AG Jalapenos - Office Harvest (12/20/2017) ** Term 11/26/18

[drbanks]

This morning's pepper count: 7

[Shawn]

Is your Office Jalapeno still doing good?  How are your other gardens?  Most importantly, are you feeling any better?

[drbanks]

Sorry my attendance has been spotty lately, but I'm managing to pull myself out of the depths of illness and despair.  Even managed to get to some cleaning chores that have gone an embarrassingly long time in need of doing.

But, on Monday my boss looked at the plant and says, "do I see 8 now?"

I counted 14.  Plump, juicy and unexpectedly large for the first crop.  They're looking nice and dark green, but none have started turning yet.

Still, a VERY healthy looking plant.  If I wasn't about to walk into a meeting, I'd take a picture or two. 

I think it is fantastic that your fellow workmates are eyeing your project! I do hope you are doing better and please take care of yourself!

[drbanks]

They are indeed fascinated with it and are surprised at the speed and quantity of growth, and being able to see peppers appear before their eyes (or as I say, "on the hoof") here in the office.

The main issue is that being a harvest, the pump comes on once an hour, and the sound always makes me want to pee.

[drbanks]

And the thing about doing better:  I actually do have seasonal affective disorder, but not the kind that hits in the winter.  It's the summer time when I get depressed (this is an actual thing).  This is my first bout of winter depression, ever.

My PhD in clinical psychology gives me the tools to know when I've gone over the edge (since it always happens so gradually, it's hard to detect), and my years of being a software engineer have led me to diagnose what's going on in my head, and to ask the question: what changed?  I mean why now and not any of the other 61 winters?  Balancing this are:

1) My circadian rhythms are farther out of whack than ever before.  I am, by nature, a night person, and my difficulties staying awake during the day are, at best, so bad that I just don't like to drive when the sun is out.  But now, it's even worse.  You know how when we go onto daylight saving time, everyone feels like they're getting up an hour early (mainly because they are)?  This year, my natural waking time sifted from 4:00AM (so I can drive to work in the dark) to 3:00 AM, when by all rights, if I were like everyone else, I'd be naturally waking up at 5:00.  This is just strange.

2) Loss of appetite.  This is like an alcoholic losing interest in beer.

3) Pseudo dimentia: my brain has been a fog, I'm making stupid mistakes at work, and, for lack of better term, I'm "losing my words."

4) The most extreme lack of motivation I can remember having in a very long time.  For the last two months, I've had a new shower curtain liner still in the package it came in, sitting on my bathroom floor, to replace the years old one that's getting moldy.  Even though this is a health issue, and probably contributing to my physical illness, it was only yesterday that I actually felt motivated to do the replacement.

That's enough for a clinical diagnosis of depression.  I have a deal with my psychiatrist that if I start feeling depressed, to up my dosage.  It's just starting to work.

Unfortunately, I've been having some physical symptoms that are rather dangerous indicators that I should back down on my dosage, and I'm kind of feeling between a rock and a hard place.

So, I ask myself, why now?

The normal treatment for regular winter seasonal affective disorder is a light box that you put in front of your eyes for a couple hours a day to retrain your supraoptic chiasm, which retrains your circadian rhythms.  Well, hell, for the last almost-a-year, I've had about 700 watts of LED lighting in my bedroom, most of which are grow lights.  During standard time, they come on at 4:00 AM (5:00 after the daylight saving change) and turn off at 8:00 PM standard time (9:00 PM DST).  This I did not have for the previous 61 winters.

I do NOT like where this is heading.  I am having an especially hard time staying awake during daylight hours, and given my backwards seasonal affective disorder and my upside down natural circadian rhythm, I think I may be inducing the depression with all the grow lighting.

Which just sucks.

[Shawn]

I can kinda relate with some of what you are experiencing,  Not because I have it but my daughter does have the Seasonal Affective Disorder.  She also has depression.  At one time a previous doctor had her on all the wrong meds and she was totally out of whack.  Put her in a manic depression and having bad swings and always tired herself.  Years later she still battles with SAD and depression but is on a cocktail that keeps her healthy and as she calls it herself. 

It is important that even tho you know what you are feeling that you still get the proper help and if needed take the proper meds because the doctors can see stuff you may not.

Stay strong

[Kate]

Have they ever checked your thyroid or other metabolic levels as well as things like vitamin D, etc? What you're experiencing is very much like when my thyroid keeled over in 1998. I also take other prescribed supplements and vitamins, but the thyroid issue was huge. In addition, my vitamin D was so low (at 5) a couple years ago my heart could have failed. I don't know if adrenal fatigue is really a thing as it's hotly debated, but I take an OTC supplement in addition to my prescribed 120mg Armour Thyroid (desiccated thyroid), and I feel great. I still have very dry skin and a few other minor issues, but the big ones are under control.

[drbanks]

I take 3 5000 IU Vitamin D gels a week.  As for the others: I'm already on two prescription meds, one to fight depression, the other to keep me awake when the job demands that I be awake.

I am VERY reticent about adding any third prescription med, because humans aren't good at dealing with three body problems.

[Kate]

I took Nuvigil and Provigil for years before I found my savior ANP that actually listened, tested and treated me.

[MaryL]

This may be a whacky idea, but what if you had all the AG lights come on over night instead (obviously you’d have to take them out of your bedroom).  That way your daytime eyes aren’t inundated with so much extra LED light.  Might be worth a shot.

[drbanks]

may be crazy, but could work.

[Shawn]

I hope it does help!

[drbanks]

Greeted this morning with my first (mostly) red pepper on this plant.  At last count, I think there are 18 total.

[Kate]

What a pretty red on that pepper! They look great!

[drbanks]

A bit of corking,  but it just gives them more character.

Get a Jalapeno red like that, and it's sweeter and hotter.

[Shawn]

And more will be following.

[MaryL]

Huzzah!!

[drbanks]

I just cut off the first one, which has ripened even more since morning.  And another one behind it has turned red since this morning.

I cut the one into rings and threw them into the pickling jar.  Tasted the safe end, and it was pretty meaty and sweet.  Tasted the non-safe end and it's hot, but not terribly.

[drbanks]

Today's harvest:



There's one more I could have harvested as well, but it still has a bit of green on it.

That's five this week, counting the one I harvested on monday.  All five have been sliced into rings and dumped into the pickling jar.