So like I said I would expect to do, I tried, at least, to eat the first vegetables to come out of the nukadoko - way, waaaaaaaay too salty. Inedible, actually. I wonder if the recipes I referenced called for too much salt, or if the starter vegetables are supposed to soak up some of it in the beginning? I have a feeling I just put too much in. At this point, I could just keep putting more vegetables in to soak up the extra salt, but I think that could end up taking forever - I might have to get rid of some of the nuka and replace it with new, unsalted stuff instead. Bummer. I stopped trying to clean the mush off of the peppers I pulled out after a point, since I realized I'd probably have to take some out anyway, in order to get rid of some of the excess salt. Other than that, though, it seems to be going well - the peppers actually added to the garlicky, spicy smell. It's beginning to smell 'pungent', but I wonder what it would smell like if I hadn't put in garlic and chiles. Talk about a visceral experience, though - digging through a giant bottle of soft mush looking for wilted pepper slices... now I know not to cut things up too small, unless I want to spend a lot of extra time trying to find them all in the end. Having clear glass bottles helps a little, so at least I can sort of see what I'm doing - it means I have to make sure that I keep them in a dark place, though - I'm sure that sunlight would be absolutely no good for this stuff. I've got eggshells washed and drying, waiting to go in, too - it sounds a little odd but 'everyone' says that it's good to put them in there. Calcium stabilizes the nukadoko, or something. Who knows. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here or anything, so I'm going to keep going along with what others suggest.