February #1: An unfortunate visit

New year, new season, and preparations.

Plants:

February is a notorious month for planting peppers. I usually sow peppers in the middle of the month, but this year I've decided to give them a head start and planted them on 2nd February. It's been three weeks now, and they are doing great.

For this year, I've decided on Tabasco, Nagabrain Choc, Habanero Bonda Ma Jacques, and Sweet Bell pepper. The only Habanero became my favorite last year due to its taste and productivity. I am not a huge fan of Habanero peppers as I find the heat from them quite intense in comparison with the Dorset Naga, for example. Still, this one is sweet, juicy, and the heat is more gradual, which makes it the perfect pepper for a sweet chili and mango sauce.

This is my first time with the rest. The Nagabrain should be similar to the Brown Bhutlah I grew last year, but who knows? I've chosen this one as a wild card because I liked the picture. Judge me if you will.

For my precious seedlings, I've transformed the bottom of my old foldable dining table into a dedicated grow box with grow lights and reflective walls. I live in a one-bedroom apartment, and spring is always a challenge for me to fall asleep as these seedlings usually need around 16 hours of intensive light. The solution was always to have them in the bathroom and blast them with light over there. I finally shoved my excuses away, put two 20W TLED lights in the table, and paneled all sides with hard foam panels.

The lights are producing quite a lot of heat, enough to make the inside of the box heated to around 27 degrees Celsius, something I have to resolve before it’s too late but so far the plants look healthy and happy.

Garden

I neglected the maintenance of my greenhouse in November, so now is the time to take care of it. This February is very warm, which works in my favor as I can disinfect the greenhouse soon enough before I plant anything.

However, arriving in the garden for the job significantly changed my plans. For some time, the surrounding area of my garden has had a persistent issue with wild boars. Usually, they stay outside, but I guess the lack of food brought them to my garden. Neighbors have these huge walnut trees, and the walnuts usually fall right into my garden. I don't mind them as you can use them for a lot of things, but quite a lot of them end up in my raised beds. Long story short, a boar, or boars, turned my backyard door into a box of matches, blasted right through, and made a huge mess of my raised beds while looking for those nuts.

And to make things worse, they did not leave using the same way, and now I have multiple holes in my fence that I need to fix. The previous neighbor was also lazy and didn't bother to bury the fence, so no force is required to lift it.

Thankfully, the raised bed was not damaged, just misplaced soil and some garlic that the boars missed. At least, I think it might be possible that boars hate garlic.

But the question remains, what to do about them. I assume it might be an issue this season, so I have to prepare myself. First of all, I have to patch all the holes. I've already tried to bury some fencing, and it seems to be working because, on the second visit, one of them totally tried to use the hole but failed miserably. And to repel them, I've chosen the repellent solution.

After temporarily fixing all the damage, I finally had time to focus on my greenhouse. I had left some chilies in there over the winter, needless to say, they were all dead. There was some algae overgrowth, but nothing a little bit of calcium cyanamide couldn't solve.

I also decided to disinfect the air and clean some of the glass panes as they were dirty from dead fungi, remaining algae residue, and moss.

There are multiple ways to disinfect the air, but the easiest one is to use sulfur, namely sulfur wicks. The packaging provides a dosage, but I had difficulty understanding it and ended up using quite a lot. The packaging also advises that you should leave immediately after lighting them, which I can confirm is a very good idea. Unfortunately, I had to learn this the hard way by inhaling a bit of the sulfur gas.

Turning the greenhouse into a gas chamber filled with a mix of cyanide and sulfur gas makes it uninhabitable not only for humans but also for plants. It is very important to do all of this well ahead of time before you start using the greenhouse. By that time, the sulfur gas is gone and the calcium cyanamide has decomposed into calcium and nitrogen in the soil. This should prevent any blossom end rot on peppers and tomatoes, as well as fungus on cucumbers.

Fixing the boar situation

As previously mentioned, I've opted for the odor-based solution. I used the ATAK by AgroBio Opava against deer, hares, and of course, boars.

The instructions suggest soaking a sponge or rag in the repellent and hanging it in the affected area. They don't provide further specifications on placement but include pictures where a PET bottle is used to shield the sponge from rain. This solution is likely effective, but visually it's unappealing. Leaving the sponge unprotected in February and March weather could easily diminish its effectiveness as water might wash away the repellent.

I've sketched and 3D printed a few simple covers for the sponge and added a boar pictogram, as I plan to hang them outside my garden so people know their purpose. I don't expect people to see a boar and think, "Aha! A boar! I won't destroy it!" but rather, "Why do I smell like a summer tram after destroying this thing?".

Also the part about the summer tram? That is totally accurate. Holy shit it smells terrible. It smells like a combination of brie cheese left in a hot car laced with a badly wounded leg. And what’s worse it is dissolved in liquid paraffin. Liquid paraffin loves to stick to everything and anything! If I would be the boar? I would rather kill myself than try to eat some half-rotten nut from the ground now.