I Might Be Getting June Back!

[stella1751]

We haven't had a freeze up here since September 7. I've covered the plants several times because the forecast low was too close for comfort, but I haven't lost anything since the cucumbers I lost, way back then. The ten-day forecast is for very reasonable early September night-time temps of low 40's. I don't want to jinx myself by expressing the hope that I will have until mid-October, but, gosh, it's beginning to look that way!

The Hybrid Big Chile II's have, I think, quit growing, and I think their tips are lightening. I am hopeful they are now concentrating on the flavorizing and wall-thickening stage, after which they should turn red. If this weather holds, I'll get the seeds I so desire. The Habaneros are dotted with little peppers that will probably never mature, but they might at least attain enough size to pick.

The Super Chilies are turning red, as are the NuMex Big Jims. The Fish peppers, like the Hybrid Big Chile II's, seem to be stuck in pre-maturation. They've been the same size and the same color for about a month now. These do turn red, right?

The tomatoes are growing and ripening, and while this variety will never give me a bumper crop, I'll at least get enough tomatoes for my own use. Even the cucumbers and beans that survived the freeze are working on producing seed fruit for me.

If I could make it to mid-October, I would be very, very happy, and right now, that's starting to look possible

[garden5]

I'm glad your chillies are safe. Hopefully the weather will hold for you and you'll be able to get some more harvest .

[gixxerific]

God to hear Stella hope it works out for you.

I just looked up my long range and it should be okay for here. No frost till late Oct but we will see.

Good luck with your peppers.

[csvd87]

thats great stella! I hope our weather picks up. 80MPH winds right now But fortunately no frost in the forecast for the next 2 weeks. Gives my Bells a chance to turn red, since they have stopped flowering and appears they are blushing.

[tedln]

I have my fingers crossed for you Stella. I want you to have a late frost because it will mean my normal late frost will not occur until December. Our first frost is usually the tail end of one those Polar Express fronts that freezes everything north of Kansas.

Ted

[stella1751]

thats great stella! I hope our weather picks up. 80MPH winds right now But fortunately no frost in the forecast for the next 2 weeks. Gives my Bells a chance to turn red, since they have stopped flowering and appears they are blushing.

OMG, Curtis! 80 MPH?!!! And I thought I had it bad. Forget about staking the plants; stake the gardener

[csvd87]

Haha. It would gust up to 80, it wasn't a steady 80, but they still had the farmers market running today, which was good because I needed tomatoes I also helped take someones gavebo thingy down and got a free pumpkin pie

I have figured it out though that if I cover crops I can keep them going into November for sure, November rarely freezes, its too busy raining.

On a side note.. I just noticed a Rosemary seedling... after trying an entire packet of seed.. I tried again and this time, Victory...

[stella1751]

Yeah, I hear you on the gusting. That's what it does up here. If I say 50 MPH winds for two days, it's like 35 to 50 MPH. I wonder whether the sustained wind speeds are any more damaging to plants (and psyches) than those gusts that you can hear coming from 100 yards away. The plants bounce up, only to be gasping for breath 30 seconds later.

I don't think I've seen 80 MPH up here in Casper. Maybe 65 to 70, but not 80. When I was living in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the wind gusted to 85 MPH one time and took off a neighbor's roof. She gave me the old lumber, and I used it to make two of the raised beds I now have in my front yard, here in Casper

I made it to the end of October once without losing my garden. It can be done. Generally, around mid-October, gardening becomes a chore and not a joy. Having to cover everything every single night and remove the covers in the morning gets old pretty quickly.

At least I don't have to worry about that for a while, anyway

[digitS']

. . . The Hybrid Big Chile II's have, I think, quit growing, and I think their tips are lightening. I am hopeful they are now concentrating on the flavorizing and wall-thickening stage, after which they should turn red. If this weather holds, I'll get the seeds I so desire. . . .

I am curious, Stella, why you desire the seeds from these hybrid peppers.

Did I misunderstand?

Steve

[Hispoptart]

Glad you have been getting nice weather. It's been good here for us also. butternuts are ripening nicely. I am so glad. We've eaten 2 so far YUMMY!

[stella1751]

I am curious, Stella, why you desire the seeds from these hybrid peppers.

Did I misunderstand?

Steve

Steve, I'm in a seed-saving and cutting-propagating mood this year, which means I am experimenting with plant breeding, I guess I especially want seeds from these peppers, which are now over 11" long and just as exciting as all get out. See the Frankenchile thread for pics.

Hybrids will produce, just not predictably. These are an F1 generation. According to tomato-breeding expert TZ-OH6, if you can reproduce hybrids for 7 generations, you can achieve a certain degree of consistency in the offspring.

Unfortunately, I was unable to make certain these blossoms were pollinated by their own kind. They could be part Fish, Super Chile, NuMex Big Jim, or Habanero. I don't know why, but even that prospect makes the project fun for me! Here is is, September, and I am already anxiously awaiting next year's garden, assuming the weather cooperates and I get the seeds I want, that is

[tedln]

Stella, I thought your comment about being excited about next years garden was funny. I think most gardeners are that way. I am working hard to see what I can do with a fall garden. At the back of mind, I am already planning for my spring garden figuring out how to maximize space for seed germinating, when to plant the seed, how to insure adequate light is available and adjustable as the plants grow. Whether to plant outside before the last threat of frost or just take my chances and keep some backup seedlings inside just in case. I think the planning and anticipation are more fun than the actual growing.

Ted

[digitS']

Steve, I'm in a seed-saving and cutting-propagating mood this year,

. . . They could be part Fish, Super Chile, NuMex Big Jim, or Habanero. I don't know why, but even that prospect makes the project fun for me! Here is is, September, and I am already anxiously awaiting next year's garden, assuming the weather cooperates and I get the seeds I want, that is

Thanks for explaining, Stella! Yes, having fun must be, at least, 33.333% of what gardening is all about!

I saved seed from a hybrid banana pepper once and had 4 different types of peppers! Also, saved seed from Thai Hot that was growing with other peppers. The result was tall and short plants, big and small peppers . . . I still save seed from Thai Hot but they are in a separate garden from the others.

What you might find is several really nice peppers, out of a mix. A few generations later, maybe it will be exactly what you had hoped for .

Steve

[stella1751]

An article I read, I can't remember which one, said you should have your peppers 1/2 a mile from other peppers to be certain the pollination is precise and that no cross-breeding occurs. That's pretty much impractical for most of us. However, I'm trying to start several of these Hybrid Big Chile II's in the house over the winter. Should my cuttings root and actually put on peppers in the house, I would be 100% certain of their ancestry.

Thanks for sharing your banana pepper experience, Steve. I suspect that growing seeds from a hybrid, especially one exposed to such a wide variety of potential parents, will be quite interesting. To heighten the fun, I have convinced myself that one of this hybrid's parents is a Poblano, one of my favorites. This HBC II plant looks, talks, and walks like a Poblano; it just puts on Anaheim-type Super Peppers instead. If the offspring revert back to one of the parents, I could wind up with Poblanos or a Poblano type, something I would have enjoyed growing anyway.

Then there's the NuMex Big Jims I have growing from seeds given me by a friend. They are, compared to the HBC II, puny, which is odd for this variety. I wonder whether inbreeding or line-breeding in peppers doesn't cause a reduction in size, as it does in other species.

It's all good! I may get Poblanos; I may get peppers that are small but hotter than the parent; I may get peppers that bear no resemblance at all to the parent; and I may get a duplication of the parent. The possibilities are endless. It's like buying one of those grab bags they used to sell during Crazy Daze in the small town I grew up in. You never knew what you might get, diamond or coal.

I imagine I will suffer more than my usual anxiety between sowing and germination, and I'll probably be checking the seedlings every two to three hours for evidence to be revealed by leaf type. I can identify a Habanero and a Fish based upon their first true leaves, but everything else will take days, weeks, to identify. How much fun is that? Sort of like watching a suspense movie for the first time, one of the kind where you can't guess the ending

[digitS']

That kind of thinking fits your Einstein quote!

You will probably have better experience in how things turn out than I had with Big Chili, Stella.

I grew the "original" Big Chili and thought it was just great! Then, only the "II" seed was available. Okay, fine. Wonderful plants!

Then that seed wasn't available!! Last year, I just went ahead and ordered Sahuaro seed. Something new to me . . . seed company didn't have it ! They sent me Cardon, instead. I was just a little frustrated and didn't plant it!

This season, my bruised ego had healed and I planted the Cardon but went ahead and planted Joe E. Parker, too. I thought maybe Joe would "show up" the seed company's choice.

No, I'm afraid Cardon outdid Joe with production and quality of the fruit. Oh well. I wonder what Einstein would have said about my stumbling about in the pepper patch?

Steve

[stella1751]

You will probably have better experience in how things turn out than I had with Big Chili, Stella.

I grew the "original" Big Chili and thought it was just great! Then, only the "II" seed was available. Okay, fine. Wonderful plants!

Then that seed wasn't available!!

Steve, what a coincidence. This spring I needed to replace some NuMex Big Jim seedlings my dogs had savaged. I dug through my old seeds file and found a packet of the original Hybrid Big Chile II. That's what I am calling Frankenchile because they are something of an odd duck:

[img]https://i801.photobucket.com/albums/yy292/mitbah/Frankenchile.jpg[/img]

This photo was taken on September 7. They're both now at roughly 11.5" long. Because the bottom one is now touching the ground, I can no longer get a good measurement on either without chancing an accidental harvest, so all I know is that they're now over 11" and probably under 12".

You can't find seeds for the original II anywhere. All I've been able to determine is that Gurneys, ostensibly dissatisfied with the HBC II's sun resistance and productivity, replaced it with the Sahuaro, and customers want the HBC II back.

I think this original Hybrid Big Chile II is an excellent pepper to experiment with plant breeding on, especially because you just can't find these seeds anymore. Maybe I'll be disappointed, but then again, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised!

Hey, I looked up the Cardon, which was new to me. I found a photo at [url=https://www.loganzenner.com/catalog/data/peppers_hot.pdf]Logan Zenner[/url], alongside the Anaheim and the Sahuaro. That's an attractive pepper. The HBC II most closely resembles the Anaheim 118, not the Sahuaro, which I thought was interesting.

I also looked up the [url=https://chile-pepper-seeds.net/numex-joe-parker.html]Joe E. Parker[/url], another one I didn't know. I should have known it was a NuMex. Anyhow, I found the foregoing link with a description of the plant that went beyond the standard blurbs in the glossies, and I thought you might find it interesting.

Einstein would have stumbled right along with you in the pepper patch. He had very little patience with people who refused to think outside the box, predictably taking and advocating the safe route.

Hey, do you remember the last time you planted the HBC II? I know I bought these seeds anytime between 1999 and 2004, but I don't know when the pepper was discontinued.

Thanks!

[digitS']

. . . Hey, do you remember the last time you planted the HBC II? I know I bought these seeds anytime between 1999 and 2004, but I don't know when the pepper was discontinued.

Thanks!

With the changes but minor differences in names, I'd forgotten "Biggie Chili!" That was the last, wasn't it?

I save my seed company receipts (altho' my gardening notes are random, at best) so I can check.

Interesting that Joe Parker is supposed to be a 30" plant. I'm sure that isn't atypical. It's just that cool Junes and cool nights thru the growing season keep peppers and other heat-lovers shorter than they may be in other parts of the world.

Yeah, I'm wondering where I'm going to find Cordon if I decide to go with that one again next year . Trying something new is fun but it seems to be that I'm having it forced on me! (The seed company where you found the photo of Cordon is a wholesale outfit, I believe.)

Reimers have Big Chili II listed. If I could figure out how to post a link, I would . . . but, you can do a search. Reimers seems to have some problems with customer relations so I don't know if they are real good to deal with. Just hearsay, I have never ordered from them.

I'll look thru the receipts soon and let you know!

Steve

[garden5]

Stella, you may be in luck with your saved seeds.

I've heard that companies will sometimes call a variety a hybrid when it's not. Partially to prevent folks from saving the seed, also because some folks view a hybrid to be hardier and more productive than a standard variety.

Also, it's supposedly easier for them to grow a op variety than an heirloom.

[applestar]

Trying something new is fun but it seems to be that I'm having it forced on me!

My on-going theme is self-sufficiency and what you said is a good reason to start growing Open Pollinated and/or Heirloom varieties and saving seeds. Thanks to Stella's quest and curiosity, I recently learned that going strictly Heirloom is not necessarily a good thing. But my suspicion that it will take a few years to come up with my own set of satisfied varieties for which I'll save the seeds from year to year. So even without outsourcing the seeds, you would get interesting new variations.

But I'm with Stella -- getting there is part of the FUN!

[csvd87]

I posted a link to Hirt's Garden Seedmart in the Frankenchile thread for the Big Chili II, I'll see if I can find it quick...
[url]https://stores.channeladvisor.com/hirtsgardens/Items/totally247134187?&caSKU=totally247134187&caTitle=Big%20Chili%20II%20Pepper%2035%20Seeds%20-%20Great%20on%20the%20Grill[/url]

[stella1751]

Today's Big Chile II isn't the same thing as Hybrid Big Chile II. I'm pretty certain it is a similar product sold under a similar name, a one-word difference that will hold the copyright lawyers at bay while duping the unwary into thinking they're getting the real McCoy. Sort of like clothes knock-offs and cheaper soda brands.

Sahauro is Gurneys' latest offering in the Big Chile line. It really makes me think. I wonder why they discontinued the first two? Everyone loved them; they had to have been big sellers. Why would they walk away from a good thing? Sometimes a powerful imagination can lead a person down fruitless paths.

Nevertheless, I like the hint of the sinister in my HBC II's past. It evokes images of money exchanging hands in poorly lit back alleys, and terrified people forever silenced by black-coated men with glittering black eyes. And here, years later, in a tiny backyard in a tiny cow-town in Wyoming, an innocent HBC II spreads its branches to the sky, producing peppers only 2" shy of the world record for chile length, under extremely undesirable conditions. Gardening is fun!

Applestar, what plants are you experimenting with? How many years have you been working with one line?

[stella1751]

In six more days, the weather will turn ugly, according to the 10-day forecast. Not a killing freeze, necessarily, but forecast lows in the low-30's. At this time of the year, six more days feels wonderful!

One of the Habaneros is starting to turn. I planted a variety mix, so I don't know what kind it is, only that it's not a standard. It's long and slender, was a dark green and will be carrot-orange. Is anyone familiar with this type?

I have red Fish peppers! I regularly harvest the NuMex Big Jims as they turn. I picked the Super Chilies clean to make chili last week. BTW, if anyone is looking for a spicier chili than you can get with other peppers, including Jalapenos, I highly recommend the Super Chile. I do believe that's the best chili I've ever made!

I'm thinking about growing these in my bee-attracting areas next year instead of regular flowers. They are the perfect size for small flower boxes and containers, put on tons of flowers and peppers, and are really pretty attractive for the roadside view.

Six more days until I begin to fret in earnest. Hurray!

[digitS']

. . . Hey, do you remember the last time you planted the HBC II? I know I bought these seeds anytime between 1999 and 2004, but I don't know when the pepper was discontinued.

Thanks!

With the changes but minor differences in names, I'd forgotten "Biggie Chili!" That was the last, wasn't it?

I save my seed company receipts (altho' my gardening notes are random, at best) so I can check.

. . .

Stella, I have a 2008 receipt from Totally Tomatoes with "Big Chili Hybrid" in the list. At least, that was what I was charged for . . .

Steve

[stella1751]

Thanks, Steve. That would be one of the other Big Chilies. The last time I bought from Gurney's was in 2004, when I purchased some really nice apple trees. That might be when I bought these seeds.

Unlike the other old seed packets in my collection, these don't have a date stamp, which might make them older than 2004. I can't remember when all the companies started stamping their seed envelopes with the year for which they were intended. I have some old Pennington organic dill seeds stamped 2003, so if there was legislation re: date stamps of seeds, then the HBC II seed packet is likely older than 7 years.