2004 was a good harvest overall and many seeds were saved.  Two batches of hot sauce were made and both were pretty darn hot.  I still have got to get to an incredible amount of dried hot chiles as of update time – Thais and Laotians.

Garfield Farm was fun as usual this year.  I also had the incredible opportunity to speak about seed saving and gardening with the Czechoslovakian Garden Club in Cicero, Illinois, this last autumn.  I brought my Seed Savers Exchange books to pass around and shared many sweet pepper, chile pepper, tomato, cilantro and basil seeds.  This Czech Garden Club has a great plant and flower exhibition/show every year, I believe.  I presented on the night of their award show and it was great to see people receiving awards for their bests of this and that – from flowers to vegetables and miscellaneous participation.  I started the rumor that next year the Cicero Town Council is going to test the winners for steroid use.  What a great gardening club!

I confess I’ve felt a little bad procrastinating in updating this website.  But Life beckons and things happen.  I did actually create a 2002 Harvest Report, but due to some type of mysterious snafu or electronic hiccup or enigmatic software glitch, the text of the report was accidentally deleted. And sadly that loss de-motivated my Muse in 2003.  2002 and 2003 were good years too, though not as good as 2004.  I was really happy to see the triumphant return of the Barbados chile as I had not grown it out as successfully as I’d like to for probably 3 or 4 years now.  It’s the one to keep in the greenhouse because the leaves will fall off with the first cold winds of September.  What a difference the greenhouse made with this variety!  But lest you think I didn’t garden in 2002 or 2003 just because I didn’t get around to updating Jimmy’s Chiles dotcom, I want to clarify for the record that I did!  Halleluiah!   

May your peppers and gardening endeavors prosper in 2005! 
Jimmy
January 13, 2005

Photo's from our backyard and a view from downtown Chicago: