Chaotianjiao's 2013 Grow Log - A little bit of everything!

Seeing the grow logs on here has inspired me to put up my own. It may not be the most interesting, the most frequently updated, or have the highest scoville units, but I think it will be fun to see how far I've come over the season and track my progress.

I'm growing a lot more peppers this year than last year, including many new-to-me species.

Grow list:

Background on my pepper choices:
Last year all I grew were cayenne, fatalii, and three types of chaotian jiao—the two above and a small thin frutescens that wasn't great. The cayennes didn't turn out as well as in California; they weren't as flavorful. The fataliis amazed me; so much fragrance and flavor with all that heat.

The two chaotian jiao varieties both had great flavor. The one called Sichuan I took seeds from peppers I bought at a Chinese grocery store that were labeled from a Sichuan food company. The one called Tibetan Cascabel I also got from dried peppers from a Chinese market, but I had only ever seen these peppers used in one restaurant in China: Makye Ame, a Tibetan restaurant in Beijing. I never saw them used anywhere else in China. I grew these next to each other, and they may have crossed; my plants were visited by rather industrious Eastern Carpenter Bees all season.

As far as the new varieties, I've never had a baccatum variety before, so I picked one people said was a good introduction to the species. Stores here sell yellow and sometimes orange rocotos, but they always seem soggy, so I wanted to try some home-grown pubescens.

The fataliis last year were so delicious I had to try more chinense, so I went with mako akokosrade and jamaican hot chocolate because people spoke highly of their flavor. Datil, brain strain and red bhut were freebies from pepperlover. I don't know if I'll be able to handle the heat of the two superhots, but I figured I won't know until I try!

Goals:

1. Grow sturdier plants. I didn't prune mine at all last year, and their shapes were all over the place, with many of them getting spindly and weak.
2. Save seeds. I hope to bag some blossoms and save some isolated seeds, enough to grow next year and hopefully enough to share/trade, too!
3. Overwinter my favorites. I had no idea about overwintering until November of last year, when I didn't have enough funds to invest in grow lights. I have lights now, and this year I want to save my favorite plants. Bonchi, anyone?
4. Clone plants. I want to try cloning by taking cuttings. Always been curious about this.

Methods:

• As of now—and this may change based on feedback on my progress—I plan to grow these in containers. I have large grow bags and some large plastic planters I used last year. Last year's soil is going to be remixed with some fresh compost.
• I plan to prune the "Praxxus55172" way to get sturdier plants. I'm also burying my stems to the cotyledons and will bury plants deep. I'll use the pruned bits for cuttings.
• I'm mulling over using bonemeal or other phosphorus fertilizer, but I'm not sure. Would love to hear opinions on this. Some swear by it, others say it means more flowers but not necessarily more fruit.
• If my plants need calcium, I'm going to try making my own calcium acetate from vinegar and CaCO[sub]3[/sub]. I have calcium nitrate that I used on my tomatoes when storms kept giving them end-rot, but I'm afraid this impacted my yield.

Whew! Long post.

Here's some pics of some of the pepper sproutlings so far. They're under a 4' T5 HO.

Goat Weed

Goat Weed Pepper Plants 2013-03-21 by bearsbearsbears, on Flickr

Mako Akokosrade

Mako Akokosrade Pepper Plants 2013-03-21 by bearsbearsbears, on Flickr

Datil

Datil Pepper Plants 2013-03-21 by bearsbearsbears, on Flickr

Bull's heart

Bulls Heart Pepper Plants 2013-03-21 by bearsbearsbears, on Flickr