Update

Here's an updated pcture of the whole bunch. That tall one in the back corner is the basil. This is the last picture I took of that before I found myself picking off leaves to eat with some vietnamese takeout food. It was gooooood... Anyway, a couple of the anaheims are now flowering. I've hand polnated them so they should be on thr way to pepper making. Meanwhile the spanish spice(pepper) is huge. I think it may actually touch the plant media in a couple days. Then I'll have to suspend t somehow so it doesn't get wet during flood cycles. And by the way, yeah, I know its crowded but I'm still looking for a larger space for me to construct a whole new rig.

Just Cuz

Spanish Spice about 24 hours later.

Update

The Spanish Spice is flowering and peppering everywhere. Here's a cool pic I took of a flower and a starting pepper.


Remember that pepper from a couple post back? Here it in now.

Crowding

Hmmmm... we have a problem again. With 11 plants at least 1ft tall and spreading out, and one set of sprouting Poblanos in the front, the plants are getting crowded. I'm thinking that the best method to resolve this issue is to build an identical frame and stack it on top of the existing one. Of course this new structure will stand on the floor and not the cabinet it is sitting on now. That would make a 6ft tall duplex box with 2 separate light sources. I may even get a large reservoir and have the whole thing stand on that. Or I can even figure out something with some snap together wire shelves I have. I'll update as I get more ideas.

Pepper Sightings

The Spanish Spice is growing at a good rate. Friday this particular pepper was still a flower. Now it's about an inch long. There are other peppers forming and more flower buds growing in.

The Habanero has flowers everywhere but no pepper formation yet. I've even pollinated the bloomed flowers manually to try and speed it along. But it's sort of hard with flowers so small and hanging upside down.

The Anaheims have a whole lot of buds but no flowers yet. I've added some calcium to my nutrient solution to help set flowers. I'll go get some magnesium in the next couple of days for even more flower set insurance.

The Poblanos are in the same boat as the Anaheims.

The Serranos seem to be the slowest to develop. There aren't even any buds yet. It's a little strange seeing that those were the first I planted. Otherwise they look healthy.

The sweet basil spurted out of nowhere. It's about as tall as the Spanish Spice now.

Falafel Etc.: Meat Shwarma Plate

Falafel Etc.

39200 Fremont Blvd

Fremont, CA 94538

(510) 795-7170
http://www.falafeletc1.com/

Alright so I realized I still had a picture of a dish sitting in my phone memory that haven't reviewed yet. Right now I'm sitting around in my folk's house for the weekend, bored as heck, so I've decided to take the opportunity to get the review out of the way.

On another note, I've been sick for the past couple weeks with a stomach thing so I haven't really been able to go check out more a lot of new places. Though there were a couple of note: East Bay Thai Food and World Market Sometingerother.... OK I can't remember the name of the second one but basically it's an asian buffet. And away we go.

Taste:

The shwarma here is pretty good. It's about all I order from the menu because everything else I see here is veggie. Yeah I like vegetable but for a meal I need some kind of meat. The meat is very lemony along with everything else on the plate. Also, that white sauce with green things floating around in it is very good here and I might mention unlimited with a visit to the sauce bar. The humus is pretty good though not the best I've had.

Authenticity:

Uh, yeah, very Mediterranean. I'm pretty sure that 95% of the things served here is authentic, and that's based on the 5% of experience that I've had wth this cuisine. Eh?

Consistency:

They are extremely consistent with the main dish and I haven't seen a skew yet, but the sides are a different story. I'll leave that to your imagination or maybe I just want to make you go yourself.

Cost to Serving:

Not bad... Not particularly good either though. I guess you have to take into account the labor and fresh ingredients. Well let's put it this way, If you've got 10 bucks for lunch and only plan on drinking water, try this place out.

Conclusion:

Even though it is very evident that the place used to be a mexican restaurant (you're all gonna be looking for t now), the atmosphere is nice and it's a nice quiet place to enjoy a meal. Sauce for all, even the hot chili paste.

____________________________________

Price Paid: ~10.50

Price I'd Pay: ~9

Cumulative Rating: 6.75

Take advantage of the lemons in that sauce bar and put a few wedges in that free water of yours.

Habanero News

It looks like the habanero was the first to flower. It kind of suprised me when I came home from work.

Upgraded Enclosure

I told you guys last time that I was going to upgrade my system because my Spanish Spice pepper plant was outgrowing the of one. Now, after minutes of planning, a short trip to OSH, and about 6 bucks later:

Here you can see my new box from the side with a mylar curtain pulled down so we can see inside.

This shot is from another angle looking in from the same side opening.

Here's the shot from the front with the main mylar curtain down. About 95% of the light from the lamp is reflected back into the box but we can still see though the curtain without light spilling out into the room. Isn't that cool?


Same angle as above with mylar half drawn up.


More side window.