Super Bore Or Super Bell?

Best Super Bowl Ad EVER!

With all due apologies to the fresh corn industry, I must admit, I thought the Bud Lite Corn Syrup commercial was the funniest thing I've seen on TV in quite some time. Don't get me wrong! I love me some corn. I personally believe corn grown in the Sloughhouse area of Sacramento County is, in fact, the best corn in the world. I wish no harm upon our fine corn farmers!

But that Bud Lite Corn Syrup ad that ran during last Sunday's Super Bore was absolutely hilarious. I am still busting up over the line of: "would you please smoke outside?" However, Bud Lite's pun and knock against all thing corn syrup will not stop me from purchasing Sloughhouse corn. Additionally, you will not find any Bud Lite in the Bird refrigerator. However, if you look hard enough, you just might find a bottle of the High Life. But, enough of that already. I've strayed much too far.

Cat Bowling Pins?

My friends, rather than watch the NFL bestow yet another title on Tom Brady last Sunday (BORING), my mind was positively fixated on the image that appears to your very left. Can you guess what those cups might represent? Bowling pins for the naughty Cat that is Lenny? That is a good guess, but NO. And although Lenny has already cast a rather envious glance at the cups placed on that bedroom window, I hope that cat knows better.

I hope.

Those cups placed against yonder windowsill represent the start of my summer 2019 vegetable garden. Would they represent the 13 varieties of heirloom tomatoes I will be growing this summer? Good guess, but also wrong. It's still a bit too early for that activity, though some have already started. No, the seeds placed in those cups all contain the same variety: The California Wonder Bell Pepper.

Peppers!

First introduced in 1928, the California Wonder is now a sweet staple in nearly every backyard garden. These are these big and blocky peppers that can be found in nearly every dish, ranging from salads, stir fry meals, fajitas or just brushed with olive oil and placed on a grill. You can also find them in home-canned items such as tomato sauces and SALSA. Roasted or fresh, the California Wonder represents one word: SUMMER.

Garden grown Bell Peppers are nearly as popular as home-grown tomatoes. According to the Masters of Horticulture Blog, "Bell peppers are the most commonly grown pepper in the United States.  According to the National Nursery survey, 46-percent of gardeners grow them every year.  Second, according to the same survey, bell peppers are the third most popular vegetable grown in American gardens.  Third, the bell pepper is the most consumed pepper in America.  According to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, Americans eat 9.8 pounds of them per year.  And finally, bell peppers are the only peppers in the genus that do not produce capsaicin.  Capsaicin is the compound that makes most members of the genus Capsicum hot."

Perfect for Seed Starting Efforts

The reaction from most of my pepper growing friends is going to be pretty typical, I think. People like Jake Seed and Dave Jesse are thinking along the lines of: "PFFFT! ROOKIE!" And you know what? They're right. To them? My pepper planting efforts are rather late.

You see, while the vast majority of us are thinking about  the Peppermint Wishes and Candy Cane Dreams of the Christmas Season, the pepper guys are thinking about peppers so hot they would melt Santa's tongue. There's a reason why Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer gives these homes a wide berth. These guys are serious. January 1st doesn't just signal the start of the new year. It means it's time to plant pepper seeds of all shapes and sizes for the upcoming summer gardening season.

Planting Seeds

Why start pepper seeds so early and why am I late? There's a good answer for that. Pepper seeds tend to grow much slowly than tomato seeds, which essentially sprout and grow like weeds until they are transplanted. As KFBK NewsTalk 1530 Gardening Show Host Farmer Fred Hoffman put it so eloquently to me once: "PEPPERS NEED HEAT!" Unfortunately, there's little heat to be found during the Northern California months of December, January and February. So, pepper growers get very inventive to creating the kind of heat they need to give seedlings the boost that they need.

I recall that one of these growers, and I won't mention names (Dave Jesse), placed his seeds in sealed starter cups and placed them under a woodstove. Where his cat promptly found them. Great fun ensued.

What's the payoff for my seed starting efforts? 13 large and healthy California Wonder Bell Pepper starter plants. Do I intend to plant all 13 in my summer garden? Are you nuts? Gardeners do not live on bell peppers alone. This means I will have plenty to share, or trade, once the transplant season begins (provided it stops raining at some point).

Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

Hopefully, the seedlings I have planted against my bedroom windowsill will sprout and start to grow (albeit slowly) in another day or two. Also, hopefully, the giant shade trees that dot this Citrus Heights neighborhood don't blot out the needed sunshine.

Finally, hopefully, here's hoping a certain Maine Coon cat can ignore the urge to start swatting what's been carefully placed on a windowsill that he can easily reach.

Hope springs eternal.

Come On Baby Light My Fire!

Playing With Fire

That great British poet once intoned: "Don't Play With Me, Cause You're Playing With Fire." And that's good advice. But what does Mick Jagger know about hot peppers anyhow? Hot women? Yeah, I guess he knows about them. He should. But hot peppers? Please, Mr. Jagger, move aside. Because Bill and the wife that is Venus are ready to "roll those tumblin' dice."

That picture to your immediate right is our latest foray into "playing with fire." This represents the really hot stuff that will be growing in the Bird Back 40 come this summer. We got an early start on these seeds -- mid January to be exact. Because if you want hot peppers in a summer garden? You need to start them in the dead of winter.

Roasted Garlic, Pepper and Heirloom Tomato Salsa

Provided everything goes hunky dory in the summer garden, these seedlings should start delivering a bounty of the "fire hot" stuff by mid July. That's right about when the main crop of heirloom tomatoes will begin to ripen up. So what's the big deal? I'll tell you what the "big deal" is. Hot peppers and heirloom tomatoes are the essential ingredients in the moderately famous and always in demand Roasted Garlic, Pepper and Heirloom Tomato Salsa.

You've got to have a bounty of fresh tomatoes for salsa making in the summertime. And you can't go without a bounty of hotter than hot, burning hot peppers. Because salsa that rocks like Mick Jagger demands fire. And in the Bird Back 40, we play with that stuff (we also wear gloves).

Mick Jagger-Salsa Fanatic

The varieties you see planted under our special grow lights in our home-office-turned-greenhouse include the following: The always popular Bhut Jolokia, also known as the "Ghost Pepper." If you guess that a Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Pepper might be a part of this year's mix -- that would be one fine guess. Other varieties popping to the surface include the Caribbean Red Habanero and the Assam Hot Pepper.

There's also a Pasillo Bajio thrown into this year's mix, which isn't really hot, but that smoky flavor adds a lot to the moderately famous and always in demand Roasted Garlic, Pepper and Heirloom Tomato Salsa.

Bhut Jolokia Peppers

This will represent the third year of usage for the Ghost Pepper. These were originally a gift from South Natomas Gardening Zen Master Nels Christensen. Last year we graduated to growing our own, but made the mistake of starting seeds at the same time as the sweet peppers. But this year we followed the advice of hot pepper fanatic Dave Jessee up in Brownsville. Start those seeds early, son.

This photo below, to the right, is from his seed starting setup in early January. Notice the hot stove to provide heat? One of the first things I noticed is the cat located under the hot stove, boiling his brains. Any normal cat would have socked Dave's hot pepper starter plants to the moon and back. But Dave assured us that kitty was at that tender age where all he cared about was lying under the hot stove and boiling his brains.

Dave Jessee Hot Pepper Seed Starting Setup (plus cat)

Mental note: Cats are not the smartest of creatures. But they sure do like hot stoves.

A big test still awaits. Will the Scorpion pepper hold up to the processing time our salsa demands? That processing time includes a steady boil for at least one hour, followed up by 30-35 minutes of time in a pressure canner. Many so-called "hot peppers" turn into absolute wimps when exposed to this kind of abuse -- and that includes the mighty Habanero. The Ghost Pepper held up well to this abuse, which is why we are growing the Ghost Pepper again. But will the Scorpion?

The owner of these Scorpion Pepper seeds assures us that his Scorpion pepper acts like a Timex Watch: It takes a licking and keeps on ticking. The seeds for this pepper came from Joseph Brophy, an attorney and gardening fanatic located in the great state of New York. How did I come into contact with someone like Joseph Brophy? It's called the internet children, and forums dedicated to all things related to growing heirloom tomatoes.

Scorpion Pepper in a New York Garden

I traded Mr. Brophy some seeds for a champion Black Cherry tomato plant and in return he shipped over his special Scorpion seeds. And if Mr. Brophy can get the Scorpion to not only grow and produce in a place with a shorter than short growing season like New York, can you imagine what this pepper might do in California? The land of nine month summer growing seasons?

OK, so I'm being a tad facetious. But you get the idea. It's not like Sacramento gets covered with a blanket of snow in November. Not hardly. If the Scorpion can produce a bundle of hot peppers in some place like New York, it should absolutely go to town in gardening-friendly Sacramento.

Time will tell.

It might still be a touch cold outside -- but be assured of this: It's hot pepper season in Sacramento. Let the summer growing season commence!