Sawyer's 2013 Glog - Last Harvest/First Sauce

Sawyer · Feb 21, 2013

Sanarda said:
That set up is awesome. Very ingenious and great germ on seedlings. keep up the good grow

Thanks, Pia.

Ok, here is a pic of some of my pathetic OWs. There are six red bhuts altogether, all looking pretty much the same. Certainly nothing to brag about, but they are still alive. While it doesn't really show up in the picture, there are a lot of little buds along the stems that I ~~think~~ hope will soon turn into new foliage, so I'm also hoping for some nice "after" shots. This is the "before". As noted somewhere above, these plants had leaves until some unknown critter decided not only to invite itself into my house, but also to perform an unrequested pruning job. Interestingly, it hasn't been back (that I can tell) since it made off with some Naga Morich pod pieces I had placed around as a repellent. The Naga Morich (qty 1) is also an OW, but I haven't gotten a decent shot of it yet.

Sawyer · Feb 22, 2013

I've kind of hit a lull in germination. I think I let the germination shelf get too warm. I made a clear plastic covered "lid" to cover the flats at night when the lights are off to keep in some heat, but left it in place for a couple of days during the day. That was a mistake as the temperature went off the top of my 84º F maximum scale.

I also think too-warm conditions can lead to an excess of helmet heads. Has anyone else noticed this? There are two kinds. One kind looks like the seed germinated normally, but just grew in such a way the seed hull didn't get pulled off as the seedling pushed up through the growing medium. This could come from seed orientation in the mix or not planting deep enough. These are easy to remove. The second type seems to be the result of the tap root popping out ahead of cotyledon development. The seed gets pushed up above the soil, but the cotyledons are not well developed and the seed hull adheres very tightly to them. These are almost impossible (for me) to remove the seed hull without damaging the cotyledons. I think this latter type is caused by too-warm conditions because I got a bunch of them when I let things get too warm. What do you guys and gals think?

Anyway, hopefully I'll get my second seed shipment tomorrow and get the lower germination shelf into the game. Even if the seeds don't arrive, I have plenty of bhut jolokias to start as well as a few others and then quite a bit of non-pepper stuff.

Finally, those green sticks above are definitely putting out some tiny little leaf buds. With another few days of sunlight (which we haven't had much of lately), they should be looking much better.

3/5King · Feb 23, 2013

I don't know what the reason is but I seem to get tons of helmet heads. Both varieties too; the ones that just didnt make it off all the way and then the ones that just shot up and are still fully enclosed around the coyts. Bastards.

WalkGood · Feb 25, 2013

Whoa, I don't look for a few days and read "up to 100 seedlings now ..." well you've shot right past me, nice!

“I also think too-warm conditions can lead to an excess of helmet heads. Has anyone else noticed this?” I agree with your not deep enough planting statement, I replanted two of the first three I got this winter a little deeper and they came up off. So I’m not sure I agree with the warm condition theory but what the hell does WG know, hehe … I also used Greg’s method to remove 2 that came off fine and later got raccooned :/ but I’ve got more and sure you do as well. Great updates and keep them seedlings safe

Sawyer · Feb 25, 2013

Thanks, WG. I'm still in a bit of a holding pattern right now. I've had some new sprouts, but I've lost a few trying to remove the helmets. Is Greg the one misting the helmets and using pliers to pull them off? If so, I tried that and it works well for the "normal" helmets, but the second type (that I attribute to too-warm conditions) aren't so amenable. I've killed several trying to take those off. I'm finally getting the temperature under control and noticed this morning, more sprouts are showing their hooks.

I also broke down Saturday and fed the babies. The seedlings have just been standing there for several days and that just didn't seem right. So I fed them with a dilute mixture of Peter's 10-30-20 soluble and Peter's STEM. Almost overnight, they are now showing their first true leaves. I thought my mix had a starting charge for seedlings, but apparently not.

I brought in 8 more flats (not all for peppers) from outside storage this morning. It's going to be cold and wet here for the next several days, so I wanted to get something in to keep me occupied and get some more seeds started. I'll update the grow list when I actually get them planted. Was going to do that yesterday, but watched the Daytona 500 instead. Good race.

Edit - corrected 10-20-30 to 10-30-20.

WalkGood · Feb 25, 2013

Sawyer said:
Thanks, WG. I'm still in a bit of a holding pattern right now. I've had some new sprouts, but I've lost a few trying to remove the helmets. Is Greg the one misting the helmets and using pliers to pull them off? If so, I tried that and it works well for the "normal" helmets, but the second type (that I attribute to too-warm conditions) aren't so amenable. I've killed several trying to take those off. I'm finally getting the temperature under control and noticed this morning, more sprouts are showing their hooks.

Yes Greg is Pic1 … the one’s I didn’t do that method with (would have been impossible) I buried deeper after the fact all came up fine in a few days, but that was only 2 and they’re doing great now with true leaves.

Sawyer said:
… Was going to do that yesterday, but watched the Daytona 500 instead. Good race.

Dam I missed it, was out all day … I use to go every year when I good friend was attending embry riddle aeronautical university, I miss those days …

Sawyer · Feb 25, 2013

WalkGood said:
… the one’s I didn’t do that method with (would have been impossible) I buried deeper after the fact all came up fine in a few days, but that was only 2 and they’re doing great now with true leaves.

Ah, I missed your meaning on that in your previous post. I will try that with the ones that seem to have any hope at all and report back.

Sawyer · Feb 26, 2013

OK, broke down today and made a run to Walmart. Bought some Epsom salt for 88¢. I thought the packaging was... rustic?

Also picked up a few of those cheap thermometers I saw someone else post in another thread:

Took me almost two round trips around the store to find them. When I found them I grabbed a handful of five. At the register, the check-out person noticed one was broken (red liquid stain on the back), so I settled for 4. Got home and found one of the four was also broken. So yeah, they are only 97¢ each, but if you get any, look them over before you pay for them. Also, they are only accurate to within a couple of degrees at best, but better than nothing. I'll put the three good ones at strategic locations around the germination shelf and see how uniform the temperature is. It's a pale shadow of the 12 thermocouple multiple read-out configuration I had in the last temperature-controlled chamber I built, but it'll do.

And I picked up four 10' rolls of 3/4" wide foam weather-stripping on sale for $1/roll. As metioned in the OP, the heater mat is covered with aluminum foil to spread the heat and then a layer of kraft paper to insulate the flats from contact hot spots in the aluminum. The flats were sitting directly on top of that. It didn't really work as hoped. I know some of the kits you can get have a plastic spacer to go between the mat and the flat and I wanted to do something like that. I thought of getting little square dowels from Hobby Lobby, but when I saw the weather stripping on sale, I went for that instead. Once I got home I realized sticking the stripping to the kraft paper probably wouldn't work too well and I didn't want to remove that and the foil. I'm standing there wondering what to do when it suddenly hits me, all I have to do is cut narrow strips from the leftover foam board I made the radiant barrier out of. Duh. Sometimes the answer is literally right there before your eyes. So now the flats are raised up off the mats. I hope this will give me a more uniform temperature across all four flats.

I apologize for the poor quality of these next images. I don't have a macro lens for my camera, so these were taken with me holding a magnifying glass in one hand, the camera in the other, and too much caffeine in my blood. Here's a very shaky shot of a Yellow Scorpion:

And a somewhat shaky shot of a Moruga Scorpion:

And a slightly better shot of a 7 Pot Brown (or three):

I noticed the fuzzy helmet head after I took the picture. It's gone now.

I'm pretty sure at this point, my lighting setup is the weakest link. Three 2-bulb T12 shop lights used to work well, but I can tell by eye these bulbs aren't as bright as they used to be. They are ancient, but dang it, they still work. I've got rolls and rolls of diffent wavelength LED strips and I've been toying with a panel design, but that project is not likely to come to fruition this spring.

PIC 1 · Feb 26, 2013

If the bulbs aren,t as bright buy some new ones.......T12's are pretty cheap. Bring your lights close to the plants.

If they are true shop lighst then they will have quick start all weather electronic ballasts which runs cooler than the magnetic work horses.

Once you get the plants outdoors the sun will take over, but in the meantime pour the light onto the seedlings........you won't regret...

Sawyer · Feb 26, 2013

PIC 1 said:
If the bulbs aren,t as bright buy some new ones.......T12's are pretty cheap. Bring your lights close to the plants.

If they are true shop lighst then they will have quick start all weather electronic ballasts which runs cooler than the magnetic work horses.

Once you get the plants outdoors the sun will take over, but in the meantime pour the light onto the seedlings........you won't regret...

I should probably start by wiping the dust off the ones I have now :doh:

, but yeah, your point is taken. Problem is, some of these bulbs are the old Vitalite Powertwist and as far as I know, you can't get those anymore. I guess it doesn't really matter if they aren't putting out the light.

stc3248 · Feb 26, 2013

Sorry I just found this! I like your MacGyver grow approach! Will be watching from here on out!

Sawyer · Feb 26, 2013

Thanks, Shane. Hopefully I can keep this at least somewhat entertaining. (I'm no chef nor race car driver, though.)

Greg, yes, my lights have the electronic ballasts and run remarkably cool compared to the old style. That much light is still enough to warm the soil a bit. I could raise the flats two or three inches (lights are at lowest position without changing the chains), but it's non-trivial and makes it difficult to access the plants. I need to think about this some more.

Setting the flats on foam board spacer strips seems to have solved my temperature uniformity problem (along with previous efforts). This morning the temperature was 80ºF at the bottoms of the flats, wherever I measured, and 84ºF at the soil surface. Had a few more sprouts. I'm up to around 160 seedlings now, not counting the iffy helmet heads.

stc3248 · Feb 26, 2013

I have a shelf that is not easily adjustable. I have to move everything off/out and take the shelf apart, move the brackets and then put it all back in. Instead of doing this once a week I move the shelf further than I need to and use extra plant trays upside down under them to move the plants up to the light until they get a little bigger then pull the trays out once the plants are big enough. This works very well because if you have some slow movers you can keep them propped up and the bigger plants in a tray without the spacer...

Sawyer · Feb 27, 2013

stc3248 said:
I have a shelf that is not easily adjustable. I have to move everything off/out and take the shelf apart, move the brackets and then put it all back in. Instead of doing this once a week I move the shelf further than I need to and use extra plant trays upside down under them to move the plants up to the light until they get a little bigger then pull the trays out once the plants are big enough. This works very well because if you have some slow movers you can keep them propped up and the bigger plants in a tray without the spacer...

My shelves are fixed, but the lights are hanging by chain from hooks screwed into the PVC frame. At the full length of the chains (where they are now) they are only about 3" or so above the tops of the domes. Not too difficult to adjust the height, but I've given some thought to putting in some pulleys to make it almost trivial to raise and lower. I've finally got my temperatures stabilized with the flats where they are, so I don't want to mess with that by inserting anything else. The seedlings aren't as stout as a lot of the pictures I see here, but they aren't really leggy either, so I'm going to go with what I have for now. Since I have ongoing germination, I'll be potting up the bigger ones as they reach the top of the domes.

I have another half dozen sprouts today. I'll update the total count soon. One of the new sprouts is a TS - Original Strain from Pepper Lover, which made me happy. I was worried about these, because none had sprouted yet, but I think stabilizing the temperature did the trick. I now have at least one of everything in the grow list in the OP, except for the yellow Bhut Jolokia. BJs are slow to sprout anyway, so I'm not giving up hope yet.

The most robust germinations have come from the 7 Pot Brown, TS Yellow, and Moruga Scorpion.

WalkGood · Feb 28, 2013

Sawyer, I got the same epsom salt but got mine at the dollar store so I paid more, lol ... oh and stop taking pics when you're drinking, dem shaky mon

Only kidding, great updates

or is that me on my end drinking too much, lol ...

StupidJerk · Mar 3, 2013

Looking good, dude. PVC sure is fun to play with, like tinker toys for adults.

I grew up in Baxter County, not far from you at all. Good to see another Arkansan, or Arkansawyer if you prefer, on here.

Sawyer · Mar 3, 2013

StupidJerk said:
Looking good, dude. PVC sure is fun to play with, like tinker toys for adults.

I grew up in Baxter County, not far from you at all. Good to see another Arkansan, or Arkansawyer if you prefer, on here.

Agreed on the PVC. Baxter is in one of my two favorite parts of the state, beautiful Ozark Mountains, next to Norfolk and Bulls Shoals lakes. West central is my other favorite part, in the Ouachita Mountains, near Lakes Catherine, DeGray, and Ouachita. I grew up in east LA (east lower Arkansas

) which is a whole 'nother world. Actual L.A. is quite a change for an Arkansawyer. Don't think it would be my thing, but to each his own.

I'm overdue for an update, but I'm also overdue for some potting, sowing, photos, etc. Signing off to deal with that.

Stefan_W · Mar 3, 2013

I really like the lightweight PVC setup! It is definitely something I would copy down the road it I needed to expand.

Your OWs look fine. Most people's Ow look pretty rough, and it is really about keeping them alive until the spring. I stopped posting pics of mine because they are downright embarassing.

Sawyer · Mar 4, 2013

Time for an update. I'm still procrastinating on potting up seedlings. I have many that are into their second set of true leaves and some of them are bumping up against the humidity domes. I've started removing the domes while the lights are on and the seedlings are starting to like that. They didn't like it at all at first and suffered what I guess is best called humidity shock. I had lots of leaf curling and lost a few cotyledons. It occurred within a couple of hours of removing the domes and I didn't do anything else at that time, so I'm pretty sure that's what caused it. I guess it's not surprising, going from essentially 100% humidity to, well, I don't know to what, but based on my dry lips and sinuses, I guess somewhere in the 20s at best. I'm evaporating about 3 gallons of water a day into the air, but it isn't enough... leaky old house.

I finally took Shane's (stc3248) advice and placed the flats on upturned mesh pot carriers to get the plants even closer to the bulbs, and will soon take Greg's (PIC1) advice on replacing at least a couple of my T12 bulbs. (Thanks, guys.) I hate to stop using a bulb that still works, but the output has just dropped too far. I'll move the weak bulbs into the front room to supplement the sunny window where my OWs are located and where potted seedlings will eventually find a home.

Speaking of OWs, they are enjoying the mid-60º F weather here today by sitting outside in the sun (they've been acclimated in the sunny window), now turned cloudy but still warm. They are all showing signs of new leaves, but nothing I'm ready to post a picture of yet.

I am not at all happy with the germination rates I got with some of seeds started back in February. I only got one TS Original and none of the BJ Yellow. I did get a very high percentage on the TS Yellow and 7Pot Brown, but since I didn't keep track of exactly how many seeds I planted, I can't put a number to the percentages. Everything else came in somewhere between those extremes. As soon as I get a chance, I'll update my OP to show how many (likely to survive) plants I have of each.

I also started a bunch of new seeds today. Since my direct sow method yielded unsatisfactory, or at least inconsistent, results, I decided to try the "seeds on a piece of filter paper in a capped plastic cup" method:

Some are new strains for this year's grow and some are replacements for patchy germination in the first planting. They aren't staying where the picture shows, that was just for display. For now, they are tucked in between the upended carriers the flats are on, in a nice 80º-85º F environment. I've updated the OP to show these new strains as well as the number put to soak and the number germinated (so far zero).

Hopefully, I'll have some pics of freshly potted seedlings soon. Thanks for looking in.

stc3248 · Mar 4, 2013

Good luck with the new germ technique...should work for you. Good call on the lights and bulbs. The more light you can get to them the better. I think you're at a turning point, gonna start seeing some big changes on here!