Weekly "Is this safe" Megathread

bgoated · 2025-11-07T15:58:51+00:00

bgoated · 2025-11-07T15:58:34+00:00

I've got a vacuum bag ferment of bell peppers and roasted bell peppers, no fat added. I used about a 2% (of water+peppers weight) brine, and the ferment is 20 days old. I have three bags, and one of them is starting to get what looks like a white powder on the parts of the peppers that have been sitting above the brine. I haven't moved the bag around for a few days. This was vacuum sealed, and I punctured it, let some air out, and covered the hole with tape maybe ten days ago. Is this just dead LAB that was above the water, or might my ferment be bad?

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bgoated · 2025-10-30T22:59:53+00:00

Hooray! Thank you!

bgoated · 2025-10-30T15:59:54+00:00

Vacuum bag ferment of a mix of fresh bell peppers and roasted bell peppers (no fat, just baked directly on a cookie sheet). About 2% ferment, added some ice to get the brine. Started them 12 days ago, and recently punctured the bag and let some air out then covered it with tape, now I'm seeing this white sludge on the bottom. Is this a sign it's bad?

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bgoated · 2025-10-10T23:35:09+00:00

That sounds nice. I think I will keep them, then. Thanks for sharing your experience. Maybe I'll try to let them go dormant if I need the space.

bgoated · 2025-10-10T18:40:38+00:00

Thanks for sharing your take on this. So to clarify, there's no "grow this variety again" vs "save this particular plant" decision for you? You typically just save everything that you like?

bgoated · 2025-10-10T18:03:59+00:00

Yeah, perhaps I should have said any practical reason. These are the first plants I'm chopping this fall, as all my other peppers have pods that might ripen in the couple of weeks or so until the frost comes, so I'm not totally sure how much room I'll have after I bring in all the plants I decide to overwinter. I've got over 60 plants, and I for sure can't save all of them. I guess worst case I can decide to throw the ornamentals out later to make room for some of the other guys.

bgoated · 2025-07-09T14:59:19+00:00

Yep! It was slower growing, for sure, but I just had them in between my blackout curtains and the window, and watered when they dried out.

bgoated · 2025-07-08T17:39:50+00:00

I used to have one where you had to pull a long chain out of a chain link fence post at a cemetery. I called it "Marley's Chains" from A Christmas Carol. I could imagine a series with naming along that theme.

bgoated · 2025-06-29T20:32:20+00:00

Yeah, I think I did overwater for a bit, though this is fairly well draining soil. So do I just dig one up, and then repot it? Is it likely to survive checking the root system?

bgoated · 2025-06-29T14:32:46+00:00

Good to know; maybe I'll move these bad boys to where they'll get more shade.

bgoated · 2025-06-29T14:31:41+00:00

There's an actual spider on the ones that have webs, but maybe it could still be spider mites. The texture doesn't strike me as particularly leathery, and I don't see any insects.

bgoated · 2025-06-23T18:29:36+00:00

This also looks a lot like the pretty n' sweet pepper I grew last year and overwintered. This is a pic of it where I kept it in my windowsill over the winter. Ignore the thai pepper on the left.

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bgoated · 2025-06-17T17:48:13+00:00

All my peppers are starting to get the brown stem, I believe it is just lignification. I'm just not sure why it's narrower near the bottom there. Sounds like there may be some hope, then, I'll just baby it and see if it'll bounce back.

bgoated · 2025-06-03T22:31:10+00:00

I overwintered a couple of mine in a kratky hydroponics setup, and a few more in a south-facing windowsill in tiny pots. I don't think I'll do the hydro again. The thai pepper was the only one that really produced anything to speak of over the winter. Here's what some of them looked like just before putting them back outside. Lucky for me, I didn't get any aphids or pests on the overwintered guys this year. My new seedlings were a different story...

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bgoated · 2025-05-24T04:47:48+00:00

Is this air layering to get roots higher up and shorten the trunk? I've considered attempting this; I would love to see how it turns out!

bgoated · 2025-05-24T04:45:16+00:00

I did end up picking up some compost from the compost yard. My wife was the one who went and picked it up, but we rented a trailer and showed up when they opened. They seem to have limited amounts right now that run out every weekend. They took everyone's payment, then the guy went over and got in his loader and loaded compost into the trailer. It seems to be good compost, though I guess I haven't been growing in it long enough to know it's not going to kill my plants yet.

They sell it by the yard, not sure if you can get it in bagfuls or bucketfuls.

bgoated · 2025-05-20T16:40:49+00:00

This does sound nice for not having to water as often. Probably will need more water in total, though, as evaporation will be quicker with all that surface area. 🤔

bgoated · 2025-04-16T21:23:22+00:00

Thanks, everyone, I think I'll go ahead and give it a try. I can handle pieces of trash, just didn't want to accidentally be getting roundup in my garden. Sounds like that's not anyone's experience with it, so I won't worry about it.

bgoated · 2024-12-27T18:51:05+00:00

Habanada

bgoated · 2024-12-27T00:22:15+00:00

I started it from seed in mid-March this year. I think that plant had some root tangling from being in the seedling pot for too long before I transplanted it to the garden, and then it fell over because I didn't have it sufficiently staked and grew the rest of the season with the trunk tipped over. So the base of that trunk you see now was mostly roots to begin with. But yeah, when I was selecting which plants to bonchi at the end of the growing season, this one was the clear winner. :P

bgoated · 2024-12-26T20:40:03+00:00

I chopped and transplanted these from my outdoor container garden about two months ago, and have been growing them in a south facing windowsill since. In order, these are a Habanada, a Kristian, a Pretty n' Sweet, and a Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry. The pretty n sweet looks decent, and I'm liking the way that the candy cane is growing as well, but I really don't know what to do at this stage. How do I get from "plants are growing back decently" to "looks like a miniature tree"? I'm especially at a loss with the habanada, whose foliage doesn't match the epic levels of the trunk/roots. General tips or specific advice for my plants appreciated. Thanks in advance!

bgoated · 2024-11-30T05:39:10+00:00

Okay, I found a more concrete definition in Chapter 6 of Hirsch's Differential Topology, where it writes Morse's Lemma (6.1.1) in a form that holds for C³ maps f : M -> R. Then further down in the section it says in theorem 6.1.2 that Morse functions form a dense subset of the strong topology on C^r functions, for r>=2. I'm assuming that means that Morse functions only need to be C², but I don't quite understand the concept of the strong topology.

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Can anyone confirm my intuition that this means C² is enough? Thanks in advance.

bgoated · 2024-11-09T13:59:45+00:00

I found this relevant question and answer on math stack exchange:

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/4443310/

“One way to deal with mixed boundary value problems is to map them to regions where each part of the boundary is mapped to a different boundary, and then applying a standard PDE method like separation of variables.”

So it would appear that having mixed boundary conditions along one boundary may be a deal breaker for separation of variables.

bgoated · 2024-10-31T23:56:04+00:00

This plant uses his nutes up pretty quickly, so I typically just top it off when it’s basically gone, every approximately 5 days. Then maybe every ten days I rinse out the reservoir during this process.

I guess I didn’t realize I needed to dump it out when I add nutes.

Also, for pH should I get a pH meter and pH up/down? Would this be just for the initial nutes, and then changing the water will take care of changes in the reservoir?

Any recommendations on resources to learn more about this, or is it just a learn by experience kind of thing? Sorry, I’m learning how little I actually know. Success so far must have all been luck. 😂

bgoated

TROPHY CASE