Madcap76's Glog 2012

Nice!!
That's a lot of serious heat!!

You ain't kidddin me 1k is a lot of heat...

That IS a ton of heat. Are you plannin on enclosing that space once they start to pop up?

MGOLD86 said:

That IS a ton of heat. Are you plannin on enclosing that space once they start to pop up?

Click to expand...

To be honest I was unprepared for how much heat the light was going to put out. I knew they were hot but DAMN!

I did some experiements before planting any seed to see how bad the temps were going to get...glad I did. My grow area is in an uninsulated, unheated portion of my basement, so ambient temps are about 60-65 degrees. The heating mat took almost 2 days to bring the flats up to 77 degrees.



I started with the flats about 3 feet below the light. Within 30 minutes the flats were up to about 98 degrees!!!

After turning everything off and letting the temps cool down I restarted a couple of feet lower. Still had temps at 90 degrees or so. My final adjustment as seen in the first post has the flats about 5 feet below the light and temps top out at 86 degrees with the domes on after 12 hours, so I keep the domes slightly propped open. Temps in the root plug read 80 degrees and have been stable for 5 hours now.

That's some serious lighting firepower! I like how you are measuring temps and making adjustments. Should be a heck of a good grow when you get it dialed in....

So...one week in and soil temps have been around 85 degrees with the light on and steady at 75 degrees via the heating mat. Some good results so far...





First Moruga seedlings



King Naga showing up earlier than expected



Jonah seedling



Fatalii seedling

Looks like you did your home work and as Siliman said making adjustment until its just right, Keep this up and your going to have a dynamite season. great Job!

SC

Another view of the Fatalii (Red Savina in the background)



Red Savina coming along nicely



Douglah also coming up

The Jamaican Chocolates and Barrackapores are just getting fuzzy, I think there may be some popping up tomorrow.

Only one of the 12 Butch T's are looking like they are going to sprout. Some of the seeds looked doubtful before planting and are looking more dubious now. I figure I will give them another couple of weeks before I re-plant the rapid rooters with something else.

I have some foil wrapping paper that I plan on covering some cardboard to make a simple reflector once the seedlings all come up. I may have to repost inder the 'ghetto-grows' once I get thatup in place!

Here's an update from the past week!



Morugas showing some new growth (6/12 germinated)



Morugas are coming along nicely



Jonahs with a hint of purple on the leaves (11/12 germinated)



23/24 germination on my Fataliis!



Another view of the Fataliis, Jamaican Chocolate (21/24 germinated) and Red Savina (21/24 germinated) at the top



Butch Ts only had a few sprout (4/12 germinated)



Here's a Barrackapore that had theseed stuck...my 'help' went awry and I don't think it is going to make it



Another Barrackapore ready to pop up any day now (4/12 germinated)

Forgot to take pics of the Douglah - also very purple tinged (6/12 germinated) and King Naga (11/12) germinated

So here's a question...as you can see in the photos there is some green slime mold on the surface of the Rapid Rooters. Is this something that I should be concerned about or will trying to 'cure' the issue cause more problems than it's worth?

Been a while sine the last update, but I've been having some pretty good results so far.

Seedlings started outgrowing the starter flats so I moved up to red plastic cups. I now have a total of 132 plants coming along! I may have to 're-negotiate' my plans for the backyard with my wife!

Butch T = 4
Moruga Scorpion = 6
King Naga = 10
Barrackapore = 4
Douglah = 5
Jonah = 11
Fatalii = 27
Jamaican Chocolate = 22
Red Savina = 21
Durign the lastsauce making we processed some 15 pounds of fresh Thai peppers. Just for fun I took the seeds from one pepper in a tupperware to see if I could get any sprouts...now I have 22!

I'm saw some slight scalding after the seedlings were transplanted, but everything so far has shown new growth. I'm keeping the lights on a 14/24 cycle as I still have 2 months before I can put these suckers outside and as you can see space is getting tight.



A wide shot of my plants at day 38.



Ran out of room, so you have to improvise!



One of my Butch Ts coming along.



Close up of the superhots...King Naga up front, Morugas on the left, and the Butch Ts in the background.



A close up of one of my Jamaican Chocolate Habs.

Day 49 into my season and things are looking great! We have about 2 more months before it will be safe to move outside...I think I may outgrow my grow area well before then!



I repurposed some cardboard boxes and reflective wrapping paper to make a cheap reflective enclosure to maximize the light. I know, not as effective as mylar but for the price (<$5) it was right.







Here's the Superhots - Butch T, Moruga, King Naga, Barrackapore, Douglah, and Jonah.



Detail of some of my 7 Pots.



View of one of my Red Savinas.



Close-up of one of my Jamaican Chocolates.



Some of my 'found' Thai pepper seeds.





Even the late transplants on the shelf are coming along!

Been a while since the last post, but here's some pics from day 65 (03/27/12).



Butch T's and Moruga's



King Naga



Thai



Rapidly outgrowing the table!

And more pics from day 78 (04/09/12)...



I think I've outgrown the Solo cups...each plant was laying down after a day and a half without constant watering



Problem solved! Picked up 40 1 gallon and another 40 2 gallon pots



King Naga - First one to get potted-up



King Naga - showing some serious root growth



Took a couple of hours but I did get about 30 plants potted-up.

Next up is hardening off, creating the raised beds, and another round of transplanting!

It's been another busy couple of months, but I've had some good progress...

Pics from day 110 (05/11/12)



Plants lined up and hardened off.



One of the first Red Savina pods in the basement.



More of the Red Savina pods.



Fatalii pods developing nicely.



Plants still in the basement.



Thai pods growing well too.



Here's the 'before' photo for the raised beds.



To give you an idea where it should all end up.

Had to wait until Memorial Day weekend to get started on the beds as I was in Deleware for the Peppers At The Beach show. The entire week leading up to Memorial Day weekend was incredibly hot with temps up into the 90s every day. Memorial Day weekend was more of the same, but I have to get the beds installed. These pics are from day 125 (05/26/12 - 05/27/12).



Jonah pod.



Jamaican Chocolate pods.



Red Savina - covered with pods!



Spent all Saturday tilling to prepare the lovely St. Louis clay for the beds. The beds themselves are 4'x24'x12" with lanes of just under 4' in-between. I used angle brackets on the inside corners and a combination of 3" and 1 5/8" screws to hold it all together. In between the beds I laid down landscape fabric. Mowing the backyard is going to take about 5 minutes this summer!

Definately the wrong weekend to do a project like this - 95+ degree heat. Caught a delightful sunburn for my trouble!

Today the soil arrived - had to move a total of 12 cubic yards out of the alleyway as they couldn't drop off it on the car pad due to the overhead power lines and otherwise tight alleyway. Managed to get it all out of the way in about 5 hours. Much nicer this weekend as a front came in on Thursday and our temps came back down to a reasonable 75 degrees. These pics were taken on day 132 (06/02/12).



Moruga Scorpion pods - those pimples are looking scary!



A MONSTER of a Moruga pod!



Soil in the beds. Hopefully tomorrow will still be nice and I can get some plants in the beds.