winning anyhow. It can't be said enough that Farmers are deserving of all the praise that can be heaped their way.

First One

Hey, I should have noticed it earlier but above right is a picture of
my first Pepper. You may have to zoom in but it's directly opposite from the
Blossom towards the center of the plant. That, dear followers is a Cayenne.
Restrain your enthusiasm. Cayennes are pretty much weeds. I don't say that
because they are a nuisance but Cayennes are easily the heartiest veggie I've
ever attempted to grow. If this critter is any indicator the Cayenne crop should
come out pretty nicely.

Sad to say the picture on the left is an Habanero. I don't know how to put a Tilden over the "n" in Habanero so I'll do me best to give you the phonetic pronunciation. "ah/ ban/ YER/ o" Now aren't we the little polyglots? Linguistics aside I am well aware that the little plant is in some jeopardy of being over run by weeds. Believe it or not I've been doing a ton of weeding. Clearly not enough but I'll keep at it. Just to keep all one of my follower current the Habaneros are late bloomers and are fiercely hot. They thrive in the tropics. Not as hot as the Bhut Jolokias but they pack a pretty nasty punch. The Bhut Jolokias are the seriously nasty ones. Believe it or not the Indians use an extract of the Bhut Jolokia as a pepper spray that is reputed to be the equivalent of a TAZER. They don't do the same thing to a person but the incapacitating effects of each are said to be similar. I know this may not be necessary but the Indians to which I referred are the Asian type.

My daughter tells me that she has a few Roma tomatoes on the vine. Now that's early for them. In my experince even Romas don't jump out until July. Pretty sweet, huh? Roma tomatoes are the ones that are best for sauce. A couple of seasons ago we harvested more than two trash bags full. No exaggeration. We had sauce until very early spring. That was from 8 plants. I put a dozen Romas in this year. We'll see.

Sorry

Shoot, Dear followers, tomorrow I'll post a few shots of the peppers. The crop is doin mighty nicely. Perhaps I should post a video of my weeding. Nahh. It'd be the stuff of censorship. No. It'd be the stuff of, "Lock this B up and the key need not be found." Saint Rose of Lima tossed herself into thorn bushes. I could have offered her suffering. The bugs are beyond nasty. Now, to those who have either sunbathed, weeded or similarly spent time in the sun in a specific place for a time I gotta ask, 'How the F do the bugs know how to get to the exact same place?' Not kidding. A Fly can be shooed but a fly-- one must allow that it is not necessarily the same fly-- and a fly goes to the exact same location...... Yo, Rosie, wanna weed my Pepper Patch? That'll give you an entre into the Hereafter.** Forgive my digression.

Ya weed. Ya water. If any of it turns out ok then you won. There have been glorious harvests out of that tawdry garden. Kick ass peppers. Hottest peppers I've ever tasted. That said the least fiery peppers I've ever grown came out of that same soil last year. Go Figure.


***Um, while I am a practicing Catholic I find it supremely difficult to imagine that the Almighty thinks that Flagellants or those who otherwise MORTIFY the flesh are doing the work of the Almighty. St. Rose of Lima (Peru) tossed herself into thorn Bushes. I wanna go to Heaven. That kind of self torture I find Pretty Sick. Does this mean Rosie ain't in Heaven? She may be. But Islamist bad folk think that sending their kiddies into a market to blow themselves, and any number of perhaps faithful Muslims along the way... Shame on any who want the almighty to encourage suffering. Shoot, kiddies, the Almighty is ALMIGHTY. That genderless entity don't f'n need suffering, sacrifice or any level of malevolence. Hey, I'm just thinkin. Mass at 7:00 AM

June 6

Please allow me to apologise to my myriad followers who have been clamoring for news of the crop. At left you will note that, fairly pregnant with bud, is an Ancho Chile. I never tried to grow Anchos before so I'm pretty happy to see them coming along pretty well. We haven't had too much moisture so it was necessary to water recently. But, mirabile dictu,** they seem to be behaving EXACTLY the way the other peppers do. I know how to do the other ones so I'll keep treating them the same way. Kinda like children a good parent treats them all the same. Now that happens to be a TOTAL canard. I've had kids and I did NOT treat them equally. The myth is that a parent does. The practical application never cleaves to "the book", does it? Be parenting as it may, I will treat the peppers equally. So there. TTFN.

Lou

**For the Latin impaired 'mirabile dictu' means, "wonderful to relate."

New Bud

To the left is a picture of the first bud on one of the Cayenne Peppers. It's the tiny white dot about four fifths of the way up the plant almost exactly in the middle of the plant. Cayennes are the hardiest peppers I've ever grown. They are the first to blossom and will produce well into September. Pretty cute, isn't it? Because I'm a pretty weak photographer you can't see the other buds on that plant, but be assured there are about three others.

I went out several nights this week at pretty odd hours in order to catch marauding rabbits. I did scare one off one night. After the plants grow to about 18 inches or so the rabbits tend to lose interest in the plants. Then it's the deer that become a problem. I'm thinking about getting a silencer for one of my guns in order to dispatch them. Don't think I'm kidding, I'm not. Can't wait for the first ones to ripen.

One day and counting

Below is a picture of what was supposed to be a Cayenne pepper. If you look closely you can see that it's been partially eaten. This pepper was planted about 30 hours ago. I hate Rabbits. Where is Elmer Fudd when you need him?

This is a picture of the Naga Jolokia. Comes from the Naga part of India. Where the Jolokia part comes from is to be tracked down. It's a baby plant. I expect to get the real fruit in 85-95 days. Late August, I reckon. It's the hottest pepper known.

Isn't this fun?

The Planting

Planting

Yesterday I put in 24 plants in. 12 Roma Tomatoes and and twice that number of peppers of several varieties. But as this chronicling of the growing season is about peppers we'll pretty much ignore the Romas. Up top is a picture of one of the 2 Habanero plants. Tiny, isn't it? With an ideal growing season, which for peppers is very warm, especially at night, that little thing will produce about 30 to 50 extremely hot peppers. I also planted 6 Cayennes, 6 Sweet peppers, 2 Habaneros, 2 Chocolate Habaneros, 0ne Tabasco, one Chocolate Bhut Jolokia, 2 Anchos one Kung Pao, 2 Jalapeno and two others that I can't even remember. They're all labelled so I can write about them the next time I go out. A hard part will be the weeding until they bear fruit, but harder still will be the patience to endure until they do. To posit these in heat order (Remember our pal Wilbur Scoville?) they go about as follows in ascending order: Sweet Bell, Ancho, Kung Pao, Cayenne, Tabasco, Jalapeno, Habanero, and the most dangerous--not an exageration-- Bhut Jolokia. The Bell Peppers are about neutran on the Scoville Unit scale. The Cayennes and Jalapenos range from 20,000 to about 60,000. Habaneros can crack 100K. The Bhut Jolokia exceed 1,000,000 Scoville Units. I say without shame that I'm more than a little afraid of the Bhut Jolokia. Cooking with hot peppers is dangerous. If precautions are not taken you can have a fairly intense burning sensation after chopping up a bunch of Jalapenos and Habaneros for Chili. If you get it on your hands and make the mistake of rubbing your eyes it is much more than anybody would want. You will feel that burn for several hours. Ten Cuidado. (Be Careful in Spanish)

The Adventure Begins

Strictly speaking the Adventure began on Tuesday, May 11, MMX, when I bought the peppers. I plan to chronicle the whole thing in earnest this weekend when I plant the crop. I bought a variety of peppers ranging on the Scoville Unit Scale* from mild to fiercely hot. I bought varieties ranging from sweet peppers to the fiercely hot Bhut Jolokia. During this experiment there will be a complete list of the specific varieties with photos and as much info as I can find to accompany. Also the specific handling of the entire garden will accompany in order that I learn what works and what has gone wrong or should be avoided in the future. To borrow a phrase from Emperors and tax collectors, " Let the games begin."


*Scoville Heat Unit scale. The Scoville Organoleptic Test quantifies a pepper's heat according to the punch it packs in terms of capsaicin. Simply put capsaicin is what makes 'em hot. The more the hotter. Just so you know there are other tests for hotness which use Chromatograpy, whatever the hell that is, but we like Wilbur. Oops, I forgot to note that Wilbur Scoville is our guy's whole name and his test dates to 1912.

Perkiomenville Pepper Post

Hey, I bought my peppers today. This'll serve as the trackin' of Perkiomenville Pepper Posts for MMX. I plan to post pictures of the whole process from purchase to planting to picking. Stay tuned. 05/12/2010

Gettin Closer

The time is getting closer when I can say that retirement is arrived. For the time being, however a stride has been made. My schedule is currently four days a week. One of those days consists of less than three hours work so it can be said that my work week is three and a half days. Not too shabby.

Kinda Bored

Killing time on a rainy afternoon is ok if, while I'm fiddling with the laptop, there is fun stuff on tv to look at over the top of the machine. I'm not so lucky today. The best thing is that it's raining outside. That's a relief as this has been the worst winter for snow since Woolly Mammoths did the tarantella in these parts. I know this because I was a lad at that time. My children can corroborate this.
Lou

Today through next week I have to work on my schedule with an eye to paring it down to a three day work week by Feb 2, 2011. Currently the nose is pressed rigidly to the grindstone four days for three weeks, one five day week, then back to four days for three more weeks. It isn't as confusing as it sounds if you write down everything that has to be done in a given week. Theoretically, as an average job for me is between 2 and 3 hours, that shouldn't be too complicated, now should it? Well, there's theory and then there is the harsh, loud, unignorable fact that real life ain't theory. I don't think we're in theory any more, Toto. N0, here in Perkiomenville trifles like illness, famine, pestilence, Legal Holidays and two to two and a half feet of snow can crimp a brilliantly laid out schedule. The Winter of 2009-2010, without delving into minutiae held all of the aforementioned afflictions. It was truly a waking nightmare. But from here with the weather improving things look pretty manageable. Some day I may chronicle some of my adventures in Winter Wonderland. Today ain't that day. As I'm off it'll be a good day to take a turn around the grounds to survey the damage to the property that Mama Nature visited upon it these last few months. I invested in a new chainsaw and a tree pruner last fall. Looking' back those purchases seem prescient. Wish us luck.

Lou

Stumbling

Hello again. I'm still sooo finding my way with this Newfangled thang. I'm wondering if any of this is actually getting anywhere. I'll pass my addy on to a friend or two and see if they can get any of it. Your patience is gratefully welcome. TY for indulgence with an old, old man.
L

Whence the Title

It just doesn't matter is something I stole from Bill Murray's character in Meatballs.

That phrase, along with two others are the things that keep me centerd along the way.

What, you may ask are the other two?

When all else fails read the directions.

And, things always look darkest before they go Pitch Black

This'll have to do until I get this page set up. I don't have time right now, as my kid and her husband are coming to dinner and I gotta get a few things done before they get here. The menu? Just think Thanksgiving but substitue chicken for turkey.

AFN --Lou