• If you need help identifying a pepper, disease, or plant issue, please post in Identification.

First crack at growing

All i know is when they're not growing leaves, they're growing roots. I think the UV light (blue/violet) still gets through on cloudy days (although not always through windows) I'd say so long as they have some warmth & dont grow mold you should be fine. But then I have no respect for delicate plants & prefer to have them fade at the first sign of trouble when young than a lifetime of pampering.

Oh and if its raining, collect it - theres nothing better than rainwater
 
imaguitargod said:
But I was testing the lastest video game for EA Games (my job currently) and playing against people from both the UK and Germany in REAL TIME ONLINE...just....wow....freakin amazing.
Click to expand...

Last one I tried was Battlefield 2 - had 64 members a side - so 128 players online in real time with pilots ( 8 diff jets & a few heli's), air-strikes, mines, tanks, boats, anti-air, all kinds of vehicles, acres of maps, crazy number of weapons - all matched to the country you were fighting for. I was only hooked for about 6 months, day & night ;)

Now I'm waiting for latest v8 supercars (EA) to drop in price (im not paying $100 for a game, sorry) I had the 1998 version, I engineered a car for each track & cleaned up...good fun racing my mates over the LAN too.

Any chance you'd like to test against a nerds home-made power comp on the other side of the planet - just let me know :lol: .
 
Hmm Boags said:
Just as the little bugbers start to show their faces the sun has f&*ked off for the week. I read that sprouts need plenty of light to grow. I assume this is direct sunlight, is a more ambient light still OK. I've also bought a sun light bulb to help them along. Looks just a normal light painted blue if you ask me but the guy in the DIY shop assures my that it will be fine. All it says on the box is 100W daylight bulb????? Any clues?
Click to expand...

That grow light bulb is just about worthless. It's an Incandescent bulb with color filter so that only certain parts of the light spectrum make it though, plus it's chewing up a 100watts of power. What you need is a CFL (Compact Florescent)or 2. CFL's have a much lower power consumption rate and are cool so you can get them closer to the plants without worrying about burning them.

There are 2 factors involved in choosing a CFL. Lumens and color temp. (Kelvins) In my little grow room I have 2 CFL's and 2 T12 flourescents for a combined lumens output of around 10K. The 2 CFL's screwed into normal sockets that I already had and the T12's are in a regular shoplight fixture. I bought a combo fixture so I can upgrade to T8's if the 12's dont produce enough light. I will have to see how much I get from the window. $30
So basically the higher the Lumens the higher the light output.

Now onto Kelvins. Kelvins measure the type of light, or which part of the spectrum is being projected. This is usually marked on the side of the box something like this. 2700K or 6400K
81.jpg


2700K, or cool light is used for seedlings and vegetative growth.
6400k, or warm light is used for flowering / budding growth.
So as you can see the higher the Kelvin, the warmer the light. Now you can really spend some money if you want to get into HPS and MH lighting, both of which produce more light, but then you have added cost, power consumption, and heat to worry about so for small indoor projects I recommend CFL's.

I would also invest in some mylar too so you can reflect the light to all sides of the plants if you plan to have them indoors most of the time. Those are long season plants you have so I'm not sure if you could make it outdoors in England. (without a greenhouse of course.)

Oh BTW, I stole that picture from a place in Birmingham called GreenStream Hydroponics. Not sure how close that is to you but might be worth checking out.
 
Paul, Great to hear from someone who knows their stuff. I'll look into getting the right type of bulb this week and let you know how we go. Thanks
 
Right, Tell me if I'm being a paranoied father, but I'm not sure all my dear sweet ofsprinf are created equal here. I've got four types of pepper in this seeling tray (left to right) Dorset Naga, Cayenne 2 rows, Choc Habs 2 rows and Mexican Starfish 2 rows.
Seems to me that the habs and Naga are dragging their feet a little here. They all sprouted at about the same time but the Cayenne and Starfish seem to be doing so much better. Are they just destined to be slower growers or do i have a problem?

BTW what size could I expect my plants to be once fully grown?


DSC00360.jpg
 
In my experience, habanero-types grow slowly. Most are long season, so they take their time. I don't know about the Nagas, but my Chocolate habs usually get between 3 and 4 feet (91 to 121 cm) tall by the end of the season. That's planted in the ground with first frost well into November.
 
Ya your habs are long season while the cayenne is a mid season pepper. Not sure about the starfish. The habs are the reason I went to all the trouble with an indoor setup. I know the season is too short here so I have to bring them in when fall hits. The weather works out fine for early to mid season crops in Minnesota but it gets too cool early in the fall for the habs. The only time I have successfully grown habs in the garden was when I planted plants that I had wintered from the previous season.

Pam,
I got mine here.
This is a nice heavy mylar too. Stiff enough so you can hang straight from the ceiling without it wrinkling or flopping around too much. Make sure and put a square piece of masking or electrical tape where you push the pin through so it doesn't tear.
 
chilliman64 said:
Hmm Boags, have you seen chillisgalore.co.uk ? it's another chile forum but local to you. it may have some good growing advice for you. be like me and join both sites, there are a lot of mutual members. a number of Aussies on CG too.
Click to expand...

You don't have a contact with this site do you? I have tried to join a couple of times now and they never seem to get back to me to activate my account.
 
I've just noticed that my Cayenne sprouts are looking a little bit leggy for their own good. I've heard that if you plant the stem of chilli an inch or so into the soil when you transplat that roots will sprout from the stem. Is this true? or would it just rot the stem?
 
Hmm Boags said:
I've just noticed that my Cayenne sprouts are looking a little bit leggy for their own good. I've heard that if you plant the stem of chilli an inch or so into the soil when you transplat that roots will sprout from the stem. Is this true? or would it just rot the stem?
Click to expand...
Nope, it's true. I just had a cayenne fall over (read: something ate the lower part of the stem) and just covered it up with dirt and it sprouted roots from the side of the stem.
 
Ok, I've potted the litle blighters into 90mm pots and watered them in well. Is there any little tid bits I should know here? extre water, less water, fertilizer??? so much to learn... help
 
Hmm Boags said:
Ok, I've potted the litle blighters into 90mm pots and watered them in well. Is there any little tid bits I should know here? extre water, less water, fertilizer??? so much to learn... help
Click to expand...
Stay on your regular watering schedual and be gentile with them for the first week as they must adjust to their new surroundings. I would lay off fertilizer for a week or week and a half...it may shock them.
 
The only fertilizing I might do is to dilute kelp or seaweed to half the recommended dose on the bottle and feed. It does help them get over transplant shock, and encourages root growth.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top