Aji Chombo

A 'Planned' Break

2011-07-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

A quick break from Chillies (gasp!) to talk about another of my interests in life: architecture and urbanism (where, much like chillies, you don't really know how hot and spicy a topic is going to be until you bite down on it.).

I've been asking myself of late as to the motivation behind my love for 'the built environment' (more now thanks to the stress of my dissertation and the lack of time I have at the moment to properly give it my all).

I guess thinking of home (Aji Chombo Land) was one of my main reasons for becoming enamored with the topic.

Bit of a strange thing, since, and I write this in earnest, it can at times be an amazingly ugly city.

Traffic Jams left and right. People building what they want, where they want. One hundred buildings over 40 stories high...

...and not a single fire engine that can reach even the middle floors in the event of a fire.

:-/

But this is, in my optimistic eyes, the diamond in the rough.

All of the grime that covers urban planning in AC Land needs to be lifted so that the true beauty of the city (and indeed the country) may be fully appreciated.

And there is a lot to appreciate.

I love the challenges inherently present in cities.

Cities have order and chaos, euphony and cacophony. There is motion, change and evolution within them, and at the same time, there are elements that remain as constant and ever present as the sun.

Looking at a city and seeing ways to clear the clutter.

That is what I love.

It's not so much about establishing order as it is about solving problems.

Or better still:

identifying the potential for problems so that they do not happen in the first place (after all, problems only occur when we don't foresee them and stop them from materializing).

Bizarre and beautiful dance this is, urbanism.

Because it never depends on one person, either (can you imagine if dancing was limited to one person in a vast space?)

Much like in dancing, you will most likely have a partner. Much like in dancing, there will be other couples of varying degrees of experience on the dance floor with you, and rest assured, heels will be clipped and toes will be stepped on.

But it cam be immeasurably rewarding if 'the rhythm gets you'.

It is a convoluted thing, planning.

But one which I enjoy thoroughly.

In a convoluted way...

:-)

Aji Lemon Drop

2011-07-19T07:30:00.000-07:00

Took this photo a second ago with the camera at work. The pod was on top of an architecture book I was reading and just looked awesome. This is the second Aji Lemon Drop that has matured so far.

:-)

Mutant Chronicles/Genocide

2011-07-08T05:44:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle of waging unrelenting war with Aphids.

They invaded my plants a few weeks back when we had a rather 'unseasonable' June heat wave in the UK (yes, unseasonable. You look out the window today and you'd know why. It's in the teens, gloomy and rainy...and this is July), and now there are hundreds on my plants.

Things got so bad, I had no choice but to break out the SB Plant Invigorator to control the little cretins. Right up to that I had tried controlling them with some sticky tape (running it along the pods picking up the aphids), but this was now getting out of hand.

After one thorough spraying at the beginning of the week, they are now doing much better. They still have aphids, mind you, but they are much better.

I'm starting to get antsy, because there are at least three plants that should have ripe pods by now: The Lemon Drop, the Cayenne Golden, and the Ring of Fire. Come to think of it, the Stromboli and the Goats Weed aren't that far off.

Good News Everyone!

The Trinidad Scorpion x Giant White Habanero cross has two little pods!

Oooooooooh the excitement is palpable now! Really looking forward to that one.

Off to return to work I go!

Lies, damn lies (and statistics)

2011-06-27T04:01:00.000-07:00

Hoy en la noche, AjiChombo land faces off against Mexico in the U-17 Football World Cup...(bizarre, I only just noticed after writing this that it was done so in Spanglish...my brain is definitely not working).

Cruzo mis dedos como todo fanatico y espero que le podamos ganar a Mexico y que continuemos nuestra experiencia en este Mundial de Futbol.

But I digress...

Aphids are having a field day with the plants and I am slightly annoyed. Thankfully they have not become an uncontrollable pest as of yet. Sticky tape and water sprays and SB plant invigorator have been called upon to do battle with the sugary green menace!

The Cashew Apples are living up to their reputation as problematic anywhere that is not 100% tropical. We had a relatively cool night a couple of days past where the temperature dropped to 8-10Celsius. One of the plants had severe burns on the leaves...grumble.

By the by, si usted es fanatico de la arquitectura, le recomiendo el siguiente libro:

Richard Holzer Arquitecto

The book is the work of one of the greatest Panamanian Architects of the 20th century, and a fantastic journey through over 50 years of architecture in Panama.

:-)

The Stench of Man (and Woman)

2011-06-26T04:56:00.000-07:00

As Charlie Brown once said:

AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!

I spend (or rather, wasted) the better part of yesterday morning stuck in the various many forms of public transport in Merseyside and Sefton attempting to travel to and from home, surrounded by stinky people of advanced age.

Not all of them, mind you. Some of the ladies as usual smell of gardenias, lavender, and rose.

But it only takes one ripe one, really.

And boy was this one a ripe one...

:-/

I texted Almapaprika out of desperation of the hideous and befouling stench of 'sebum' which adorned one such couple in front of me in the bus, in what could only be the longest, most torturous 30 minute bus ride of my life. I was actually thankful when an equally foul smelling gentleman sat beside me because in contrast (and much to my relief) he only smelled chokingly of tobacco and cigarette smoke and ash, which at the very least gave my nostrils a momentary respite from the olfactory onslaught unleashed upon me.

Hot water and soap, it would seem, is a luxury some people in England have yet to discover.

As well as the good sense not to sit there hacking like a cat with a fur ball caught in the throat and producing gray balls of phlegm which are then poked and prodded between thumb and forefinger to attempt to diagnose why they are of that particular gelatinous consistency.

I felt like gagging.

It was so bad by the time I got home, four hours later (on what should have been a two hour return journey, faffing about time included), I stank of said mixture of human sweat, sebum, smoke, and who knows what else.

I am thinking of burning my clothes from the day, which still smelled of ghastliness late into the evening.

I could never be a coroner...

Public Transport.

It atrophies the senses...

On the chilli front, I managed to get some better photographs taken at week's end:

Here is one of the Cashew Apple trees. One has reddish/brownish leaves, the other green. A colleague asked why, but I could not give the answer. :-(

This is a very good photo of the Aji Lemon Drop flowers.

and one of the pods from the Lemon Drop. I am quite liking this plant. Not too tall, but with lots of pods.

And finally, the first of the goats weed pods. Looks like some eternal flame of spiciness. I think it is a fitting image for a chilli plant, don't you? ;-)

I am playing around putting the ownership of the photos now, just because I've seen at least one elsewhere on the Internet. Flattered though I am that another photo of mine might travel through the ethers, I kind of am proud that it is one of mine, and would prefer it said somewhere on it that it is so.

OK, off to do some laundry and some more coursework.

Sketchup Fever!

2011-06-21T04:03:00.000-07:00

Talk about having a hard week. My weekend was ruined by the bane of group work, meaning what was supposed to be a happy Sunday of leisure was turned into an 11-hour marathon trying to fix other people's glitches (OPG). It wouldn't be so bad, were it not for the fact that I have done this because half of the team was really upset at the report handed in, while the other half seemed oblivious at the very basic, very childish, and very numerous mistakes present in the document (and no, I am not making it up, there were mistakes in every page of the 30-plus page document).

It is kind of an awkward situation, working in groups. I am never particularly good at telling people off, unless I have complete control of a group, and then I am slightly (lie!) megalomaniacal (hence the reason why I shun leadership nowadays, even though some people do need to have someone giving them a good ol' kick in the head!), therefore when people are not working to my standards it does tend to frustrate, vex, irritate, and disappoint me (much like I am sure it does the same to others when I am not up to scratch).

But such is life.

Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and get the ulcer for the sake of the greater good (the greater good!). And sometimes you really should just tell people:

'Your work was below par, and I am dissappointed in this.'

But that is usually done by a supervisor...

Aaanywho, enough whingeing. On to the more amiable side of things:

The chillies are doing swimmingly. The Stromboli has pods, one of the Lemon Drops has pods, one of the Ring of Fires has pods, the Golden Cayenne has pods, and they are all flowering! I moved the fatalii again, this time to share a bit of space with the rest of the plants, so maybe the sight of all them flowers and pods will make it go 'hmmm, I bet I could produce hotter pods than all of them put together!'. See, a little bit of 'capsicum psychology' ;-P

Here's a few pics (apologies. Took them with my phone, and sent them strait to photo bucket, so not re sized):

These are the Golden Cayenne. I'm quite looking forward to these, as I only had a couple of seeds and only one germinated. Well doe little guy! :-)

The stromboli. The pods are less pointed than the one I grew two years ago, but it still grew really tall and slender before giving a cluster of flowers.

One of the windowsils. That one had (until this morning, I have since moved things around) the Goatsweed, two Ring of Fire, and Lemon Drop. The pods from the LD are really nice and big. Looking forward to those as well.

The Strawberry Guava! It is really not climbing much at all in terms of height, and after six months it still looks pretty much the runt of the litter, compared to the chillies, but it looks fantastically healthy. It may take years to reach 'shrub' status, but heck, I can wait...

SURPRISE! This is Anacardium occidentale, the cashew apple. You can probably see the remnants of the cashew nut at the base of the seedling. This is an ultra topical plant that runs away screaming at the first sign of frost, so trying to grow it in THE NORTH! might be a bit of a problem.

But hey, life is all about the challenges.

I will try to get some more detailed photos up as soon as I can (coursework permitting)

So I went to the Land Down Under...

2011-06-05T04:19:00.000-07:00

This will probably be the last post for a couple of weeks, as university work once again begins to pile up.

I never thought it would end up being as much work as this, but heck, I guess sometimes it is possible to have too much school work while at the same time having to work in full time employment...

:-(

I can confirm the first pods of the season!

Hazzah!

They are from the Lemon Drop. I am well and truly chuffed. This means the season is ON!

Booyah!, as the people say.

It's Pimms' O'clock and all that jazz!

I moved the Fatalii's somewhere sunny, but I will have to move one of them again, as that room is being turned into a student study room, and the last thing I want is to be blamed for a person of university-level education's lack of common sense in trying to taste a chilli pepper...

...but if there's something I have learned in all my years in the magical realm of 'academia', it's that a university education and common sense can sometimes be akin to oil and water.

I planted the two Cashew Apple seeds (that would be two unopened cashew nuts to everyone else) yesterday. Each seed is larger and heavier than probably all the packs of orange habanero seeds I have combined...

Now it's just a waiting game.

As I had said in the previous post, Almapaprika and I recently traveled to the land Down Under.

I have to admit, it was a wonderful and spectacular place.

But then again, we did travel during the Oz autumn, and were not subjected to the 40C temperatures of summer.

And, of course, while I was there, I could not help myself when I went to one of our gracious hosts' homes and discovered they too loved chillies:

Ah, there is something about growing your chillies outdoors that is so rewarding!

They also had a lemon tree and some passion fruit vines!

It was heavenly, even though the Oz Magpies are large (twice as large as the British ones) and rather fearsome looking with their red eyes.

Oh, and here's a treat:

Couldn't really go to Oz without taking a photo of a 'Roo.

Well, with any luck the next post will include photos of the pods back in the UK.

:-)

And just like that!

2011-06-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm,

Mr. Arboc must be psychic.

:-)

I heard chillies can give a man all sorts of super human abilities.

And many thanks, mazcalzone. The studies go well, though I am by no means out of the woods quite yet!

:-(

I've been extremely busy on the studies front, so much so that there are only a couple of plants growing.

But they are doing quite well. Many are now flowering, and while part of me is tempted to pinch the buds and let them grow some more, another part of me greedily mutters

'Chillies! yeah!'

Such is life.

I am crossing my fingers with excitement because one of the Aji Lemon Drops seems to be teeming with flowers and quite possibly pods!

Hazzah! A new one to savour! People say very good things about this pod, so I am looking forward to it.

The Gold Cayenne, and Ring of Fire are also in bloom, though no pods yet; a curious thing, since the annums have always fared better in colder weather (and this April/may has been a bit cooler than normal).

The Goats Weed looks absolutely fab. It's like The Capsicum Deities decided they wanted a plant to be coated with velour, and made it so! Cotton Candy wrapped chilli plants!

It is starting to show little buds, so no doubt I will soon be seeing new chillies (fingers crossed).

The Stromboli is also showing the start of its typical cluster of about 10-14 flowers, so that is also good news.

The Scorpion/GWH cross is doing well, but still no flowers...typical chinense...(grumble).

The two Fataliis are healthy and green, but haven't flowered or shown the slightest desire to do anything other than look 'ornamental'. I might move them to a sunnier/hotter spot to see if I can change that.

They vex me, those two.

As much as plants can vex a man.

Two years and zilch...

The Strawberry Guava is doing well, though a midget compared to the rest of the chillies. This is a plant that is supposed to grow to 6meters high, and right now it is well south of 6 inches. But it is growing very green and healthy with many leaves. I might take the Baby-bio with me to work Friday and see if we can give it a bit of nitrogen to help.

This one will be a slow grower, but I'll wait.

On a non-capsicum related note, I got a seed order I was waiting for quite excitingly today, and have sown quite a few new and quite diverse things.

How diverse?

Well...

5X Suriname Cherries (Eugenia uniflora)

5X Baby Kiwis (Actinidia arguta)

2X Bush Rose (Eucalyptis macrocarpa)

2X Black Mulberry (Morus nigra)

2X Gardenia (Gardenia jasminoides)

2X Myrtle (Myrtus comunis)

2X Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendrum sempervirens)

Now, before you start asking 'What?!', there are simple and perfectly good explanations to all of these as well as the pack of Tea Tree and Cashew Apple I am desperately trying to sow in the next few days.

The Suriname Cherries remind me of the fence near one of my former workplaces, a day school which used to have them as part of the hedge rows. Why said day school chose to have a sour cherry bush as its hedgerow, I will never understand, but it always reminded me of that little area of a neighbourhood of my youth (my first job was age 16..a bit old, I know).

The Baby Kiwis and the Bush Rose Almapaprika and I saw whilst travelling recently 'down under', and in a way will hopefully serve as a reminder of that brief but fantastic time in a truly wonderful place (by the geographic distribution of the bush rose you can guess where we've been to :-P)

The Mulberry is because there is a great big mulberry tree near my place of work now, and though I've tried getting cuttings from it, nothing has worked.

That, and something about a monkey chasing a weasel (no doubt the weasel is a cheese thief...they all are).

The Gardenia because it is a smell of my youth, and I seem to recall it being prominent back home, and in some of the places I've lived in as well.

The Myrtle because it reminds me and almapaprika of a little holiday we had once...and because I want to eventually do the same liqueur they do in Corsica and Sardinia, Mirto!

The Giant Sequoia because, well, lets face it, who wouldn't. I mean it is just such a ginormous tree! It is the skyscraper of the vegetative world! If it does grow, then hundreds of years after I am gone, all things being positive, someone might walk up to it and say

'Blasted thing is ruining my perfectly good view of the natural (not man influenced over the course of several millennium oh no!, heaven forbid!) English Countryside! Who was the genius who planted this here?!'

And my work will be done.

:-)

The Tea tree because Almapaprika and I, along with another two close friends walked through the closest thing to a tea tree forest in Oz, and the smell was so fragrant and fresh.

...and we can lure quokkas!

The Cashew Apple, well, you're not really from Aji Chombo Land if you've not had a Cashew Apple tree growing in your back garden, and have had the cashew apple juice permanently stain your shirt, had cashew apple jam, and roasted cashew nuts in a fire to get the slightly burn, warm and oh-so-tasty roasted cashew nuts and pigged out!

And yes, this last plant is strictly tropical, cannot grow above a very specific altitude, and the slightest frost kills it.

Which makes it a challenge to grow.

:-)

One final thing and I shall leave you to digest this all:

I was really 'chuffed', as the Brits say, to see that five friends have asked me for chilli seeds this year, and two are already growing plants from those seeds!

I would like to think that in a little way, I am helping to spread the word about how totally awesome (TMNT moment, there) chillies are!

:-)

I will try to post photos of this years plants as soon as I can, provided I finish my assignments in time.

:-/

What a Planning Pickle

2011-02-12T03:46:00.001-08:00

Wow...

Exams are over and a new semester of studies has begun.

I am going to be up to my armpits in work!

:-(

Politics of 'Big Society' and 'New Localism' asides (when I first heard of them I though they were games for my PS3, to be honest, and I thought 'gee! Is Big Society a cool cartoony game like Sim City?' but like Consuela from Family Guy, the answer as 'Eh nooooo...' It is all some cheeky and dangerously problematic new wave of 'let's re-define the role of planners' from the Planning Pickle, who is sadly also not a character of a PS3 game), this means I will be dedicating even less time to the chillies...

:-(

The seedlings are doing quite well, and what's even better, another of the Trinidad Scorpion x Giant White Habanero seedlings has also sprouted, along with the last of the Ring of Fire Cayennes!

:-)

Even one of the Strawberry Guavas looks to be germinating (and this time it's the real deal, not my foolishness).

I had to throw away two bags of dried chillies on Thursday because mould got into them!

:-(

Meaty chillies are difficult to dry. And even the slightest bit of moisture means mould. Away went about two dozen pods.

Even more disheartening, I used one of the Thai Dragons I grew last summer in a pot of Caribbean curry Almapaprika and I made on Thursday to spice it up...no heat! I ate a bit of the dried pod to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

No heat... good flavour, mind you. But there just wasn't any bite to it. It was a bit of a let down.

On a separate bit of news, those of you in the UK take note: selected Home Bargains are selling the 100ml Tabasco Chipotle sauce bottles for just 39p!

:-D

If you're wondering why I'm happy, it's because the 250ml bottles sell in world food stores and expensive delis for £5.00!

:-O

So if your nearby Home Bargains has them, I recommend you get the case they put out on the floor.

I can see clearly now, the label's on...

2011-01-22T04:21:00.000-08:00

At last, some form of clarity!

I have to admit to my own personal stupidity in not properly labelling the coir pellets when I put the seeds in.

It has made for an interesting two weeks of guessing what has 'hatched'.

But finally, I can see it clearly, since what could have been either a Kumquat or a Stromboli Chilli has germinated:

Both did and I can confidently say they are chillies and not citrus.

I'm a bit sad, mind you. I was quite excited at the prospect of having little Kumquat plants.

But I guess them's the yams, as they say.

So, what I should have germinated at the moment is now definitely:

1 Goats Weed

1 Trinidad Scorpion x Giant White Habanero (F1 hybrid. Like a Liger or a Tiglon! So exciting!)

1 Gold Cayenne

2 Aji Lemon Drop

2 Stromboli

3 Ring of Fire Cayenne

10 out of 22 isn't that bad. I might be temped to do one or two more seeds of different varieties if there is space available, but one of the offices I use at work for growing chillies is being converted into a seminar room, so that will unfortunately limit space.

:-(

Two exams down, one exam and one report to go.

Las cosas en las que me meto yo... :-/

So Much Confusion...

2011-01-18T13:03:00.000-08:00

In between attempting to get my head around the various many ways in which Urban Villages are useful (and the many more in which they are rubbish), I have come to the conclusion I got the order of seedlings wrong.

This now means that the seedlings I've seen 'hatch' (yes, bird term. But I like to think of my chillies as somehow 'bird like' Maybe, just maybe, they imprint on the first human they see, and adjust their spiciness levels to them) are in actuality the Goats Weed and a Lemon Drop. I don't mind this at all, since that would mean two new types to grow that I have yet to see go from seed to plant to pod!

:-)

A few more have also 'hatched', which, if my revised order is correct (again, fingers crossed) would be one of the Trinidad Scorpion x Giant White Habanero F1 (that's First Generation Hybrid) and a Gold Cayenne. There is another little seedling rearing it's little vegetable self out as we speak, and this one will definitely set the record straight. It will either be a Stromboli or it will be a Kumquat.

And there is a big difference between them, as one is a chilli and the other a member of the citrus family (oranges and tangerines and them giant lemons used in Judaic ceremonies!).

Anywho, will let y'all know what eventually happens.

Almapaprika is watching 'metabolically challenged' (fat) people being bullied by slim, muscular people, being made to run in treadmills, push tractor tyres around, run some more, and then forced to share the reason why they are fat on global television as each and everyone of them embarks on a 'journey' more difficult and perilous than Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring embarked on when they tried to take the One Ring to Mordor: To Lose Weight.

To you lesser mortals, she is watching America's Biggest Loser.

I will probably join her, while holding a copy of a book by a chap named Allmendinger.

Riveting stuff on planning theory...

And we're off!

2011-01-16T05:49:00.000-08:00

The first seed of the 2011 season has germinated!

And no surprise here, it's a Cayenne Ring of Fire. I have to admit that for the past three seasons these have been the most consistent performers for me. And they are good producers, so more to boot. They don't suffer as much with the mild temperatures of the UK, and thus tend to start setting fruit much earlier than the capsicum chinenses, which means that, though the plants grow a little smaller than the chinenses (though this is in part because I put them in smaller containers), I do manage to get a second harvest from them. The heat from them is also much more manageable for people than that of any of the Habaneros or 'super hots', which means I can more readily incorporate it into regular dishes.

I guess if you're short on space and want to grow a chilli which gives you 'edible heat', this would be my number one choice.

The first chilli seed germinated yesterday, but there was also another little one which germinated this morning: The Strawberry Guava.

Last year this particular plant was also quick off the blocks, but succumbed to damp because I kept it in the little greenhouse in the cupboard for too long.

I am hoping there will not be a repeat this year.

Once fully grown, this shrub/small tree can be frost hardy to an extent, which means it can be kept outdoors in the UK (except in severe weather), so it will hopefully make a very good large container plant.

Two out of 22 so far in less than a week. A promising start. Let's hope by next week I hit double digits.

Now, back to my meagre attempts at studying (revising to the Brits)

The 2011 Season Begins today!

2011-01-10T14:42:00.000-08:00

At least for me, anyways.

Some folks have started already.

This will not be a heavy season for me (not like last year. I still have bags of chillies drying all around the flat, and jars of chilli related jams in the fridge.), because Almapaprika and I will more than likely be on the move once again, which means I can't have twenty-odd plant pots following me.

With that in mind, I've decided to make the 2011 season a bit more manageable.

I have just finished sowing:

-2x Goats Weed Chillies (c. annuum)

-2x Trinidad Scorpion x Giant White Habanero (c. chinense)

-2x Gold Cayenne (c. annuum)

-2x Lemon Drop (c. baccatum)

-2x Stromboli (c. annuum)

-2x 'Peppermo' peppers (c. chinense? they were an unidentified pepper from a forum pal I even forgot what they look like)

-2x Kumkuats (citrus japonica)

-4x Ring of Fire Cayenne (c. annuum)

-2x Cayenne (c. annuum)

-2x Red Strawberry Guava (psidium littorale)

I'm only growing two types of chinense this year! what gives?!

Oh, I do have two overwintered Fataliis at work, hoping THIS year I might get a pod off them...

As usual I am including the odd 'non-chilli' so that I can have a bit of variety. I guess I'll find out if citrus seeds keep viable for more than a year, since the kumkuat seeds are from 2007 (I really should check my box o'seeds more often.

I also apologise if this year the entries are fewer and further in between, but I'm in the middle of university stuff, which means spare time is a luxury rather than a commodity (though organisational skills are still a necessity of mine). It's also been the reason why I've been away from almost every single forum I belong to. The responsibilities of further education!

Hope you've all had a good holiday season, and let the growing commence!

:-)

Dr. John vs The Chilli

2010-08-31T05:26:00.000-07:00

Video of Aji-Chombo Land

2010-08-13T01:56:00.000-07:00

Someone in a forum I frequent posted this video from a production company called colibri productions (hummingbird productions).

It is far and above the best video I have seen of Aji-Chombo Land ever. So I thought I might as well share it with you.

:-)

Colibri Productions from Colibri Productions - Nel Boshof on Vimeo.

Photo Update Numero Cuatro

2010-07-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

Trinidad Scorpion mature pod.

A very curious immature Trinidad Scorpion pod.

Mature and immature Royal Gold Habanero pods.

That's about it for now, but will try to get the video of Dr. J eating the Barrackpore 7-Pot uploaded soon.

:-)

Photo Update Numero Tres

2010-07-29T11:08:00.001-07:00

Barrackpore 7-Pot. This is one SEXY looking pod. Dr. J tried half of it the day after this photo was taken. There will be a video soon!

Maize Morado! It is either producing the female tassels, or this is the first little corn cob!

Photo Update Numero Dos

2010-07-29T10:57:00.001-07:00

From the top, clockwise: Chocolate Habaneros, Orange Habaneros, Naga Morich, Datil, Ring of Fire Cayenne, and Madame Jeannette (yep, they do look like Orange Habs, but they all taper towards the end)

Chocolate Habaneros

Orange Habaneros. The largest one there was bigger than the BIG Chocolate Habanero in the previous post. It was amazing!

All good stuff! :-)

Photo Update Numero Uno

2010-07-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I posted photos, so I shall try to play catch up.

Having said that, here are some photos from 5&6 July:

A BIG Chocolate Habanero. Un Habanero Chocolate bien grande.

A Cayenne Ring of Fire. Un 'Cayenne Ring of Fire'.

From top to bottom: Chocolate Habaneros, Ring of Fire, Naga Morich (Bottom Left), Orange Habanero (Bottom Right). El Naga Morich se ve distinto al tradicional. Esta temporada todos los ajies de la planta de Naga Morich han crecido de esa manera. Pero no crean que son menos picantes. Para nada! son lo mas picante que he probado (casi).

More of the same :-)

Update 'Numero Dos' will be up shortly.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

2010-07-26T10:04:00.001-07:00

Yep.

It's another one of those days.

Tomorrow, J from the office will be eating the Trinidad Scorpion pod. That should be extremely interesting.

Today I went to a Service Seminar sponsored by work.

It seems staff are not 100% knowledgeable about providing that 'Wow!' that the service industry requires (I know, I know. But Aji Chombo, you work in a LIBRARY within an 'educational institution'. It seems educational institutions are also a part of the service industry. I would feel much more comfortable if we just called them what they are: Bu$ine$$e$. Rather than sugar-coat it to the young and impressionable masses whose money we w....I mean who we seek to enrich with the knowledge and training that can only be afforded by a top class educational institution.)

But I digress.

The Seminar was all right. It was neither as bad as other people made it out to be (I was seriously thinking it was going to be happy-clappy rubbish), nor was it revolutionary enough in the knowledge it imparted to make me want to quit my sarcastic ways completely and devote my life to being the model employee.

Somewhere in the middle is fine by me for the time being.

At the end of the seminar, as I walked to the supermarket (yes, the place where they still can't tell a Spring Onion from a Tomato), I bumped into one of my colleagues from the seminar (there were people from all sorts of departments). She and her husband were helping to look for a Dalmatian pup which has somehow gotten free from the collar of their owners. I decided to walk up the street I normally walk down to (parallel to the one the dog was reported to have run up), just to see if the dog might have entered the large construction area next to it.

No biggie, I told myself. Just a fifty foot walk from the door to TESCO.

And lo and behold, in the parking lot a few feet further from the construction site:

The pup (rather large one at that).

I motioned for it to come to me, crouching down.

Predictably, the dog bolted in the opposite direction.

After running around like a headless chicken for about 5 minutes inside the little parking lot (me), the dog then ran up the road, further away from the commotion and towards a larger avenue.

I gave chase, though winded. I thought to myself:

'Surely, this dog will be disorientated and will tire easily.'

U-huh.

Dalmatians, it seems, are much like sharks. They need to keep moving constantly, or will turn a solid colour.

This one also seemed a bit deaf, since it paid no attention to me calling to it.

To make a long story short, it managed to jog (with me thirty feet behind) all the way to within a few feet of the building I live in, which is about five blocks from TESCO.

Only for it to turn and sprint back in the direction it had just come from.

:-/

I continued to give chase, albeit now with the impetus of a very old man with chronic pneumonia walking up a steep incline.

Last I saw of the bitch (it was a female dog, so I am within the correct terminology to refer to it as such) was its 'waggily' tail as it turned another corner on the maze of small streets in the neighbourhood near my flat.

I limped back to TESCO defeated, and with heavy cramps in both legs and oddly enough, in my right triceps (how that happened while running is beyond me).

I bumped into my colleague in TESCO, and told her what happened, and both had a laugh (mine was more a mask to hide the severe lack of physical condition and wincing pain I am in). As she left, she said:

'You know why we did this. It was because of the seminar.'

I replied vehemently:

'I would have still done it for a dog, regardless of the seminar.'

In hindsight, it sounded rather presumptuous, goodie-two-shoes of me, almost as if I was some sort of Acolyte of Francis of Assisi (patron saint of Animals), and if I have to be honest, while there was truth in the sentiment (I routinely find myself having to rescue animals left and right, though half the time I may not want to touch them. So maybe there is some truth to this acolyte nonsense), had I not asked what was going on when I bumped into my colleague, I probably would have been on my merry way, clueless to the missing canine.

So there you have it. Twenty minutes heavy jog with a rucksack (backpack), soaked jeans, a missing Dalmatian, and a Service Seminar.

And I complain about boring days.

I might invest in a Dalmatian snare for next time (and then the pet will probably be a reticulated python)...

The Kids Aren't All Right

2010-07-24T04:06:00.000-07:00

Es una tragedia ver como la juventud de hoy se separa mas y mas de la naturaleza, prefiriendo en vez la atraccion de la supuesta 'vida facil' que nos ofrecen los avances tecnologicos.

This is a particularly grating issue for me (The above rant in Spanish).

I pass by my local supermarket (a Tesco) pretty much every other day, to pick up little things we run out of in the house.

Of late, there has been an ever increasing number of young people working at the tills or 'cajeros'.

Sin duda esto se debe a la recesion economica que esta afectando a la mayor parte del planeta.

What has been shocking, though, has been the fact that over the course of the past two weeks, as I've had to interact with about half a dozen young employees (I would say they are in their late teens), I have come to realize a sad truth:

The can't tell their Leeks (Puerro) from their Butternut Squash (Calabaza).

It may just be me being my usual 'cranky old fool', but I felt really sad and embarrassed for these young people, who simply have no idea what vegetable or fruit are.

These weren't exotic fruit and veg. They were simple, every day use vegetables in English cuisine (or Welsh if you're referring about the Leeks). More importantly, they are everyday items stocked by the supermarkets they work in (Tesco, please take note of this PLEEEEEEASE train your staff to know what they are selling).

At least one of them looked at me and semi-confidently said 'This is a Sweet Potato, yeah?'.

Maybe I demand too much. Maybe I shouldn't ask today's generation to be knowledgeable of what they eat and how it is grown.

Maybe I have watched too many television programmes about people who simply don't know that food comes from a more rich, beautiful and at the same time tragic diversity of locations. That our food is part of a cycle that transcends geographic, ethnic, religious, and political boundaries, yet is inevitably bound to them.

Food is much more than simple flash packaging!

It is much more than potato crisps (chips to the yanks)!

It is life!

Go Food! (glorious food! ;-P)

Bullet the Blue Sky

2010-07-23T05:15:00.000-07:00

Lightning-fast post (work has been keeping me busy these past few weeks):

1. The Maize Morado has FINALLY shown Cob-like growths! These would be either the female tassels, or the fully pollinated corn cobs. There are three at the moment, so WOHOO! Also, I only found this out today, but the Corn has grown so tall, it is growing INTO the office roof!

2. The Datil pods matured, so I now have two Datil pods at home. Photos of them and some of the other ones will be posted soon-ish. I plan to use the pods to make some sort of Tuna steak in Mango and Datil chutney dish... may or may not work. The plant has now gotten two more pod-lings, so more good news.

3. After weeks of having only ONE pod (which is now ripening to a glorious red) The Barrackpore 7-pod has more pods. The same is happening to the Aji Umba Red, which had only two pods, but has now got about six. The two Jamaican Red Hots have also gotten a few pods in them. This means the only plants not to have provided ANY pods so far are the two Fataliis (no surprise there) and the two Black Nagas (noooooooooooo!). The Trinidad Scorpions still has only ONE pod...which is also now ripening.

4. I am a bit confused with some of the pods that have resulted from some of the swaps for seeds. Mind you, this is also part of the fun of seed trading: you never quite know what you'll get! The Habanero Golden pods have just started ripening...to a very ORANGE colour. The Madame Jeannettes have also ripened...to a very ORANGE colour. I thought the first were supposed to ripen to a light yellow/gold colour, and the second ones to a deep red. Ah, well. They all look very good regardless.

5. The Brazilian Starfish and Red Squash peppers have fallen under some form of spider mite attack that has left the two Red Squash plants pretty beaten up. I don't think they will be able to survive this, and I fear I may lose the pods, which is a shame, since they are very interesting and dare I say visually striking pods. I have tried to spray them with SB Plant Invigorator, but the mites seem to be unaffected by the spray.

6. I really should get to work on that web page of mine.

7. Powdering chillies is fun, but cutting them is painful! I discovered that vinyl gloves SHOULD NOT be used for this. They tear too easily and, more alarming, suffer from micro-tears which means they aren't detectable until your fingers start to hurt. I spent three days with my thumb feeling as though it was being bitten by fire ants. And this even after using copious amounts of olive oil to wash the fingers to get the capsaicin washed off properly. I made Chocolate Habanero powder, Orange Habanero powder, and Naga Morich powder.

8. Will post photos soon! :-)

The Diversity of Life

2010-07-03T06:32:00.000-07:00

Occasionally when growing plants, or indeed whenever you study life, you get the chance to see the intricacies of genetics at work.

One of the plants growing this season at the office is a Royal Gold Habanero. I planted and thankfully germinated two seeds. The plants have had very good, bushy growth, and unlike some of the other C. Chinenses at the office, this plant has not only flowered profusely, but produced a generous quantity of pods.

The pods in question have not been at all similar to the ones I saw on the chileman database, which is the same photo from the nursery which originally sold the plant (whether or not the nursery is the origin of the plant is unknown to me). I got the seeds from one of the thehotpepper.com forum members, so there might have been the possibility of cross-pollination (not that it bothers me much, to be honest).

The pods themselves have been 99.9% arrow-head shaped, about an inch and a quarter long by three quarter inches wide at the widest. I must be too much of a movie buff, because the pods remind me of the explosive arrowheads from Rambo III.

:-P

Nevertheless, they are quite attractive pods.

Now, I said 99.9% because the main plant, the one in full production (the second plant has only now started producing, as it was considerably smaller than the first), has produced on pod significantly different than the rest of it's brethren:

I find this amazing.

Astounding.

Downright cool.

:-)

How fantastic is it to watch a plant produce lovely pods all over, and then, just as a small surprise, it goes ahead and gives you one pod completely different from everything else! Genetic variation at its freshest!

Where have all the good puns gone?!

2010-06-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

I've been having a quick look at the blog and some of the old posts, particularly last year at about this time, and I can't believe that I've gotten so BORING since then.

Sheesh! my imagination was in full swing back then, interjecting to and fro and mixing life and chillies with gusto and panache!

And now, I'm just a bored, bored man...

...not bored enough not to laugh at France's predicament, though.

As I sit here at work and read the fifa.com website's second by second action of France's last match of the group stages, I can only laugh (or cry) at their situation. They should have solved all of this years ago...but that's what you get when you have a coach who decides starting lineups based on the zodiac!

Bah!

I only chose the Panini albums...

...or tea leaves.

Went to Jamie's Italian in Liverpool two weeks ago as a pre-opening. Took Almapaprika for a treat. We started the experience in not the best of manners (Waitress, there's an unnecessary apostrophe in the word starter's), followed by a lovely meal in which, for the first time in my life whilst eating or attempting to cook a Jamie Oliver dish, there were no BP Deep Water Horizon sized amounts of olive oil drenching it (Jamie, if you read this blog, please, give it a rest. Olive oil is not the 'universal lubricant' and no, my coffee would not be better with a 'little drizzle of Olive oil.) Although I'm pretty sure the chefs managed to sneak in a gallon or two of the stuff into my little pot of 'Basil Tar tare Sauce' for my fried fish which was so utterly rich I had to leave most of it.

While it was an entertaining afternoon, we both left the restaurant feeling Jamie's vision of 'good honest food' was a bit of a sham and a facade for the man wanting to make some serious cash (and who can blame him). Case in point: we ordered some CRUNCHY STUFFED ASCOLANA OLIVES, which were £4.25 for a plate of five olives, not knowing they were the same delicious ones we had ordered on our last night in Rome in a little pizzeria in the Trastevere neighbourhood.

But we got the same fantastic olives, at 10 of them for 4 Euros.

You can say 'But this is the UK' all you want, that is still against your ethos in my book, Mr. Oliver.

Pods!

2010-06-16T03:06:00.000-07:00

Well, as is to be expected, this is the time of the year when pods are starting to show up on the plants.

The Orange Habanero is full of them. So is the Chocolate Habanero.

One of the two Royal Gold Habaneros is being quite prolific. The other is still growing and not flowering (though there are plenty of buds).

The Madame Jeannette has about 10 pods of varying sizes.

The Aji Umba Red has one pod, and though it is supposed to be quasi-related to the MJ, the pods show completely different characteristics. It will be interesting to see the pods fully mature.

Both Black Nagas are producing buds, but no flowers have opened as of yet.

One Fatalii has started flowering. The other is about to.

Both Jamaican Red Hots are flowering, but no pods seem to be forming :-(

The one overwintered Naga Morich has produced four pods so far, and is flowering heavily.

The Datil has produced two pods.

The Ring of Fire Cayenne has about a dozen pods.

The Barrackpore 7 pod has a lot of flowers, but no pods yet.

The Trinidad Scorpion is the same.

The Thai Dragon is growing, and growing, and growing...but not a single bug so far!

The supposed 'Red Squash' has finally produced pods, and they are looking true to form. But the flowers are definitely C. annuun.

The Brazilian Starfish looks about to flower.

The Rocoto Rojo continues to irritate me with its lovely green growth and zero flowers/pods.

The Roselle has flowered lots now, but no good sized flowers (tiny ones), so I may have to overwinter this one.

The Maiz Morado has finally produced on tassel, or male inflorescence. Now I just have to wait for the female ones.

Whew! Long update.

Candied (crystallized) Orange Habanero experiment is still going quite well. I might shorten the number of days from 7 to 5, since it is a very small batch. I will wait until the liquid in the pod segments has been completely replaced by sugar, though. But the syrup so far tastes delicious!

Candy-Candy @ The World Cup

2010-06-14T02:17:00.000-07:00

Couple of quick things, since updates have been few and far in between:

1. I have recently purchased a new website domain, which I will soon be turning into a snazzy new website. But until I do, stay tuned to this channel.

2. New experiment: I am in the process of candying Orange Habaneros.

Yes.

You heard correctly.

Candying.

Turning Orange Habanero slices into candy by an osmotic process whereupon a sugar solution replaces the liquid inside the pod walls. The new 'sugarpods' are then dried to produce the candying effect, and the yummy and extremely hot syrup left over shall be utilised for a variety of things.

3. First few days of the World Cup have left me with some interesting one liners:

a) England are not as bad as their first match; nor are they as good as everyone hypes them up to be. Lay off Robert Green. Lay off Fabio Capello. The English media have the uncanny ability to punish coaches who don't take risks and coaches who DO take risks. Whinge-whinge-whinge-whinge! let the players play and shut it!

b) Raymon Domenech should change his name to Raymond D'Oh!menech. I actually fell asleep watching France-Uruguay.

c) Germany are contenders IF and ONLY IF Mezut Ozil is running the strings at midfield, and he's already shown flashes of Rooney-esque petulance in the first game. Knock him out of the game, and it's curtains for Deutschland.

d) Ghana look strong. Serbia look like a wounded animal, and Australia look like someone just told them it's not Aussie Rules.

e)South Africa are playing with spirit. Mexico are tricky. Uruguay are deceptively good. France are only to blame for their ineptitude.

f) Argentina are using a midfielder at wingback. Do they not have such a player among their 23 man squad? Jonas Gutierres will be prematurely aged (into retirement) by the industrious Koreans.

g) Greece look more like the 1998 team than the one that won the European Championships.

h) Could the Panini album predictions be.....WRONG?!

Goodness Me!

2010-06-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

Crikey! My computer seems to be working at the dial-up speeds of old! (kiddies, go grab your parents, yank them away from the TV and ask them what Dial-up means. It's from the by-gone era of Windows 3.1, Dot Matrix printers and Netscape Navigator). I still have no idea why SKY is charging me an arm and a leg for 'bigger, faster, stronger, better broadband' when it feels like I have the same download speed as back in 1998!

I also say Goodness Me! because it has been a while since I posted anything. He estado muy ocupado, what with trying to get used to the married thing and finally being able to go on our delayed honeymoon.

The plants, it would seem, enjoyed my absence.

The Maize Morado is almost at the roof of the windowsill!

The rest of the windowsills are a sight to behold!

Both the Chocolate Habanero and the Orange Habanero have about 15 pods each on them now, and even the Naga Morich as joined in the fun with four pods.

THE DATIL HAS A POD!!!!!

Joy of Joys! I am looking forward to that one!

The Cayenne Ring of Fire is doing it's job, and has about a dozen pods on it.

And groovy baby! the Madame Jeannette plant has two pods at the mo!

Even the Roselle has joined in and given two flowers!

And look! The first ripe harvested pods of the Orange Habanero:

So far, so good. I watered all of the plants with the Epsom Salt solution yesterday, so that takes care of this month's dose.

Very, Very Happy!

:-)

Green houses/Invernaderos

2010-05-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

I finally got annoyed enough by our balcony to go out and buy a mini-greenhouse.

I have gotten sick and tired of watching plant after plant simply keel over and die out side of our flat in what can only be described as the sort of place where only Scottish Heather or wind resistant grasses from the Hebrides can grow. Living less than 200 metres from the waters of the Mersey in what effectively is a wind tunnel is frustrating. Nothing you grow seems to be able to settle in. Add to that the fact that thanks to the Hilton brand of hotels and their Hamptons by Hilton we no longer get sun in the mornings, and only a few hours of direct sunlight in the afternoons, and you can have a sort of feeling why I get so miserable when I look at what would ideally be a beautiful wood-decked balcony.

But no more. I just simply couldn't let the nice white climbing Rose wither and die, or watch the Hibiscus try for the fourth year running to have more than just some crappy little leaves.

No sir.

I have just seen my three blueberry bushes wither and die thanks to the new balcony and it vexes me.

So, in comes the new greenhouse.

It is nearly six feet tall, and has four shelves, though I am only using three since the Rose and the Hibiscus are fairly tall twigs.

Looking at them now, the wind is causing considerably less stress on the plants. I even feel confident enough to move the very healthy Mint plant I had in the window outside. I've placed the Lilies Almapaprika bought inside, along with the ones I bought a few months back, and watered everything in the greenhouse.

I might buy some cheap digital thermometers to keep track of whether or not it also makes it more bearable for the plants temperature wise.

I've not been able to update the blog as often as I would like because I've been a little busy at the moment.

I am slowly re-potting all the plants into their final, 8-inch pots. I still have to re-pot the two Fataliis, the two Black Nagas, the two Jamaican Red Hots and one Royal Gold Habanero.

I think I may be seeing the first of the Cayenne Ring of Fire pods next week, as the plant has started to flower now.

I treated all of the overwintered pots to some Epsom Salt (Magnesium Sulfate), which is helpful in replenishing magnesium in plants. Apparently peppers plants are deemed to be 'Magnesium hungry'. I'm hoping this will help the Rocoto Rojo, which has been great at growing, but exceedingly poor at producing pods.

The Royal Gold (the already re-potted one) is doing quite well, and may produce flowers in the next fortnight. The Madame Jeannette, on the other hand, is already weeks ahead of every other plant of this season. The first node of flowers numbers a cluster of 9, which is prolific. No buds have opened yet. Should be doing so next week. The Thai Dragon has split brilliantly into three even main branches, all growing straight and up. Lovely growth, but no flowers yet.

The two Red Squash...grumble grumble...are anything BUT Chinenses. They have started to flower, and are following the traditional Annuum growth pattern of one flower per node, as well as showing all the physical characteristics of an Annuum. If it was my mistake, then the only other possible pepper that could have been mistaken in the labelling were the peppers next to them, Almapaprika peppers (not my wife ;-P). I only had four Annuums growing this season: Cayenne Ring of Fire, Regular Cayenne, Almapaprika, and Thai Dragon.

I only hope it wasn't the seed company's problem, because they are generally a good seed company.

But I will only find out once the first pods set in.

I was planning to make some pie today for dinner, but I've gotten a bit lazy... :-(

Algo no me huele bien...

2010-05-07T03:15:00.000-07:00

Yep, something is fishy here.

These are the chillies and plants that are still going strong in this year's crop.

2x Red Squash

3x Maize Morado

1x Cayenne Ring of Fire

1x Thai Dragon

1x Madame Jeannette

1x Aji Umba Red

1x Barrackpore 7-pot/7-pod

1x Brazilian Starfish

2x Jamaican Hot

2x Fatalii

2x Royal Gold

2x Black Naga

1x Trinidad Scorpion

1x Roselle

Plus the overwintered:

1x Orange Habanero

1x Chocolate Habanero

1x Naga Morich

1x Rocoto Rojo

Now, all seems according to plan with all the plants. Some of them (the Fataliis) seem to be growing very, VERY slowly, while others (Madame Jeannette) are growing like there is no tomorrow.

The interesting thing is that two of the peppers don't seem to match their descriptions...

The Brazilian Starfish is supposed to be a Baccatum, and yet the leaves looks strangely like those of a Chinense. It's growing shape is much more elongated and elegant than any of the Chinenses of similar age growing alongside them, but it is nonetheless strange. Still, this is the first Baccatum I have ever grown, so I might be wrong.

Now, the Red Squash on the other hand, doesn't look AT ALL like a Chinense, even though the seed company I bought them from said it was. If anything, the plant so far screams Annuum. It is just starting to produce flower buds, so I shall have to wait and see if it's just me (after all, I could have mislabelled things when I planted seeds originally. Unless they end up looking like nothing I ordered for this season).

No photos this week, as I am in the middle of slowly re-potting all of the seedlings into their final pots (have done so thus far with the Trini Scoprion, the Red Squash, the Brazilian Starfish, Madame Jeannette, Aji Umba Red and the Roselle.

Others will be done next week. I just need to get more containers from Home.

On another note, last weekend I cooked Chocolate Habanero, rum soaked cherries, pecan and ginger brownies.

Man Alive!

Those are some really good brownies!

:-)

And Cameroon Wins the World Cup!

2010-05-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

It's the start of the 'countdown' to the 2010 World Cup.

How can you tell?

Simple. The Panini World Cup Album is here!

Yeah, I am one of those sad people who spends endless amounts of time (and unfortunately money) completing a sticker album for the World Cup. Been doing so for about five World Cups now, and it's just part of the whole World Cup celebration.

One of the silly things I tend to do is 'predict' who the winner of the World Cup will be, based on, of all silly things, whose team I complete first. Mind you, I am fully aware that quite a few of the players which are in the album will not be in the World Cup.

Beckham's sticker?

Worthless, to be honest.

But I won't take away from my fun. So, I shall take you on a step by step guide of how the groups will pan out (based on this weekend's sticker count):

Group A: Buoyed by hosting the first African World Cup, South Africa win a very tightly contested group, barely edging out France, who also pip Uruguay to qualify. Mexico discovers that African soil is unforgiving.

Group B: The Koreans prove that their third place in 2002 was no fluke, surprising everyone and topping group B, followed by Argentina. Greece prove tough opponents for everyone, and Nigeria disappoints once more.

Group C: England win the group by a mile! (the cards do not lie). Algeria surprise many by claiming second, while the US manages to edge out Slovenia out of the basement.

Group D: Serbia powers through as group leaders, with Ghana close seconds. Germany disappoints, while the Ausies finish last (sorry, the cards again. I merely interpret them).

Group E: Cameroon steal the hearts of World Cup fans by winning the group, with the Danish narrowly edging out a slumping Dutch (more internal problems again), while it's bottom for the Japanese.

Group F: If the Italians are involved, you know it will be boring, low-scoring, and odds are they will win. They do here, with Paraguay second, and New Zealand and Slovakia joint last.

Group G: El Grupo de la Muerte. The Group of Death. As predicted, Brazil make it first, but the big surprise is to see the Ivory Coast second. A shocked Portugal only barely manages to get past North Korea.

Group H: SHOCK! (Or maybe not) Honduras wins the group! Switzerland comes second! Chile third and Spain last (again, the cards in the album do not lie...sort of)

Last 16: A spirited South Africa take Argentina to the wire, before losing in the penalty round. England powers through a determined Ghana. Serbia steam roll Algeria. South Korea does the same to France. Cameroon sets African hearts racing by overcoming Paraguay. Brazil barely edges out Switzerland, and Italy barely survives a late Danish comeback. In a pulse racing game, Honduras edges out Ivory Coast.

Quarter finals: Argentina meets their makers in the form of England. Serbia edges out South Korea in the penalty round. Cameroon stuns the world by knocking out Brazil, and Honduras continues the trend by knocking out Italy.

Semi finals: England just manage to lose out to the darlings of the tournament, as a last minute winner give Cameroon the victory. Serbia finally ends the Honduran's dream World Cup.

3rd Place: In a good old fashioned slug-fest, England beats Honduras.

Final: A tense, vibrant final sees Cameroon become the first African World Cup champions!

And there you have it.

Remember, before you start criticising this, it is a prediction based on stickers in an album.

And if it does come true, just remember who told you so!

;-P

Now for some pics!

The Maize Morado is getting HUGE! Close to four feet high!

Orange Habanero pods. Yup, it has started again. :-)

The Orange Habanero (left) and the seedlings for this growing season already showing good growth.

The Madame Jeannette. It is growing seriously fast.

Black Nagas growing up strong!

One final item before I go (nursing a really awful headache at the moment). One of the blog readers (Hola Cote) wondered about learning about how to control 'pulgones' (aphids). This was one of those things I sought advise from when I started growing peppers. Best of that advise I can pass down is this: Pulgones are the sort of annoying pest you cannot eliminate 100%. Bet you can do is keep them under control. I pick them from the plants by hand using a brush with some tape on the top third of the stick. I carefully go all over the plant searching for the little annoying pests, and afterwards, I spray the plant with a little soap water solution. It is labour intensive, but you do get a bit of a sense of accomplishment after squashing the little pests.

Solo espera a que tengas que controlar caracoles y babosas. ;-P

Back from the Break

2010-04-28T07:20:00.001-07:00

I am making a short entry today as I am back from my break...

...no longer a single pepper, but now as a married pepper (Almapaprika and I have joined in holy capsicumony).

I put a small entry about a pre-wedding happening with chillies in THP forum, as the first entry I've put as a pepper related event since I last made an entry.

Had no honeymoon, as the lovely Icelandic volcano cause havoc all over Northern Europe, making it impossible for us to leave on our mini-trip to Rome.

Que tragedia griega!

Worst of all, brother never brought me the seeds of Aji Chombo I asked so many times about!

:-(

Dad, on the other hand, did manage to leave with half my supply of Ring of Fire and White Habaneros. Not a lot of seeds, mind you. But he was happy to see his son enjoying growing chillies.

:-)

The plants survived, thanks to the peeps at the office who kept them well watered.

The Orange Habanero even has some pods on it, which is great considering it only produced pods in July last year.

The rest of the plants are doing very well, specially the Black Nagas, which I left under the little domes. They were a wee bit crammed into the little domes, but they look much, MUCH bigger than the last photos I took of them.

I wrapped all of the little plastic bottles with tin foil (kitchen foil for the Brits) so that if the roots reached the edges, they wouldn't get scorched by direct sunlight (since I would not see the plants for about 10 days). It also reflected sunlight back at the leaves of the plants. I have read that foil mulch can help plant growth and productivity.

I will probably have to start re-potting some of them to permanent pots soon, just like I did with the Trinidad Scorpion before I left a fortnight ago to prepare for the wedding.

The sad bit has been that the hydroponics at home has been a disaster, with only one plant currently surviving...

:-(

I will probably take photos of the plants at the end of the week to post the growth updates.

The Maize Morado is now almost 3 feet tall! I can't wait to see it reach 8 feet!

Some comparisons

2010-04-10T06:55:00.000-07:00

I decided to try to upload some of the photos I've not been able to upload for the past two weeks up, and put them next to one another to compare growth between 1 April 2010 and 9 April 2010:

I'll Start off with the Purple Corn (on all photos, the top one is 1 April, the Bottom one is 9 April)

Not sure it's the best of comparisons, but it gets better, I promise!

These are the Black Nagas.

The Barrackpore 7-Pod

The Trinidad Scorpion

The Ring of Fire Cayenne

And just for goodness sake, here's the progress of the Madame Jeannette (9 April)

And the Aji Umba Red (9 April)

Well, I'm off to be 'domestic' and attempt to try to clean the house a bit, before people start arriving this week for the 'Union of the Peppers' between yours truly and Almapaprika.

;-)

The Ice Cream Bean Cometh!

2010-04-06T05:51:00.000-07:00

I spent the better part of a conversation on Easter Sunday attempting to remember the name of a particular fruit eaten in Central America with a friend from that neck of the woods.

After much searching (in our minds), we were unable to actually remember the name of it, to our collective frustration.

This morning, however, I have finally remembered the name of said fruit:

The Guaba.

At least that is the name given to it in Aji Chombo Land. The Scientific name for it is Inga edulis. The English name for it is apparently the Ice Cream Bean, which I find funny, though strangely appropriate.

I remember having some as a child, and what a fantastically strange fruit it was. Imagine if you will a very large tree with pods nearly a foot long by about an inch and a half. Inside these pods are large black seeds wrapped in what looks like dense, white cotton, or cotton candy. The taste is a bit like banana, but sweeter, and with a slightly more fibrous texture.

Good stuff, and the tree apparently helps replenish nutrients into the soil (in a similar fashion to legumes).

Just if any of you are planning to start crops...

Four days away from the plants seems like an eternity.

Four days away from work however, are bliss.

Amazing how quickly stress builds up again, even though there's hardly anything to do thanks to Easter Break.

I think the lack of things to do just piles on even more stress.

Who would ever have though that?

It's either stress from not having much to do AND being in a very publicly exposed location, or the fantastic combination of under staffing, exposure, and high levels of friction caused by inconsistent (highly, HIGHLY inconsistent) customer service policies. Hopefully things will get sorted out soon (since the higher ups have realised just how stressed we are down in the trenches), but odds are I'll be face to face with the Oriental Yeti (Elvis' Pet) before I see any worthwhile changes...

:-(

But I digress.

The Maize Morado is doing very well. Seems to like it's new 'enclosure.' I really am eagerly anticipating the eight foot tall stalks (as are the people in the office I put them in, since they will act as natural shade).

The Roselle is not shooting up like the Maize Morado, but it continues to grow steadily. I imagine this lack of growth has more to do with the low temperatures in this start/stop spring (since it snowed last week). But it looks healthy so I'm going to keep crossing my fingers. I was actually asked about the progress of the Roselle by one of the girls from the Deli Almapaprika and I go to often.

The sub par spring also seems to be affecting the chillies, leading to a lot of uneven growth. One Royal Gold is on it's third set of true leaves, while the other is only just starting the second. And they both germinated on the same day.

The Trinidad Scorpion, the Madame Jeannette, and the Aji Umba Red lead the way for the chinenses, followed closely now by the Barrackpore 7-Pot; while the Ring of Fire Cayenne and the Thai Dragon are doing their usual thing now (growing fast).

Oh, and the Black Nagas are showing their first true leaves!

That last bit of news is absolutely fantastic for me.

It balances out the disaster of the home grown hydroponics...though I may have figured out what went wrong, but it is too late to fix...

Anywho, enough of my babbling.

Lo interesante de las 'madamas'

2010-03-31T06:04:00.000-07:00

Hace unos días atrás me percate de algo sumamente interesante (bueno, por lo menos para mí).

Existen un buen número de leyendas entrelazadas entre la comida y las 'señoritas de la noche'.

En una vida pasada, en un trabajo pasado, mis compañeros de trabajo y yo les conocíamos como 'trabajadoras sociales' (dado a que, en cierta manera, cumplen con un 'servicio social').

Sin entrar en un dialogo intensivo sobre los orígenes y los precipicios morales que conllevan a esta 'antigua profesión', veamos las comidas 'íntimamente' ligadas a estas personas (utilizo el femenino, porque de a memoria no conozco ninguna comida asociado con un 'prostituto', aunque probablemente si existen. Si saben de alguna, por favor comenten en este espacio.)

El plato más famoso nombrado por estas ilustres damas de la noche es Penne (o Spaghetti) alla puttanesca. Aunque su origen es tema de discusiones extensas en el internet, las leyendas tienden a asociar a este plato de pasta con las prostitutas de Napoli (Italia) quienes, o utilizaban el plato para alimentar a sus clientes, o formaba parte de su dieta.

En el mundo de los Ajíes, tenemos a Madame Jeannette, de la familia Capsicum Chinense. Este ají es oriundo de Surinam, en Suramérica. Según va la leyenda, su nombre viene de una prostituta de Brasil (que hacía en Surinam, nunca sabremos). Tengo una pequeña plantita de MJ creciendo en la oficina, y espero poder probar de sus frutos (lo digo sin morbo).

¡Es más!

A lo mejor me da por cocinar Penne alla Puttanesca en el verano y añadirle un MJ para darle sazón.

Hmmm...No tengo más ejemplos...

Quizás son solamente dos que existen en este mundo nuestro. Simplemente el hecho de haberlos encontrado me causo gran interés, pues sigo con la incógnita del porque se les ha nombrado de esa manera.

En una noticia completamente separada, un tío mío ha puesto fotos de mi infancia en su página web por motivo de mi unión con Almapaprika.

Claro está que no pondré estas fotos en este espacio, ya que pretendo mantener la poca dignidad que todavía tengo (que no debe ser mucha luego de hablar incesantemente de comida y prostitutas).

He Bangs, He Bangs

2010-03-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

He moves, he moves.

He apparently comes out of the closet...after everyone has known for nearly a decade.

Still, well done to Ricky Martin, most famous of the members of Menudo (what ever happened to that group, anyways?).

Here are the pics I took last Friday. I've been procrastinating as usual, so posts have been few and far in between.

I should take the moment to say many thanks to Marcio, as the seeds have just arrived today in the post from Brazil.

I am most grateful (and a very happy bunny)

:-)

This is the Chocolate Habanero Pod. All three seem to have slowed down in growth. Little things, but I will still bet my non-existent house they will be hot!

Madame Jeannette (I always misspell this one. Mon Dieu!). It is doing brilliantly.

Booyakasha! The Trinidad Scorpion is looking handsome!

The Barrackpore 7-pod. Slow to grow, but steady.

Aji Umba Red, also a quick off the blocks grower.

The Black Nagas! Yahoo! Two of the three seeds germinated. I just have to make sure they grow strong.

The Purple Corn (Maize Morado) in their new pot. A bit tight a squeezy, but it should hopefully help later on when they have to pollinate to produce ears of corn.

I need to take photos of the hydro peppers...

I am the Angel of Muesli!

2010-03-26T06:11:00.000-07:00

Don't ask why I've put that as the title...

...oh, all right!

I can't really remember the song 'Angel of Music' from Phantom of the Opera (if that is the real title of it), so I remember it as 'Angel of Muesli'.

Which I think is only fair, since there is a Catholic patron Saint for Television (actually, there are THREE), so why not have a Guardian Angel for Swiss breakfast cereals?

Speaking of Saints, it is a telling statement of the power of being able to attract top figures from other countries when the English can hire out a Turk to be their patron (George), the Irish can hire out a Welshman (Patrick), and the Scotts can hire out a Jordanian (Andrew).

Only the Welsh have a 100% Welsh Saint (David).

But given the fact that they export saints effectively (see Patrick), Welsh saints must be like Italian Football coaches...

Went to see 'I love you Phillip Morris' with Almapaprika yesterday (yes, a rom-com). I have to admit that while an entertaining film, I was taken aback by the explicit sexual content of the film.

Guess it just means I'm an old (Middle-aged) prude who needs to watch more TV on Fox...

To his credit, though, Ewan McGregor makes for an endearingly innocent and camp gay man.

Jim Carrey...well...different story.

Now, going back to the topical discussion on Chillies:

I've taken new pics today, which I plan on uploading at the weekend. All the little seedlings are going strong.

The C. Annuums are really taking off!

Both the Ring of Fire and the Thai Dragon are starting to distance themselves growth wise from the C. Chinenses.

The Trinidad Scorpion, Madame Jeannette, Royal Gold, Aji Umba Red and Barrackpote 7-pot are doing really well.

And Guess what?

Two of the Black Nagas germinated!

I had put off answering this until such a time as they germinated: Mr. Arboc, as soon as these babies start producing pods, regardless of the colour, I shall send you some seeds. Maybe a pod even, if the post allows it.

Now I've at least got two little seedlings to watch over.

:-)

Good stuff, that!

The Roselle is busting out of the little plastic-bottle greenhouse, and I've had to transplant all of the Maize Morado onto a much larger, 'Final Pot' where all three can grow. It will need extra compost, which I shall buy at the weekend (thinking about Miracle Gro). I shouldn't have any problems with pots this year, as I have a healthy supply of large pots for the plants.

But enough of my mindless babbling.

I'll get the pics up soon.

Long Weekend...

2010-03-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

I thought I would have had more time over the weekend to do some updating on the blog, but unfortunately I ended up helping out at the Pokey-Slashy competition being held at uni.

It was loads of fun, though. And I took lots of photos (which went straight to their facebook page). I always like helping out at competitions.

But I digress.

Here's the update of photos I promised from last weekend:

The first Chocolate Habanero pods

It's two new brothers

The Roselle doing really REALLY well!

The same can be said for the Trinidad Scorpion

The Barrackpore 7 pod may be small, but it's still haging on. I hope it grows strong.

The home of all the seedlings. If the growth is as good as it has been this week, I may have to cut all of the dome tops off.

A New Level of Weird...

2010-03-15T03:40:00.000-07:00

A co-worker of mine just pointed a news report from the BBC about a blind dog that has it's own guide-dog to get him around...

...yes.

You read correctly.

A blind dog (Canis lupus familiaris)...

...with it's own guide dog (Canis lupus familiaris).

Personally I would have gone for a guide ferret, or a guide gerbil.

But to each his own...we humans on this planet are reaching new and fantastic levels of unnecessarily weird ('No, Mr. Lapinski, there are no guide dogs left. Lassie XXIII took the last one.')

I tried a spot of gardening (pruning mostly) at the weekend with the blueberries in our balcony. Only two remain from the three I bought. I lasted about 20 minutes before the cold wind forced me back inside. That balcony is good for growing only Scottish Heather or other shrubs that grow in inhospitable terrain.

There goes the climbing rose I bought on Sunday, then...

I also realised an interesting thing from reading other blogs of chilli growers.

Most of them post entries once a month or so. I seem to be the only one who 'waffles on' endlessly about completely unrelated topics (guide dogs, anyone?)

I do hope I don't bore people with non-chilli related filler.

I also attempted to re-create my fantastic Mango, Peach and Naga chutney...only to change it dramatically by using Plums instead of Peaches, forgetting to use the 500g of Tamarind I had NEXT TO THE PAN, and having funky looking frozen Nagas (I have no idea if they were usable, but they looked really mushy and 'icky' when defrosted), which meant I ended up using chilli flakes.

I shall post the recipe and photos later on in the week.

As I predicted, the nice weather at the weekend meant more Chocolate Habanero pods. I counted two more this morning, with possibly another two forming. The Naga Morich is starting to look like it might be producing a pod or two, but I might curtail that to allow it to grow some more after the heavy accidental pruning in winter.

The rest of the seedlings are doing really well, but the Ring of Fire Cayenne is at least one leaf ahead of the rest. Annuums are definitely faster growers than chinenses. The Trinidad Scorpion is also growing at an impressive rate. I've had to tie down a few of the ridiculously leggy seedlings (one of the Royal Gold and one of the Red Squash), but other than that they seem to be OK.

Nothing yet from the Black Nagas...

I'll post some more pics later in the week.

We're scheduled to be in double figures temperature wise this week for the first time since November!

Whoot!

Fantastic!

2010-03-12T12:43:00.001-08:00

This has been far too nice a week.

Therefore, seeing menacing rain clouds as I left work this afternoon could only mean one thing:

We are returning to service as usual for this city.

:-(

But what a week it has been for the plants! They are growing so well, I am once again being filled with a wee bit of joy:

This is one of the windowsills currently being used for plants and seedlings. The Rocoto Rojo has been put on top of the radiator because my co-workers wanted to be able to move the blinds more freely, and it seems to be liking it's new spot.

This is one of the many Chocolate Habanero flowers. If temperatures stay stable this weekend, there might be one or two pods, but I won't hold my breath.

The Rocoto Rojo. It looks so nice, I only hope it does better than it did last season and give more than two pods.

The one Chocolate Habanero pod currently growing. Small, but HOT!

The Trinidad Scorpion seedling growing strong. I'm really happy all of the seedlings at work are starting to do better.

Cayenne Ring of Fire (left) and Little Elf (right) in the hydroponics at home.

The new growth on the Naga Morich.

Hydroponics...Home Style!

2010-03-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned earlier, I recently decided to finally put all those little bits I had bought since last year to make a hydroponics set for chillies.

So, here's a step by step guide to the wonderful world of DIY hydroponics.

I should warn you, though, that this is a purely experimental design, and there is every possibility that it will be a complete flop!

But then again, it might just work.

Part of the fun is finding out.

Right, first things first. You'll need the following stuff:
-Some gloves (protection first!)
-A good, well lit work surface
-A large bucket or plastic container
-Some empty, clean, used plastic soda bottles
-Some air tubing (the kind you use for aquariums)
-Air Stones (Ditto)
-An air pump (yup. Aquariums)
-A few splitter valves
-Some LECA (Light Expanded Clay Aggregate, though really, what you need is some medium for the plants to grow)
-A Sponge
-A pair of scissors
-Some chilli seeds (key item here, otherwise you might not grow anything)
-Some water and nutrients (also key)

Except for the water and nutrients, the rest of the items are down here:

So, grab your bottles, and cut them down the middle, about 75% of their circumference so that you can open and close them without having two bottle halves. The bottle will become your individual container for the plants.

Then cut small holes at the bottom of the bottles (this is important for drainage)

Insert one of the air stones into the bottle, preferably by punching a hole through the side of the bottle (since if you try to run the air tube under the bottle, it will either not be stable, or you'll restrict air flow to the bottle).

Take the bottles, and fill them with LECA up to the cut off point. Then place all the bottles into your container. Then, take all the air tubes and connect them to the splitter valves.

Grab a sponge, and cut it into small segments. Punch a small hole in the middle of each sponge (the seed goes in there)

Place a small segment into each bottle, so that it sinks into some of the LECA.

Add the seeds!

Add the water and nutrients, so that if fills up about a third of the container (or if you've got a larger container, fill it with about two-three inches of water. You don't want to flood the bottles with water. The air pump and the air bubbles created by the air stone will move the wather via the LECA slowly but continuously up to the sponge).

And presto! one giant contraption built to grow (fingers crossed) some chillies.

This Chilli's aquaphonic, it's stereophonic, it's HYDROPONIC!

2010-03-08T03:03:00.000-08:00

Finally got around to making my 'homegrown' Frankensteins Monster of a hydroponics kit at the weekend.

Mr. Arboc, if you're reading this...

...it pretty much takes me out of the 'El cheapo smackdown'...might explain why I've not re-visited the thread in the forum...

:-(

As an exercise in 'build your own', or DIY as the Brits call it, it was loads of fun, though.

Even Almapaprika was left agape!

She was amazed at my craft, though what she saw was a mess of air hoses and valves feeding into a bucket with a lot of little plastic soda pop bottles filled with LECA (Light Expanded Clay Aggregate) and with a little sponge in the middle.

But I shall explain this home made kit when I get a chance tonight (and when I can upload the 'how to' photos.)

It was an amazing and beautiful weekend over here, with not a cloud in the sky, and it has continued thus far today.

Shame Saturday night went down to -6 Celsius.

But other than that, perfect growing conditions!

I re-potted (to the little plastic soda pop bottles) and brought to the office:

2x Jamaican Hot
1x Aji Brazilian Starfish

The only chillies left at home now are one Royal Gold and one Fatalii. These should be moved tomorrow.

There are a couple of other seedlings left, but I have a feeling those will not make it, due to the fact that they have been in the dark (in a cupboard) for too long.

It's a shame, really, but it is down to my own incompetence.

The sunny weekend did marvels for the ones at work!

The Royal Gold there, as well as the Ring of Fire, and the surviving Trinidad Scorpion are all starting to show true leaves.

Heat and sunshine.

The best combination for plants.

:-)

On a separate, but final note:

I can guarantee England won't win the World Cup. This may sound a bit harsh of me (I like the team and all), but here's the reason why.

As I walked past the neighbourhood next to our flat, I had to cross a large group of children (probably a dozen or so between 10-15yrs old) who were playing football. As I passed by, I overheard a couple of them say (and for this, use your thickest Steven Gerrard or Jaime Carragher accents) 'Try and knock his hat off, lad!' Here I thought to myself

'Great. Bludgeoned to death by a bunch of teenage miscreants and their footballs.'

To my surprise (I say surprise because this is the country that invented the sport), three balls were kicked in my direction with my back turned to them (someone has just asked me if I own a pet...do Chillies count?)...

...not a SINGLE one actually achieved what it was intended to do.

The closest one hit my bottom...

...from a poorly placed chip rather than a powerful volley.

And I wasn't running away.

I was simply walking at a normal pace.

The poor kids were left with nothing more to say than

'Could you kick the ball back to us?'

Which I did.

When I finally walked up to it.

Now, from a coach's standpoint (I coached football for a few years), their accuracy was just atrocious, and their ability to put a ball into open space or deliver a good cross non-existent.

Which leads me to this final though:

If a dozen malcontent miscreants who obviously do nothing more than pick on people who wear trilby like hats (why? beats me...or so they tried) and who seem to play football ALL THE TIME can't grasp basic footballing concepts like the ones I mentioned above in order to hit a target, how much hope do their overpaid and equally underdeveloped counterparts going to South Africa have?

If I expect these children to deliver, then moreso their elders!

:-P

Life, Death, & 'Black Nagas'

2010-03-05T07:25:00.001-08:00

It was a mixed day today.

The second Mustard Habanero seedling, as well as one of the two remaining Trinidad Scorpion seedlings and the lone Aji Limo Rojo have all died. The little things were all just limp inside their little plastic bottles.

I thought it might be the bottles themselves, but every other seedling in a bottle is doing fine (in fact, some are doing really well, like the Ring of Fire Cayenne).

Nonetheless, their little plastic bottles were recycled for good use.

I recently 'bit the bullet' (as it were), and purchased untested 'mutant' seeds from a vendor (chillipepperpete), who was selling a rare oddity called:

The Black Naga.

(waits for sporadic 'oooooooh!...aaaaaaaah!')

Apparently a single plant in a Naga Morich field in Nagaland gave a harvest of Black Naga pods, and Mr. CPP was able to get a hold of some the pods and seeds. He sold them on his e-business for £2.00 for 10 seeds, which is about average for the cost of seeds (and cheaper than another seed vendor was selling his 'Mysterious Yellow Bhut Jolokias' for).

They cost exactly the same as his regular Naga Morich seeds, so I surmised, if they end up producing regular pods, at least I did not pay over the odds, and I'd have some more Naga seeds.

I also bought a bottle of his 2012 hot sauce, which has 'Smoked Bih Jolokia', as well as habaneros. I am looking forward to tasting it this evening, and posting a review about it, if anyone is interested (Lutra Lutra, this is the same company that made Dragon's Blood, so this ought to be interesting).

I am anxiously awaiting some seeds from two different parts of Australia and from Brazil, though I fear the Brazil one might have been lost in the post... :-(

Customs officials do not look kindly to seeds being sent in the post, it would seem...

Some Photos

2010-03-04T09:37:00.000-08:00

Pictures speak more than words.

Here's some I took yesterday (and this morning).

The Datil's new growth after moving to a sunnier place.

The seedlings in their new 'bottle greenhouses'

The First Pod of the Season! a Chocolate Habanero.

Roselle's first true leaves just coming out.

New Naga Morich growth & flowers

Maize Morado! Getting ready to be transplanted soon.

Ferris Wheel near home.

Aji Lemon Drop Seedling germinated in the remains of a decaf tea bag. It works, but the root did not want to dig into the tea.

Que xopa, fren?

2010-03-02T03:40:00.000-08:00

He decidido que esta adición al blog será en español, o lo más cerca al español posible dado a que siempre fui un estudiante de 3.5 en mis clases de gramática.

El blog es un espacio cibernético en el cual comparto mis ideas y experiencias, a veces de mi vida, a veces de la vida de mis plantas de ají, aunque hay veces que creo que mas me la paso quejándome como un amargo octogenario quien encuentra imperfecciones en todo lo que ve.

Pero no soy siempre así (simplemente soy un quejón).

El escribir en español es un buen ejercicio para mí, ya que no lo practico lo suficiente. Participo en discusiones en un blog de arquitectura, lo cual me ayuda un poco. Pero con mis hermanos y amigos en Ají-Chombolándia, siempre hablo Espanglish.

Me he dado cuenta de que hay un grupo nuevo de seguidores del blog provenientes de mi país, lo cual me alegra mucho, y pone mayor énfasis en la necesidad de tener un mejor balance en el contenido.

Aun así lo más probable es que el contenido sea en su mayor parte en ingles, pero con interesantes anécdotas y puntos de importancia en español.

¡Una buena noticia!

Hoy, mientras revisaba las plantas en la oficina, encontré el primer ají de la temporada. Se trata de un Habanero Chocolate (Chocolate Habanero, valga la necesidad de traducirlo), lo cual significa que la temperatura nocturna en la oficina ha sido lo suficientemente alta para polinizar las flores.

Algo interesante (bueno, por lo menos para mi), en mi país, mucha gente planta ajíes (el Aji Chombo, pero ejemplo), sin conocer los requisitos de temperaturas para la propagación de la planta y de polinización.

No hay necesidad, ya que la temperatura en Ají-Chombolándia es mas o menos constante, y casi siempre dentro de los parámetros necesarios.

Pero como Ají-Chombolandes viviendo en el Reino Unido, y teniendo que lidiar con las estaciones (primavera, otoño, invierno, verano).

Hago una breve pausa: acabo de tener que utilizar el español para dar mi primer regaño en el trabajo. Un grupo de estudiantes estaba intercambiando carnets estudiantiles para ingresar y egresar del edificio (algo no permitido), y al acercarme a uno y preguntarle en ingles si ese carnet le pertenecía, me respondió ‘I speak no English’, por lo cual procedí a explicarle cortésmente (lo mas cortés que puedo) las reglas del juego.

Primera vez que hago esto.

Mi identidad secreta ha desaparecido… (Siempre prefiero lidiar con el público en ingles. Ahorra problemas con los jefes).

Pero regreso al tema del ají. En donde vivo y crezco los ajíes, el ‘agricultor’ debe tener conocimiento de estos temas climatológicos para garantizar una buena cosecha.

En lo personal estoy sumamente alegre de este primer fruto, ya que simboliza, para mí, el inicio de la primavera en estos lares.

Y mas importante aun, ofrece la posibilidad de que tengamos ajíes para el ceviche que serviremos en ‘la unión de los ajíes’ entre Almapaprika y este humilde servidor.

:-)

Two sides of a coin...or 'cheek to cheek'

2010-03-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

How appropriate I finish writing the title of this blog as someone drops a hand full of coins on the floor in front of me.

My flat is a zoo. Well, that would more accurately be the 'the people living in flats in building opposite ours.'

We've been in that flat for nine months now, and I've already been flashed or mooned TWICE.

Sadly this has not been the sort of male, hormone-induced fantasy where the other human being prancing around in the buff is part of the 'Swedish bikini team' (it's a 90's American thing. look it up).

Nope, the 'exposers' were blokes.

Non-too sightly ones at that.

The first such instance occurred one Saturday morning (so traumatizing was it that it has been etched into my memory), when a group of what I can only describe as YOBS (English thing. Look it up), decided to continue whatever alcohol and drug fuelled party they came from in their own flat. At one point, I look out of my living room balcony door to discover one said shaven headed, pasty white gentleman is nearly hanging from the balcony railing while dancing to trance music (if you can call that dancing), with nothing but a can of beer to hide his shame.

This past Saturday, however, it was the person opposite our flat, who opened the blinds to his bedroom, and proceeded to moon us as he put on his underpants. Why someone walks around a house wearing nothing more than a grey sweatshirt (hoodie) is beyond me.

Again, as per usual, Almapaprika missed both 'encounters with the arse kind'.

I went with Almapaprika and some friends of hers to watch 'Swan Lake' recently. It was an all male production (well, all the swans were played by men) much acclaimed in London and other places. I must admit that I am not a Ballet 'Afficionado' per se (I'll attend a showing more for the music than the prancing around), and found myself drifting off at points. But it was entertaining (the 60% or so I was awake for), and dare I say it, quite hilarious at times.

My man flu continues to besiege me (probably why I fell asleep at the Ballet), now filling me with so much phlegm I am a mere day away from speaking fluent Dutch (Nee, Mario! Nee!).

I have brought to the office today the following seedlings:

1x Fatalii
2x red squash

The sun and the radiators are working wonders with the plants. The Rocoto Rojo has grown two new branches that are already a good 4-5 inches long. The Naga Morich, Chocolate Habanero and Datil all also show a lot of progress in new growth, though I am worried the Orange Habanero and the Caribbean Red Habanero may end up not making it.

I am half tempted to buy some Blossom Set spray to help the plants produce pods though the temperatures might not be ideal, though I feel it's a bit like cheating (but then again, so are heated beds...), if only because I'm still reminded of the near hundred flowers both Fataliis gave last year and the ONE pod that came from all that...

Man-Flu: The Silent Killer...of Manly Men!

2010-02-26T07:06:00.000-08:00

Yes, as you may have guessed by the title, I have the sniffles.

To be more precise, I have a sore throat and a clogged up nose.

Man Flu!

It was probably the real reason Custer fell. Not the Native Americans, but a bad bout of Man Flu.

I do feel horrible, though. I seem to have gone from being in pain from poke-stabbey-slashy to now being reduced to a puddle of phlegm thanks to this.

Almapaprika, as could be expected, is showing the same maternal insticts of a mother praying mantis (lunch?).

But I do love her so...(she copes admirably with my manly whyning...what more can I ask for?)

This grey, cold, and rainy morning on my walk to work I was greeted by that most picturesque of images that depict this town:

A dunken hobo crossing the street towards me whilst nonchallantly throwing up.

Yes, you just don't get this sort of stuff back home (we got the occasional crackhead who attempted to stop traffic whilst stark naked and in the middle of whigging out.).

I felt immediately nauseous as the milky, chunky liquid spewed forth from his bearded facade (he must be a HARD HOBO! The type that outdrinks elves!)

As I sit here at home, waiting for the handyman to come take a look at our washer/drier (never the two should meet, in my opinion. One uses water, the other doesn't. Simple as that.), I shall update a few photos of the hydroponics chilli. Mind you, said handyman was supposed to arrive at 1:30pm, and it is now 3:15pm, but the landlord assures me he shall be here before 4:00pm.

Anywho, here's a couple of pics of the Little Elf (finally got the blasted name right) seedling:

The Second photo is interesting. All the Rocket died (as can be seen on the other photos. But I have since cleaned the mess), so this little fella could only be the Culantro, which I am crossing my fingers it is.

I have also added today two more seeds to the hydroponics kit:

1 Cayenne Ring of Fire
1 Belpicen

I put the Cayenne Ring of Fire because it's a very fast grower, and the pods are nice and hot. The Belpicen I put just to see what happens. That would make it three plants (possibly) in the hydroponics, since the stem cutting of the Orange Habanero kicked the bucket.

Que le Den Candela!

2010-02-25T05:20:00.000-08:00

I feel so horrible right now...

:-(

Curse me for thinking my body is still a decade younger than what it really is! (although a decade ago I was actually in worse physical shape, so...)

My quadriceps feel like the muscles themselves are constantly being rubbed with Naga Morich juice while being mercilessly struck by the paddles of drunken frat bro's in some sadistic initiation ritual. My back feels like a very fragile and cheap piece of porcelain being balanced on a pinhead.

We've got kiddies visiting the workplace, and every time I have to de-power the gates to let them through (an act which requires me crouching down to reach the master power switch) or to let them out puts me in a world of pain. It's a fantastic and completely pointless visit on the part of the kiddies, many of whom have libraries on their own schools with similar resources.

But then again, PR is PR, I guess (unless the Prime Minister unleashes 'The Forces from Hell' on you. Here I thought the smell of sulphur was caused by sewage. How wrong I was to think so naively...)

Asides from that throbbing pain my abs received a workout at the pokey-stabbey-slashy practice the likes of which they had not received in a year, so every time I sneeze or my stomach does anything, I feel amazingly unwell.

Add a headache, and you have what my darling Almpapaprika would call:

Absolute Rubbish.

I was amazingly fortunate to have been raised in a household with a physician, which meant every time I got ill, or felt ill, if there wasn't blood pouring out of my eyes, or at least one major internal organ protruding from a previously non-existent bodily orifice I was fine.

And now I've chosen as a partner another person of the medical profession.

With the exact same outlook regarding my health.

:-/

I almost forgot to mention (what with the usual daily diatribe):

THE HEATING AT WORK IS NOW WORKING!

Hazzah! They have finally done one right! (having just committed this to print, there will probably some catastrophic failure of another aspect of the building tomorrow morning).

As soon as I found out I rushed home and got some more seedlings to bring over, in an effort to get things back on track. I moved:

1x Aji Umba Red
1x Trinidad Scorpion
2x Ring of Fire Cayenne
1x Thai Dragon

I've got a few more to move about in the next few days. Now the windowsills at the office will provide a good 10 hours of light minimum (plus the lights from the office), as well as a constant temperature (from both solar radiation and the radiators a few inches from the pots), which should get this party started.

I have lost one Habanero Mustard (legginess + tumbling = broken stem), and the Almapaprika seedling and another Ring of Fire seem to be suffering from burns (through what is burning them I have no idea).

Oooh!, I nearly also forgot! Both Strawberry Guavas have germinated! It took them about 30 days, and it has been painfully slow, but they are both out! :-)

I wish I was in bed...

Everyone should have Facial Hair

2010-02-24T05:08:00.000-08:00

And by that I mean all men. Facial hair gives us a sort of paradoxical 'sophisticated manly-ness' that the clean shaven bloke just doesn't have.

It exudes a kind of self-confidence perhaps only seen in Lord of the Rings. I mean, for all the acrobatics of Legolass, he is nothing more than a poncy, pointy-eared gymnast (all male gymnasts should have thick, Kenny Rogers or Michael McDonald beards). We all know the bare-knuckle-butt-kickers are Aragorn (stubble), Boromir (hard stubble), Faramir (whimpy stubble, and look where that lands him), Eomer (beard), Saruman (beard).

All the Orcs, Goblins, and Uruks are clean shaven...clear sign of 'soon to be defeated' syndrome.

I went pokey-stabbey-slashy last night for the first time in nearly a year. As was to be expected, the Bulgarian coach decided to do his usual 'East European' training regime, which is both fun and exceedingly tiring (more so if you've done no physical activity in months). As could have been expected, in my profligate exuberance I decided to go head-first and full-out into the training.

I could barely walk back home. It was a very painful 20 minute walk. I sweated the whole night as my body writhed in pain.

I still feel as though someone grabbed a pair of blunt surgical instruments and, without the use of anaesthesia, decided to tighten every muscle and ligament from my pelvis down.

But I did win 5 out of 6 bouts for the evening, including a whitewash on someone whom I thought was going to paste me, so this old, average dog still has a few tricks up his sleeve.

I am growing more and more depressed as the growing season moves on and I see more and more photos on thehotpepper.com forum. I'm dealing with the leggiest seedlings this side of a Paris fashion show all because of lack of light, and I really can't afford at this time to buy lots of lights for the plants.

I may have devised a plan to take care of this using my improvised greenhouses, some Christmas/fairy lights, and kitchen foil.

But we shall have to wait and see.

In the meantime, Aji Chombo Sad!

:-(

Aji Chombo in deep physical pain caused by his own stupidity...

...but he did get that whitewash (worth...every...moment...of...pain)

Blast it's cold here!

2010-02-23T05:08:00.000-08:00

It is ridiculously cold at work right now.

And this is WITH all the new fangled radiators, red light district looking element heaters, garden heaters and heat curtains installed.

Not to mention change the settings to the automatic doors so that now at least once a day, a 'patron' slams head first into them because they simply don't open.

Had they done what has been suggested a million (and by virtue of it being put here, a million and ONE) times and just changed the entrance to a rotating door, this might not be an issue winter in/winter out.

It might even keep in the RESIDUAL HEAT and warm the rest of the building deprived of heating thanks to yet another radiator 'malfunction'.

Sigh...

I should look at the bright side, though.

I will never be accused of sweating too much at work.

No sir!

I just left the desk for two seconds, and a co-worker has just got to my computer to clock in...AAAAARGH! Worse part is I was in the middle of using it (no, not for blogging. I was dealing with a patron. These entries take me easily hours to make) to deal with a particular case, which absolutely cheeses me off. It's not the use of my PC that bothers me, it's the crass and disrespectful manner in which some co-workers simply take common manners for granted.

I don't walk up to their computers WITHOUT their approval to clock in, yet my station PC is used like the town trollop! I don't mind when people ask, specially if there's not much going on in my station, but there is a flippin' communal clock in screen ten feet away!

How many duck-pooping seconds does it take you to walk over and clock in there?!

Heck, I use that screen about as often as I use my PC, simply because it is more convenient and because I tend not to BE an inconvenience by using it.

Grumble...

I was going to make the intro short and without outbursts...

So much for that idea.

Now I'll be grumpy for the afternoon.

I brought some seedlings to work today, in the vain hopes that I might be able to trade light for heat with them. I will put photos of their 'self contained enclosures' (Plastic soda bottles) for show.

I moved the following:

1x Barrackpore 7-pod
1x Madame Jeannette
1x Trinidad Scorpion
1x Mustard Habanero
1x Aji Limo Rojo (no link to this one, unfortunately, as thechileman.org doesn't have much data on the chinense var.)

I am really hoping the extra light (not necessarily sunshine, just extra light) will make up for the heat deficiencies.

Temperatures are supposed to stay at between 0C and 5C for the next 5 days.

Joy.

But wait!

What is this?

Repairmen looking at the heating!

(Cautiously optimistic now...very, VERY cautiously optimistic).

Cerveza, Pokey-Stabbey, and Ajies

2010-02-22T03:09:00.000-08:00

This entry might test my abilities to write in Spanglish, a much maligned language (considered not a language at all by some) utilized by many second, third and fourth generation Hispanic Americans in the US.

I do consider it a bit of an aberration, since you should be able to comunicate your ideas and thoughts clearly and succinctly in one single coherent language.

Pero el Spanglish, el cual en realidad deberia ser llamado 'Espanglish' si vamos a hacer la cosas de la manera debida, es la clase de fenomeno que me fascina (y al cual blogspot no le puede corregir la ortografia ni la gramatica. Quizas en un futuro cercano la gente de Google, Microsoft y Apple crearan programas en 'Espanglish').

Typically, Espanglish would be much more mish-mash than this, since I could start a sentence in Spanish, halfway through it add some words in English, and revert to Spanish before finishing, or vice-versa.

All making perfect gramatical sense, if you can imagine.

En fin, es mejor que hable un poco de cosas mas interesantes, ya que se que la mayoria de las personas leyendo este blog ya han perdido interes.

El fin de semana empezo de manera...interesante. Almapaprika y yo (y un grupo de amigos) fuimos a un 'Festival de la Cerveza', en la cripta de una de las catedrales locales. Yo encontre el concepto un poco...hypocrita no es la palabra debida...

...ironico, quizas.

Alli estabamos un grupo de personas, dentro de una catedral Cristiana en Europa probando y tomando mas de 100 variedades de cervezas, cidras y vinos, ademas de comidas artesanales tipicas del Reino Unido (pasteles, empanadas o 'pasties', etc.)...

...en el primer Viernes de Quaresma.

Go figure.

But all in all, the evening was quite an enjoyable one. We drank some beer in the form of Ales, Stouts and Bitters (Almapaprika was just coming of a week working nights, so she could only get through three half-pint glasses), we drank some Perry (a delicious one called 'Two trees'. Laughable Fellow, I won't try to spell it in it's native Welsh, just so I don't end up insulting grannies. For those of you who do not know, Perry is a fermented pear drink similar to, but not, Cider), and drank some Cherry wine. Plus we scored some extra glasses (you are given one half pint glass with your admission ticket) of the 30th anniversary of said Beer Festival.

The following morning I went to see some friends attend a 'pokey-stabbey-slashy' competition. Those of you who know me will know what I'm talking about. For those of you not indoctrinated in this discipline, I shall elucidate:

Pokey-Stabbey-Slashy is a sport that involves three distinct weapons:

1-The Pokey-Pokey: The more 'artistic' of the three weapons (used mostly by people referred to by the other two weapons specialists as 'namby-pamby', though I have seem quite a few individuals in this weapon I would never call that for fear of having my spleen removed).

2-The Pokey-Stabbey: The more 'realistic' of the three weapons (people who specialize in 'Pokey-Stabbey' are often labelled 'Slow', because we like to use our brains...go figure).

3-The Pokey-Stabey-Slashy: The more 'Pain-causing' of the three. Usually practiced by people who like to listen to death metal (no, not Finnish people, although some of them do practice this weapon).

I was a decent Pokey-Pokey and Pokey-Stabbey...er. I could do PSS, but generally only if in an emergency situation (always got my rear end handed to me).

It was nice to see people I hadn't seen in a while, although it was a bit of torture for me, as I looked at all the people poking and stabbing and slashing saying 'I can do that (and the more brazen 'I can beat him...he's not so tough.').

One of my friends even won a bronze in Pokey-Stabbey!

She is particularly deadly at keeping her arm extended and poking and stabbing the wrists of her opponents with her Pokey-Stabbey stick.

Los ajies me mantuvieron un poco preocupados el fin de semana. Debo admitir que el que en mejor estado esta es el Elf Chilli, el cual esta en el sistema hidroponico (por lo menos asi creo que se dice en Español), y el cual recibe unas buenas 6 horas diarias de luz gracias a la lampara que le puesto directamente arriba. La semilla fue plantada una semana mas tarde que el resto de los ajies, pero se ve mas grande, verde, mas vigorosa y esta empezando a mostrar el segundo set de hojas (las hojas verdaderas), cosa que ninguno de los otros ajies esta demostrando. Definitivamente es un punto a favor del sistema hidroponico, aunque todas las plantitas de rúcula (o arúgula) plantadas en el mismo sistema ya se han muerto, lo que no me llena de optimismo. Aun asi, el hecho de que por lo menos hay una planta todavia viva y saludable en el sistema hidroponico es algo para celebrar.

Los ajies en la oficina van bien. El Datil aparenta estar acostumbrandose a su nuevo hogar, con nuevas hojas empezando a salir. El tronco principal del Naga Morich esta empezando a mostrar señales de brotes vegetativos nuevos, lo cual es fantastico ya que solamante tenia una pequeña rama con un par de hojas. El resto estan en el mismo estado de antes, lo cual me mantiene preocupado, pero en fin. Todavia no las he podado como habia prometido. Una de las plantitas de Saril murio (la que tenia el brote de hongos), pero la otra se ve saludable. Dos de los maizes Morados han muerto tambien, sin duda a causa de las bajas temperaturas de la ultima semana (nevo el Domingo nuevamente).

See, writing in Espanglish is not that diffucult.

:-)

If only understanding it was just as easy...

A Book arrived in the post today...

2010-02-19T03:14:00.000-08:00

I just got a copy in the post today of 'The Complete Chile Pepper Book' by Dave DeWitt and Paul Bosland.

It is not as academic as Jean Andrews 'Peppers: The Domesticated Capsicums', (which I think is a fantastic book, mind you) but it is a book I had been waiting for a while to get. It is also more complete than Mark Charles Miller, John Harrisson 'The great Chile Book', which was until now the only Chilli book I owned.

I will probably sit and read it over the weekend and give allow it to sink in before I talk about it, but from glancing through it on Google Scholar, and from just giving it a quick read a few minutes ago, I think it is a fairly complete book on capsicums.

I gave all the plants at work a quick watering with a half dose of Chilli Focus today, to start bringing the nutrients back into their diets. Some of the forum members have advised not to over-rely on nutrients, since it leeches the soils, but these are potted plants, so not much choice, unfortunately.

The Naga Morich at work is starting to sprout growth along the previously bare main stem, so I am seriously considering (someone just hit the sliding glass doors in our entrance head on...I should mention they slide open with the same speed and impetus of a professional mime miming 'a solid wall') chopping the top growth from it and using it for cuttings so as to trim it back to a manageable two feet height and seeing if I can get broader growth this year.

The Rocoto Rojo is also showing promise, albeit as a single, two foot stick with lots of new green growth coming out of it.

The Chocolate Habanero, Orange Habanero and Caribbean Red Habanero are showing less signs of vigorous growth. It may be a case of pruning for them and hoping for the best.

Crazy students have just spilled hot tea all over one of the radiators in front of me...and they wonder why they are not allowed into this building with hot drinks...

...at least they didn't spill it all over themselves (though that would provide me with a modicum of amusement.

Almapaprika dreamt of Mrs. Cole again last night. And once more she was helping out at the wedding.

I say it's all fine and dandy so long as she doesn't wear that awful outfit that made her look like an extra from a Street Fighter video game (Mrs. Bison).

The entrance door of the building is now refusing to open to people who want to leave or enter, unless they meet some unknown height/weight/body mass requirement.

I wonder sometimes what the (INFORMATION RESTRICTED) millions of pounds that went into the construction of this building ACTUALLY went into, what with the heating problems, the malfunctioning entrance doors, the malfunctioning lifts, useless lights, etc.

But at least it looks nice and shiny from the outside, and that's all that matters, really. (Ghost of cynicism past floats past me)

Almapaprika has infected me with her 'celebrity' dreams.

Or in my case: nightmares.

I dreamt last night I got into an argumentative spat with Wayne Rooney.

I was hoping for Cheryl Cole, to be honest (with a translator next to me).

But no.

I get the floppy eared 'White Pele.'

And not in a good mood (Is he ever in a good mood? then again, neither was I).

At least I saved Almapaprika from dreaming about him...

I hope.

Mobile (Cell) phones...they enhance an idiots' natural idiocy.

2010-02-18T04:13:00.000-08:00

I have just embarked on an interesting venture, and created a Facebook page for Aji Chombo!

Yeah, it does stink of self-promotion...

Maybe I should hold a press conference as well...

Nah, I'm sure Tiger Woods would upstage me if I did.

And yes, people (not just idiots) seem to unlock some sub-conscious 'Extra Idiot' gene when they use cell (mobile) phones. Since I work more or less in a customer service 'orientation', you get to do a lot of people watching, and it is surprising how many people swear they can multitask who clearly should not be allowed to operate a PAIR of chopsticks.

Mobile phones turn the average person into an 'Idiotic Neophyte', and a full blown idiot into a 'Grand Wizard Moron'.

Mind you, these phones are a nice and convenient thing to have...

...but I get the feeling that if everyone that was born after 1990 was suddenly and simultaneously hit by a car and sent into a coma (yes, a Life on Mars reference. Good. You can count yourself NOT in the two categories above) back into the 1980's, they would die of starvation for lack of finding a phone with a 'Find a curry house' application.

But I digress...

Almapaprika has been having pre-nuptial nightmares.

Again.

They have been happening for the past few months, in anticipation of having to say 'I do' to a union with me in front of a crowd of family and friends. (I'm not that ugly...am I?)

Last nights (well, days. She's working nights this week) had her at the wedding, sans wedding dress, while the rest of the women there HAD wedding dresses (thankfully, neither me or the rest of the gentlemen present had said wedding attire on), and with our DJ gone leaving her mom to handle everything from her MP3 player.

In the midst of all this, who emerges to console her?

Not her two best friends.

Not me (I was probably writing a blog entry in her dreams at the time)

But Cheryl Cole.

Yes. You read correctly.

Cheryl 'The Geordie girl who went on to be a pop superstar and married Ca$hley' Cole.

She apparently did fairly well in consoling her, and Almapaprika also did commendably in understanding Mrs. Cole's Geordie accent.

Almapaprika even went on to give Cheryl some sound advise ('You should look for better', when referring to Mr. Cole).

So, Cheryl, if you happen to browse through this blog (I really wouldn't know why, but hey, stranger things have happened), feel free to drop by the wedding reception.

But bring an MP3 player (but not JUST with your songs).

On the front this blog was created for (chillies, which seems to be a neglected part of today's entry), I now find myself drinking copious amounts of soda in order to use the bottles as makeshift greenhouses (thank the El Cheapo challenge for that)

The Rocket keeps dying in the hydroponics kit. The little Elf Chilli seems completely unaffected and actually quite healthy, as does a little cutting of the Orange Habanero I put last week. I wonder why?

I have also experimented with putting an Aji Lemon Drop seed on some decaf tea 'grinds' to see if they can also be used to germinate seeds (Decaf you say?). Put the seed in Tuesday, so fingers crossed. We go through tonnes of the stuff at home, so if it works, I might have found a cheap germinating medium.

Does my Blog look big in this?

2010-02-17T06:04:00.000-08:00

I took the opportunity today to browse at the blogspot blogs, something I had not done before.

GHAAAAAA!!

Talk about a United Nations of Weird!

But then again, I also keep a blog, so that's an interesting reflection on me...

I was telling a friend who also has a blog, that it was like that friend we all have (if you have at least ONE friend, odds are it's him/her, or YOU) who was not born with that filter that allows most people to sort out the stuff that should be said from the stuff that maybe should be kept as 'personal', or 'you really shouldn't say that'.

But the Internet to some degree makes us all live in a constant state of 15 minutes of fame, and this is how we all deal with it.

Some of us deal with it like Vanilla Ice...

...some of us deal with it like Dame Judy Dench...

...some of us deal with it like Gonzo from the Muppet's! (I would probably be in this last group).

Instant, universal, unstoppable exposure! (and by universal, I am confining it at this time to our corner of the Galaxy, since wireless transmissions have only travelled so far...The thought of this blog being read by Extraterrestrials makes me laugh. 'Look, Zorg! He mentioned John Terry again! That human is so well mentioned in blogs he MUST be their leader. We shall probe him first!')

Could anyone ask for anything else?

I have had to switch to Firefox to upload J's Naga eating adventure, since IE is being it's usual Microsoft self, and refusing to allow the upload. So, with any luck, you will be able to see this video soon.

As a bit of a backdrop, last August, as the first Naga Morich pods were ripening at work, a friend of mine from work asked to try one. I did give the customary warning (this chilli is the hottest known to man.), but it was still a 'go on, then.' reply. So, after notifying a few people in the office about it, we proceeded to have a little chilli sampling one morning. I took with me an Orange Habanero and a Naga pod.

It was very cool, because I simply walked into an office, plucked the pods from the plants, and said to the people in the room 'we're going to do a chilli tasting.' And they followed. Soon a crowd of about 20 gathered at the Staff common room.

The Orange Hab went down quite well with the people who tasted it. I was one of them (having never tried them before), and the flavour was nice and citrus-like. A few people got watery eyes, but it didn't go beyond that.

The Naga was the main event.

J decided to try a sliver, as did C, R, and me (I think. There may have been one extra person).

Gosh it was painful! But at the same time tasty! J ate all of his sliver, and later asked for more!

MORE! He said

Are you sure? we asked, watery eyed and burning.

MORE! he replied, salivating with anticipation...or was that just from the previous sliver? (Hmmm...'Orange Habs and Nagas', a new book by Dr. Aji Chombo)

So I have him another sliver.

C, thankfully was filming it all.

So, here it is. Enjoy!

If you're from thehotpepper, and you find the video entertaining, pass the word along.

If you're from another planet: Yes, peppers are fun to eat!

There are bad films, and then there are BAD films

2010-02-15T13:14:00.000-08:00

First of all, I FOUND THE USB CABLE!!!

Hot Dog!

I normally don't scream whilst writing (I have an aversion to ALL CAPS texting. It's very shouty.), but I was soooooooooooooooooooooooo happy when I found the cable, I spent most of Saturday evening transferring photos from my camera to Almapaprika's laptop (and tonight to photo bucket). It saved me the money and the time to get the new cable, and I ended up bumping into (can't believe I've just spent 30 seconds hitting enter on this contraption trying to get to imdb.com, without realizing I had only written 'ww', instead of 'www') Stephen Graham whilst shopping in the City Centre.

By bumping into, I of course mean I saw him from a respectful yet quasi-personal distance from me (about two metres). Took me a while to recognize the face.

Almapaprika didn't recognize him at all.

She says I always get to see the interesting people (like when I saw Eddie Izzard jog past in...and I can assure you I am not making this up...past a red double-decker bus in London just outside of Big Ben. It would only have been more interesting had an executioner appeared in front of me asking me to chose from Cake or Death.) She was looking in the opposite direction, doing what I should have, which was looking for my aunt who was visiting London for the first time (I am an absent minded nephew), and thus missed the whole episode.

But I digress.

This is a good idea of how long ago I last downloaded photos from the camera:

These are two photos of last autumns' harvest. Not exceedingly abundant, but not bad for a first time. I did harvest more White Habaneros than pictured.

But I also lost most of the Orange habs to mould :-(

This is the little hydroponics kit Almapaprika's mum got me for X-mas (which will be included in the 'El Cheapo-Budget Smackdown' thanks to me putting ONE seed into it. You can find out more by going to www.thehotpepper.com)

This is where I am germinating the seeds this season. I am not entirely happy with the setup, but beggars can't be choosers, as the case might be...

The Trinidad Scorpions are up and out! Two of them out of 4 is not bad, and together with the 7-pot should make a good group of super hots! (if they grow and are not killed by this...apartment of doom!).

Now it turns out one of the Roselles has mould, and may not make it, while the other one looks really strong. I will be happy with the one (more than I can say for the Rocket, which is slowly dying in the hydroponics kit. Why? I can only guess some of the seeds were too close together, and competition is doing this, but with my luck...

I have just finished watching an absolutely horrendous fantasy film entitled 'Dragonhunter', and I am subjecting myself to even more misery by watching 'Merlin and the War of the Dragons'.

WHY, Jürgen Prochnow?!

WHYYYYYYYY?!

I will go away now to finish watching this...um...film...

Nauseabundo!

2010-02-12T06:28:00.000-08:00

Feeling strangely rough at the moment.

Hoping I've not picked up the little bug that made Almapaprika's life miserable Tuesday in the wee hours of the morning...

I've gone into some serious 'El Cheapo' mode at the moment (expenses from upcoming 'union of capsicums'), so I've resorted to using empty (and clean) coke bottles (the plastic kind) as mini-greenhouses for the chillies so I can grow them somewhere where the sun shines. Have moved four into bottles (as in, the entire bottle, not just cutting the top off and using that on top of a little seedling transplanted into a pot), and now that I've finished off another 500ml bottle, will be moving a fifth into a new home today.

An update on the growth:

I really shouldn't be grumpy or pessimistic about my pods, though I think sometimes I am.

SPECIALLY when looking at the more impressive setups on www.thehotpepper.com

After all, I've planted 56 seeds, and to date well over 50% have germinated. The only ones that haven't popped out even a single seedling as of yet have been:

-Chilean Guava
-Peach Habanero
-Cayenne

The rest have at least one seedling out, so I should feel happy.

:-)

There.

The Trinidad Scorpions AJ sent me seem to be stirring. Perhaps at the weekend I shall see some little seedlings popping their heads up.

I just know I've had the humidity WAAAY too high in the little incubators. So, I've gotten rid of a fair bit of the moisture that builds up. Hopefully that will de-soak some of the coir pellets and will result in the germination of the ones remaining (only on Barrackpore 7-Pot out of 4 planted).

On a separate note:

John Terry! John Terry! John Terry!

Hmmm...no maniacal footballer has appeared looking to steal my other half, or offer me an exec box at Wembley... (Whew!)

...the stories little children tell each other in the playground...

...Plus, every time I write John Terry! on the blog entry, people randomly searching for juicy tidbits on this man's personal life (you'd swear he was some sort of celebrity or something) on google get directed here! :-)

And this is much better reading than the tabloids, or so I'm told.

John himself might be well advised to take up chilli farming as a means to pass the time and steer clear of the vices of 'The ladies' (or more to the point, other people's 'Ladies')...nothing is more exciting than biting into a Naga....

...well, maybe biting into a Naga right after scoring the winning penalty at the World Cup (celebration ideas, you say?) ;-)

Plus I'd love to see if Carlo Ancelotti's eyebrow retains that non-chalant expression of sarcasm after trying some of JT's Naga Curry.

Ah, but in a dream world...

Still, if, in the future, you read about JT the Chilli farmer, then you heard it here first, folks! (although they are an aphrodisiac, so maybe I'm actually making the problem worse...)

I really should stop now. This is bordering on ridiculous (but from WAY inside ridiculous' border).

I'd like to thank MrArboc for the practical and wise (beyond my wisdom) suggestion of getting a new cable for my camera.

Amazon has them for very cheap.

I would say something in Swedish to you, kind sir...but the only thing I was ever taught would make Snoop Dogg blush (and I forgot half of it)...

Some New Photos

2010-02-11T03:11:00.000-08:00

These are, of course, photos taken from my rather horrible phone camera. I wish they could be better photos, but I still haven't found the USB cable for my camera.

Today has been the second nice day in Liverpool. Cold as the handshake of a coroner, mind you.

But exceptionally sunny.

And that usually means that any plants by the windowsill at the office will absolutely love it.

This top one is the Royal Gold (a hot chinense) I got from Vincent. I am slowly moving the plants from the flat to the office in an effort to get some of them to start growing, as opposed to what they are doing now, which is searching desperately for the sun.

These are the two Roselle seedlings. I brought them up to the office quickly because the last time I tried to grow them (in the floral deathtrap that is our flat), they quickly wilted after a promising start, no doubt felled by the lack of sunlight (maybe I need to grow a vampire plant...).

This is the overwintered Rocoto Rojo. It was reduced to a Y-shaped, 30 inch stump with a couple of millimetre long leaves a fortnight ago, and look at it now! One of the Y arms is pretty much dried up, but the other one seems full of life (what a window full o'sunshine will do for ya!)

Last, but not least, the Maize Morado. Yes, they are in little individual pots, and I have only recently learned that they need deep soil for their roots. Still, for the time being this will have to do. I am hoping to move them to deeper pots soon.

Almapaprika wasn't too well a few nights ago. Spent the wee hours of the morning paying tribute to the porcelain Gods. I felt really bad and thought she might be seriously ill (so I immediately distanced myself by about two metres).

Yesterday evening she came up with a theory as to why she was so ill:

Tomatoes.

That's right.

Tomatoes.

I knew they were evil to begin with, and this only feeds my paranoid mind...

Sunshine, Lollipops and Raindrops

2010-02-09T03:19:00.000-08:00

Um....yes. That's what is happening at the moment where I am (two of the three anyways).

One of the Maize Morados may have kicked the bucket, after I accidentally dropped it while transporting it to work.

AAAAAAAAAAARGH! (yes, do picture Charlie Brown in your heads, why don't you).

I am secretly (well, not anymore, since I am in the process of writing it here. I wonder if that's how John Terry's 'extramarital' indiscretions got out. He posted them on his blog...) envious of people with growing lights for their plants...

...not having growing lights, and a flat which is now very good at KILLING plants (even the little Christmas tree is beginning to look dry, even though it is getting watered) is making me feel miserable and (GASP!) miss our old flat.

Yes, the downstairs living area was as cold as a coroner's handshake (thanks to single glazed windows), and it was FIVE stories with no lift to go up every day. AND the landlords were less-than-helpful.

But the upstairs was fantastic for growing plants with it's floor to ceiling South-West facing windows (not to mention the fact that it was the very top of the building). Stuff grew there at a fantastic rate (though not as fast as at work).

Sure, we got no sleep in the summer because of the fact that the sun was glaring in our eyes (no blackout curtains, just wimpy blinds) as of 4am, and would not cease until 11:00pm...

...but the plants loved it.

At least it is a nice and sunny day today (though really cold), and the plants at work are having a ball! Brought some more in today and yesterday (the two Roselles, and a Royal Gold), so today is a good day for some 'sunning'.

The Voldemort Chilli

2010-02-03T03:33:00.000-08:00

I must admit I never thought the Maize Morado could grow at the staggering rate it has been. I brought two of the four plants to work today, and they are pushing six inches in height.

All this after a mere 10 days of being sown on the ground (as it were)! The office is a trade-off, mind you.

At home the temperature is nice and constant, but they get very little light. In the office they will be getting maximum light exposure, but with recent radiator problems (a building that cost an unimaginable amount of money to renovate, and they didn't pay enough attention to the heating...seriously now!), it means that it will be considerably colder than at home.

I'm hoping light wins the battle.

The Roselle seedlings are doing quite well, all first leaves are fully open and taking in the little light available.

Capsicum wise, moving the incubators to the boiler room has worked the charm, as little seedlings are sprouting left and right. So far I've got 'en route':

Mustard Habanero X 1

Jamaican Hot X 2

Fatalii X 2

Thai Dragon X 1

Royal Gold X 2

Brazilian Starfish X 2

Hot Apple X 1

Red Squash X 2

Granted, it's not much yet, but I'm happy with the output so far, specially since there are once again, two Fataliis out of the blocks.

I came across what I consider to be a hilarious thread in http://www.thehotpepper.com/ yesterday which dealt with what can only be described as a seriously touchy subject with experienced growers:

New Strains.

Or in the case of this thread, a possible mutation, or crossbreed, or genetic anomaly, or chilli with an identity issue.

No one really knows for sure, but it did cause quite a stir.

It was to do with the nigh-mythical 'Chilli that must not be named' Yellow Bhut Jolokia...

...or Lemon Bhut Jolokia.

Reading the thread you'd swear blood would be spilt.

It was, however, quite entertaining (Chilli Gods forgive me) to watch two grown men (We presume. You never know in online forums where people have crazy sounding names like...Aji Chombo..ahem!) so adamant about the veracity of the strain origin and what was perceived as an act of fraudulent intentions on the part of one of them.

It was 'Get Medieval' stuff online!

In the midst's of it all, another grower (based here in the UK, but I won't say more) took the time to remind everyone that his super secret product was indeed real and the hottest one in existence (said to kill Male Buffalo if downwind of the plants, able to knock down incoming attack missiles if a slight mist is sprayed on your roof, can cure cancer by just looking at it, and other mighty boasts I just made up), and conveniently changed the website content of his site to reflect that the Yellow/Lemon Bhut he has (which he bought from one of the growers in the fisticuffs in the forum), was a fantastic experiment he hoped everyone enjoyed...

...while charging every customer a healthy amount for the unknown seeds.

And here I thought experiment participants usually 'participated' for free or by being paid.

Silly me, I must be on a different planet.

You seriously cannot make stuff up like this!

It's better than a Mexican TV Soap (telenovela!)

:-)

Signs of Life

2010-02-01T06:22:00.000-08:00

The Maize Morado is growing with a purpose! Almapaprika was amazed to see how fast the little things are pushing up, UP! to the sky.

The same can be said about the Roselle. These are fast growing little things...

On the capsicum front, it seems the Brazilian Starfish, Red Squash, Royal Gold and Jamaican Hot are showing early signs of life, which makes me very happy. Put one of the germinating boxes on top of the water heater in the cupboard, and it has done wonders. I'll move the other one as soon as I move the two Roselle seedlings to slightly larger pots to free up the space.

Have taken photos of the Maize, but will take some more today and post the comparison photos so people can see how quickly they have grown.

I am really annoyed with the hydroponic setup. A week has gone by and no sight of progress from the Culantro. I might bring some up to work and scatter some of the seeds on the pots of the overwintered plants, who seem to be starting to sprout new growth. The Rocoto Rojo, the one that worried me the most because it only had two small leaves in three near metre long stalks, now seems content with a scattering of little blooms of green. The Naga Morich is also showing signs of new greenery. In fact, the Naga, the Orange Habanero and the Chocolate Habaneros are all producing the odd flower or two. The Caribbean Red Habanero is thankfully not doing that, but has maintained itself nice and green. I've decided I will start watering them with a half-strength Chilli Focus solution once a fortnight, just to start giving them a little bit of extra nutrients.

Haven't been feeding them anything for nearly 6 months, just water. But they seem to have done OK (Specially the Rocoto, which only produced the pods when I stopped feeding it. I read in the Hot Pepper Forum that it might be because of too much Nitrogen, which tends to be a particular issue with Rocotos and Manzanos.)

So, photos will appear shortly (I hope).

Oh, and I still can't believe I made the whole of the last entry in Spanish without the use of any 'eñes'. But boy, was it difficult!

En Otra Lengua

2010-01-30T04:12:00.000-08:00

I have decided to try to make a few more of my entries in Spanish, since it is also a language I can manage (plus the odd word or two in Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, German, French and Russian. And by 'odd word or two', I mean EXACTLY that. Except for Italian, where I know the odd four or five).

Problem is, I am writing the first such entry from Almapaprika's laptop, which doesn't have the '~' on the 'n' we Spanish speakers use. My little cheap laptop does have it, but I'm being lazy, so this will be a '~'-less entry:

Buenos Dias a todos.

Si han estado leyendo este blog en ingles, sabran ya la historia de su existencia.

Hace un par de...hace muchos, muchos meses atras (;-P) empeze a plantar chiles, ajies y otras plantas del genero capsicum, ya que me encontre fascinado por estas plantas y sus frutos. Esta es la segunda temporada 'formal' en la cual planto capsicums.

Una de las novedades de esta temporada (siempre planto algo fuera de chiles y ajies para ver si tengo el 'pulgar verde' como dicen los anglosajones, o si soy mas como el jardinero que ayuda a una de mis abuelas, el Sr. Mencho, quien aparentemente fue picado por una culebra, y segun va la historia, a estas personas no les crece nada de lo que siembran), son el Maiz Morado (varidad peruana utilizada para elaborar la 'chicha morada'. Disculpas a las hermanas Mexicanas que haya indirectamente insultado), el Saril (mejor conocido como 'Flor de Jamaica' en Mexico), el Culantro (utilizado mucho en mi pais, y conocido por los afroantillanos como el ingrediente principal en el 'Recao' verde) y la Guava Chilena (Guayaba Chilena para los de Centro America y el Caribe). Esta ultima se que demorara un par de....varias decenas de meses en llegar a una edad apta para dar fruto. Pero esta clase de arbol/planta ideal para el clima de Liverpool, asi que no estoy apurado.

El Maiz Morado lo crezco como una curiosidad, y para ver si puedo hacer algo interesante y crear el primer 'Chicheme Morado'. El chicheme, si alguno de ustedes es un lector de mi patria, es una bebida refrescante elaborada de maiz, leche, un poquito de azucar y quizas canela. Origina, segun la leyenda, en La Chorrera, donde el 'Chicheme Chorrerano' es la reina de las bebidas.

El Saril, claro esta, sera utilizado para 'Chica de Saril' (nuevamente disculpas a los Mexicanos. 'Agua de Jamaica'). Ya le he comentado esto a 'pacieros' de el Delicatessen local, quienes estan interesados en saber mas (aca en las latitudes del norte venden la flor del Saril, bueno, en realidad el fruto, pues la flor se asemeja mas a la de un Papo, en sirope, para que uno las ponga como ecoracion dentro de copas de...[CARAMBA!] Prosecco, Cava y otras clases de vinos efervesentes.)

Pero en fin.

Hablo y obviamente escribo por los codos.

Un mal que tengo desde chiquillo.

Lo interesante de esta temporada es que ninguna de las semillas de ajies han germinado todavia.

Sin embargo, tras tan solo dos dias, todas las de Maiz Morado y de Saril ya estaban germinando.

Hoy sabado, tras tan solo una semana, me encuentro con el dilema de que hacer, ya que las raizes de las plantitas de Maiz Morado han invadido el teritorio de las de aji. Movi a dos de las semillas (todas las semillas feron depositadas inicialmente en unos bloques de material de 'compost', los cuales van en espacios individuales en una incubadora) a unos potes separados de 5 pulgadas, pero todavia tengo que encontrar espacio para las otras dos.

Pronto espero poder tomar fotos de los avances.

Pero por el momento, creo que he hablado suficiente.

Purple Rain...

2010-01-28T02:47:00.000-08:00

Eeek!

All four Maize Morado seeds have germinated!

This is, of course, fantastic news...

Except that the roots are already starting to dig into the coir pellets immediately next to them!

Also, both Roselle seeds have germinated as well.

Sheesh!

At least I can now safely say that the bathroom floor is a great place to keep seeds in our flat (it may have a lot of things I'm not thrilled about, but bless under-floor heating. It has been the equivalent of having heating mats for the seed trays). Now I just need to get the light situation fixed.

Work will be a problem this year. The radiators in the offices where I kept all the plants last season have broken down, and people don't know how long it will take Facilities Management to fix the problem (if it's like fixing the heating in my work area, it's been 26 months and COUNTING), so this might mean no plants in the offices for a while...

Talk about FAST!

2010-01-27T03:23:00.000-08:00

One of the Roselle seeds has just germinated...barely 48 hours after sowing! Wow... that is just really fast!

I also started out my first hydroponic kit...really excited, although I have to admit, the design isn't exactly plant friendly (rough and sharp plastic edges on the slit where the tender little stems emerge from makes for a dangerous combination), and for a little thing it is really loud! But I will rate it in more detail later...

...All you need to know is it's called the Prepara Power Plant.

Let the feast of 1,000 hams BEGIN!

2010-01-25T02:58:00.000-08:00

I sowed 44 seedlings yesterday evening to signal the start of the 2010 growing season!

Hazzah!

The hopefuls for this season are (by seedling incubator):

Incubator One
2X Red Strawberry Guava (Supposed to be a frost hardy type of Guava)
2X Barrackpore 7Pot (a Chinense courtesy of Trinycoolieboy, one of the forum members from The Hot Pepper...from Trinidad)
2X Peppermo Pepper (an unknown Chinense from another forum member, Peppermo)
2X Antillais Hot (a Chinense courtesy of Vincent, another forum member)
2X Royal Gold (another Chinense from Vincent)
2X Aji Limo Rojo (Chinense)
2X Brazilian Starfish (Baccatum)
2X Hot Apple (Annuum...otherwise known as Almapaprika!)
2X Red Squash (Chinense)
2X Ring of Fire (Annuum...technically three, but I only used two coir pots for the three seeds)
2X Maize Morado (Purple Corn!)

Incubator Two
2X Safi (Chinense. Really looking forward to this one)
2X Peach Habanero (Chinense)
2X Mustard Habanero (Chinense)
2X Scotch Bonnet Mixed (Chinense)
2X Jamaican Hot (Chinense)
2X Maize Morado (More Purple Corn!)
2X Fatalii (Chinense. Because last year two gorgeous looking plants only produced ONE pod!!!)
2X Cayenne (Annuum. Not Ring of Fire. Just for kicks)
2X Thai dragon (Annuum. Again, just for kicks)
2X Barrackpore 7Pot (might as well plant some more super hots)
2X Roselle (Hibiscus Sabdarifa. Flor de Jamaica for you Mexicans, Saril if you're from Aji Chombo Land)

This is, of course, not counting the Datil at home, the one Naga Morich still remaining at work, as well as the Chocolate Habanero, Orange Habanero, Rocoto Rojo, and Caribbean Red Habanero.

There is one Cuban Black that is still alive. I gave it to one of my co-workers, and it looks FANTASTIC. She's kept it alive through winter, and it looks so lush and exotic in her office.

Greener thumbs than I, definitely.

I will hopefully set up the hydroponics tonight with the Culantro (Eryngium foetidum) to see how that little kit works!

Ah, the joys of the start of the growing season...

And in good, consummate, Chilli Head Fashion, I've decided to post my growing list on The Chile Man's website. I also decided to enter their Rocoto Challenge, although I'm not hopeful of much, since I only managed to get two pods out of the Rocoto Rojo...and they only happened AFTER the growing season... But who knows. I might get a surprise or two this season (like TWO Fatalii pods).

With any luck, I might have some pods for the 'union of the pods' between myself and OUCH! sorry about that. Just got a static shock from the electric radiator, so a shock AND a burn...anywho, as I was saying before, I might have some pods ready for Almapaprika and I's big 'joining in the fields of capsicum.'

Blinkin' emergency door alarm at work just went off (the bell is right next to me), and the usual security override code isn't registering. AAAAAARGH!!!

Have a Thought to Spare?

2010-01-21T07:41:00.000-08:00

Debating whether or not to go ahead with this year's planting, or to merely keep the plants that are still alive (a Naga Morich. The blasted thing is flowering in JANUARY!, plus a Chocolate Habanero, an Orange Habanero, and a Rocoto Rojo...oh, and the Datil Chilli at home), and forgo the planting altogether.

Flat offers me no chance of getting anything going (we now get possibly four hour MAX of direct sunlight during the high summer thanks to the construction of another block of flats in front of us), but I have so many seeds. I really wanted to try the 7Pot seeds one of the forum members sent me from Trinidad, as well as the other seeds forum members sent and some I bought at the close of last growing season...but we shall just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I did want to spare a thought for the earthquake in Haiti. I know this is already a week old, and therefore I say nothing that is not already known, felt, or experienced by some.

Just spare a though for them, and keep them close to mind.

Within weeks most of the world had forgotten that nearly a quarter of a million people died in December 2004 because of the Indian Ocean Tsunami.

Let us not forget the ones who perished here, for it means we once again fail to learn from history.

Humanity: a Generation of Incompetent Techno-dependants

2010-01-14T02:47:00.000-08:00

Yep. You heard it.

The last 10 days have proven we've actually managed to go back in the evolutionary ladder (sort of. Darwin didn't specify that evolution was a forward moving process, merely one of adaptation to challenged presented by the environment).

In this modern, eco-ultra-aware, litigation-enshrouded, health & safety fearing, environmental-apocalyptic world run by people who would have been Smilodon chow a few thousand years ago, we have forgotten basic instinctive responses to dealing with precisely said 'challenges presented by the environment'.

I'm talking about the snow.

Yes, I know I'm not from a country where snow falls profusely, but still.

Three inches of snow effectively crippled the UK last week. These are the sort of numbers people in other parts of the world deal with in late autumn.

In fact, these are the figures which used to be the norm in the UK not that long ago, and are still the norm in parts of the UK, every winter.

And yet...

Health and Safety ran amok as the snow fell. Buses stopped. People panic shopped as if a Hurricane was set to destroy most of England.

If we can't handle a little bit extra snow, I fear Global 'tepidness' will be just enough to finish us all.

A fine bunch of 'evolutionary masterpieces' we are.

New years Rant

2010-01-05T04:10:00.000-08:00

The blog has been inactive for a few months, and some of my friends have been asking me why.

Truth be told, the chilli season gave way to the chilly season (pun sadly intended), and I had to finish my dissertation.

I lost a fair bit of my harvest to the stupidity of realizing that while capsicums keep well in the fridge, if a little moisture gets to them they rot really fast.

Still, I have a healthy supply in the freezer and some drying.

To my surprise, the Nagas, Chocolate Habaneros, Rocotos and Orange Habaneros were still alive until the Christmas Break, when the office was closed :-(

Heck! The Rocoto Rojo even had two pods...in DECEMBER! Took it blinking long enough...

The Naga is also still producing, which is really scary.

I have to thank the peeps from one of the offices where I keep the pods, who had looked after them while I was off being insane with 'academic stuff'.

I am looking forward to the new year, because the lone Datil I planted last year is still alive and well, so it should provide fruit for this summer.

And Almapaprika's Mum and Dad gave me a mini hydroponics system for X-mas! I shall be planting Culantro on the mini hydroponic so that I can cook Sancocho (an Aji-Chombo Land chicken soup cure for hangovers, and apparently death) for Almapaprika.

I've also been dabbling in the dark arts of jam and pickle making, having thus far made:

-Apple, Mint and White Habanero Jelly: a bit of a letdown, really. Needed more pectin. But good flavour and the heat is mild but noticeable.
-Mango, Peach and Naga Chutney: it was so good a friend of ours who shall remain nameless stole a pot of it from another's house. It was really nice and hot. I only used one Naga for this, since more than one would have been not consumable for most friends.
-Blueberry and Pomegranate Jam. So good, I could only make one and a quarter jars (I underestimated the amount of fruit needed). Lovely and full of flavour.
-Cranberry, Plum, and Cherry jam. Another good one. A bit more tart and runny than the Blueberry & Pomegranate one, but still oh, so tasty.
-Pickled Pears. Yup, you heard. The recipe from the Hairy Bikers. Still to taste them as they are 'pickling'.

One final thing, which is why the title is New Years Rant:

Copenhagen: Waste of time. The solution is simple. Technology transfer. It is also the most unlikely, because no one wants to give anything for free (and please do not be fooled into thinking that the 'aid' is free. Who do you think will sell the 'green technology' to the countries in need of it? I'm betting it won't be at discount prices...). Though you couldn't tell it was Global Warming in the coldest winter the UK has seen for a decade...

Also: Apocalyptic films and their recent resurgence. You know, the end of the world through our own making or through some unforeseen circumstance which could be traced back to mankind in some way or another. We are far to obsessed with that sort of film...

Finally. Rude and obnoxious people. There are far too many here where I work. Not co-workers, mind you (well...). They all know more about my work than I do, all want to get away with murder, all want to bend the rules, if not break them and grind them into dust. Why? Why are people afraid of following rules? Yes, AFRAID! 'Rules are unfair.' well, life is F-ING UNFAIR, YOU DOLTS!, if you could do anything you wanted at any time outside of the bonds of society (let's call it nature), you'd be dead before you hit puberty, because the rest of LIFE doesn't give two rabbit sized poo pellets about 'your need for all things to be equal'. Rules can help you if you use and respect them accordingly. Today's society (specially here) are too caught up in this 'Big Brother is out to get you because it wants to control you' paranoia.

whew!

Rant over...

Too many surveys...

2009-08-02T08:39:00.000-07:00

I have been erstwhile distracted from the blog by the bane of postgraduate studies:

The dissertation project.

I am running an online survey on my project, which I need to have since my interviewing skills are rubbish.

I should have known this from ages ago, since my Role Playing skills are equally inept. This is a warning to all of you: If you RP and can't for the sake of you get information from the Gnome Pineapple salesman being played by your friend who knows you are awful at the game and is giving you all the help possible to help you find the +2 Enchanted Suppository of Regularity, you haven't got a prayer for getting accurate information regarding a complex regeneration scheme from Government Officials...

So ask the public what they think. You'll be surprised how refreshing and helpful they will be.

As for the chillies, well what can I say? So far so good. I've taken more photos which I've uploaded to my photobucket account:

http://s611.photobucket.com/albums/tt197/ajichombo/

The Nagas should be changing colour soon. I can feel it. The Chocolate Habs are doing great, as are the Orange Habs (they are just AMAZING). Pretty much the only plants disappointing me are the Fatalii twins. A lot of growth, a lot of growth, a LOT of growth.

But not pods....

Grrrrrrrrrr!

The White Habanero is doing splendid, as is the Caribbean Red Hab (finally). Even the Red Savina has a pod growing!

I have FINALLY moved the Jamaican Hot and the second Paper Lantern from the glass jars to terracotta 15cm pots. I feel really bad about it, but I have decided these two shall be overwintered to provide the spearhead of the 2010 growing season.

August temperatures in Liverpool are predicted to be 14.5C on the average (yes, global warming...I can see it making a difference) AFTER the meteorology office in the UK gave a long range forecast of a heat wave for August. This is why weather forecasting is a great job. You MAKE THINGS UP! and you get paid a handsome fee to boot! I will definitely apply to be one. Stick my head out the window, or better still, my bionic leg, and say 'Hmmmm...leg is tingling. I predict rain!' and bingo-bango! Money!

I am sorely tempted to use the heat lamps from the reception to keep the plants fooled into producing more...

Pigeons and wings...

2009-07-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

I am going to start a petition to send to whatever 'higher authority' was in charge of giving city pigeons wings to have them taken from them.

Silly things just will not move when you walk towards them.

I know they see life in such a manner that their brain analyses our movement as we would the slow crawl of a snail, but I have had enough.

I want some other animal to get the wings if the pigeons are just going to waffle about not using them.

I want monkeys to have them.

And don't say 'Oh, come on!'

You know you want that too.

Not the higher order apes.

Nah.

No...flying orang-utans. No winged Chimpanzees.

The 'lesser apes'

Flying Squirrel Monkeys!

Dive Bombing Tamarinds!

Horrah!

I am 'chuffed', as the locals say, with the progress of the plants. There are now 14 Chocolate Habanero pods on the plant, as well as three White Habanero pods! Weeeeeeee! There are also flowers on the Paper Lantern and Red Savina. The Chocolate Sweet Pepper is now producing more flowers, so a second harvest is under way!

I have started harvesting the Esplendors as well as the Piri-Piris, but loaded with plenty of little pods.

The Orange Habanero is packed! I know there could be more pods if I did a few more things, but I'll settle for 20 pods from it.

Heck, even the Caribbean Red Habanero, now in separate accommodation (after I liberally sprayed it to control the aphids) is carrying a pod!

:-)

Now, if only I could get the Fataliis to actually set a pod, I'd be the happiest pepper on the Internet!

Chockies!

2009-07-14T06:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, it is a bit of a strange word.

Chockies.

The Chocolate Habaneros have FINALLY started to produce pods. I counted three today, and all indications are that there may be a few more in the works.

Not bad for a nearly four foot tall plant with about thirty flowers on it!

:-P

Yes, I am a little frustrated at times.

But other times I'm left in awe.

The 'Naga X' plant has now produced 10 pods, and is loaded with flowers, but dropping temperatures will probably stop more pods from developing, since pollen is not being released.

The Chocolate Sweet Pepper is producing a second load of flowers, no doubt a result of all the pods it carried now plucked out.

A second harvest? Might well be...

Someone has been messing around and playing games with me the past few weeks.

Simply must be.

The Orange Habanero went from being loaded with flowers and producing squat, to being loaded with flowers and now also with pods. I count about 15 so far, and if what I've read in THP about this particular Habanero is correct, it will bear loads of pods (in the hundreds). Still, I'll settle with having just enough to make a good sauce with.

The Caribbean Red Habanero, on the other hand, has been disappointing. Lots of flowers, but zilch pods. I think it may be affected by the fact that the Orange Habanero is overgrowing the CRH, which means it's cramped into a little corner.

I have just had to do something from work which just...well...this is a public forum, so in that respect I shall keep my opinions regarding work to myself. I would be very angry if I just wasn't so blinking disappointed...

Uprooted Peppers

2009-07-11T05:47:00.000-07:00

We have been in the services apartment for four days now, and you simply don't know the comforts of home well until you do something so simple as to say to your other half:

'can you pass me the pepper?'

and realise you don't have any because you left it in the flat you can't go to.

The meeting with the City council was reduced to a shouting match as people realised that the City of Liverpool just simply wasn't prepared to deal with this crisis.

The good news is that this is a dry run in case heaven forbid something worse were to happen. At least in this emergency neither scores of ambulances nor the coroners office needed to be contacted (though there may be dead plants soon, but I'm not sure if there is a gardening coroner's office in the city).

I have taken more photos (of the plants. The crane ones I've already posted on other mediums and I will not use the blog to show people any more of that than I have already shown through the bbc reports), but they are all uploaded into my photobucket account, but I will share a couple with you:

The Nagas

An Orange Habanero pod (getting more pods now. Hazzah!)

The Fatalii twins, now all grown up

A black Cuban Flower (have one solitary pod growing now)

Esplendor (left), the Naga X plant (centre) and the Chocolate Habanero (right). Choc Hab has produce loads of flowers, but no pods...

Well that's all for now. I need to get some shopping done. We have no cling film or little takeaway trays, and Almapaprika is working nights this weekend.

What a week!

2009-07-08T06:22:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine looked at me on Monday and said those horrible words:

What else could go...

I stopped her short of finishing and said

'Please don't say it. Last time someone did there were dire consequences in my life.'

I am at this moment, a pepper without a plant.

I was going to post photos on Monday of the progress with the peppers, but have been sidetracked by a crane falling onto the building next to where I live:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8136336.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8137953.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8139724.stm

As a result, and due to Health and Safety Concerns, Almapaprika and I (and everyone else living in the nearby building) have been 'relocated' until the crane is removed.

It meant not being able to access the flat except for a window of opportunity (9 to 5) on the Tuesday to pick up essentials before the building was closed down. The previous night we spent in a hotel the construction company that was responsible for the crane nicely booked for all the people affected. We also had to get some clothes (and undergarments) for the next day, because no one was allowed back into the complex the day the accident happened.

So we're in serviced flats at the moment.

But because in those serviced flats they charge us £6.50/hour for Internet, I'm limited to what I can do at work, and I need to move the photos from the camera to the laptop.

Prior to all of this 'kung-fu collapsing crane technique' malarkey, I had been in contact with the person who sold me the original Naga seeds. It was a good conversation (even this blog was used as an example. I had to fess up and say it was mine), but I can't send her the new photos of the 'Naga X' because I don't have access to the photos (asides from looking at them from the camera), so this will have to wait. If anything, I have an interesting looking cross.

Oh, and my ex-landlords are just a pain in the rear. But it's not just me apparently, as I found out a work colleague also had this 'company' as landlords when she was a student and thoroughly hated the experience. I'm only glad our dealings with them are done (I hope). I don't expect to be renting anything from them anytime soon.

Other than all of this hullabaloo, if I could post the photos to you, you'd see the new Orange Habanero pods (the plant has now produced around 10), as well as all the new Naga 'X' pods (there are 8 total), and the 'forest of purple' from the Esplendor. Even the white Hab. is flowering!

Not the Naga

2009-07-04T08:22:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm... it seems life has thrown me a slight curve ball...

...or three.

The Naga Morich chilli seeds I bought online have produced a great plant and some interesting pods...

...but they aren't Nagas.

It seems Naga pods are supposed to grow pendant (hanging), whereas these pods are growing erect (standing up). Mind you, having looked at them yesterday afternoon, the look fairly 'Naga Evil'.

But they are growing upright.

I will see whether or not this is a condition of the plant in the first floor only or a condition of both the Nagas, since the one in the top floor has had some flowers open, and hopefully will germinate. If the pods grow downwards, all is gravy. If they grow upwards, I will see something is wrong.

The high temperatures this week were fantastic, because they meant more of the flowers released their pollen. The Esplendor is awash in little purple pods. The Piri Piri is also loaded with little pods.

I FINALLY GOT ORANGE HABANERO PODS! That is a relief. I was starting to think I was going to have the prettiest plant to not give and pods...

The Black Cuban is also producing some pods, which is good, and the Fataliis are also starting to produce flowers! yay!

Even the White Hab and the Paper Lantern are starting to produce little flower buds.

I need to take some more pics.

Naga, Naga, Naga....Naaaaaaaaga!

2009-06-30T10:22:00.000-07:00

Well, the Naga Morich has finally flowered and pods have formed! Yay! Feel really good about it, and quite eager to see how they develop!

Pretty in Purple

2009-06-27T11:36:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that one of the best things I could have ever done was to move the Esplendor Chilli to the office.

At home it was fine and green, but all of the flowers were dropping, no doubt due to the lack of sunshine and temperature.

But in the office, well, what can I say? Photos really say it better than any words I could type in here:

They are just lovely.

The Naga Morich plant has just had it's first developing chilli, though I have to admit it may not be a 'pure breed'. The temperatures are still to low, so pollen is not being released from the flower. Therefore I got some pollen from a ready supplier (the Piri Piri) and hand pollinated it. Thus if a pod does develop, I shall christen it the 'Naga Piri' Chilli! (dramatic music ensues).

I am getting really frustrated with the Caribbean Red Habanero and the Orange Habanero. Both are doing fantastically well, great colour on the leaves, great size, plenty of flowers.

And all the flowers are dropping.

Without pollinating.

Very few of the flowers are releasing pollen, which is annoying. I am starting to think I might need to borrow the Piri Piri flowers for a little more 'Artificial Insemination', but that would just not be fair.

I'd have chillies, yes.

But not Orange Habs.

Not Caribbean Red Habs.

I'd have mutts!

Nothing wrong with that, to be honest, but I kind of wanted to try the real thing first.

Oh, and Andy Murray just won his match.

I'm still not a fan of his, though. I think he's too full of himself. And yes, there's nothing wrong with that, it pushes you to be better.

But my personal tennis favourite may have been a little 'odd', but he wasn't full of himself (Andre Agassi!)

Not feeling too good today. I blame it on a parent practicing her 'bad parenting skills' yesterday by leaving her really ill child (OK. She was late teens) on a sofa in the office cafe while on an open day. The poor child threw up four times while her mom went to a university accommodations meeting. I had to call the person in charge of the Open day and request a First Aider be sent to look at the poor girl.

Seriously now, if your child is doing poorly in the throws of a virulent, possibly highly contagious disease, do you leave her ALONE , oh, and in a crowded place while you go off with your other child?! Seriously now. Where are your priorities, lady?

I know it's a parenting choice here, but if I was the parenting police I'd be putting some serious points on that mom's parenting licence.

Stilton and Orange Juice: Not a Good Mix!

2009-06-24T05:15:00.000-07:00

Just came out of a party for some co-workers who are leaving, and discovered something new today (what life should be about, really. Discovery!):

You don't put a large wedge of Stilton, or any other 'Blue Cheese' for that matter, and then glug some Orange Juice.

The taste and smell is akin to...well, regurgitating something after having eaten it some six hours earlier...

Absolutely vile. If it was used as torture on war criminals it would definitely be in violation of their human rights!

Eating some delightful carrot cake now to was away the horrible aftertaste of that mix...

Oh, and I was 'blessed' by a seagull yesterday afternoon...

Nearly six years in this lovely city, and I'd managed to avoid getting dive bombed. But I guess it's a rite of passage. I'll do the customary 'purchasing of lotto ticket' tonight and see what happens.

On the chilli front all I can say is I wish all days were like this!

Sunshine to the MAX! Good temperature.

The Esplendor is awash with beautiful purple flowers.

The Naga Morich has had most of its flowers open today (and I just measured some of the monster leaves at well over a foot in size!!).The other Naga Morich is now in full speed flower budding.

The Piri Piri is heavy with pods.

The Chocolate Habanero is having some of the flowers open.

Another of the Chocolate Sweet Peppers is ripe on the plant.

The Fatalii Twins are growing, growing, growing!

Oh, and Almapaprika ate the first of the ripe Chocolate Sweet Peppers!

She loved it. Said it was very sweet and had a good texture to it. She stuffed it with some cous-cous...and the stuffed in inside a green bell pepper:

This carrot cake is REALLY good...

Have presentation...will travel!

2009-06-22T01:59:00.000-07:00

I have a presentation to finish for my studies, so I shall have to be brief in today's entry (which means I won't be able to expand on my 'Ugg Boots' dilemma, or enthrall you with the philosophical waxings on 'how WAGS are bringing back the old lady styles of...well old, and how they think it's brilliantly cool while it's actually pretty silly', and Almapaprika took a great photo at the weekend of three 'WAGS-in-training' but I digress...)

Very quick update (and I seriously need to upload the photos I've been taking):

1-One of the Ring of Fire Cayenne has finally ripened! Yahoo! Altavista! Ask Jeeves! It's all nice and red and shiny. Will make for good eating soon.

2-The second of the Chocolate Sweet Peppers is also ripening. That one goes to one of my co-workers who has been eyeing it for a while now.

3-The Piri Piri is loaded with little peppers and flowers. Not bad for a 1 foot by 1 foot plant.

4-The Esplendor now has a brilliant upright purple chilli growing from it!

5-The Chocolate Habanero had one flower open, but it dropped :-(

6-One of the Naga flowers has opened! But it too, will probably drop. Temperatures have not been high enough for pollen release for the super hots.

7-The Etna has its first chilli pod growing! The Stromboli might as well in a day or two.

8-Black Cuban and Fataliis are budding! Grooviness!

9-The second Naga (the one that was at home but was transferred to the office) is budding ferociously now)

and...

10-The flippin' aphids are now on the Caribbean Red Habanero. FILTHY SUCROSE COWS!

Interesting uses for the mobile phone...

2009-06-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

This is a very quick post. I am writing from my mobile phone. It is very cool, to be honest, though not something I shall be indulging in too often. My phone, you see, is not 'pudgy finger friendly', and whilst it does have a 'qwerty' keyboard, the lovely people at nokia and blackberry believe we are all in possession of skeletal digits.
Everytime I write, I feel quite aware of just how clumsy my thumbs are.
But I leave you with this morsel of conference: what is the purpose of ugg boots?!

Esplendorrrrrific!

2009-06-16T02:09:00.000-07:00

What a difference the office makes!

The Esplendor chilli, which at the new place was shedding flower buds fast, has just had it's second really groovy looking purple flower open up (the first one possibly germinating I have to give it another day to see).

Absolutely brilliant!

Who would have thought a place of mind-numbing work could also be used as a fantastic greenhouse! If only we could do this to all places of work, life would be so much more enjoyable...

I have coined a phrase (at least in my mind, since I haven't seen anyone else use it), so I claim it for Aji Chombo Land! (plants imaginary flag on top of idea):

Office Aphids.

We've all worked with one of these before. They are the ones that really contribute nothing useful to the overall workings of the plant, defecate all over it with sickly, sticky-sweet goo that seems to attract the sort of 'large-mandibled', irksome characters that are only interested in one thing (their behinds!), and will become very 'ungentlemanly' (or 'unlady...ly') towards anyone that goes near them or dares point out what an utter waste of space these creatures really are, which in turn means said aphids remain in place no matter how detrimental they are to the overall cohesion of the plant. Furthermore, they create conditions which invite 'Office Spider Mites', 'Fungal infections', and all other manner of miscreants.

Yes, we've all worked with this sort at one point or another.

Which means we should all be thankful for the 'Office Ladybird'...

I have taken more photos, which I shall be uploading soon! Oh, and the Chocolate Sweet Pepper finally ripened, so it has been plucked form the plant and taken home, where it shall be stuffed with some manner of concoction and fed to Almapaprika!

The Sexy Fatalii Twins

2009-06-10T06:25:00.000-07:00

Much to my chagrin, I have recently discovered (another wonderful thing about THP forum) that posting photos of your chilli peppers online, with their flowers exposed constitutes 'pepper porn'. In that respect, I would like to apologize to any and all capsicums that may be in within view of a computer screen when their respective owner reads this blog (or any of my entries in THP) and sees images of my piri piri flowers.

I can assure you these images are purely for artistic aesthetics.

This is an image of the Fataliis I'm growing. I have decided to call the bigger one 'Fatal-a', and the smaller one 'Fatal-e', because I'm just having a silly moment... I just re-potted them into 20cm pots, because the 3cm pots they were previously in were just waaaaaaay too small (they are in a previous pic). Now I hope the leaves grow big and green, and they start producing pods. I planted them in some compost with John Innes Numero 3, which means I'll give them a week or two (or three) before using Chilli Focus, since that compost should be loaded with tasty nutrients.

Oh, and the Piri Piri is flowering even more! There is one fully grown pod on the plant, and two more starting.

:)

Crystal Leaves?!

2009-06-09T05:22:00.000-07:00

One of those odd things that happens in gardening, I reckon. The Etna and Stromboli chillies (I've been told this is my own unique spelling of the word) have had a number of their leaves become covered in what I can only describe as 'crystals', which seem to be protruding from the leaves themselves.

I have asked in the hot pepper forum, but no answer yet. A quick search through google came up with a possible creation of crystals as a means of certain plants to filter out heavy metals from their water supply.

But I doubt that one.

Although if it is true, then that would mean that one of the water sources I have been using to water the plants has some amount of Peanut butter (OK. Lead. Pb. I can't even make a joke these days...), which is slightly worrisome. I might take one of the leaves to a friend of mine to see if there are traces of HM's in the leaves.

At the advise of some of the members of THP, I have decided to trim the bottom leaves of the Naga Morich and Chocolate Habenero (as well as a few other plants), to help improve the overall growth of the plant and flowers, as well as the circulation of air through them, though I did pick a crummy day to do so, as it is fairly cold.

I've also been told by a couple of them that the leaves are indeed quite large. I took some more photos of the plants now trimmed, and took photos of the largest leaves I could find after I trimmed them.

They are indeed 'Gargantuan'.

All the plants grew something fierce over the weekend (the photos below are from the 5th of June), some stretching as much as two inches!!!

I can only imagine how much more they would have grown had there been real sunshine instead of this typical English summer...

Orange Habanero

2009-06-06T07:34:00.001-07:00

Fatalii Twins

2009-06-06T07:33:00.001-07:00

Black Cuban

2009-06-06T07:32:00.001-07:00

Chocolate Habanero

2009-06-05T12:06:00.001-07:00

Chocolate Habanero Buds

2009-06-05T11:53:00.001-07:00

Fatalii

2009-06-05T11:19:00.001-07:00

Piri Piri Flower

2009-06-05T11:00:00.001-07:00