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Houston I may have a problem, well, sort of...

Rhody

Rhody

My collection of plants, started late December 2011. They can't go into the ground until May, and I really don't have room for tons of large pots around my house, only have a single slider window with limited room to put them till then. There are lush, dark green, bug free and I don't want to reduce their hardiness between now and transplant time. I never thought I would ever have this problem, lol.
I asked in chat and the suggestion I got, I believe was turn down the light, less time, should I nix the heat mat as well ?





Ghosty...
 
What is the ambient room temperature? If its in the 70's you can probably lose or turn down the heat mat. If you could turn down the light intensity and leave the time the same it should be good. If you turn down the duration of light I think you could risk forcing the plants into flowering and stunt their vegetative growth. But then again that's what it sounds like you want. Once you plant them in May you'll have to keep snipping flowers and buds to try forcing the plant to focus its energy on creating a healthy strong root system.
 
Oy, you definitely don't need the heat mat for plants that size, at least for the ones in the RED SOLO CUPS. So yes, don't flood them with light and turn off the heat. But I'd also see if you can possibly fit some larger (but not huge) pots in there - inexpensive black plastic ones that are prolly half a gallon maybe. That will give the roots some room.
 
I have a friend who runs a nursery and they start thousands of peppers and they often need to slow down their growth. The way they do it is by temperature they take them off the heat tables and subject them to cooler temps then when they want them to grow they give them heat.BTW beautiful plants .. you are doing a great job.
 
Thanks for the "cluster of replies", you can tell I love my plants, less light, the heat is high 60's during the day, I will lower that as well, and keep pinching the flower buds like crazy, and transplant to bigger pots. I will turn off the heat mat and move it next to the window for the small starters. This is a general grow question, next year I plan to start 210 plants (70*3) clever huh, lol. Anyway, should I stagger them 70 each by a two week period ? I intend to harvest and process them in what I like to refer to as "HELL WEEK", into products that capture the flavors of the ingredients as fresh as possible. I want the stuff that I make to be consistent and as tasty as my recipes allow.

Is two weeks for three batches enough, too little too much, those who have done it have opinions I am sure, so please let me know.

Thanks...

Ghosty...
 
I don't think you need to pinch the buds now, let them grow out, it should slow any growth they have now by focusing it more towards the fruit, but in the summer when you put them in the ground.. pinch all the flowers and buds off.. I didn't think about this myself, but it makes sense, and I think I will follow the same suit, and pinch off all the buds and flowers and just leave the fruit that are already on there

but I have mine in 1 gallon pots, I would do 1/2 gallon pots if you have the room, or if you can find anything that is 1/2 gallon size, but is taller (which I am not sure where you could really find that) but that would be even better.. I was thinking about next year it would be cool to take 2 5 gallon buckets (not trade sized planting pots, actual 5 gallon buckets,)and cut the bottom out of one and put something in there or basically make it 1 bucket.. but I would only do it 1/2 way or something, so that it would be like 7-8 actual gallons.. unless I can find a 7 gallon bucket that has a footprint of a 5 gallon bucket so I can conserve floor space..

but anyways I got off track sorry, like everyone else said, drop the temp, and you can move the light away a little, but keep the time 16 hours or more or whatever you are doing, but I wouldn't really drop it below 16 personally right now.. and I tried this with a few of mine, but mainly because I was curious and they were bigger than I needed them now, but I plucked all of the really big leaves off of the middle and bottom of the plant, they look pretty "skinny" and skeleton-like now, but they all have new leaves growing right above where the old ones are.. like me, you have plenty of time for them to grow new leaves twice over.. so if you can handle plucking them lol, give it a shot if you like.. but I would stick to only the really big ones, I notice that they tend to hang real low and are just heavy and are not really perky like the "newer" leaves.. got the idea from a thread on here a few weeks ago

good luck... I hope this weather warms up faster than it normally does, I'm hoping that by april the weather is what it is normally like in May, so by late april I can get them all ready to go in :cool:

Oh and to add to your question about planting 2 weeks apart, I think that should work, I think I had mine either 2 weeks apart or maybe 3, but most likely 2-2 1/2 but I kept the younger ones in party cups a little longer than I had the "older" ones in, and left them in there for a week or so longer, and they are fine.. so what I am saying is that as far as I can tell, it should be fine.. I would break your plants up by how fast they grow.. because if you put the superhots or the really slow ones first, then plant the annuums or faster growing ones next.. the annuums will catch up to the superhots pretty fast.. so might have to wait a week extra between those 2 or something like that
 
For me, I only use heat mat for germinating. Then seedlings go under the lights, which provides some warmth (75-ish), but also a cool cycle at night when off (62-ish). They grow slower, but healthy. I've still got a couple of months inside to go also, so no real need for monsters size yet.

Can't argue with your "success" though, those are beauties. Nicely done, and it's good to have a grow sequence like that in your back pocket if you need rapid growth. You can top some of those and it will result in more branches forming later.

Your other question: it's great to stagger grow starts. Some varieties really need that early start just to insure getting pods by late September. It does create some logistical problems, but easier to manage if staged out. The exact timing is not science, more of an edumacated guess what Spring will bring--so even more reason to start at various times until you know for sure in your plant out area.
 
i have 18 assorted pepper plants myself in red cups about 2in. high. trying to only give them 6 to 8 hrs. of light a day.first week of may is a long way away.
 
mikesacc said:
i have 18 assorted pepper plants myself in red cups about 2in. high. trying to only give them 6 to 8 hrs. of light a day.first week of may is a long way away.
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would that cause leaf drop having that little amount of light time? or no? I haven't seen much info on here with anyone having less than 12 so I'm curious as to what would happen with light time so short
 
Ok, thanks for the advice, which I am following, I am keeping temps down during the day, mid 60's and off the heat mat and light, but in a window with natural indirect light. I have noticed and treated all for ahpids under the leaves using malathion (that stuff smells nasty) but it seems to knock them down good. Is there anything else that really works ? One or two applications tops ? The soaps and other natural organic treatments I used had limited effect. A little tip, put paper towels around the dirt and hold upside down to spray them, I used synthetic gloves too, then isolated area under a gentle fan until dry. They don't smell now. I will check again in a few days, I guess I need to invest in a jewelers loop to get a close up and personal look at the plants to see if the little buggers come back. Last question, once the temps reach the low 80's do these things (aphids) explode and you have to hit them again hard ?

Ghosty... :shocked:
 
Indirect light only? Hmmm, personally I would keep them under the light. Just get rid of the bottom heat.

Some aphid killing products that get mentioned a lot: Bonide Fruit Nut and Orchard Spray, Azamax, and Neem oil.
 
Yumyumyellow said:
If you turn down the duration of light I think you could risk forcing the plants into flowering and stunt their vegetative growth.
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Nope.. Peppers are not affected by photoperiod.. They are photoperiod independent.. They flower when they flower regardless of day length.. They are not like Short Day Plants (aka mums, etc) that flower late summer / fall as the days get shorter..
 
Siliman said:
Some aphid killing products that get mentioned a lot: Bonide Fruit Nut and Orchard Spray, Azamax, and Neem oil.
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Have you used any of the 4 you mentioned ? If not, what did you do to keep the little buggers from hatching in the first place, expose the soil to a short gamma ray burst before using the soil !? lol.

Welcome to the jungle... I included the window frame to give you a true idea of plant size.



Ghosty...
 
ghosty said:
Have you used any of the 4 you mentioned ? If not, what did you do to keep the little buggers from hatching in the first place, expose the soil to a short gamma ray burst before using the soil !? lol.
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Actually, I'm lucky so far--no aphids or gnats this year, unlike my biblical battles last year. Thinking aphids usually hitchhike inside, I took extreme precautions with my overwinter plants--I basically stripped them, washed them to the roots, then Neem + soap mix coverage of the entire plants one time prior to coming inside. Check out my "Yet Another Overwinter Thread" for more details.

The only grow medium I bring into the house is ProMix BX and Hoffmans Starter Mix. Chances of getting bad bugs are greatly reduced with higher quality growing mediums.

Finally, I laid down some Diatamaceous Earth in the window sills in the grow area. It's mainly a gnat-deterrent, but any aphids happening along will also meet their doom.

So I really haven't tried those I mentioned except the Neem initially. But the others get pretty good reviews. BigCedar is adamant about the effectiveness of the 'Bonide Fruit & Orchard Spray.' He has had zero aphids with it. Last year, I mostly used the insecticidal soaps, but as you know, require a lot of repeat applications, especially as you get more foliage.

Keep up the good fight! Last year, I finally got my plants into my mini-greenhouse outside--and unleashed 1000 ladybugs--they totally wiped the out aphid civilization in 2 days. Epic!
 
Ghostly, have you considered making a cold frame for them? I've never tried it with my peppers, but it might work. Temps over the next few weeks will be in the 40's and 50's during the day, and sunny, so the cold frame will get well into the 60's, provided that it gets a lot of sunlight. You can bring them in at night to keep them from getting too cold.
 
yeah, I have been looking up what happens if the plants get root bound because I have plants in 1 gallon containers that had roots starting to come out the bottom about a month ago, and I plan on keeping them in for another month or 2 , but from what I have read, the plants basically stop growing, they live, but they don't put out any new growth and to get them to grow more once you transplant them, you need to prune the roots a little..

I got some very small trees from the Arbor Day Foundation and they had a little brochure saying if the plant you get is root bound (if you had ordered larger tree ect..) then you just take a box cutter knife and put a cut down the sides (like an X, but without going deep), and I didn't realize why until I read more about it, and when you prune the roots, it can be difficult because you don't want to cut the "main" root from what I have read, and it is really hard to tell where it is sometimes, if you just go hacking in, but I guess the quick and shallow cuts on each side of the roots would kind of break up the roots and force them to start healing/growing again..

but with that said, I transplanted one of the Bulgarian Carrots that I noticed that just stopped growing peppers (there are about 20 or so on there, with about another 20-30 started, where the flower has fallen off, and there is a tiny pepper in there, but it hasn't really started growing), so I liked that pepper had had room to put just that one into a bigger bucket and saw that really.. it wasn't even close to being root bound.. yes there were a lot of roots.. but root bound is (from what I have looked up) is when the roots essentially take over every available space in the soil/container, which usually takes a few years for most plants.. so I feel much better about leaving my plants in 1 gallon containers until May,

although those really should be in 1 gallon containers pretty soon. by April I would stick them in 1gallon containers and put them outside in a mini greenhouse.. and if you don't have one, it's only for those plants so just get some clear plastic cover (like that stuff that people put on the ground when they are painting) and make a little box and cover it with the plastic.. and at night just bring them in
 
Root bound plants tend to produce less and won't grow as large. It usually won't have any ill effects on the health of the plant unless it is severely root bound but in general the more room you have for your plants' roots the larger and more productive they will grow.
 
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