Part three in the continuing drama of the transition from chile pepper hobbyist to full time grower… and the “Open Fields”.

The brilliant business plan that I had, discussed in parts one and two, that consisted of nothing more than “throw chiles in ground, see who’s interested when crop comes in” actually succeeded beyond all expectations. Under the old saying “if at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment” demand for chiles was rather brisk. Earning a living off of them was another matter entirely and will be saved for later. We’ll stick to the farming aspects here.

After several years of planting just a little more each year, I got to the point where I was actually planting quite a decent crop of chiles. It was measuring acres in size and encompassed many thousands of plants. In the early 90’s, 20,000 habanero plants constituted a measurable chunk of chiles, especially here in the Midwest. When I say “I” that didn’t necessarily mean me alone. I was renting the farmground and did hire a substantial amount of ‘Manuel labor’ in order to bring the crop in. My landlord was fantastic, lending me his crew when he had down time. Still, I was putting in some incredibly looong hours during the months of August, September, and October.

It didn’t take long to discover that one of the most trying things about farming was the complete lack of control one had over the most critical aspect of them all- the weather. One particular year almost put me out of business before I even really got started. You must remember that in making ‘farming decisions’ you are looking into a crystal ball several months in advance. Seed is ordered in November for the following year. The size of ground to be planted is set in stone by March when the seeds are turned over to the greenhouse folks to turn into plants. The plants are timed to be of the right size for a specific planting window, hereabouts generally running from May 25th to June 2nd. If the weather does not co-operate- ie monsoon rains for a month- the chiles can get into the ground *very* late and that pushes everything back. In this particular year the chiles did not get planted until late July, about the time I’m normally expecting to start harvest on some of the early varieties like Cayenne & Jalapeno. That was also the year we had a near record early freeze- 28 F on Sept 15th. That was the same year I rolled the dice and decided to gamble big time and expand the operation to 5 acres. On the morning of September 16th I was looking at 5 acres of rotting mush and thinking it was a tragic waste.

Seeing those chiles rotting after the frost got me to thinking. The chiles stay viable for about 24 to 48 hours after such an event. There were likely folks who would like to come and help themselves to whatever could be salvaged since there was no way I’d be able to get them all picked and processed. As a member of the ChileHeads email group, I put out a call announcing that whoever wanted could come over and help themselves to whatever they could pick. There were about a half-dozen people showed up and the “Open Fields” was born. In succeeding years, I would put out the call based on the frost predictions from the weather service- and we all know how reliable weather predictions can be I’d be emailing folks; ‘frost predicted, come get them’ and then retract it when the forecasters missed it by several degrees. “Okay, now they really mean it”.

With each passing year the event picked up a few more people and I began to realize the inconvenience of the last minute notices. About 5 years ago, I simply started picking a date at which I suspected I’d have most of the harvest in & folks could help themselves, irrespective of the forecasts. In the last few years, this progressed even further to simply planting a U-pick field just for the event.

Eventually, somehow, the FoodTV caught wind of this and were thoroughly intrigued with the idea of a “chilehead Woodstock” occurring in the wilds of Central Indiana. The sent film crews out twice to document this gathering of chileheads and get a bit of a taste of what the chilehead community is all about.

Describing the programs, outlining this years’ event, and publishing the steps you need to take in order to attend yourself will be the subject of the fourth and final part of this series

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