7 pot brain strain red

A super short update. the 7 pot brain strain red is getting ready to set flowers.

I love the way the flower buds develop. They are pointing in different directions. Almost like they are curious, looking around. :-)

Wishing you all a great Valborg / Walpurgis Night!

Hot regards,

  Mats

Douglah, almost there

Big expectations. As always. This one is not far away from opening its flowers. I have no previous experience from the Douglah variety. But it looks good. And it's the one that is leading the "first flower" competition here at our home...

Wishing you all a nice Sunday night!

Hot regards,
   Mats

Picture of the day - San Francisco and Bandera

A follow-up to yesterday's "historical" picture.

Here I am in San Francisco back in 1995. Guess if I'm in heaven here :-) I remember that I bought my first Chile Pepper Magazine in this shop :-) And probably some habanero sauces as well...

The picture below is from another trip in 1997. It's from Bandera in Texas. The Cowboy Capital of the World. I appreciated the bar for being so honest :-) Doesn't really have to do with Chile Peppers, but I found it suitable for a Friday night.

Have a great weekend
    Mats

Old pictures

It's a rainy evening and I'm going through some old pictures...

These three shows what I brought home from a trip to Texas in 1996. I am happy to have big feet, because I could stuff at least some of the hot sauce bottles in my shoes that I packed in my suitcase. But I still had a super heavy hand luggage... And my check in bag was on the limit what was allowed. But, it worked! Everything came home with me, without breaking a bottle :-)

Picture below: I remember two favorites. Melinda's is one of them. And that other bottle to the right - Holy City Heat - hot sauce. Yum!


La costeña cans. Makes my mouth water! Pickled serranos! Phew! Nice!

Hot regards
  Mats

Repotting Trinidad Scorpion Morouga Blend

Hi!

Thursday already! I have some weeks off work, and a while ago, I thought I had an ocean of free time. What an illusion! My new job starts on Wednesday, so soon I won't be counting days, but rather hours :-)

It's been a good time off work, and I have been living a kind of effortless life. No achievements, no todolists or stuff like that. But today I noticed that the Trinidad Scorpion has been growing a lot lately. So it was definitely time to repot this hot little friend. The roots have developed very well. I usually check at the bottom of the pot to see if the roots show. And they did. That's a good simple indicator that it's time for repotting.

Said and done. Here it is in its new pot. Looking good!

If we now could have some warmer weather, the plants could soon go out on the balcony. At least during daytime.  It's good to have the blog as a kind of diary. I see that last year, I moved them out on the balcony on May 21st. Also, the heading on that post was - "Trying to learn from experience" http://chilesinstockholm.blogspot.se/2011/05/trying-to-learn-from-experience.html. The lesson was that I should not be so impatient, but rather try to wait a little longer... The winds are usually very strong on the balcony during spring. So this year I hope that I will not have any broken plants.

A comment for Mia. I promised to get back to you about the soil. (ICA - I love eco). So far, I'm very happy with it. Compared to previous years, the plants look much healthier. And I also wonder if not the aphids that more or less destroyed my last year, came from the soil I used then.

I'm still using coffee grounds as fertilizer. It seems to work fine. I also use other fertilizers as well of course.

Well, this turned out to be a long post. Wishing you all a nice weekend when it's time for that!

Hot regards,
   Mats

A short update

Just a short update. The plants are of different sizes, but in general it looks very good.

And best of all! Still no aphids!!! Wohooo!

Wishing you a nice week!
    Mats

7 pod brown

Hi!

Just want to share this picture with you. Look at the size of the leaves of my 7 pod brown....Big for such a small plant.

I really hope it continues to grow this way.

Wishing you a great weekend!
    Mats

Hot sauces and bhut jolokia chocolate

Hi!

I met Patrik over a lunch today. I was not able to come out to the garden fair this weekend, so Patrik brought me some hot souvenirs :-) Thank you Patrik!

First I tried the yellow hot sauce from Tistelvind. I am not sure if I have sampled a hot sauce with that heat and taste before. A very clean habanero taste. And very very hot. I tried it on the family with dinner, and they told me that I will have to finish it alone. It was too hot for them. And the are experienced... But, I liked it a lot, so I'm happy!

The aji sauce from South Devon Chilli Farm was also great. A more moderate heat, and with a fresh aji taste!

Patrik tried to fool me with the chocolate, telling me that it was not so hot. A mild one. Yeah right. :-) When a chile head tells you that something is mild, you should never trust him. Especially not when he has those  expectations in his eyes. Phew! It was a bhut jolokia chocolate, and I would definitely not call it mild. It had that kind of immediate heat making me sweat!

I brought the remainings of the chocolate home so we could have it after dinner. And it was a success. I guess that I was the one with expectations in my eyes this time. Carl took a bite, and had to was his tongue afterwards :-) Patricia still feels the heat, even after an hour.

Thank you Rune at Örtagården (http://www.ortagarden.com/) for sharing this chocolate :-)

Have a great week everyone!
    Mats

Molten lava on the tongue?

Hi again!

Today Patricia bought some snacks on the way home from work...

There is no way I can say that we weren't warned... Blair's Death Rain... XXX Hot habanero potato chips... Here you see Carl posing with the bag of nuclear hot stuff :-) Before....

The verdict... What can I say. As promised. It was really super hot. It was hard to distinguish any particular taste except the habanero. And it had a heat that increased with  every chip. Carl is pretty used to hot food, but he had to run and drink two glasses of water. Water is not the best for putting out the fire, but what do you do when your tongue is burning?

So, maybe not the most well-tasting stuff. But as I usually say when it comes to overspiced chile pepper products - It's big fun, and hard to not start laughing, smiling and having a great time! An ice-breaker for your next company kick-off?

With this hot snack, we had a white wine. 70% chardonnay, 15% pino grigio and 15% pino blanc. A word of warning though. The heat had to decrease a little before the wine was OK.

I am not in any way connected to the company that is producing this stuff. But here you can read more about it: http://extremefood.com/shop/product.php?productid=31&cat=2&page=1
I liked the site :-) Made me smile!

By the way, are there any of you giving away chile pepper stuff in the Easter eggs? OK, not for the children maybe, but in general?

Once again - Happy Easter!
    Mats

A sunloving bunch

Hi!

I don't really know why, but these sunloving chiles makes me think about the solar power plants in the Mojave desert. Probably because they so nicely turn towards the sunlight.

I have taken away the artificial light now, and they are only depending on the window light now. It will be at least a month until they are moved out on the balcony. I'm almost counting the days :-)

So far, the most promising, or at least biggest one, is the black naga in the upper right corner. Very nice looking plant.

Wishing you all a Happy Easter!

Hot regards,
  Mats

A small update and a black currant cutting

Hi!

Yesterday I repotted some more chiles.

The really small ones, that I'm not sure if they will make it, have been put in bigger pots. Usually I wait for the roots to develop. But I want to stress these little fellows to see if they start to grow faster. Or rather, to see if they start growing. The ones I'm talking about are:

• Bod'e
• Patricia's (Pimenta cambuci)
• PI 441624 Porta da rua, Aji Yuquitania

The other ones that are in the biggest pots now are:

• Dedo de moca
• Orange cheiro - svag?
• Aji norteño

Also, the Trinidad Scorpion Morouga Blend has got a new pot. It's looking fine. I will get back with some pictures later on.

In the meanwhile, I'm sharing this picture with you. It's a cutting that I took from my old black currant bush that is living on our neighbours yard since probably 10 years. The cuttings have been out on the balony all winter, deep frozen, only covered with some fiber net. It is alive and it seems to be able to make it. Amazing!

Have a great week!