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Cotfessi's rookie year grow - 2014

This will be my first grow from seeds.  I live in Alaska and it’s -1 outside right now.  More importantly, we only have about 6 hours of sunlight right now and the sun we do have is so low in the sky it looks like sunset!   I’m going to grow indoors and attempt to bring the plants to fruit all inside…
 
My grow setup:  I have a 6 tube T5 4’ fixture that has 6500K bulbs that will put out 30,000 lumens.  I also have a 2’x4’x84” grow tent set up.  I have a thermometer inside the tent and without the lights on, it's hovering around 73 degrees.  I have a 50 pod root shooter in a seedling tray with a plastic dome with a heating pad.
 
My grow list:  I’m going to start out by only growing two peppers for now given the size of my tent. I’ll start a second grow with a lot more types later in the spring when I can move them outside to take advantage of the crazy amount of sunlight we get in the summer.
 
I’ve planted 25 yellow scotch bonnets from baker creek heirloom seed company and 25 camino real.  I’m unsure about this whole process and not sure about the % of the seeds that will germinate so I figure as they mature I may lose some? Who knows, but I’ll be posting frequent updates to this grow log so check back…  thanks for reading!
 
Here is the first shot of the grow log... my seeds in the root shooter
 
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UPDATE #01
 
Sunday I noticed my first sprouts coming through.  I've got about 10 of 25 caminos poking through at this point at anywhere from 1/2" to about 2".  Yesterday was the first day I turned on my lights for a full cycle - 18 on, 6 off, and let's just say i had some issues.  The heat in the tent approached 90.  I have a 6" fan and i played with opening all of the vents. I left the tent open most of the day, but that really isn't a possibility.  The only place that i can grow these peppers in my house would be my home office and the tent is more to keep me from going blind with the light!  But damn the heat!  I've got an inline duct fan coming today so hopefully that will help a little.
 
I do have a question though... my light has a setting in which only two bulbs of the six are turned on... that's what i did today and the temp in the tent is around 77 and has been steady all morning.  with just two tubes on, that's about 10,000 lumens... is that enough for now as they're just seedlings?  I figure with the duct fan coming I can play with other configurations as they grow, but for now am I ok?
 
Below is a picture of my seedlings!  I also have some spinach, loose leaf lettuce, and basil in the other pots!
 
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Nice start, Cotfessi - it will take some tweaking to get the lights right.  
With the number of each variety you have seeded you should have
enough to go outside with later even if a few croak.
 
When my starts put on cotys, I transplant to an 18-oz drink cup, plug
and all, then give them 24 hour light for a while.  When they have a set
or two of true leaves, then I start dialing back the light.  Since you are
going outside to essentially all day light later, you could probably get
away with just a few hours of dark in the tent.
 
Good luck with your grow, and welcome to the forum.
 
So sorry!  It's been a while since I posted!  I've been taking pictures along the way and I've got several updates coming so I'm going to split them in to multiple posts... here is the first one...
 
Update #02 - 12/18/2013
 
The serranos seemed like they were ready to leave the root shooter, I pulled a few and the roots just started coming through.
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I moved as many as I thought were ready over to the larger pots.  
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The scotch bonnets are finally popping up
pep.1-3.JPG

 
I have some extra room in the tent so I figured I'd grow some spinach
pep.1-4.JPG

 
and basil
pep.1-5.JPG
 
[SIZE=11pt]UPDATE #03 - 12/24/2013[/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=11pt]Everything seems to be plugging along with the serranos... I moved 5 more from the root shooter over to the bigger pots and that's all the plants that came up... 17 of 25... is that good?  As for the scotch bonnets, I was having issues keeping them hydrated in the root shooter so I moved them to larger pots sooner than i did the serranos... [/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=11pt]I also am going through some growing pains (no pun intended) with respect to the heat in the tent.  I have an EnviroGro 6 tube 4' fixture in the tent.  While everything was in the root shooter I only had the two center tubes on.  now that I have everything potted I have all 6 tubes on.  I'm running an 18 hours on / 6 hours off scheme right now and the heat in the tent was getting too much.  I posted about it and got some good suggestions, but in the end I had to add an inline fan to one of the upper duct vents in the tent.  I went cheap and it's freaking loud, but it does the job... we'll see how it goes for now.  On to the pictures:[/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=11pt]Here are the serranos looking good... the 3 plants on the far right were slow coming up and were just potted this week[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=11pt]Here are the scotch bonnets, with 2 additional serranos plants (labeled with the SE)[/SIZE]
pep.2-2.JPG

 
 
[SIZE=11pt]The basil is loving it[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]
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[/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=11pt]UPDATE #04 – 12/31/2013[/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=11pt]Everything is looking pretty good at this point… I’m watering every 48 hours or so using BioThrive which is rated at 4-3-3.  I’m using the light feeding recommendation of 2tsp per gallon for now.  As I progress I’ll move toward the heavy feeding of 4tsp/gal.[/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=11pt]Here are the scotch bonnets… looking good, but not growing as tall. Is this normal?[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=11pt]The serranos are really taking off[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=11pt]Basil is growing like mad[/SIZE]
pep.3-3.JPG

 
[SIZE=11pt]I also added some red leaf lettuce to the tent as well and it’s doing pretty well[/SIZE]
pep.3-4.JPG
 
Your tent garden looks great. In my experience the chinenses like bonnets will stay a bit more squat until they heat up, then they'll grow very quickly. Yours look very healthy to me.

Cool, ambitious grow. Can't wait to see some indoor Alaska pods!
 
UPDATE #05 – 01/06/2013
 
Things are really taking off now.  By the end of the week I’m going to have to raise the light or drop the shelf to give the serranos more space! I’m up to 3tsp/gallon of the BioThrive now, on the way to the heavy feeding level of 4tsp/gallon.
 
I’ve also seem to have solved my heat problem for now… I leave the tent only partially zipped in the front – it still keeps most of the light in and does allow for some heat to escape.  I can keep it around 82 during the light-on cycles and somewhere in the mid 70s at night.  With that, on to the pictures:
 
The serranos are doing really well
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The scotch bonnets are slowly getting bigger.
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Basil has already had to be pruned (and eaten!)
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Red leaf lettuce is also doing very well… it’s moved out from the shop light lower in the tent to the big light at the top.
pep.5-4.JPG
 
maximumcapsicum said:
Your tent garden looks great. In my experience the chinenses like bonnets will stay a bit more squat until they heat up, then they'll grow very quickly. Yours look very healthy to me.

Cool, ambitious grow. Can't wait to see some indoor Alaska pods!
 
thanks for the heads up on the bonnets... those are the peppers I'm really looking forward to!  
 
It's been awesome to have something growing at this time of year up here in the frozen north!
 
Your grow is looking great, Cotfessi!
Nice healthy plants of all varieties.  The Serranos
are going to get big for you!
 
UPDATE #06 – 02/20/2014
 
It's been a while since I've posted... I've had some issues with watering/feeding but it seems like they're pretty much under control and the plants are going crazy... In the last week I've switched my light schedule to a 12 on /12 off as suggested by my local hydro store that has a crazy amount of peppers going right now. I also went with more of a bloom fertilizer that i give every saturday.  As you can see from the second picture, i've got flowers everywhere... here's hoping i'll be posting some pictures of some pods soon!
 
the scotch bonnets are on the far right of the over all picture below and still lagging behind in height, but there are a ton of buds popping up so we'll see.. there are a few scotch bonnets that have taken off and are pretty tall... it's going to be interesting over the next few weeks for sure!
 
 
 
Here is an overview of the jungle: 
 
peppers-7.1.jpg

 
Here is a shot of the flowers:
peppers-7.2.jpg
 
UPDATE #07 – 03/04/2014
 
I've got peppers!!  I have about 6 full grown serranos that I'm thinking of picking tomorrow night.. can't wait to add them to my morning omelet!
 
As for the overall grow, I had to thin the crop a little. As i only have a 2'x4' tent, space is becoming an issue.  I repotted into larger, 2 gallon pots and gave up a few of the more spindly, weak plants.  I'm now down to 4 serrano plants and 6 scotch bonnets. The scotch bonnets seem to like the fact that they have more space... lots and lots of buds and just in the last 24 hours a few flowers!  The heat within my grow tent seems to have stabilized and I'm on a pretty good watering schedule, about every 36 hours or so and feeding schedule of once a week.
 
As mentioned, there are 6 serranos that are as big as the ones i see in the grocery store... about 8 that are about half size, and tons of flowers.  
 
Here are some pictures... thanks for reading!
 
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The scotch bonnets...
 
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One of the first scotch bonnet blossoms! 
 
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