Initial Planning

 Happy Friday, all.

Please forgive any bad typing in this one, I'm on my phone and typing with my thumbs is not my forte!  Never know when auto-correct will bite me, or just fail entirely, so here's hoping the bonchi gods can beat the auto-correct gods.

So the skull came in a while back and the good news is its one of the few times you buy something off the internet and it comes in looking just as good as the pictures.

More importantly, I've been thinking about how to place and shape the plant this time around. Last time I just sat it on top in what I call a birthday candle style. Just one big old candle on top of a cupcake.  Which was neat, but a little boring after you got past the "Holy crap, that's on a skull!" factor.  Plus, you know, I inspired lots of other people to copy that idea, so I feel like I gotta step it up some this time.

So, while researching some traditional root over rock styles, I found this image.  It already kind of looks like its on a skull already, doesn't it?  Plus, that swept back style sort of looks like a mowhawk, while it would give lots of space for the peppers to hang down in.

I think that might be our winner!  Of course, the plant may have a completely different idea of what it wants to do, but that's half the fun.

 Rising From the Grave

Hey everybody, it has been a long time since I've done anything with this blog, and I know that.  Like damn, its been nearly a decade!  Lot of stuff can happen in that much time.  The pepper I made this blog for is long since died, I've gotten married, built a new house, all sorts of stuff.

The good news for you, internet?  I'm back, and I'm starting a new project!

Instead of simply going for the hottest pepper around, this time I'm going for something more thematic.  In the last couple of years, we've gotten this bad boy, the Hallow's Eve pepper.

As you can tell from looking at it, its a bright orange pepper with a black blush, very appropriate for a Halloween themed pepper.  Its a cross between an orange Bhut Jolokia and the Pimenta Da Neyde (a black skinned pepper that is itself a chinese and annum cross).  Weighs in at about a million Scovilles, so same range as the ghost pepper.

Its still a rather unstable cross, so I'm hoping the seeds I'm getting will do me right.

The resin skull I grew the last one on has, unfortunately, been lost somewhere in the move.  I'm sure I've got it somewhere in one of a hundred totes and moving boxes, but I've found this bad boy on sale that I've just ordered as well.

Its colored concrete, which should make for an excellent stone to grown this new pepper over without the problems I had with the jaw shifting around on the first one.  I'd also like to think I've learned a thing or two about pepper growing since ye olden days.

I've got well aged compost and mulch that I've been aging for a couple years now which should give me a really good growing medium, and I'm going to be aiming for some truly MASSIVE plant size in the first season this time around.

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Whelp, there you have it.  I'm not dead, and we should have some great new stuff to show off... eventually.  Its only May of this year, 2026, and I've just started ordering the stuff I need to make all this happen, so don't expect anything until spring of 2027.

I do plan on starting some Hugelkultur beds this summer, which may or may not be ready to work by 2027, so I might give you all a view into how all that goes.  Should definitely be interesting once I get those up and running and start growing some peppers on them, but they do take a few years to properly season and settle in.

Until then, stay spooky!