Scorching the Garden 2020 Part 16
This is the third documented grow for us and we are introducing a lot of new things this year. We have more hardware, better software, and the same growing plan that has worked for many years. The garden is now closed and this season’s grow is officially over. It was a tough year and shutting things down are bittersweet.
So this is it. The end of Stage 1. We had a lot of ups and downs this season. More downs it would seem, but, hey, we may be down, but we aren’t out.
We were hit with 2 frosts that dealt a nasty blow to a majority of the plants. And, of course, the next few days after each one, the temperatures went back up. None the less, the damage was done, but not to all. We have precious, little time to work as our Halloween deadline approaches.
First thing’s first. We hit up each bush, looking for the best peppers left. Its actually a lot easier picking after a frost-there aren’t so many leaves in the way. It does do a lot of harm to the plant. It could come back if it suddenly became spring, but that’s not going to happen. Since the photoperiod has changed and the sun has red-shifted (moving away from us), they are going through their final stages of life and will die. That, unfortunately, does not speed up the ripening process.
After rounding up the remaining Gang of 9, we harvested our experimental peppers. The Charpita (world’s most expensive pepper), is a beautiful bush with its small, green leaves and bright orange berries. Its also the world’s most PIA to pic. The stems are VERY attached to the pepper and extremely long relative to the pod itself. Its a pain to harvest, a pain to clean, but boy are they tasty. Similar to mini habaneros, with a bit of sweet to them as well.
The lemon drops were a surprise producer. After they got over the multiple heatwaves, they popped out an unexpected number of flowers that matured into peppers. Their shape and size are reminiscent of minnows with a striking yellow color. They do have a good amount of heat to them with hints of citrus and a sweet finish. Thes are going to be fun to work with.
After searching through every bush, we collected around two bushels of peppers. Most of these will be smoked and/or dried with the rest destined to be Autumn Harvest.
Once we had all the peppers that we were going pick picked, we went on a mad dash to get everything out of the garden. We had to dump the rest of the water out of the buffaloes, disassemble the rain catchers, pull out every bamboo pole, take out all the tomato cages, remove the fencing and gates, and yank all the steel fence posts out.
We’ll be leaving the plants as is and coming back later to plant the garlic. Sorry there aren’t more pictures, but there was a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in.
All in all, this year was barely survivable. There was so much work that needed to be done, that got done, we just didn’t have time to document it all. This was indeed our busiest year ever. Yes, all of our shows and normal sales events were canceled this year. No, we didn’t have any product to sell anyway. But still, there was and is so much going on in the background, such as, did you know that Scorch Garden is now an official registered trademark? Its little things like that which aren’t big news as far as a customer is concerned, but its important to the company as it grows and there are lots of these little things that take up a lot of our time.
Thanks for following along with the grow. Follow us on Facebook for more updates as to our progress with opening our kitchen and launching our sauces and spice mixes. See you soon.
