SNORFHYRP! process 1: peppers

that acronymn stands for sprout now or forever hold your piece!

one of the subjects i've had the expectation to discuss on this multifaceted weblog of mine is gardening. three of you beautiful readers may of caught my abstractions on an acorn from a bur oak. i've not yet witnessed anything phenomenal in that experiment, so i've not reported anything. other gardening adventures in my life have been limited due to the season. i've thankfully had a wonderful bounty of greens and herbs through these cold winter months, as any advantageous gardener would assume - spinach, chard, mustard greens, mint, sage - those have been my most productive plants in my feeble urban garden. i also have some snap peas and brussel sprouts that are working hard but but do not provide a "daily" forage as the others. 

each year as i gear up for spring planting, i often neglect seeds that need a head start like peppers and tomatoes. this year, i am determined to get these two plants established in my garden - along with greens, peppers and tomatoes are my most digested produce. so why shouldn't i attempt to grow my own favorites. 

i've always preferred to specifically to grow from seeds rather than nursery transplants, and one day i read some information about using seeds from actual peppers to grow new plants. this ignited a strange madness inside me and over the past year i've been collecting seeds from my garden and produce. i intend to collect as many seeds as possible to mass my own personal seed bank. this obsession has been further inspired by asshats like monsanto who have been creating their own genetically modified seed bank with the usual capitalist intentions. whether the corporations know full well that they can bring about the downfall of humankind, and all life as we know, is beyond my speculation here (though the thought haunts my dreams nightly). thankfully that there's enough of us organic socialists working to break free of the system. as one of the rebels, or post-industrial-new-primitives, if you will, i've have been sucessfully cultivating and digesting matter raised in whatever dirt is nearby. i wish to inspire my dozens of readers to take part. if you can't partake at the present, then may the experiments i document provide a foundation of thought to promote your future actions as we near the climax of "the big twist." 

what i present today is the beginning of a sprouting experiment involving pepper seeds. i have collected seeds from peppers originating a variety of sources - farmers markets, healthfood stores, big boxes and my own garden. like all of my experiments, take my wild yeast starter, i might of gotten off to a hap-hazard start. when i began collecting the seeds from peppers, i cataloged them appropriately with what type they were and which source they came from. however, as i continued collecting, i began throwing everything together figuring nature will sort itself out by the end. the bluck of my pepper collection is a chaotic mix but i've luckily been able to sort out some reliable test subjects, which will be described later in the post. 

as all of my research concludes - the best idea is to germinate seeds and great healthy sprouts grown indoors during the colder months and transplant the successful seedlings outdoors when weather conditions warm up. this basically "extends" the season or, at best, provides more room for production. as i am currently living in the central-south-west of whatever north america means, i am in the prime climate for peppers to grow. i have grown some peppers from seeds with minimal success without taking the precursing steps indoors. 

the purpose for my experiment is to find out what pepper seeds can be harvested and replanted. this also documents an effort in "up-cycling" - which is a cute term i picked up from the instrucable crowd. anywho, i am not going to make a lick of sense just typing from here on out, so let's break down the process and variables as simple as i am artistically capible of.

the medium:

my base media for the pepper seeds, and whatever other seedling experiments i'll engage myself in, will be a local soil/compost mix. the composition of the media should not be ignored while examining the continuing experimentations. the compost is 100% organic as i am - that is to say, i sometimes have to buy an onion from the gas station down the street (that's one extreme) but i normally ingest produce and what not from the farmer's market or other "organic" outlets - i do compost most anything, however, i do separate some really funky bits into a long term compost pile. i can't compost my shit as i would honestly prefer - still an urban dewier, dig. the compost used in these trials is primarily, but not exclusively, composed of the following: fresh vegetable scraps, garden clippings, used coffee grounds and tea, various foliage, brown egg shells (of local free range hens), pine shavings, brown board (commonly unused egg cartons) and local soil. 

the soil:

i am very fortunate to have rich, dark, adaptable soil on this alluvial plain, south of the balcones escarpment, inside the splash-zone of rio de san marcos. preparing compost in this locale has been very easy for me. i've been able to work the soil like i do my wild yeast starter and have different piles full of crazy nonsense - yes, unused starter does have a pile too - waste not, want what? as previously hinted, the funky bunch of my compost is not been incorporated in this current effort, nor any other usable soil yet used in my garden.

the life already inside:

the composting soil has been steadily evolving life since the mid summer when my garden slowed down. my gardening activity became scant during an incredibly hot and dry summer here in centex - along with the harsh elements were my half-attentive action - you see, i've been playing musical apartments for over a year, finding my niche - my ill-prepared horticulture was an annoyance but in hindsight, i guess i needed the space and time to collect the matter that i have now to comprise the compost. the compost has now been festering in large 30 gallon (i suppose) plastic containers for nearly half a year. many forms of live, both disgusting and amazing, have spawned. one such disturbing ecosystem of late summer compost can promote a bona-fide infestation of grubs. they will probably turn into something - i let them do their thing away from my garden - so they don't grow up to munch down on the living plants. most of these grub things die, i speculate that the survivors become beetles. during the humid and colder fall, mold and the occasional fungus came around - the various fungal growths were allowed to rise and fall on their own and eventually were mulched into the compost. within winter's onset i had begun separating the compost - keeping the least broken down bits in the new mix and working fresh soil into the better composted matter. recently, i distributed the soil/compost into the planting pods and found another stage of life inside the dirt - earth worms (images below), very encouraging! i have been known to toss some worms into pots and compost when i find them during a new till. surprisingly, i found 5 to 6 small earthworms (smaller than any i ever remember seeing) actively wiggling through the dirt. i have left them in the planting pods. i am confident the soil in ripe for sowing.

the pods, or planters:

the majority of the the planting pods i am utilizing are up-cycled egg cartons of the brown board variety. these will serve as my primary test structures. these provide soil space at least 1.5 inches deep, which i feel is adequate - i've heard of people using ice cube trays with good results. i have also prepared other vessels for the hell of it - common terra cotta pots, bur oak acorn husks and old flour bags - these are going to be used informally in "set 5", keep reading. i am curious if the soft material of the egg carton will lend itself to easy transplanting - i am familiar enough with it to know that it easily composts as is.

the pepper seeds, organized: 

i have grouped the best documented seeds of my collection into 4 sets. in each set there are 3 basic varieties fulfilled: bell pepper, jalapeño, and sweet pepper (commonly the "banana" pepper). a fifth set will test natural decomposing peppers, in this set, i have no sweet variety - instead there's serrano, quite the opposite

set 1: control, Ame®ican Seed, factory expiration 12/10, purchased from Tuttle Lumber

so these are to be expected to grow, the expiration doesn't phase me, infact these could make up the "oldest" seeds of the experiment - which kinda brings it to better comparison with the next set

set 2: organic, local, spring collection, peppers purchased from farmers markets

seeds were collected between 8 to 10 months ago and were labeled to note type and source, each variety is correctly represented are all from vendors at the tuesday farmers market.

set 3: possible organic, semi-local, summer-fall collection, peppers purchased from grocers, i.e. HEB and Cornucopia, exception noted below for sweet pepper seeds

seeds collected between 4 to 8 months ago. the bell pepper seeds came from  green peppers purchased from groceries. these specific jalapeño seeds were noted to be from peppers from heb, collected in july 2010. sweet pepper seeds are collected from garden grown red peppers (that were rather sweet but unlike a usual banana pepper), the seeds used to grow these peppers were a similar brand as what's used in the control

set 4: organic, local, fall-winter collection, peppers purchased from farmer's markets, exception noted below for sweet pepper seeds

seeds collected between 2 weeks to 3 months ago. seeds have been kept with dried bits of pepper and are easily identifiable. bells and jalapeños were purchased from local farmer's markets. the bell pepper seeds had a note describing them as "long-red-bell". the sweet variety are more of the same garden grown pepper as in set 3, these were picked from the plant very recently (this plant was some 11 months old, amazing) and have been allowed to completely dry - they were literally cracked open to collected the seeds.

set 5:  organic, local, new winter collection, peppers purchased from farmer's markets

not too shocking, but more skilled horticulturists have been able to keep pepper plants producing well into the winter, and hell yeah i bought some from them - notice that the peppers are much smaller than what you can find during the summer (or what's shipped to the big box). these are some peppers from the farmers market, obviously grown within the limits of the season, that somehow got away from me and began to decompose. i think they'll make a handy opportunity to observe the peppers try to naturally reproduce.

each seed variety is given four pods each. as i'm always curious about what should be the "correct" number of seeds to plant, i'll vary the number of seeds per pod and to keep my own numerology from influencing design, i'll use the first four prime numbers, 2, 3, 5 and 7.

looking at this image, set 1 is far left and the next 3 sets follow in sequence to the right. all bell varieties are in the top four pods, the jalapeño occupies the middle four, the sweet peppers are in the last four. simple enough? cool, then no labels needed.

the environment constructed around time:

now that everything is placed, i create the sprouthouse with plastic wrap - i hate plastic wrap - and because of my aversions to it's use in the kitchen, i've got plenty to use and figure it'll get a wider breathe of utility as a greenhouse cover. i'm sure it will soon become a pain in my ass, so i'll look for a better cover - it'll have to do for now. i use wooden skewers to mix my wild yest starter and am up-cycling them as supports for the plastic. the light source while indoors is the biggest florescent bulb i can find locally. this light will not be used until germination is complete and sprouts begin to grow. i expect sprouts should develop in 12 days and at that point, the sprouthouse will collect light from the florescent bulb 8 to 12 hours a day. i expect to continue this for a month up to a month and a half, hopefully right and ready after the fear of freeze s gone. my apartment stays relatively cold in the absence of central heat - ranges from 65º to 75º F.

thanks for keeping tabs all the way down. as a reward for your patronage, i'll post a series of youtubed videos about baking bread in camp by Ray Mears - wait, no i can't, the videos have the embedding disabled. well shit, you tube Ray Mears, you won't be disapponted. how about some blockhead instead? alright, it's down there. stay keen on the muthaship for continuing progress as i hope to bear fruit from these experiments a expand into different organics as the new year unfolds. peace, kevo

by kevin walsh, 2011