Happy New Year

Hi!

I've been silent for a long time. Mostly because there have not been much activity with the chile peppers.

I have kept one plant (until today), waiting for the pods to mature. So we had fresh "Patricia" / Pimenta cambuci today. That's what I call a late harvest :-)

So, with these words, I close 2012. Wishing you all a ....

Happy New Year

More later, next year :-)
   Mats

More canarios

Good morning!

Yesterday I got rid of the canario plant. It was way too big to fit in our living room. The final "harvest" looked like this.

So now we'll be eating canarios for a while. What a luxury. They do have a fantastic heat. Sometimes a little annoying heat, but very nice!

Now I only have one pepper plant left. It's a baccatum. No leaves left on the plant, but some pods. Waiting another week or so, to see if they will start to mature.

Wishing you all a great week to come!
   Mats

Canario

Hi!

Finally, finally, finally, finally!

The canarios are ready to be picked. I love the thick, juicy flesh of this Capsicum pubescens.

These four were part of our lunch today. I think I have read somewhere that another name for this variety is "gringo killer". They are not that hot, but can be a little challenging to eat as they are.

And there are more fruits on the plant. A very nice one. I think I will try to cut it down a lot, and try to overwinter it. To get a flying start in 2013.

Wishing you all a great week to come!

Hot regards,
  Mats

Some like it hot ...

No words needed... My favourite tea cup :-)

Take care,
   Mats

Aji norteño

Hi again!

I forgot about this picture. It's from yesterday, and shows one of my aji norteño that is maturing in a nice way.

Fabulous taste, even if they never got the chance to mature on the plant. Instead, they are in the fridge...

Keep it hot!
   Mats

Autumn colours

Hi again!

Another non-chile pepper related post :-)

We've had fantastic autumn weather, and I love the colours, so I want to share another picture with you. This picture is taken on Långholmen. One of my favorite places in central Stockholm.

Wishing you all a great week!
   Mats

Stockholm

Hi!

Took this picture on the way home from work yesterday. Beautiful day, and you can even see the moon over the royal palace (about a 1/4 in from the left side).

Except nice weather, not much to report on the chile pepper front :-)

Wishing you all a great weekend!
    Mats

New sauces

Hi!

The latest addition to my hot sauce "collection".

Cholula is an old favorite of mine. The other two are new acquantainces that I yet haven't tasted.

Hot regards,
   Mats

Lunch!

Hi!

Parts of our lunch yesterday :-) Aji norteño and a canario + some sprouts. Perfect combination on crisp bread.

Wishing you all a great week to come!

Hot regards,
  Mats

7 pod brown

Hi!

I'm going through some "old" pictures from August.

I like the distinct point at the bottom.

Here you see it even better...

A small harvest. Not very many pods, but they are almost too hot for me anyway. So it's more than enough :-)

Very promising with all the flowers, but the final harvest was not super...

Hot regards,
    Mats

Orange cheiro and the scorpion - final harvest

Good evening!

It's been a while since the last update. The reason is that not much has happened with the chiles. I brought them in earlier this autumn, and then I moved them out again. They got lots of aphids, and it became a mess inside...

On the other hand, it's been a fairly warm autumn. At least in comparison with the summer. The coldest days, it was 5C in early June, and it has not been colder than that.

But this weekend, I did the final harvest. Just a couple of varieties with mature pods. Most of them are green. A weird chile pepper year...

This is how my aji norteño looked like. Not a pretty sight. But it had lots of peppers, and they taste great even immature. So that's good :-)

Here are acouple of mature orange cheiro. I really enjoy the heat, taste and smell. Absolutely fantastic. Though, I think they are hotter than I expected.

More pictures here: http://petterssononline.com/habanero/peppers.php?action=variety&id=204

And this year's surprise. The Trinidad Scorpion. Definitely too hot for me. And it's the second best yielding variety. Isn't that funny. The pepper that I am almost unable to eat....

A handful of snacks :-)

More pictures here: http://petterssononline.com/habanero/peppers.php?action=variety&id=1253

What wold life be without assistance. Here are some guys that are busy clearing out the jungle. With a little help from Carl :-)

I have some more pictures, but I will share them with you later. Wishing you all a great week to come!

Hot regards,
   Mats

New try in my Zengrow

Hi!


Today I took some cuttings of my Black Cayman, Porta da rua and my basil. I have fired up my Zengrow again, so that's where I put them. The Zengrow is fantastic when it comes to cuttings.

We'll see how this works. At least they don't have to suffer from the strong winds and weird weather out on the balcony. With the timer, "weather" will be very predictable. Sunrise and sunset on exactly the same time each day :-)

Wishing you all a great week!

Hot regards,
  Mats

Late ...

Hi!

All plants are late out on the balcony. There are lots of flowers and some pods are still developing. Climate and weather is very different compared to last year. We are experiencing a quite warm September. That's good for the development of the pods.

My canario is in full flower. Something I'm not used to at this time of year. It's a beautiful plant!

Wishing you all a great week!
   Mats

Sapore calabrese

I have not samples this one yet, but I really enjoy the package :-)

More of this please :-)

Hot regards,
   Mats

Douglah update

Except for the microorganisms in the kitchen, there are not many things going on here related to gardening. But at least there is one plant that is doing fine. It's my Douglah. It's not a super hot one, but I think it's quite hard to handle. It's easy to make the food a little too hot when using it.

I've had a busy week at work, so this picture is a week old. (Please note, there is sunshine on this picture. This weekend has been quite grey.... :-)

Anyway, here is a picture from today. Not a chile pepper but a submarine. Quite cool :-)

Take care,
   Mats

Effective Microorganisms

Hi!

Three weeks ago, we started our bokashi experiment. http://chilesinstockholm.blogspot.se/2012/08/bokashi.html, and today we thought it was time to take the next step. To create our own activated EM.

It all started with the goal to create some highly nutritious fertilizer for the plants, but we really liked the idea to reduce the garbage from the kitchen. So now we recycle more or less all the remainings.

And as you can see from this cartoon, this "activated EM" is useful for many things. Big excitement, to see how it will work :-)

And here it is. One week until we have our own activated Effective Microorganisms. Here is the "machine" :-)

Here you can read more: http://emrojapan.com/about-em/about-em.html.

Have a great week!
   Mats

Trinidad Scorpion update

Hi!

I moved the plants around today, so the would dry up a little. It's raining a lot here... But it's quite warm. I found out that the fruits on my trinidad scorpion have started to turn red. Very nice! However, I don't dare to try them out yet. I think I mentally need to get prepared :-)

Wishing you all a great weekend!
   Mats

It works!

Hi!

Tonight, a week after we started our bokashi, we got some fluid coming out. It's said to be the perfecct fertilizer. So I diluted it 1+20/30 something, and watered our plants with it tonight.

Very exciting to see what comes out of this! More about this later :-)

And hopefully less reports from our tropical storms... :-)

Hot regards,
  Mats

Tropical Stockholm part II

Hi!

I hear myself saying - never ever give up... But now I'm close.  For I-don't-know-how-many times, the strong winds have thrown the plants all over the place. It may not look very bad, but they get messed up with each other, the branches break, and the fruits fall off.

Even the super heavy big pot was thrown over today, breaking my dedo de moca, and my cumari. The one that I thought was bod'e but turned out to be a baccatum, was also broken, as well as another one. So I have thrown them away now.

Here is my involuntary harvest tonigt. Too bad about the dedo de mocas, I really enjoy them when they are mature.

I don't know what kind of tactic I should have from now on. I need to calm down, and think about it. A good idea might be to take some pots away. The ones that don't have any flowers, will never get fruit this year anyway.

I have not picked many fruits this year, so it may be too early to draw any conclusions. But none of the chiles that we picked have had seeds. Earlier, I've had a couple of chile without seeds, but this year we've had ZERO seeds. Isn't that weird? What is your experience?

Another one of my favorite sayings are - the only thing certain is change...

Stormy regards,
   Mats

Tropical Stockholm

Hi!

The "much above average" temperatures continue. Today we had strong winds and lots and lots of rain. Almost like the afternoon rain in more tropical places. I was greeted by chaos on the balcony.

A few branches broken, but no major damage...

Hot regards,
   Mats

More caterpillars...

Hi!

Patricia screamed when she found this dude on our tulsi leave. Actually she found an even bigger on just before this one... I've found a couple of them on the balcony as well. No wonder why the chile leaves look like a swiss cheese...

Except chasing caterpillars, we are enjoying the temperatures. "Much above average". I like that, and there may be a chance for the chile plants to develop a good harvest...

Wishing you all a great week!

Hot regards,
   Mats

Bokashi

Today we went to Källtorps trädgård (http://www.kalltorpstradgard.se/). A very nice place. And Carl especially enjoyed the ducks :-)

We bought a bokashi starter kit :-) So now we can take care of our food left overs and create a highly nutritious fertilizer and soil for our chile peppers. The process is based on effective microorganisms (em). We think it is an interesting concept to sort of shortcut the circulation.

So we started our bokashi today, with some lemon, egg and coffee left overs. And hope that the micro organisms will do the work for us...

More about this later.

Wishing you all a great week!

Regards,
   Mats

Douglah

A short update. I'm so happy to have a picture with a couple of mature pods, so I want to share it with you! It's my douglah that is producing well, despite of the weather.

This picture should be labeled: Have a great weekend!!!

Hot regards,
   Mats

Black naga

It's funny. This year I have started to almost fear the heat in some of the varieties. And that is new for me. I have eaten chile peppers for 20 years... It's the fault of all my 7 pods :-)

And this one. The black naga. It's almost like it is looking at me, smiling, knowing, how hot it will be when I eat it. Anyway, it's definitely a beautiful pod. Both in shape and in colour.

Hot regards,
   Mats

Canario

Hi again!

Some more pictures from my canario. The plant is absolutely fantastic, and the flowers are so beautiful. Here are some examples.

And, last but not least. A tiny tiny pod :-)

Wishing you all a great weekend!

Hot regards,
   Mats

Bode roxa

It's the first year I grow this chinense. There are just a couple of pods on my plant, but they look very interesting. A marble-like texture. Very nice looking. I will wait a while before tasting it. I have a feeling that it will change even more in colour.

Hot regards,
   Mats

The little !"%#¤!

Today when I was chasing caterpillars, I found this little !"¤#"%.

 A very hungry guy... And he's not alone. All in all, I found at least ten of them... And there are probably very many more of them left out there...

The moment before this little fellow got his life's biggest surprise. A jump from the fourth floor, down to the garden below. There he can eat all he wants. :-) But he's not welcome back to my plants.

Regards from the caterpillar-chaser :-)
   Mats

7 pod brown

The plants are very late this year, and there are thousands of flower buds, but I'm afraid that it's too late for them this year. But that is not much to do about. I'm enjoying the rips pods that I have.

Some examples from 7 pod brown. More pictures here: http://petterssononline.com/habanero/peppers.php?action=variety&id=1246

But of course I'm still hoping for a long warm autumn. I would love to see more pods on the plants... :-)

Hot regards,
  Mats