My goji plants

It started as an experiment. We eat dried goji berries with our breakfast yoghurt. I never really expected the seeds to germinate, but since I like to try to grow new plants, I just had to give it a try. And it worked. They seem to be pretty fast growing, and I hope they grow stronger. But so far it looks great.

Maybe we can hope for some fresh goji berries in the autumn :-)

Regards,
  Mats

Repotting Sunday

While Patricia and Carl goes skiing in the morning, I take care of the chiles. Time to repot my Mexican chiltepin, my black pepper and Pimenta da Neyde (that I got from Patrik).

Here they are, the tres amigos, ready to be repotted :-) On the first picture we have the black pepper and pimenta da Neyde. I really suspect that they are the same variety. They both come from Brazil. So it will be interesting to see how they develop.

You know, naming conventions in the wonderful world of chiles can be really really confusing. Sometimes there are the same name for different varieties, even in different species. And sometimes there are different names for the same variety.

When I started my web site, I seriously had the ambition to bring order into the naming chaos. But I gave up after a couple of years. Nowadays, I mostly enjoy the beauty and diversity of the plants and fruits.

Anyway, here they are :-)

And here is my Mexican chiltepin ready to be repotted. Chiltepins are nice plants. I  keep four in the same pot, hoping for a nice harvest this year.

Wishing you all a nice Sunday!

    Mats

Pequin from Ischia in the Zengrow

What a great surprise! My old Pequin from Ischia has germinated in the Zengrow!

This is not the best picture. It's my basil jungle taking over the Zengrow, but you can see the small seedlings there. 

Excitement!

Regards,
  Mats

Spicy olives

Last night we had these great tasting olives.

Not very spicy, but a really nice heat!

Highly recommended :-)

Wishing you a nice weekend!
    Mats

Roots

My Chuquisac was the next in line to be repotted. I keep the small plants in my mini-greenhouse, under extra lights, so I don't look at them every day. But this morning a green "shadow" caught my attention. It was the Chuquisac that knocked on the plastic ceiling telling me it needed more space.

As you see here, I had four seedlings in a small pot. After repotting I only keep two in a larger pot.

What amazed me again, was the strong roots that it had developed. As always, when I have tall plants, I repotted it deep. So I covered all the visible roots, and a couple of extra centimeters of the stem.

More about this strong rooted Capsicum baccatum later.

Hot regards from a cold Sweden
   Mats

New member in the "family"

I am lucky! Patrik offered me a Pimenta da Neyde, and that is actually one of the varieties that I was hoping to grow this year. But none of my seeds germinated. So this is great news. Now I have a plant!

Here it is being unpacked and getting ready to meet the new "friends" :-) It is a cold day, so it was well packaged!

Hot regards,
Mats - longing for warmer weather :-)

Growing chile peppers is a social phenomena

Yes! Growing chiles is actually very social. Did you know that?

I met Patrik (http://chilepeppar.blogspot.com/) for lunch today, exchanging seeds and a plant. And of course also exchanged lots of thoughts and ideas.

I'm not going to compile a list with all the things chile peppers are good for, but some ideas are. (Not in any way a complete list, and not prioritized.)

• Fun to cook with, and exchanging recipes.
• Mindfulness and stillness. Just leave the noise behind and go looking at the plants, fixing and taking care of them. That's great.
• Social. When you start reaching out, for example via a blog, you make new friends. All over the world. Which is great. You learn a lot. Also, not to forget physical meetings with laughter and fun!
• Chile peppers are fun to take pictures of. The plants are beautiful.
• ... Fill in if you want :-)

When I started growing chiles in the mid 90s, long before  blogs and social media, it was already then a social phenomena. I remember how recipes and tips were exchanged via bulletin board systems, using analog modems (9600 bits per second. 9K, not 10M as today. 1000 times faster today:-) , and that everyone in the chile pepper community was very helpful, sharing seeds and tips. It still is, and it is so much easier to connect to each other today. So I think it is a fantastic community to belong to.

So, thank you Patrik for a great lunch and the plant! It is now together with its new friends in the mini greenhouse. More about that later :-)

Trying to grow Pequin from Ischia in the Zengrow

Inspired after the "salad" discussions earlier, I decided to put some Pequin from Ischia seeds in the Zengrow. It's my first attempt to grow chiles in the Zengrow, so that's going to be exciting!

What I remember from the Pequin from Ischia is that it's a very compact plant, so I hope it's going to be perfect in the Zengrow.

More about this later.

Best wishes for a good week!