Hamilton's Hottest Plants, with City Correspondent Stefon!

Trust me, he knows the HOTTEST plants in the City!

The hottest plant in Hamilton is the Thai chili Vesuvius. Plant producer Francisco Burnyamouthi has gone all out. This plant has EVERYTHING. Mouth burning action, lip numbing smacking and it will smack your ass and send you to bed.

What's shaking Hamilton? To be honest not too much is going on over here today. It's a sleepy Saturday afternoon in the best City in the world. In terms of my pepper plants, not too much is going on. While they are definitely the HOTTEST plants in the city (due to the greenhouse they are germinating in) they aren't doing any moving and shaking as of yet. While my excitement about my plants demands that they do something, ANYTHING, whenever I look in on them, the fact that they have done absolutely nothing is not only normal but to be expected.

BABY HOT HOT HOT!
(I know this looks like the picture I posted yesterday but I swear it was taken today)

I don't expect any growth from these seeds for at least another week so I just have to be patient and wait for them to start growing. 

Speaking of patient I have an update about the hard cider I have been brewing. I have been waiting well over a week for my hard cider to stop bubbling. The instructions with my kit said to wait for two weeks or until my cider stopped bubbling before I bottle. It has been almost three and a half weeks at this point and while the bubbling has almost stopped...it's still going. I think in the next day or two I am going to bottle it up and see how it turns out.

Hard to see the bubbles...but I promise they're there!

In more exciting news I had some pretty awesome food today from two local favourites right around the corner from my house. I was introduced to Alfredo's by a friend at work and I have been grabbing pizza from them for the last month. Their food is fresh, delicious and pretty affordable. We got an extra large pizza for under $15.00. The service is friendly and welcoming and they always remember me whenever I go in. I would highly recommend them as a great local pizza option.

SOMEONE couldn't wait till I took a picture. 

Right beside Alfredo's is La Bakeri. La Bakeri is a little Italian bakery that makes some amazingly delicious sweets and pastries. They are direct competition for Sam's on Queenston in terms of having the best cannoli in the city. At this point I feel that whether you choose Sam's or La Bakeri, you are going to have an amazing cannoli and which one is best comes down to personal preference. While I enjoyed La Bakeri, I thought that Sam's has the better cannoli. That being said I would definitely go back to La Bakeri for their cannoli. It truly is a win-win choice with the only real loser being your waistline.

DELICIOUS!

I think tonight I am going to swing out for a dinner, maybe at Collin's in Dundas and tomorrow I have my nephew's birthday party and a soccer game. I can't believe that I go back to work on Monday. It is going to be sad to see March Break go.

Seedin Ain't Easy!

Big Daddy Kane once said "Seedin Ain't Easy" and I wholeheartedly agree. After enjoying a wonderful St.Patrick's Day yesterday, I woke up this morning determined to start my seeds. My twitter feed notified me that it is also National Agriculture Day in the United States. While I thought growing plants on St. Patrick's Day would be amazing due to the greenness of the day, I figure you can't grow (heh) wrong when you plant on a day devoted to agriculture. With this in mind, I pulled out and set up the brand new folding table I bought this year to grow and hold my seeds.

It's so SHINY!!

After setting up my table, I assembled my seeds and pulled out my Jiffy Greenhouse, peat pods, heating pad and a measuring cup to fill with water and then pour onto the peat pods.

The Setup

Looks like someone already knows it's garden time!

(On a side note, my dog Poppy was very fascinated by the proceedings. She sat in the chair beside the table and watched me plant the entire time. Well, she sat and watched when she wasn't trying to crawl onto the table and help me out. I feel I will have even more problems with her attempting to eat my harvest this year than last. YIKES)

Once I pulled open the greenhouse, I figured out how many pepper plants I was looking to grow, removed the extra peat pods and then poured water over the remaining pods in order to make them expand, moisten and be ready for seeds. 

It's gonna rain!

It's raining!

Once I poured water over the peat pods, I sat back and waited for the peat to soak in the water and the pods to expand. While I thought this might take some time, I was surprised how quickly the peat soaked up the water.

From pod to this in minutes!

I found that the pods were still a little dry, so I added a bit more water to make the pods moister and began organizing my seeds while the last of the water soaked in. I was planning on labeling each pod with a popsicle stick but they were too big. Instead, I drew up a fancy chart to keep track of which seeds were planted and in which pod.

FANCY CHART!

In total, I am growing 13 different kinds of peppers from seeds. I have 11 heirloom varieties as well as two kinds of Thai chilis that a friend suggested I try. The main peppers I am focusing on for this season are Early Jalapenos, TAM Jalapenos and Cayenne Peppers. I want the jalapenos because it's one of my favourite peppers. I also want to try to make chipotle peppers this summer and figured I would need a bunch of jalapenos to make it work. I wanted more cayenne peppers because I want to dry them and turn most of the peppers into either pepper flakes or spice and also I want to try and make my own hot sauce. The rest of the peppers I am growing were chosen for no other reason than they sounded pretty fun.

SEEDS!! IT BEGINS!!

I started out by seeding each pod one at a time. In order to try and make sure that you have the right amount of plants, it's suggested that you grow 3 seeds per each pod. This means that you have more chances of propogating all the plants you want, plus being able to select the strongest and healthiest plants.

I don't know if there is an appropriate method for putting seeds in dirt but I pretty much just put three seeds on a pod and tried to bury them as deep as I could before covering them with moist peat.  

Now you see me!

Now you don't!

I found that seeding each pod one at a time was very time consuming and also made your hands dirty. This became more and more of a hassle the more I handled the seeds as I had to stop after each pod to clean my hands and then handle the seeds. I decided to change up my method and seed every pod with seeds and then bury the seeds.

SEEDED

BURIED

Once I had all the seeds buried I put the cover on top of my greenhouse, plugged in my heating pad and I am pretty much good to go. It is now just a matter of time and patience to see when my seeds sprout and start to grow. I also made sure to fill in my pepper seed chart in order to make sure I know where I planted each seed. Let's get growing!

Seeds in the greenhouse!

Seed Chart!

P.S. Poppy was trying to get up on the table the entire time I was seeding. Her dedication to the garden is truly inspiring!

Queen of the scalawags!