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Jeff's glog 2013- Season is over.

So this is a little late in the year to start a glog, but what the heck, better late than never.

Last week I picked a few plants to take inside over the winter and I started a bunch of new seedlings that seem to be doing great.

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Here we have a Hot paper lantern, and orange hab and two jalapenos. They were the only ones that made the cut to get taken to the new grow room. The paper lantern is a favorite because it is as hot as the orange hab, but without that hab flavor that I am not a huge fan of. I guess the only real reason the orange hab is here is if I decide to make a hot sauce over the winter and need a citrus tasting pepper. Other than that, I'm not a big fan. the japs were kept because the local grocery store can't seem to stock japs with any heat at all.


These are the seedlings planted in the last few weeks.

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There are Bhuts, Fataliis, Tobasco, and Bohemian peppers. I have more seeds due to arrive in a day or two that should have some Butch Ts, giant jalapenoes, roma tomatoes and Cilantro.

The goal of that seed batch is to keep enough fresh tomato and peppers to make scalding hot salsa all winter long.

I plan on putting the tomato plant in a hanging arrangement in the corner of the room.




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this is the first paper lantern to ripen under the HPS light. It looks more orange than red. The ones from the summer were bright red...I wonder if it has something to do with the light, or maybe it needs to ripen a bit more.


That's all for now. I'll post an update when I have more time.
 
600w HPS light from http://www.hpsgrowlightsonline.com/complete-grow-lights-set/600w-grow-lights-set/600w-hpsmh-digital-ballast-air-cool-hood-grow-lights-set.html
 
Update,
Last night I lined the walls with mylar to reflect the light around better to the lower leaves. The room is so bright now, it is painful to walk into until you get used to it.

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The larger plants seem to be doing well. There is about 20+ pods on the paper lantern that were on the plant when I brought it inside and they all look to be still growing; same with the jalapenos and the hab is flowering like mad, but no pods that I can see yet.



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The new seedlings seem to be growing nicely. The leaves on the Fatallis are huge considering those plants are the same age as everything but the Bhuts. Speaking of the Bhuts, all 4 seeds germinated in 9 days or so. Based on what I have read here, I was only expecting to get one or two after a month or more. I'm pleased. I'll split them up into seperate pots in the near future and grow all 4 of them.

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Found your glog! Great indoor setup you've got there. If I had to do that will all of my new starts, I'd be screwed! Looks like you'll have pods all winter long. Just the thing to stay warm in those Ohio winters. Good luck!
 
Ok, time to update this glog 3+ weeks later.

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Most plants are growing well. Some faster than others.

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Freshly sprouted Butch Ts.

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The largest of the 4 ghost peppers.

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All of the Fatallis are doing great. They are the healthiest of all of the plants.

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quite a few ripening Paper lanterns (one of my favorite hot peppers).


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Lots of new Japs. Its hard to keep these on the plant until they get plenty of corking. My son keeps picking them for pizza topings.

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A couple of tools.
It stays a pretty consistent 76 degrees on the grow room when the lights are on and doesn't cool down too much when the are off. The water meter I found was essential for indoor growing. These plants don't take anywhere near as much water as they did outside. I was way over watering them. Now that I can measure it, I barely water the big plants once a week.

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I haven't watered the hab in at least 5 days, maybe a week.


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I lost a good amount of new growth on the hab. Leaves just curled up and shriveled. I attributed it to over watering. I'll be keeping an eye on this on to see if it improves.

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Basil clone. Not a lot of new growth yet, but it is still alive after 2 weeks in water and two weeks in soil.
 
I haven't updated this in a couple of weeks, so here goes.

All of the plants I started from seed are doing great.

Overall shot:
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This is the biggest of the 4 Bhut Jolakia plants:
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This is the biggest of the 5 Fataliis:--This one is about twice the size of the smallest one. Planted on the same day, in the same soil. Seems weird that some grow strong and others barely grow.

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2 out of 3 Butch Ts sprouted. It is about time to separate these into two different pots before their roots get too intertwined.
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The tobasco plants are doing great as well. Do you think that maybe the epsom salt concentration was a bit high??? :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: I'll dilute it a bit more the next time I spray the plants.
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Hand pollinating the jalapenos seems to work better than letting nature take care of it. This plant has never had a concentration of fruit on it this large all summer. This is one of 3 clusters on that plant. I've been letting the soil dry out almost completely between watterings to stress them a bit so they are hotter than the ones that grew over the summer.
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I think I did have one casualty. The paper lantern started dropping all of its leaves a couple of weeks ago and I'm not sure why. All of the new growth died off so I trimmed it way back and am just keeping an eye on it for a while to see what happens. I did harvest about 20 pods before all this happened, but it will be sad to see this plant go.

I suspect I over watered it, because I didn't clean off all of the clay off of the roots when I brought it inside. I did wash them off a few days ago and repotted it, but it might be too late.
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All it not lost though, I did get two good clippings that I am trying to clone. There is new growth on both sticks, but no roots yet. I have to remember to change the water every couple of days to keep it oxygenated.

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Out of the last bunch of pods, I cut out the seeds of the ripest ones and let them dry for a few days and stuck them in the soil.

So far two have sprouted. They may be hybrids, but maybe not. I guess it will be a few months until I find that out.

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That is it for now.
 
Small update on black Friday.

Did some repotting of the largest of the little plants and put them in 3 quart pots that I got free from a landscaping company.

I didn't think the plants were that big to have circling roots already, but you can see them in the pic.
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After the repotting, here is a couple of the happier Tobascos.
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The two largest Fataliis.
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Two largest Bhut Jolakais.
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I had a couple of tags come off earlier this year so I won't know if this is a tobasco of a bohemiam bird pepper until the fruit ripens, but it is growing nicely.
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Roma tomatoes and a basil clone both seem happy and were both getting root bound in the smaller pots.
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A couple of the ripe jalapenoes I just picked. The two mature jalapenoes I have still have a ton of smaller fruit and seem to take longer to grow and ripen under the light vs. outside but they are still growing and pretty happy.
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I'm pretty sure this one didn't survive though. With a pretty healthy case of root rot, I finally cut about 1/2 of its roots off and most of the rest of the plant was cut back in an effort to same the plant, but it is probably too late. I'll give it another week of two before I write its eulogy though, it might come back. If I do loose it, I'm hoping that can save the clones I started as this plant was heading south. Neither have roots yet, but one is at least showing the promise of new growth. I also have several seedlings growing already in case they all die.
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Seedlings and young plants look happy and healthy. That Jal has nice corking, too. Sorry to hear about the OW's that aren't making it. I lost a few plants earlier in the year to root rot. It seems once it starts, it's game over no matter what you do. Hopefully the clones will take. Looks like you will have a huge head start come spring time!
 
I lost a few plants earlier in the year to root rot. It seems once it starts, it's game over no matter what you do.

I agree Doc, it is something that doesn't appear to be able to be stopped, but it was worth the effort to try although there is still no sign of life in that pot at all.

The clones are iffy at this point. I finally got to the hydro store and picked up some Clonex so that I could get the cuttings out of water and into the soil and I have one in a rapid rooter and one in soil. They both look pretty ill now, but they may pop back to life. We'll see. No worries though, I have 3 seedlings that have popped from the seeds though so the growing will continue.
 
It amazes me how much water the leaves can take up when cloning. My most recent try included a cutting from my Thai Dragon. The next morning the entire main stem was wilted over like a wet noodle. I thought it was a goner. Misted the leaves and a couple of hours later it was upright again. Amazing. Clonex really seems to work. I've never been able to root a cutting of anything. My first try with an Aji Panca cutting in soil grew roots and is making new leaf growth.
 
Well, the Paper Lantern and both of the clones are officially dead and I lost one scotch bonnet seedling to damp rot the other day so it hasn't been the most productive week in the basement garden, but the rest of the plants are thriving and the paper lantern seedlings are all growing nicely.

One lesson learned this fall/winter: be very careful watering because they don't use near as much water as they do outside. Little plants in a big pot seem like they only need to be watered every 7-10 days. Smaller pots more frequently, but it is very easy to over water these things and you don't really notice it until your new growth starts to shrivel and you see some brown spots on the drooping leaves.

Pics on my next update.
 
Looking good, Jeff. You are right about the watering. It's easy
to overdo inside. Outside in sun and wind, not so bad. Good
luck getting those cuttings going!
 
Jeff, nice glog, Fatallis, Jalapeños look great! Sad to read about your paper lantern, it looked so good when you shot it with all the pods on. Have you identified the cause or is this just one of the risks that can happen when you have to bring them in for winter? Nice to read that you cloned it, so when I read they officially died … I can feel your pain, I get the same feeling when mine die :/ There’s so little I know about growing in the north or indoors, you guys that do it are awesome :) Oh the babies look very good, healthy looking leaves … looking forward to seeing your updates.
 
Thanks for stopping in Paul and WalkGood.

Have you identified the cause or is this just one of the risks that can happen when you have to bring them in for winter?

Root rot. Happens from over watering. It can happen from over watering just once if the roots don't get enough oxygen. I have a couple of the smaller plants suffering from minor case of over watering, but nothing as bad as the paper lantern.

You are right about the watering. It's easy
to overdo inside.

Yep, very easy.

Hard to draw the line between dry enough and too dry because the small plants don't have much reserve if they get too dry or if they get too wet. My room that is basically a 5x6' closet probably makes the situation worse without any air movement unless the fan is running.

I'm doing some research on how to make this a little easier to manage. I'll post more info as I get it.
 
Okay, finally had some time to take a few pictures for a small update.

Fataliis are doing great. Healthy plants and quite a few flowers. No pods though, these early flowers don't seem to have any pollen.

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Another Fatalii shot. There is 5 of the fataliis growing right now. I was going to thin them to three for next years grow, but given my recent trend to kill plants, I didn't want to purposefully get rid of healthy ones so I'll keep all 5 until I kill 1 or 2 by accident.

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Bhut Jolokia. Coming along nicely. Again, flowering, but no pods yet.

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trinidad Scorpion Butch T.

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Here is a show of a blooming Tobasco. This one has some rood damage that caused several of the leaves to shrivel and most of the grow tips died. Other than that, the plant looks healthy, but isn't showing any new growth. I don't know what it is about the root rot, but even if you stop it, it doesn't seem like the plants ever continue to flourish. I have a few plants like this, and if they don't improve, they will get chucked.

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New Cayanne sprouts. looking healthy....so far.

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In the other room, on a heating pad are the rest of the seeds. Just planted them yesterday, so we'll see what pops. The germination rate has been pretty good for me in soil, but I wanted to give these rapid rooters a try and see how they worked. It stays a consistent 72 degrees under the dome with the heating pad on low.

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Finally getting a chance to update this glog. Been pretty busy over the last month or so.

Anyway, here we go. After battling a nasty case of fungus gnats that killed or stunted a ton of plants, I have new seedlings growing and a few survivors showing new growth. I'm keeping the fly tape up for the rest of the indoor season to monitor if and when the scoundrels come back.




Paper Lantern recovering from the fungus gnats. It only had one leaf left once I finally got the larva killed.
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Two Cayannes to the left growing nicely and a tobasco to the right is also recovering.

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Some shots of the larger plants. These were planted in late Sept and early Oct and were too large to be affected by those fungus gnats.

Butch T is the tallest of them all. Flowering like crazy but no fruit yet.
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The Fatalii and Bhut forrest: There is 6 plants total back here all in 2.25 gallon pots which is as large as they will get until they go outside in the spring. Between the HPS light and the mylar on the walls, it is hard to get a good pic of the forest. Several tries and this was the best pic.

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I pulled out one of the Fataliis so you could get a view of how much it is branching out. This thing will be huge by Sept.

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the total list of plants has finally been determined and all of them are planted except the last one which we have to save for the competition. Here is what I will have growing this year:

  • 7 pot yellow
    7 pot Brainstrain
    Trinidad Scorpion Butch T
    Bhut Jolokia red
    Fatalii
    Paper Lantern
    Yellow Scotch bonnets
    Orange Hab
    Tobasco
    Cayanne
    Mucho Nacho Jalapenos
    Peter pepper
    Jalapenos
    Bohemian pepper
    Tepin
    Pequin
    Monzano
    Orange Thai
    Prik Kee Noo Suan

Some seedlings that sprouted about a week ago or so.

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Hopefully the last batch of seeds. A couple have sprouted, but not many.

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Last but not least, I'm trying a few hydro plants this winter. I had a Bhut that was not happy at all with being in soil and a Butch T that was severely stunted by the fungus gnats. They have been in the hydro tanks for 2 weeks now and are both showing a ton of new growth that I haven't seen out of either of these plants in a month or so. The hydro is doing a nice job of giving the plants an environment to repair their roots. As it stands now, I plan to have 6 total hydro plants to take outside in the spring. Here are the first two:

Bhut Jolokai with a ton of new growth sprouts:
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Miniature stunted Butch T. Planted at the same time as the giant one at the beginning of this update. It has grown about 1/2" in the last two weeks which is better than it has done in a while.

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