• Blog your pepper progress. The first image in your first post will be used to represent your Glog.

Casper's grow log

This year I decided to try out hydroponics with a single ghost chili plant (which my girlfriend named Casper) in a 3 gallon DWC bucket. I started the seedling some time in March, but only transplanted to the DWC bucket about 3 weeks ago. It was severely root bound and not very happy before then, but has since taken off! The leaves are WAY bigger than any pepper leaves I have ever seen (the largest are about 9 inches long and still growing), and I think it's perfect. The stem went up about 5 or 6 leaves, then split to two, and each of those split into two. The only thing breaking the symmetry is branching at the bottom of the stem, which I have read that I should allow to grow rather than prune. Buds are forming at each of the splits, and I'm letting them go because I don't have a lot of room. I can't wait for the flowers to open up! As of the last day or so the top branches started reaching out, parallel to my lights, rather than up. Not sure what that's about, but everything still looks pretty happy for the most part.



Even bigger! by hithisishal, on Flickr



Whole stem by hithisishal, on Flickr
 
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Man, it looks like your ghost is in seventh heaven! What a beautiful plant.
Now you gotta get some more goin', dude!
 
Looks great!
The lateral growth will come from the heavy hydrated leave.............new growth will fight for the light
 
scratchzilla said:
Looks good. What kind of nutrients are you feeding it?
Click to expand...

I'm feeding it just Maxibloom. Since I don't have many plants and won't use large volumes, I was looking for the a nutrient mix that I could use alone, the whole time. This came in at $15 for a bag (lifetime supply). The first time I filled up my res I used one tsp/gal. Second time I used closer to two. I think it actually grew faster with just one (or maybe now it's just light limited).

PaulG said:
Man, it looks like your ghost is in seventh heaven! What a beautiful plant.
Now you gotta get some more goin', dude!
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Thanks! I don't really have space inside, but one of these days, when I'm in my own place....
I have a couple of plants outside in the ground, but they're not too happy. I have one more seedling that I'm not sure what to do with. The sunniest part of the yard is routinely attacked by gardeners with weedwackers who don't speak english, so I might go for a larger pot/bucket, so it's super obvious that they shouldn't kill it.

PIC 1 said:
Looks great!
The lateral growth will come from the heavy hydrated leave.............new growth will fight for the light
Click to expand...

So do you think I should prune those down? There were a couple of threads on teh grow forum asking about pruning the growth at the base, and most people said not to. Is it the best way to keep a plant small?


Also, two of the largest flower buds at the top of the plant have turned brown and shriveled up before opening. I think everything else still looks healthy. Any ideas? Is this normal? Daytime temperatures have been in the high 80s, to 90s, night time temps down to low 70s. Water tends to go from about 70-75 every day. Humidity is usually ~40%, but I have been leaving some puddles to increase it a bit around the plant.
 
I don't usually prune unless I have too, such as a branch that is dead or dying and wasting plant energy. I find it best to just let nature do it's thing.

That being said, cutting of shoots will cause the rest of the remaining shoots to grow faster and bigger. Remove the lower growth and the top shoots up giving you a taller plant, remove the top and the lower branches will shoot out and give you a bushier plant.
 
Good luck keeping the weed whackers off your chile plant!
 
A somewhat outdated update:



Whole Plant by hithisishal, on Flickr



New shoot by hithisishal, on Flickr

This is from about a week ago. It since outgrew the table that it was on, and I had to mcgyver a new way to hold the light over it. Needless to say, it belongs in the ghetto setup. It gets significantly more sunlight where it is now, though.

I have had 5 flowers open up, and more (including some open ones) drop off. They turn brown and die right at the base of where the bud/flower intercepts the stem. Just that one little point turns brown, and the rest of it looks green and health still when they fall. I have seen the list of 10 or so reasons flowers might fall, but it's hard to know which applies to me. I've been working from home a lot lately, so I don't let the daytime temps get too much above 90, and night time temps are still around 70 or so.
 
So things quickly went downhill for lil' casper. It would not set fruit indoors (probably limited by light, possibly environmental), so I moved it outdoors. Immediately, it started blooming way more, but few flowers bore fruit. Many flowers got attacked by aphids (or some other tiny pest)+ants. I potted it up into a 5 gallon bucket, but did not light seal it, so it got a ton of algae. Also, we had a crazy hot august/september, and the resevior was often over temperature.

I finally got a harvest of 3 pods, and called it, killing him off. Huge plant, but I just didn't really have the space to keep it alive. Maybe I'll try next year, and actually try to care for it. Or I'll just grow something less picky. Here are the final pictures before harvest:



P1000006 by hithisishal, on Flickr



P1000015 by hithisishal, on Flickr



P1000014 by hithisishal, on Flickr
 
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