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Better late than never grow log

Well, sometimes life gets in the way... Got child #2 on the way here (due in 2 weeks) so with all the crazyness of getting ready for that all of my best laid plans during the fall were out the door by christmas.

Anyhow, I managed to get a cheapie hydrofarm germination plastic bin and lid set up ordered on amazon a week an a half ago, picked a few seeds from the collection I got from the generous members on this board and spring into action as soon as my stuff arrived.

Goat Weed
Heritage Big Jim
Brain Strain
Butch T

were the lucky contestants that made the cut for my first try at growing from seeds (have several years of chile gardening from the seedling stage on under my belt already though).

The story so far:
Soaked the seeds in a h2o2 + h2o mix overnight on April 12th, get them planted into some generic seed starting mix from a gardening store on April 13th. To my surprise two days later some green mold showed up so I did my best to get some airflow and dry it out a bit without letting the temps fall too low. When it looked too dry I bottom watered with 9 to 1 ratio of water to h2o2.

April 18th several Heritage Big Jim's poking through the top of the seed starting mix and one Goat Weed

April 19th (today) much too my surprise I have 3 Butch T's poking through! wasn't expecting any superhots to show until much later.


However, I've noticed everything popping up has a yellowish tinge to it, should I be worried? Indicative of some kind of problem?? Pictures below.

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Also since I'm so far behind, wondering what I can do to speed things up as much as possible.

Weather here the next week looks to be highs in 80's and 90's lows in high 50's low 60's.... though highs in the mid 70s and lows in the low 50s/high40's are more the norm. When is the soonest I can get these guys outdoors?
 
Click to expand...
Not uncommon for yellow appearence especially if the sprouts popped when the lights were off. Just pour as much light as you can until you're able to plant out...That will help catch up with the later start

Congrats on the future new addition to the family

Greg
 
Think I could get away with taking the sprouts out in the sun when its in the 80's during the day?

I'm thinking not till they are a little older right? I have an old dual tube fuoro shop light lying around in the garage, so took that + some reflective space blanket cut it up and ghetto rigged it up to quasi-seal in some light until I figure out what to do.
 
Well I have great germination on my heritage big jim's, so I'm going to do a little experiment this weekend. Take half of them out in the shade once it gets to the high 70's/low 80's, and put an vented dome over them to save moisture. See what happens... if they all die I'll still have the other half under lights.
 
Just wanted to throw in a quick update while I remember. This past weekend it was mid to high 80's and I put one group of my heritage big jims outside in the shade from ~11am-5pm with a clear plastic ventilated dome over them(at the edge of the shade so they were hopefully getting indirect light). I was a little hesitant to put them out there since they just started poking out of the seed starting mix 3 days prior.

However, the results are in and the outside group is clearly ahead of the group that stayed inside under the lights. (pics when I get a chance).

So hopefully I'll be able to get them out for sunset light this week if I get home from work early enough, since its clearly doing them some good even at this early stage..
 
I was getting such great results with these outdoors I kept bringing them out as much as possible in an attempt to make up for lost time. Was working great, but I left them outside on a hot weekend day and went for a walk with my daughter. The walk went way over the amount of time I planned to spend, and the direct sun toasted them and they are a total loss.

On a happier note I was pleasently surprised that my local nursery had branched out from just their normal vendors and are now carrying more "exotic" (to most people not to people on THP) tomatoes and peppers than ever before. I was shocked and picked up a Fatali and a few other hot peppers, so all is not lost for this season, as I will be adding these to my overwintered peppers that are doing great despight the extreme neglect and assassination attempts I gave them.

After doing some reflecting about the logistics that need to happen to get a good season out of peppers starting from seed, I think it will be highly unlikely for me to do starting from seed ever, if I have to do it all in one season. I just don't have the time, space and lights to pull it off. However, I don't want to be at the mercy of my local nursery or having to buy way more than I need from a company that will ship me seedlings.

After thinking about how well my overwintered plants did, and how well I was able to germinate plants, I am going to be trying a different approach than most.

Again my main problems are: 1. lack of space for lights, fans and other equipment to grow seedlings indoors 2.lack of time to keep them under a constant watch and bring them inside and outside consistently 3. lack of selection from buying from a nursery

So under these constraints I will be starting from seed again using diluted h2o2 soil mix and a heating pad in my garage once temps are good outside. By waiting for temps to be good outside I can put them directly outside in a low direct sun area right when they are germinated without worrying about bringing them in at night. The season will be too short for pods this year so I will just try and get the plants thick and strong with good healthy roots probobly just pick off the flowers to focus the energy on the plant. Then overwinter them outside since our winters are so mild here its pretty easy to keep them alive. I abused the heck out of my peppers overwintering them this year and they came back great so this is my new plan.... so maybe batch 2 should get their own "2013" grow log and I'll get the jump on all of you non overwintering THP'ers ;). The rest of this log will just be my store bought seedlings and my 2011 overwinters.

Thanks to Guru for convincing me to try overwintering and making this idea possible, since there's just no way I think I would be able to pull off single-season growing from seed under my current constraints.
 
Welcomed a new baby boy into the family on Friday, and with the start of my paternity leave today the new contenders for "even later start 2012" are:

Butch T
Goat Weed
Brain Strain
Douglah
Red Scotch Bonnet
Orange Peach Rocotto
Pimento
Heritage Big Jim
Cayenne


I have several seedlings and overwinters out in my beds already so there will be no shortage for 2012, seedlings already in the ground:
Fatalii x2
Caribbean Red x2
Aji Cito
Hungarian Hot
Paprika
 
Congrats on your newborn :)

Good luck with the season, hope it goes great :)

What is that Paprika seedling that you have?
In my country Paprika is the namename of the Capsicum genus)

Is it Alma Paprika?
http://www.cherrygal.com/pepperspicyalmapaprikaheirloomseeds2009-p-5064.html
 
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