Watering…

When you water your young seedlings you need to be as gentle as possible. I recommend picking up a typical spray bottle, of course do not reuse one that has had cleaning products or any chemicals as this will probably kill your plants no matter how much you have cleaned it out. Set the sprayer to a mist and gently apply the water to the plants in such a gentle manner that you don’t ‘blow’ the plants over with a heavy spray. I apply a good soaking via misting daily when they are young. If you are using a heat mat to help the germination phase the soil can dry very quickly and the seedling can die very quickly. Keep the soil moist at all times at this stage. If you start to notice any mold or fungus then it is ok to let the soil dry a bit, but keep a good eye on the seedlings, it can turn ugly very quickly.

Thinning…

If you have chosen the safer, but more expensive approach of planting more than one seed per cell in your seed trays, you will soon reach the time of making a difficult decision. That decision would be to thin your seedlings to the strongest, healthiest one. Our ultimate goal here is to encourage more root growth and to give our strongest seedling the most nutrients possible that is remaining in the soil. To thin your seedlings down to one per cell, take a pair of small scissors and clip the weaker seedlings at the base, as close to the soil line as possible.

Do not pull them out of the soil as the roots might and probably are inter-twined with the good seedling and you could kill it very easily

Another method is to simply us your fingernails and give it a pinch near the base. It is very important to not disturb the young seedlings that you

Transplanting…

I am going to do a whole article on transplanting but I have seen a few questions in the comments wondering when the best time is to transplant. It is time to transplant when your seedling has outgrown the container it is in. I wouldn’t recommend transplanting until you start to see roots growing out of the bottom of the container through those little holes. You never want to disturb the plant until you have too and you never want to try to move a very young seedling as the process can kill it.

–Jay

The
DEFCON Global Assimilation Tour 2008
continues!

Saturday, April 12, 2008, 1-4:30pm

St. James’s Gate

167 Maplewood Avenue

Maplewood, NJ 07040

973-378-2222

We, The DEFCON Crew, in our never-ending quest to assimilate the global population into the DEFCON Continuum, will be rolling into Maplewood, New Jersey once again. Armed with the best wing sauce available on this celestial rock, we will be serving all of our exquisite products (including our newest product, The DM MKII and of course our most infamous elixir, the ZERO) to the masses for FREE once again. That’s correct, FREE WINGS for the afternoon, all you can eat! Where else is it possible to be served a wing sauce that has claimed 14 international awards in the past 3 years for FREE, and not to mention the Official Wing Sauce of the New Jersey Devils? That’s right, NOWHERE!

And as an added bonus, when you find yourself overwhelmed with culinary rapture, which of course in inevitable, you can also purchase our products on location!

Also, if we succeed in getting enough gladiators, we will also have a Wing-Eating DEATHMATCH competition as well!

Do you dare to take a place at The Table of Virtue?

We will be raffling off a bunch of stuff like t-shirts, sauce packs, etc. as well.

Come join The DEFCON Crew in our latest stop in the Global Assimilation Tour 2008! For more information regarding past events, visit our website, www.DEFCONsauces.com, and click on the “appearances” tab.

CrackerHouse - Pepper Sauce - MEDIUM

Back in December, I did a review of the CrackerHouse Fire Pepper Sauce. You can check this out here… This time, the MEDIUM version of the sauce was up on deck. The FIRE version of this sauce was an extract sauce, yet nowhere near an extreme heat hot sauce. In fact, the small amount of extract that was in the hot sauce, was very well buried. Appearing at darn near the end of the ingredient list, it was one of the first extract sauces that I have had, that didn’t detract from the flavors in the sauce due to the use of extract. I thoroughly enjoyed the sauce and damn near killed the entire bottle during one meal. So essentially we have the same exact sauce, minus the extract. I know I’m going to like the fresh flavor of this sauce before I even try it. My only pitfall with these sauces are the use of HFCS and CS, personally I avoid any and all foods that contain these ingredients. But alas this is one of the pitfalls of reviewing hot sauces. J No complaints here folks!http://crackerhousesauces.com/

CrackerHouse Sauces - Simple & Fresh

CrackerHouse Sauces are a masterful blend of Florida Datil peppers and Jalapeno peppers along with other fresh vegetables. We currently offer a Datil Pepper Sauce (medium), a Datil Hot Sauce (fire), a Datil Honey Mustard (mild) and both a mild and hot Datil Wing Sauce.
CrackerHouse sauces are great on any food; try the sauces on anything! Your taste buds will love you for it!

Being that I am in ultra lazy mood, I have decided that this hot sauce would be perfect for plain pizza. Since I know it’s going to have a nice sweet/fresh taste to it, why bust my ass cooking up something. Leftover pizza it is!

First impression: With scant differences between the FIRE and MEDIUM, the bottles are nearly identical, almost the same label. Two differences I notice are the white shrink wrap on the MEDIUM and the red shrink wrap on the FIRE. The obvious FIRE (with flames) or MEDIUM right below the CrackerHouse logo differentiates the two. The ingredients are also exactly the same as the FIRE sauce. The only difference is that this version lacks the capsaicin oleoresin.

Ingredients: tomato concentrate made from red ripe tomatoes, fresh red & green tomatoes, sugar, fresh onions, distilled vinegar, green bell peppers, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, fresh Datil & Jalapeño peppers, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, garlic, salt, spice, black pepper, onion powder & natural flavorings.

Appearance/Smell/Taste: The smell of the MEDIUM is pretty much the same as the FIRE. It starts off with a sweet tomato smell. Then there is the slight waft of the vinegar. This is what attracts me to this sauce, the very fresh/sweet flavor. Although it’s almost to the point where it’s too sweet for me, but it’s safely right on the very edge of this line to where I can use this sauce, lots of it! Appearance wise the MEDIUM sauce is kind of loose with chunks and bits of onion, pepper seeds, and pepper flesh. There is a nice mixture of spices in there for good measure. Nice tomato flavor with the sweetness of the onions and the HFCS.

Prepared meal: Leftover plain pizza. Even when I reheat my pizza, I like to use the pizza stone. It helps the crust stay nice and crispy, but not get overcooked and rubbery. I don’t know about you, but back in the day when I still used a microwave, I wouldn’t microwave pizza. Rubbery pizza just isn’t my thing. And sometimes I prefer reheated pizza stone pizza. This I know will be a perfect use for this sauce. Slathering up my first slice of pizza I dive right in! The fresh onion, pepper, and tomato flavor are awesome on pizza! The tomato concentrate meshes well with the pizza sauce. I then go on to kill another 2 slices with this sauce, lots of it too!

Complement to meal: Pizza is a great use for this sauce. All the fresh flavors go very well with plain pizza. Although any kind of pizza would be totally ramped up with this sauce. The heat although is very low, especially if you are a chile-head and like it hot. This sauce is roughly a 3 on the HSB heat scale and lowers to about a 2 once it’s applied to something cheesy like pizza. As you can see I used a good deal of this sauce on 3 slices of pizza. Nearly 2/3rds of the bottles was consumed, and no chile-heads were injured in the making of this review! Check this sauce out if you want something sweet, sassy, and mild! -Lars-

Initial impression: 8/10
Ingredient quality/content: 6/10
Flavor/textue/smell: 9/10
Heat: 3/10
Overall: 6.5/10

Just a quick announcement here that Blair’s Pure Death is now available on his website www.extremefood.com.

Pure Death
Orange Habanero Chili Pods, Jolokia Chili Pods, Vinegar, and Baked Hawaiin Red Salt……That is It….PURE—–Clean, Use it on Everything….The Heat is Balanced not Piercing just perfect…On Our Heat Scale Pure Death Falls in the After Death Level But contains No Extract….It is BRIGHT orange and so Fresh…….Enjoy

http://extremefood.com/product.php?id=164

Now that we have everything to get started, we can start planting our seeds. This is very simple and there are not really any tricks to this.

I lay out my seed trays on a large table and pour a good lot of potting soil (I personally use in a large pile in the middle of the seed tray. You will be surprised at how much soil is used on each seed tray but it is generally about half a bag of potting soil. Then spread it out ensuring that all the cells are fill to the top. Make sure though that you can still see the ‘ribs’ separating each cell. You will need to see these to know where to plant your seeds.

Now that all your trays are filled with potting soil, make one indentation with your finger in each cell. Only go a half an inch at the most.

Now, at this point, I use a chart that I have designed in Excel that shows each tray and each cell. I have a legend identifying what I put in each cell. This way I know what I have and can easily keep track of it.

If you want a copy of this chart, though it is quite simple to make one yourself, let me know and I will send it to you. It is currently set up for my 48 cell trays but I can add 36 and 72 cell versions if you want.

Most growers will recommend putting two or three seeds per cell and chose the strongest of the three when it comes time to cull the crop. This year, I have White Habaneros, Golden Habaneros and Spicy Mustard Habaneros, Pepperoncinis, and Bhut Jolokias. Each packet has at about 15 seeds. I have such a small amount of seeds of each type; I am ok taking my chances with the 15 plants of each variety I am going to get. If some don’t make it that is ok with me, I know that most will. I am hoping for at least a 90% germination rate, I got 99% last year and I got my seeds from the same source this year so I can be confident in my decision.

If you are confident in your seeds plant one seed per cell, if you are not, plant two or three. This can be quite expensive though if you are killing 2/3s of your purchase, where I get my seeds from generally cost me $5 per pack so that adds up pretty quickly.

In each of the little indentations, I place one seed. I then gently cover each seed with a bit of the surrounding soil. When all my seeds are planted and documented, I gently apply water to give the seeds the moisture that they require. Remember what I said in Part III? “For a seed to become a plant it needs heat, sunlight, soil and water” A seed is always checking for these conditions, when the conditions are finally met, it starts to transform. At this stage however, the light is not required until the seed becomes a seedling with two leaves to start soaking up the light.

The next few weeks are very crucial to our plants. We need to ensure that the soil is moist (not wet), and that the seeds get heat. To keep the seeds moist I keep a spray bottle near the seed trays that is just filled with water. The spray is set to mist, anything more would disrupt the soil or hurt our little seedlings when they appear. If you received a clear top with your seed tray, you will only need to mist your seeds once a day, if not, you might need to do it twice or more. Make sure that the soil doesn’t dry up completely at this stage.

Keep the trays on a heat mat, on top of the refrigerator, or near a warm window. If everything is right, within 10 to 15 days (sometimes longer) you will start to see little seedlings emerge from the soil.

–Jay

P.S. I don’t mind having 15 plants of each type of pepper. I get to keep a few for myself, but the rest I give to friends and family. You will be amazed at how quickly they go.

First Impressions: Oddly reminiscent of an R.L. Stein Goosebumps book cover, particularly The Werewolf of Fever Swamp (#14) or You Can’t Scare Me (#15), Louisiana Swamp Scum’s label is campy and intriguing in the same way that the series of children’s horror novels used to be (I have since graduated to Fear Street). The sauce looks almost black, not to mention disgusting, but it’s totally supposed to look that way…its swamp scum!

Swamp Scum was clearly designed to look like something that had been dredged from the murky depths of the bayou. What worries me here is that I think they may have decided to call it Swamp Scum before creating the sauce, and then just pumped a bunch of food coloring into the product to fit a pre-conceived theme… Alright, really what I’m trying to say is that if the sauce purposely looks gross for the sake of its name, then it better be really freaking good for the sake of everyone!

Ingredients: Peppers, Vinegar, Salt, Molasses, Natural Flavoring, Caramel Color

Smell: I can’t say I’m crazy about the smell. It smells very smoky, which is weird because there is no mention of liquid smoke or smoked anything in the ingredients. Maybe some of the ambiguous “peppers” were chipotles, or maybe they put the sauce in a smoker for a while. Perhaps it’s not smoke, but there is a very strong, kind of sweet smell in there that isn’t all that appealing. I also detect vinegar and some slight heat.

Appearance: While it is appears a brown to black color inside the bottle, dribbled onto a plate Swamp Scum is a dark forest green. Thin it out a little bit and it the color of algae…hey, like in a swamp! The sauce is completely liquid but travels slower than water. There are no chunks or texture, but miniscule specks of red and green are visible under closer inspection.

Taste: Hmm…I don’t know about this one. Something overtakes my tongue right off the bat, still don’t know what, but I still think smoke flavor. I’m not opposed to smokiness, but whatever that is, there is way too much of it, and it tastes incredibly artificial. I always thought food coloring was flavorless…could this be what I’m troubled by? It might be too much molasses, as there is also a dull, misguided sweetness that blankets the palate. If not for these issues, I think this would be a rather traditional vinegar based cayenne sauce, akin to Frank’s, Pawleys Island Sunburn, Louisiana Supreme, etc.

Heat: The heat is mild. I’m feeling it a little in the back of my mouth and not anywhere else. I’d imagine real swamp scum isn’t too hot either.

Overall: I don’t like it. I am but one man. At least one of my roommates does like it. I think he said he likes using it as a utility sauce for dishes that require just a little heat and some sweetness. I decided to give it two fair shakes of a lamb’s tail on lamb burgers topped with bleu cheese. I chose this meal for two reasons. First, lamb is a meat that, like this sauce, was always inexplicably smoky to me. Also, I figured the pungent bleu cheese would cover up a good deal of the less flattering qualities of this sauce, but not subdue the mild heat. Both me and my luncheon companion thoroughly enjoyed our burgers and agreed that the sauce was an appropriate and agreeable accompaniment…so who knows, you might find some things you could really enjoy it on.

WOF Vendors update

Booths
1&2 Peppers
3—- Chooch+Pootan
4—- Cajun Island
5—- Mild to Wild
13– TorchBearer
14– Montezuma
15– Csigi
18– Chili Pit
17– Blane, DK,Buddah–?
19– Fat Kid Sauce
21&22-CaJohn’s
25&26-Hot Shoots
27–Defcon
28–Bodines BBQ
29–Intensity Academy
33–Porkys
34–Big Dawg
35–Texas choice
39–THT
40–Blair’s
41–Redd Eye
42–Butt Shack
43–Lee’s Mustard
46&47 Gardeb Fresh Salsa
49–Captain Tom’s

Sorry for the long delay between the Saturday and Sunday posts. I have worked every day, and most nights as well since we’ve been back.

Well since this is the continuation from the last post, if you read it you would know the weather on Saturday was incredible, 70 degrees. When I opened the blinds on Saturday I about fell over cause the sun was so intense. On Sunday the weather changed, it was overcast and much cooler.

After breakfast we planned out our day. I had brought two cases of product with us to try to work some trades. About 3/4 of that still remained. I was on a mission, there was no way I was bringing back any of the sauce I brought. I already knew that I needed to get ahold of Cowboy George, ’cause he had an early flight and would be leaving the show early.

Once again, I couldn’t wait for the wife to get ready. There were thousands of sauces waiting to be eaten downstairs. That definitely trumps make-up, ironing and blow drying! Everyone else was just lucky I had enough patience to shower and brush my teeth! The only other show I had ever been to, we were exhibitors, this was a whole new level of chilehead nirvana! I loaded up the pack with my own product in hopes someone would agree to exchange my wares for their tasty sauces.

The first booth I stopped by was Danny Cash once again, not just ’cause they are cool guys, or we are friends, but also ’cause they are right out front before you go into the main auditorium. I asked if they had seen Cowboy George this morning. The boys at DC didn’t know who I was talking about. Nate Dog, who was trying some of the tasty goodness at the DC booth gave them a fair and accurate description, still no help. Next stop was Gage Salsa. These guys had taken us up on the offer of exchange the day before and I still owed them a Honey-Chipotle. One jar lighter! Two of the tastiest salsas at the show belonged to them and their neighboor Rancho Bravo. Next stop, Bermuda Jam Factory. If you like pepper jellies or pepper jams, this is the place for you! My fave was the Hurricane Force, I think it was their second hottest, but it was the one that tasted best to me. Unfortunately their U.S. co-packer couldn’t get product ready for them until May 1st so they were just showcasing what they had, and had no product for sale. To ship product from Bermuda would have cost a fortune. Shortly after visiting with the guys at Bermuda Jam Factory I ran into Cowboy George. Since he is opening a new hot shop I unloaded one of everything we have on him. Back pack empty, mission accomplished, back to the room to re-load.

The wife was finally ready. I loaded up my pack and we went back down to the show. This time the first stop was Big Dawg, another of the tastiest salsas in at the show. I dropped them one of everything. All I wanted in exchange was the CPR trio and some Burn Ur Face Off, but Darrell was having none of that and hooked us up with a few other goodies, Flat Lime Salsa and their Salvage Cajun Seasoning. Somewhere shortly after we met Lars and his mom at Csigi. Lars had taken the time to prepare some delicious samples including queso and honey habanero BBQ beef, MM MM good. We needed gifts for a couple people who were taking care of the boys while we were out of town, and Lars’ products were perfect for that. We started to tell Lars who we were, and he reminded me that he had done a review of our Honey-Chipotle. Nuff said, products exchanged.

After we unloaded the pack on this round we had only two bottles of our sauce left. The pile of sauces we had accumulated (purchased, bartered, gifted) was huge! We began to worry, how would we get all of this stuff home? Would it make it home safely? Well lets just see. We did bring a lot of bubble wrap.

We ran into ChileheadEd again , and he finally had his Redrum sauces with him, well actually they were behind the booth at Mild to Wild Herb and Pepper co., I tried them all. The one I fell in love with was the Golden BBQ.

It was somewhere around 3 o’clock and this incredible show was winding down. I still had alot of things I wanted to taste. When we got back to the show, it didn’t take long before we ran into another friend we had made at ZestFest, who other than June DeRousse from Chile Pepper Magazine. The funny thing was we both made eye contact, then did the double take. June is another one of those friendly Texans. I guess that Fort Worth area has an affect on people. We knew from previous emails that she would be in attendance but like so many of the other friends that we knew were going to be there, we had neglected to get her number. We chatted and laughed for probably an hour. We decided to go get something to eat. On the way June stopped off to buy Dave DeWitt’s newest book and have him sign it for her. We ran into Buddah, Steve, and Ed on the way and they decided to join us for lunch. We went to the roof top bar and found out that unfortunately they weren’t serving food for another hour. June and Tina ended up catching a cab to go get something to eat. Buddah, Steve, Ed and myself ended up at the sports bar where service was ridiculously slow and I had to go ask the bartender for our bill which arrived about 10 minutes after I asked for it.

By the Time we settled the bill it was 5:30 and the show ended at 6:00. Holy crap, it was time to do some last minute shopping, but first thing first, I needed to stop by The Bermuda Jam Factory. They had been talking about some fabulous rum cocktails. These guys weren’t lying, rum and ginger beer. Drink in hand I rushed to the Red Eye booth where I needed to get some of their Easy Goin’ Mild Salsa. My wife was shocked to hear that I liked their mild the best out of all their products, salsas and hot sauces. She made me promise to get it for her before she went to lunch.

Next stop was to be Dakota Mustard. Buddah, among others, raved about this stuff! Alas, it was not to be! The booth was empty, a sign on the table said sold out again. The cruelest cut was the fact that they had pulled the sample bottles to the back of the booth. I considered stepping into the booth to sneak a sample, nah, bad idea.

Okay, what was left to get ? I still hadn’t stopped by Sweet Sunshine. I saw them, I know and love everything they make, and I had intended on picking up some product. They had come into the sports bar when we were eating and everyone recognized them, there’s Kelli and Ed from Sweet Sunshine!

I wanted to see what the CaJohn crew was doing for dinner so I stopped by there before my final stop. I had offered to help break down, so I needed to make sure they still needed help. Yep, and Gardunos for dinner, we could all cram into the van! All set.

I guess I had tunnel vision for two days. Some how I had walked past All Spice Cafe’s booth several times and never seen it!?! I had a bottle of their product in my cabinet for recipe development, but had not yet tried it. I talked with the owner J.D. for the duration of the event. Terrific products, great label! If you replace the peppers on the label with facial hair, that’s J.D.

I think everyones booths came down in record time, and soon it seemed like the Jam Factory guys had hooked up half of the remaining vendors with the Rum cocktail. The wife June and Danny were all sitting out front where the DC booth had formerly been. We talked and laughed for a bit. We agreed to meet on the roof for after dinner drinks.

After the final sauce drop we met with our dinner group. MSK had decided not to join us (I think he had alot of sauce to pack still), and June also had other plans. ChileheadEd also said his goodbyes in the lobby, hugs were in order. It looked as if our dinner would be a party of 14. We fit 10 into CaJohns van (short bus). John, Sue, Chili, myself, Tina, Cowboy George (who had spent a frustrating day at the airport due to snow shutting down the Denver airport), Chile Willy, Nate Dog, Buddah and Steve. Darrell and Candy, and Chuck Evans and his friend joined us as well, but in seperate cars.

We arrived at the restaurant 10 minutes before closing on a Sunday a party of 14 without reservations. We all stood in the lobby expecting to be turned away. Soon the hostess led us to our table, they had decided to accomodate us. The food was good, the atmosphere was perfect (south west decor, ristras and memorabilia, mostly chile related), the company was world class.

On the ride back to the resort snow flakes were falling. Snow?, it was 70 yesterday. Yes, snow indeed, it would prove to delay many flights in the day to come.

We gathered in the rooftop bar to laugh and drink until they threw us out. Unceremoniuosly at midnight one of the resort security began to scream “GET OUT!”. Seriously, this guy was an ass. Apparently he had done the same thing the night before. Much of the group was heading down stairs to continue conversations and hopefully continue drinking. We however had mucho hot sauce to pack up. We said our goodbyes, more hugs were in order. After about an hour of packing, everything was ready for our morning flight.

I have figured out a few things during this trip and would like to share them with everyone. First off pre-register.you get to by-pass all the lines and get in before the masses, it’s like having a backstage pass. If you are not pre-registered make sure and get stamped for re-entry if you need to leave the show. A back pack is nice to have so you can haul all of your loot, it also keeps your hands free for samples and beverages. Bring a camera, you never know what you’ll see. If you’ve never been to a show before ask others for suggestions on what to try. Take notes or photos to remind yourself what you liked. There are so many things to try you probably wont get through them all. Usually if I stop at a booth to try something, I try everything they have. Bring bubble wrap, lots of it! I really like to chat with the manufacturers as well whenever possible. During the show it is not an easy thing to do but usually after hours they gather for cold beverages. If you are going to sample superhots or extracts they may skew your opinion of other product, I usually try these pain producing product before I am ready to take a break. Keep in mind fire in, fire out.

Some of my favorite exhibits at the show:

• Danny Cash: Danny has some very tasty sauces, Bloody Mary mixes, collectables, and a fresh perspective on hot sauce, you could even have a label made with your pic on it right there at the show. Always the innovator, you are sure to see something new from Danny at every show. Not to be forgotten, you will also see the current HSB wing-off champion, Lee AKA my arch nemesis here along with Pepperman, who by the way, is a babe magnet.
• Mild to Wild Pepper and Herb Co.: Jim Campbell is probably the smartest chilehead you will ever meet. He is a firefighter, a farmer, a hot sauce manufacturer, a Guiness World Record holder, A humanitariun (Check out stepupforcharity.com), and an all around nice guy.
• Blair’s: This is where you will find some of the most sought after items at the show. Blair is a pioneer in the gourmet hot sauce industry. His collectables are highly prized and always sell out. It would be nice to meet him in person though.
• Big Dawg: Salsa, hot sauces, spice rubs, and dip mixes. You may find Candy running the booth. If you look closely you will notice the pictures on the CPR (Candy’s Private Reserve) sauces are Darrell’s rendition of his lovely wife. With so many great things to try you will definitely end up buying some of their tasty products.
• Tony Legner: Besides his award winning Cat-5 food polish, Tony has come up with a few new items. A steak sauce which was delicious and some spicy pickled beans and carrots for Bloody Marys or snacking.
• Intensity Academy: A fresh idea in the biz. Innovative and delicious carrot based sauces. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for theses guys. The media loves them as well.
• Bodines: Did someone say MOJO? Their award winning sauces come in the hip pocket, whiskey style bottle. When I tasted these sauces recipes and marinating came to mind.
• Defcon; They put on quite the spectacle and will gladly hurt you if you let them. If you are not into extreme heat that’s okay they have some not so hot sauces as well, but no matter what you want to hang out by their booth for a little while. If you aren’t the one looking for extreme heat, someone will arrive shortly. Look for the testosterone filled muscle head. You know the guy, “nothing is too hot, give me the hottest thing you have”. I love seeing people in chile pain, and this is the perfect venue for that!
• Csigi: Lars not only makes award winning gourmet sauces, but also prepares some extremely tasty samples that showcase his culinary talent.
• CaJohn: If you don’t know who CaJohn is then you don’t know hot sauce, or salsa, or superhots, or chili fixin’s, or hot clothing, or dry rubs, or collectibles… Nuff said? One stop shopping.

My biggest regret about the whole show, was not making it by the Sweet Sunshine booth to chat and eat up some of their samples. These guys bring hot and sweet to a new level.

Now that we have our soil, seeds, trays and a place to grow them, there is one more thing that we need to accommodate for before we start to plant our seeds – Heat. As I mentioned before, if we are going to be growing peppers, we have to remember the climate that these seeds generally come from, and that climate is hot. We will need to have some sort of warmth to provide these seeds to help them germinate. You can accomplish this by setting the on top of the refrigerator to help get them to turn into a seedling, or place your ‘grow op’ near a furnace in the basement. I personally prefer to use a heat mat. And that heat mat is one designed for starting seedlings, not that old heat blanket that you got in the closet with the electrical taped up cord on it. If you are going to use a heat mat, use a heat mat designed for seed trays.

You can find them by searching for ‘Seedling Heat Mat’ on Google. They are waterproof, and designed just for this purpose. They will generally run you about $20 - $25. They are not a necessity, but I do highly recommending the purchase, they should last you for years and your seeds will thank you. You will need one of these per seed tray, but you can find some online that will accommodate two. Here is where we are now;

• We have, or should nearly have our seeds
• We have our seed trays
• We have our soil
• We have our lighting
• We have our heat
• We have our ‘Grow Op’

Next we plant our seeds.

–Jay

The removal of the trees was part 1 of the garden construction, but this weekend really kicked things off. I had spent the previous 2 weeks laying out the garden and trying to determine the most effective planting layout and use of space and then another few days determining the most cost effective materials. In the end, I settled on 4 beds of varying sizes which leaves room for a garden shed and plenty of space between the beds.

Materials:
10 - 2 In. x 12 In. x 16 Ft. Pressure Treated Lumber
1 - 2 In. x 2 In. x 24 In. Grade Stake - Bundle
2 - 4 In. x 4 In. x 10 Ft. Preassure Treated Lumber
50 - 40 Lb. Composted Manure
50 - 40 Lb. Topsoil

The materials arrived on Friday which gave me enough time to prepare the areas and lay out the wood as needed, but not much else.

Before the beds

Saturday - Day 1

Start of Saturday

I kicked things off early on Saturday - went to Home Depot about 8am to pick up a few supplies and got straight to work. I worked most of the afternoon on just two of the beds. The two larger beds are 16 feet long by 4 feet wide - and I had to level the ground in the back corner in order to get the beds to lay level. The previous home owners had built a pitching mound in the back which was a ton of fun to remove.

Break time

End of Saturday

Still 2 beds to go

Sunday - Day 2
Saturday ended about 4pm - when I had to stop playing in the dirt and start making dinner for some friends after they had spent a long day at the mall. I woke up Sunday barely able to move and a ton of lifting ahead of me. So again, I started in early. I finished building the two smaller beds (13ft by 3ft) - those were much easier as the ground was already level. Then it was time for the dirt - 2,000 lbs of topsoil went down, followed by 2,000 lbs of manure. And that was it for this weekend. I’ve got to order soil next - and then all the beds will be ready for planting. Few things still remain to be done - one being the water line installation and the other is the gate that needs to go up to prevent the dogs from terrorizing the peppers, but both of those are pending the arrival of the plants.

End of Sunday - 200 sq. feet of planting space