Blogopause
Just a note to the readers that there'll be a brief cessation of posting as I spend the day setting up my new iMac (the reflective glass screen is very disconcerting if you sit, bleary-eyed and rumpled in the morning - eek! Is that me?) and working on the Deck Farm™. Yes, the plants have arrived and now action is urgent.
I'll take pictures.

Deck Farm™ 2009
Burpee has acknowledged my order for the upcoming year of Deck Farm™. I'll do a little cut-n-paste (soon to be on an iPhone near you!) to lay out the plants. That's three each of the tomatoes, the bell peppers, hot lemon peppers, zavory peppers and six of the Biker Billy jalopy peppers. The Hosta collection is going into the front yard to mitigate the pain of mowing around the roots of the cherry tree.
And Since I ordered enough, I get a little spiff in there at the end. How nice.
Does anyone want the items below set as links to the item page at Burpee.com?

TOMATO SWEET SEEDLESS HYBRID
TOMATO STEAK SANDWICH HYBRID
PEPPER ORANGE BELLE II HYBRID
PEPPER RED DELICIOUS HYBRID
PEPPER BIKER BILLY JALAPENO
PEPPER HOT LEMON
PEPPER HOT ZAVORY
HOSTA COLLECTION
FREE 2009 ESPOMA PLANT-TONE 1 OZ PKT

Final First Deck Farm™ Pic
Can't say much more than that. The Zavory peppers on the left were in a previous pic. And though the lower leaves of the Supersteak tomato on the right look a little sere, the plant is doing well. In fact, all are doing well. There is real growth on all sides.

More From The Deck Farm™
Today, a picture to the southmost side of the DF. The bell peppers and some of the hot peppers. One of the Zavory plants suffered in getting planted (the one closest to the camera) but it appears to have come though albeit shorter than the others. I'm so eager to see if the "cool" habanero works as I hope it does. The Biker Billy Jalapeno plants are just off-camera to the right. I will post another pic that will show the hot pepper Earthbox and the Supersteak tomato Erfbox.

OK. Let's Try The Tomatoes Pic Now
Hmm. I think I figured out the problem. It was my mistake after all. So let's see if i can make this little splootch of magic work ...

A ha! It was my fault. And I'm not going to say what it was. Because a damn genius can figure out how to fix his mistakes. Dagnabbit.

The Intertubes Are Testing My Patience
Which is as sore as a gouty toe at the moment. Slow, slow, slow. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? My FiOs is running at about 1 Megabit instead of the 5 it should. Pages load with an error message though load actually when I click the "try again" button. Even Verizon's main page is grinding into what I hope is a load and that's taking donkey's years. Argh!
Is it just mine? Is anyone else having slowness issues? Is the heat making the Innerweb all lackadaisical and overcome with lassitude?
Me no likee.
But I'll upload a couple of pics from the Deck Farm™ just to pass the time. First, a "making of" the Erfbox.

And then a shot of the tomatoes, well, four of the six. The other two SuperSteak are to the left of the Erfbox. ... OK, Blogger is ignoring my request to post another picture. So I'll cut my losses and post this with the tomatoes pic (taken today) to follow. Argh and argh again.
UPDATE: Something was screwy in my computer. It hung on me and I re-booted. A hugely rare circumstance for the iMac I assure you. Thereupon things busted loose and now my 5Mb speeds are back in form. Yah-hah!

Still Hurtin' For Certain & Many Apologies
My apologies for the lack of blogging lately but my musculo-skeletal system has just been running on the "outraged" setting for the last week or so. It's possible it may have something to do with the weather as I talked very recently with a diabetic friend (whose diabetes was only diagnosed in this year and who has such a multitude of health issues that I should really just STFU about my health in comparison) who told me that he, his fibromyalgic wife and their daughter (who is coming early into her genetic heritage, sadly) all had a horribly painful week last week. At least I think I'm coming out of it. I am typing and my left shoulder is not screaming at me. My "terror wrist" is not plaguing me and I've actually been able to get a couple of things done of late.
I'll follow my apologies for the lack of posting with apologies for the health whining. It just not ... attractive. I know. But it is explanatory. So I'll try to dial down the whine level and pump up the explanatory quotient. ... Try. I said "try."
You'll have noticed a lack of the weekend music embed. I was thinking of putting up Peter Gabriel's seminal stop-motion animated viddy for "Sledgehammer" from the superb "So" disc. But I am reluctant to do so since it's almost moved beyond "seminal" into "cliché." But unless I can dig up something more interesting, I may post it tomorrow anyway. And I'll apologize for an uninspired choice too.
On the asset side of the general ledger, I have the Deck Farm™ actually planted with only one of the "Zavory" peppers looking like it might not make it through. But I think it will. Pictures have not been taken - yet. This evening when I change the hummingbird feeder, I'll go all snap happy and post some results.
I watched, with friends, one of the audition episodes of "Last Comic Standing" and was somewhat nonplussed. Just not that funny. If these people are making a living from their "comedy," then the Enigmatic Misanthrope and I are in the wrong line of work. Put the two of us together, add a six pack and we could blow about 90% of the "comics" off the stage. And that's just working off the cuff. If we prepared some material, we'd have our own sitcom offer. Rather encouraging actually. I've pulled my scriptwriting and comedy writing books off the shelf and started on a nice long legal pad. I've posted the random joke to the blog but I'm going to try to make it pay for a change. Wish me luck.
All that said, I thank you who are patient enough to check back at PoW even in the hiatus of posting. I'll try to give you more reason to visit even as I sit and bitch to myself about myself.

Burpee's Finest
Or at least the ones I wanted this year. I've labeled the plants with the exception of the Supersteak tomatoes. So let me explain the layout of the plants in their little cardboard bed: first row on the left is the Hot Lemon Pepper, next comes Zavory low-heat habanero, then the Biker Billy Jalapenos, next is the Golden Giant bell pepper and then the Red Delicious bell peppers. The tomatoes are lined up perpendicularly to the peppers with the Health Kick in front and the Supersteak in back. And there you have it. Rather, here you have it:

Keep in mind that the lens I used is a short one so there is some foreshortening. The tomato plants are of a decent size even though the Golden Giant pepper plants are the tallest on the group.
I would have planted them today but it was still rainy and right now it is co-old. Well, cold for mid May. If the deck dries out over night, I'll finish the ErfBox prep and plant the plants. And the Deck Farm™ will be in bidness!
UPDATE: Here's a clip from the Burpee site with a bit of info on the so-called "Health Kick" tomato:

A breakthrough in breeding, this tomato is actually healthier for you than others you can grow or buy. Packed with the 50% more of the beneficial antioxidant lycopene, this prolific saladette produces a bountiful crop of 4 ounce, sweet red fruits.

"Saladette." Sounds like one of the dancing characters in "Veggie! The Musical."

Not So Much Baby Steppin' Any More
According to the brilliant UPS tracking system, the plants which will constitute the Deck Farm™ 3.0 are on the truck to my house today. Woo hoo! I will be soiling myself and planting ere long.
UPDATE: The plants are here. They are spread out on my kitchen table (spreading little bits of dirt over all the crap that's already there) and watered. I'll give them a day to acclimate to being out of delivery and then ... the planting begins. Oh and pictures. There should be pictures.

Steppin' The Deck Farm™
I have one of the homemade ErfBoxes (from now on the roll-my-own will just be called "ErfBox" while the store boughten ones will be called "EarthBoxes") complete. Looks like it'll work pretty well all things considered. The proof will be in the puttering. And the second is well on its way. I need to attach the pond basket and the 4" PVC support, drill out the drain hole in the side of the box and drill a slew of holes in the interior floor. But that's about it.
Oh, and I still haven't bought the potting soil but I'm going to try to hit Wally Mart today.
One other thing that looks intriguing is that I saved the outer rim of the tops which still "clip" onto the box. I should be able to use a sliced open contractor's garbage bag as the cover since I can clip it down all around. But I have real covers to spare so if it doesn't work, I'm (ha ha) "covered."

And speaking of slicing .... Do you know where the femoral artery is? Lucky for me my aim is not good. I was cutting down the interior floor this morning when the box cutter made a whoopsy-daisy and sank into my thigh. It's pretty impressive to see blood well up and flow out that fast. I'll take a snap of the pants and post it tomorrow (a slice hole and a blood stain - just for the record). Now I have to buy another pair of casual pants dammit.
In other news: Nature is about to blow a big-ole bubblegum bubble outside my front door as the cherry tree is blooming out. Again, I'll take pics and post them.

More Baby Steppin'
Another small advance on the home-made ErfBoxes. I cut filler tubes (water tubes) from 1 inch PVC pipe. I'm pleased with the way they came out. Ooh. I'll take pictures! More posting on that then. Also tomorrow I'll buy potting soil and begin the process of emptying out the prior years boxes. And I'll be cutting the 4 inch PVC pipe for the interior bottom (i.e. that on which the soil sits) as well.
I think the plants should be delivered sometime in the next several days.
One thought did strike me as I was finishing up the filler tubes. If someone called me and asked, "What are you doing?" I'd have to reply, "Oh, just deburring the filler tube apertures." These are the days of our lives.

UPDATE: Sans pictures yet but it's still a possibility. I have cut four sections of 4" PVC pipe to provide two supports for each interior bottom. I have cut the tops out of their edges but have yet to fit them to the level at which they'll be. Once I get them fitted, I'll drill out the multitudinous holes for airflow (and for strapping the pond baskets and support pieces on) and set the bottoms in place.
At this point, I still need to buy soil (hel LO Wally Mart!) and connect the hose pipe for the water flow. But I'm steadily more advanced toward the home-made boxen. Fingers crossed.

Costing It Out
I'm trying to keep records on the Deck Farm™ this time around to see just how expensive my produce is going to be. Of course my cost analysis will be distorted by my building the two new boxes (and not making notes of the purchase of the original EBs). Also, I'm starting over on the potting soil which is not necessarily the cheapest thing to do. The proper thing to do is carve out the soil onto which the fertilizer was laid at the end of the growing season and then add in some more when setting up anew. I'll do that next year.
So what's the freight so far? Plants: $92.45, pond baskets: $8.40, 1" PVC pipe: $5.00, replant kits: $58.50. I still need to buy potting soil, 4" PVC pipe and cheesecloth none of which should be too costly. I'll rerun the numbers when it's all together. And I'm looking forward to next year when the costs will be pared down to plants, maybe one bag of potting soil and, quite frankly, I'm going to try to get just the fertilizer instead of the replant kits.
And I really should amortize the cost of the boxen but ... it's really not worth the effort.

Baby Steppin'
Another small advance toward the creation of home-made ErfBoxen. I have the boxes themselves (18 gallon Sterlite containers from Wally-Mart). I have a 10' stick of 1-inch PVC pipe (more than I need) for the filler tubes. I've ordered the replant kits (fertilizer and covers which I don't really need) from the honest-to-goodness EarthBox people. And today I bought pond baskets (for example) which serve as the holder for the soil where it dips into the water reservoir and thence wicks up. I paid a lot more than the internet price for the baskets but I'm guessing that with shipping I didn't pay a heck of a lot more.
So, what more do I need? Well the potting soil (at least 5 of the 2 cubic foot bags) and about four feet of 4-inch PVC pipe to use as supports for the perforated bottom of the soil section. Oh, and some cheesecloth to spread on that perforated bottom just to keep things clean. As soon as I get the PVC pipe I'll build the things. I do want to be ready when the plants arrive.

Deck Farm™ 2008
And so it begins ... again. My order to the fine purveyors of plants at Burpee is in today's mail. The plants should not arrive until April but I have to get started or ... I'll never get started. I'm adding a couple of home-made faux ErfBoxes to the store-bought real things this year so I can expand my purchases. All the plants are sold in sets of three, just so's ya know.

We start with the hot peppers: Zavory (a mild heat habanero!), Hot Lemon (nice and bite-y little yellow peppers that worked well last year) and Biker Billy Hybrid Jalapenos (great jaloppys that I grew last year).
Then the bell peppers: Golden Giant Hybrid and Red Delicious Hybrid (I'm intrigued by the description of an "apple" taste).
And, of course, since I want to take pictures of horn worms, the tomatoes: Supersteak Hybrid and Health Kick Hybrid.

I won't go into agonizing detail on these because you can click the links and know as much as I do about each. I invite you to do so if you're thus inclined. I will blog the development and I'll try to take more pictures of the progress than I have in the past. I'm hoping to have a good tomato season this year and I'm thinking that I may be returning to the pepper jelly in the fall. People seemed to like it. And if the bell peppers work out, I can use all of my own peppers in the recipe!
Next year, I assay the brutal 1,000,000 Scoville unit, hottest pepper ever - the Bhut Jolokia!

Dem Damaders
I had a Big Rainbow with my breakfast this morning. It was meaty, sweet and just downright amazing. I think that my selection of plants for next year's Deck Farm™ will be Supersteak and Big Rainbow. The Black Krim set not a single bud and the Brandywine is not to my taste. Got to plan these things doncha know....

OK, This Is Just Weird
I ate a tomato this afternoon. A Big Rainbow. Though mine was not nearly that size and fully red, not yellow. I wanted it to be yellow but that's not the strange part. The strange part is that I ate the thing. Sliced it up, salted it, peppered it, took knife and fork in hand and ate a tomato. And it was good. I doubt that I'm ever going to be as enamored of tomatoes as others are but I don't hate them any more. In fact, I liked it. It was very sweet. I am going to pay more attention to tomatoes in the Deck Farm™ next year.
I think the plants got hammered by some fungus or something this year. I say this because the foliage died back for a while but new growth is coming along that is not dying back. Heat may also have been a factor. Next year I'm growing tomatoes upside down in 5-gallon hanging buckets. That should be good for a post or two.
The peppers are doing fine. I had a poblano with my eggs this morning. Tasty. I must pick the hot lemon peppers this evening. In fact, I'll go do that now.

Deck Farm™ News
Peppers. In a word: peppers. The tomatoes are not doing well this year. The plants are dying back after not exactly overwhelming me with fruit though I expect to harvest more than I need. Because I don't need much when it comes to tomatoes. I did, however, eat my first mader this morning. A Supersteak which I sauteed and mixed into my morning eggs. Delicious actually. And this from one who doesn't care so much for tomatoes. It has a nice firm flesh without a lot of tomato guts - which I prefer. It's sweet and, well, I'm going to try this one again next year with more attention to details.
I also cut up a poblano pepper which is a pretty pepper (as you'll see in the picture) but not exactly the biggest flame in the fireplace. The pic shows 5 of my poblanos and one of my "Biker Billy" jalapenos. That would be a 3-inch long jalapeno pepper. Dang. That's one big pepper! I haven't gotten into it yet but looka that thang! Next year there will be many, many peppers and a return to non-hot, regular green bell peppers. They seem to do just spectacularly well on the Deck Farm™. Pictures of the DF itself shortly.
The pic was overly keystoned when I took it so I did a little digital manipulation to produce the image below but the scale is accurate. The peppers are sitting on a regulation 8.5x11 sheet of paper. For scale. Along with the ruler.

Lack O' Posting
Sorry for the light days. (Don't even THINK of riffing on that! -Ed.) Not much is going on and the rest of the blogosphere is doing all the heavy lifting. Go on about your business, nothing to see here, folks. Check back in about a week. Enjoy yourselves.
Oh, the deck farm is bopping right along. The pepper that the fargin' rat got was found tucked in behind the Earthbox. Even the mild pepper was too much for the little SOB. I hope they like the steady diet of bait pellets. Traps will be set later as a test. I'll keep you informed.

You Little BITCH!
And that's my reaction moderated by time. The fargin' rats got my ancho/poblano peppers over the weekend. Since then I have put out two more poison baits packs and today I go out to "accustom" them to the snap trap and the catch trap.
I even considered buying a pellet pistol and sitting out on my deck to put a dab of .177 lead into the ... I almost slipped into the profanity that I don't use on the blog. I hate those rat bastard bastard rats.
UPDATE: I also ordered an ultrasonic pest repeller from the good folks at Amazon. This one. I am skeptical but more than willing to try anything to cause even the slightest discomfort to these ... you know, the whole profanity thing.
The tomatoes are setting buds with great panache though. I like that.

What A Way To Start The Week
Sorry, no pictures of the Deck Farm™ yet but a brief report in lieu thereof: The poblano pepper plants arrived carrying blossoms. Well, now, a little more than a week after planting them, there are already peppers on the plants! Two peppers on the same plant and one is about an inch long, the other about half that but I am jazzed that I have pepperage actual after such a short period. And the Supersteak tomato plant has grown at least twice as tall and leafed out to maybe three times its size on arrival. I inspected the plants for buds forming and the Supersteak and Brandywine definitely have popped out buds. No flowers yet but I don't think it'll be that long before they set.
What else, what else... Ah yes. A stock I've owned since late 2004 has just today broken through the 100 point level. Another 11 points and I'll sell. If I could only triple my money on all my stocks, I'd be a happy boy.
Plus, tonight is the return of my hero Gordon Ramsay in the new season of "Hell's Kitchen." Over the weekend I watched some re-runs of the original season thereof and my admiration for Gordon is secure. No one does a cooking reality show like my fellow Scot. If you've never seen him on the cable-casted "Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" (which I see on BBC America), you're missing a treat. He is at his irascible best there. Better even than on his own show "The F Word."
Finally, my next guitar is starting its journey toward me today. A Telecaster. I'll probably prefer my PRSi but I'm going to be delighted to add an icon to the set.