One Year Later

After concluding with our salsa party last year, we left the fruitless plants in a basement under some plant lights to wither and die. Little did we know, the plants had not finished bearing fruit. This past summer, another single pepper sprouted. It looks even riper than our single pepper last year, but unfortunately, it is not accessible to us as we left it back home. Hopefully, this next year will yield even more! Stay posted.

Day 103: Conclusion (Salsa party)

        The fruits of our labors over the course of this 103 day experiment have culminated to bring you the ultimate pepper blog finale. We sacrificed seven (consenting) individuals to test our official "Who's Your Trinidaddy" salsa (a.k.a. Alsalsa-Raine). Their cries still ring throughout the halls of Shunk Hall. Although there were no casualties, we have achieved our goal in simultaneously creating a culinary masterpiece and a Hell for our VR1 receptors. In fact, the salsa was quite palatable with a very rich flavor. One brave sacrifice comments on the experience of eating the salsa: "As long as you don't stop eating, it doesn't burn." I believe this to be an accurate account of the concourse. The second you allow air into your throat, the capsaicin tears it apart. 

         This last hurrah concludes our experiment. We would like to thank all of our readership and those who have supported us with ideas, good and bad (sadistic), and we discourage you from attempting to recreate this experiment. 

Day 101: Alsalsa-Raine (The official salsa of the German Empire)

The plants have managed to survive the entirety of Thanksgiving break! Our Gatorade-bottle contraption proved effective. The harvested pepper appeared to be wilting as well, so we turned it into a salsa before it went bad. Ingredients include:

• 1 Trinidad Scorpion pepper
• 1 dried Ghost pepper
• 3 fresh, whole Jalapeno peppers
• 4 jarred Jalapeno cross-sections
• A dash of RedHot hot sauce
• 1 small onion
• 2 whole tomatoes
• Seasonings to taste
• A dash of olive oil

We plan to sacrifice a large group of willing participants to try it out in the upcoming week!

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Day 91: Idiocracy (couldn't find Brawndo, but still have the electrolytes!)

Tomorrow, I will be leaving the peppers for 10 days over Thanksgiving break. In order to provide them with what is required for their survival, I have devised a low budget self-sustaining setup. I filled a large Gatorade bottle with water and poked two small holes in the cap. This should allow water to seep out slowly over the next couple days. Hopefully, it will not get clogged and will effectively disperse water. Also, I have setup an outlet timer to provide the plants with 14 hours of the LED plant light per day. Aside from this, they should be able to survive on their own. We will check back in with the peppers in 10 days!

            

     

Day 89: A Fan's Fan Recommendation

A nice fellow Reddit suggested that, in order to decrease mold buildup, dry soil quicker, and increase chances of peppers coming to fruition, we might use a desk fan. As long as we keep the window closed, this should not bring the plants to dangerous temperatures. Being on top of the microwave and fridge provides has its advantages. The heat radiated from their backs hugs the wall and keeps the peppers at a relatively constant temperature. Hopefully, this addition of a fan will help in the long run!

Day 88: The Window is Open, So's that Door (The Cold is Bothersome)

We mistakenly left the window next to the peppers open the past two nights. It has dropped below freezing, and although our room has been above that temperature, it was still much too cold for the pepper plants. They have survived, but both buds and many leaves have perished.

             

Day 86: Round 2

We have just witnessed the budding of two additional pepper units! Our last second pepper bud was not sustained by the plant and died. Hopefully, we will be able to keep these two alive until they are maintainable and viable to live with minimal external support. These might be trickier, as they are in close proximity of one another. Their weight as they develop may become problematic, but we will find out. Here they are!

Enthralling Time Lapse Video

Taking the idiom "as exciting as watching grass grow" to a new level - it isn't exciting even time-lapsed over thirty days. 

Day 80: Decapsaicion by Robespepper (Let them eat hotcakes)

Our work has finally yielded results! Today, we harvested our first pepper. It was a nerve-racking and arduous process in which we nearly missed death countless times. We took various safety precautions including wearing our CDC-approved Venetian plague doctor masks -- they are currently being distributed to Ebola-ridden areas throughout the world. After cutting the pepper from its stem, we placed it in a small bag and froze it for future use. Comment what you think we should do with it!

 

                                

 

Day 77: Things are Capsicoming along

In the spirit of mid-terms and passing such mid-terms, I have refrained from posted for the past several days. However, much has happened. In the spirit of brevity, I will describe the events which have unfolded by describing each picture.


One of the smaller sprouts died, but the other, still living, happened to be too much of a burden to take care of. We planted it in the floor plant in our dorm lobby.

 

Also, this pepper bud, which appears to be thriving, is actually dead currently.

 On the bright side, our one live pepper is much more alive. WE PLAN TO HARVEST THIS WEEKEND! We're currently getting our salsa recipes ready.

 Lastly, this happened. I guess another supposedly dead seedling sprouted the other day. So, we're just going to roll with it for now.

That is all for this week. Hopefully, we will be more punctual with posting about the progress of the peppers in the coming weeks. Enjoy!

Day 60: A Light Bud

Great news: the second pepper appears to be budding right now! It seems that our original timeline was slightly off. This pepper probably wont be ready for harvesting until around Christmas possibly. Just in time for a Christmas salsa. The first pepper, however, is thriving. It appears to be entirely red without any sign of a green tip. The shape and color still need to develop a little more before it will be ready for consumption. In the meantime, make sure you enter the raffle on Facebook by liking the page and going to the giveaway tab! We will ship the pepper if necessary.  https://www.facebook.com/psupeppers/app_228910107186452 



                              

RAFFLE

In order to avoid the legal issues inherent with poisoning children's candy or adulterating the contraceptives of the patriarchy, we have decided to raffle off the single pepper. That way people can harm their bodies on their own accord. Just like the page and enter the contest on the giveaway page: https://www.facebook.com/psupeppers?sk=app_228910107186452

Day 57: Capsicum Carotenoid Changes

Over the past four days or so, the pepper has made a drastic change in color in its early ripening stages. It probably has enough capsaicin to kill a developed fetus by now. The process occurred a lot quicker than expected, so the pepper may be ready for harvesting by October 31st. We received some great suggestions for the use of the pepper, including contraceptive adulteration, but we are requesting Halloween-themed ideas instead. Comment them below!
 

                October 22                      October 23                   October 24

    

Day 55: Pepper Jack "the Riper"

Our single semi-developed pepper has just begun to ripen, turning a light orange at the base and working its way toward the tip. We didn't expect a ripe pepper this soon. We have no idea what to do with it. If you have any ideas for what to do when it's ready (within the next two weeks or so), please comment them!

Day 53: OH, BABY PEPPER

OH, BABY PEPPAH, I GOT A TOOMA IN MAH HEAD. The Guinness Book of World Records has recently declared this pepper as the cutest baby pepper in the world. At 0.08 oz, little Bubbles has just embarked on his journey to grow up to be cut, chopped up, pureed in a blender, and ingested in the form of salsa. I will keep you all updated on the progress of Bubbles. You can see him in the center of the picture. He's really tiny.

Day 48: Pepper Puns

What does a nosy pepper do?

Gets Jalapeño business. 

Day 42: That is a Nice Pepper

The single pepper is still flourishing, however, it appears we have been over-watering the plants for the past 42 days. Whoopsie-doopsie. Every other day or so, we have had to drain the water collecting on the bottom, which apparently means there is too much water. Go figure. Anyhow, we are reducing the amount of water to 12 fl oz. every other day. We'll see how it turns out. You can see the water still collected at the bottom after a week of reduced watering. Expect updates on the hostage situation as well.

                              

Day 40: Ransom

I have just received and image of the peppers from an anonymous number. They are being held hostage, but should be in a sustainable and safe environment. The individual is requesting a ransom payment of...One million dollars. A computer forensics team is currently tracking the location of the fugitive. We hope to have our peppers back within the next week. 

 

     

Day 39: The Plot Thickens

     The pepper plants are slowly but surely approaching fruition...that is, those that are left. At approximately 2:30 on Sunday afternoon, a single plant was stolen. The culprit, unknown, will surely face crippling regret and cave under the power of their guilt complex, revealing their identity promptly. I will be contacting ADT Home Security Systems shortly. Hopefully, there are preventative measures in existence for horticulture theft.
     Thankfully, there is in fact one lead - the malefactor left the scooping apparatus used to facilitate the theft. I am currently dusting for prints, and will provide a copy of the police report in my next update. Comment if you have any leads!



                          

Day 36: Things are starting to get spicy

        Over the past week or so, we have seen some development in a single pepper bud. The peppers have been making excellent progress. However, we have decided to eliminate both lamps and to utilize the LED plant light by itself due to fast drying that was occurring. The plants have been looking very healthy since then, so we plan to continue with this course of action for the time being. 

         On another note, we were under the assumption that most of the seeds were dead when we planted the four live sprouts. We threw them into the pot unsuspectingly and earlier this week, two of them just happened to sprout out of the soil. That was an unexpected delight. We will be updating the progress of the two new sprouts and the single pepper over the upcoming days!