A UK Grow log focusing on Ajis and milder Habs

Big Kahuna · Feb 24, 2014

Nice selection!

Good luck with the grow.

McGuiver · Feb 24, 2014

Looks great. How do you deal with all the rain in London? It would seem almost to wet there sometimes for these plants.

dragon49 · Feb 24, 2014

Nice selection! Post pics when they sprout.

jonnyb · Feb 24, 2014

Here's a little collage of the mild chinenses I have growing. Hope mine end up looking like these.

Cheers, feel free to add any comments, suggestions, advise, questions. As a phd student in london, this is just another eccentric experiment, except I can actually eat the product! Wouldn't recommend eating the things I create in the lab...

Spicegeist · Feb 24, 2014

Very nice! Love the source for your Naga Morich...

jonnyb · Feb 25, 2014

Also, a collage of stock photos for the rest of the peppers...

Annuums and Bacatums:

and the really hot ones...

jonnyb · Feb 25, 2014

McGuiver said:
Looks great. How do you deal with all the rain in London? It would seem almost to wet there sometimes for these plants.

Thanks, I have some ideas. Firstly, my Aji Limons from did the best and didn't seem to mind the rain, I'm hoping that will be the same this year and with all the bacatums, the chinense's didn't really like too much rain, so I used a little pop up greenhouse for a few.
I'm hoping if I keep some of them up against a south facing wall, that will cut the amount of rain down they recieve. My parents house also have a big conservatory so I can put a few of the smaller varieties in there potentially. (I did this last year but had a couple of events when the house was empty and the windows were closed and in the bright sun, cooked them almost to death - it was 45 deg C in there (>110F!)
The other idea is to put a sealing layer of plastic over the top of the pots. My guess is that it would prevent waterlogging the soil but also prevent evapouration and prevent bugs and mould from living in there. Only thing I'm worried about is reduced gas exchange to the roots, although this may turn out to be fine. can just water them from a small hole in the top. I also reckon I'd need to ammend the soil to add maybe some sand to aid drainage.

dragon49 said:
Nice selection! Post pics when they sprout.

Thanks, I have about half of the varieties already sprouted (I've been sporadically sowing various types since mid Jan) but only sowed the other half in the last few days a lot more to pop up. Will take some pics when I head home later.

Datil · Feb 25, 2014

Nice list!
TS sweet (if it's the same i've got) is way hotter than 50K despite the name, really nice flavor.

Good luck!

Datil

Nulle · Feb 25, 2014

Nice collages. Good luck with your grow.

HAJ · Feb 25, 2014

Good list.

Looking forward to hear your results with mild chinenses. Most varieties of chinense seems either to be in the range hot to extreme, or to have hardly any heat at all. I'm looking for medium hot with good chinense taste ...

Good luck.

PIC 1 · Feb 25, 2014

Hey johnnyb,

Good luck with the outdoor grow, I hear the thunder from here...sorry I mean the rain. I have relatives in the Chelmsford area where my mom grew up. Also, some cousins in another part of Essex which also garden......no hot peppers though....
I like the variety of your growlist.

jonnyb · Feb 26, 2014

Thanks, looks like the sweet Trini Scorpian might be the one HAJ is after. I've heard good things about the Aji Limo as well, so worth considering. Seaspring seeds also have a hab called 'Trinity' at 50,000 SHU which looks good. They're a good seed vendor in my experience.

I'm hoping I can get some success with Habs outside, last year they did pretty well during the hotter summer months July till October, but they were in tiny pots for too long so my production wasn't great. I had a Moruga scorpian in a mini greenhouse that did really well, so can get a couple of those if needed.

Ok here are some photos, bear in mind these have been sown at different times so size is not indicative of how well they are doing. these are taken today:

White Habaneros - grown in potting soil looking good

Aji Dulce - grown in coco coir, a bit slow, I think coir is a mistake at this size, left one lookin N deficient, will switch these to fit for purpose seedling soil - I read a journal that said coir had extremely high potassium and low calcium. My bigger plants last year liked it mixed 1:1 with compost but all my seedlings really don't like it. these popped up over a month ago so should be bigger by now.

Granada seasoning - 2 good ones and one runt that will likely get the chop - I think this is a coir/compost mix

Fatalii grown in peat pellets - looking fine

Aji Limon - These are doing the best so far, sown about 1 month ago they have just shot up compared to the rest, oddly they are in the same coir that the chinenses seem to hate! Other thing I've noticed is that even the seedlings smell of lemon chillies! Amazing.

Aji Amarillo - Again grown in coir, but looking fine. Only 1 popped up out of 3 so I've sown a couple more yesterday.

Trinidad Perfume - 1 strong seedling and a couple of runts that got axed, I have a couple more sown, grown in potting soil

4 Sweet Datils (back row + front left) transplanted into peat pellets from coir as they were really struggling. front center is an Aji Omnicolour, only 1 out of 8 sprouted! - tried 4 in peat pellets, no luck, then 4 more in tissue, to which 2 germed, then transplanted into peat pellets, here other one hasn't surfaced yet. front right is an orange Datil, 1 out of 3. more sown recently.

and a whole load more sown but unsurfaced in pellets and soil. I haven't had very good germination rates this year, some of the seeds are a year old, maybe the media for some isn't great and the temps are probably a little low around 21 deg C (70 F) I have ordered a thermometer so should be able to monitor this. I have put them on top of my hifi amp to try and warm them up a bit.

I have about 6 more varieties in damp tissue right that have been hydrating in glass vials with water for 24 hrs

Most of the seedlings are being grown under LED spot lamps in a little thing I threw together

The rest are by the windowsil. I have almost finished building an LED grow panel which will be installed and will show you shortly. I bought the wrong transformer (slightly too high current) and don't really want to start a fire in the cupboard!

So so far I have 10 out of 21 varieties actually germinated, 10 further varieties have only been sown between 1-7 days ago and I'm still waiting on the Poblano seeds to arrive. I'm trying to have 2 of each variety, except for the moruga and Butch T where I'll be happy with 1 strong one each. I'll do my best to give these good support as I want them strong for plant out time (April in pop up greenhouses & May fully outside).

jonnyb · Mar 14, 2014

This update is coming late as I took the photos 5 days ago, a little has happened since then so I'll do another update soon. but for now: progress on the 8 March:

White Habs - doing nicely in their own pots now

Aji Dulce - Been slow progress, I changed the soil from coir to seeding mix. the new leaves look greener now in the right soil but still not much quickly, not really sure why

Granada Seasoning - Repotted and doing nicely very happy with them

Fatalii - Healthy and growing nicely

Aji Lemon - Really taking off now - very happy with these

Aji Amarillo - Only got one of these, but looking great though - he will be given special treatment as I here they taste great so I want lots of good pods.

Trinidad Perfume - Growing nice and fast - The foliage is a little ruffly, not sure if that's from overfertilising or high light intensity but seems to be doing well all the same

Datil Sweet and Datil orange - forgot to photo these for some reason, slow progress but they are getting bigger, I axed one of the 4 sweet datils that wasn't pulling it's weight

Aji Omnicolour - very slow progress - again no photo unfortunately but I'm holding on to her as she's my only sprout out of 15 seeds!! I think some of the pots had a bacterial infection as when I smelt them the smelt like old socks/cheese... not good :confused:

And now for my new sprouts!!! :party:

Bangladeshi Naga Morich - seeds collected from fresh market fruit

Here's a little collage of the new ones that have now poked through.

1) Oh here's that Aji Omnicolour after-all... not very impressive

2) Trinidad Moruga Scorpian - evil little thing, one is more than enough for me, I had three of these last year! :mouthonfire:

3) Trinidad Scorpian Butch T - hook just poking through

4) 2 more trinidad perfumes - I love the shape of these so the more I have the greater chance they will grow true... hopefully

5) Apricot Habanero - heat free peachy habs from Sea Spring seeds -small but looking healthy

6) Bangladeshi Naga Morich

And the rest...

1) Aji Limo - These popped up really quickly 5 days and are growing fast and look pretty strong - I'm mpressed with the quality of Sea spring seeds.

2) Last but very certainly not least... the infamous Carolina reaper. One up, another just poking through and a third yet to rise

3) Tomatoes! I bought a 10 x multi pack from an ebay vendor and the selection of varieties is right up my street... wierd and wonderful. It's the main thing that got me into chillies so I may do a short update of these if anyone's interested. I know they're not peppers but many of them look fantastic and apparently taste increadible.

I should add that there are some varieties still missing sadly...

Cheiro Roxa - this is my most anticipated and have had no luck sadly with 2 batches. First batch smelled of fungus. I am sowing a third batch now and have steam sterilised the soil so I have my fingers crossed

Chocolate Hab - had trouble germinating these last year, I have far to many very hots anyway so not too worried, but am told they taste really good

Aji Panca - highly anticipated as I grew them last year and the cold killed them before the fruit reached full size. is too late to try another batch?

jonnyb · Mar 18, 2014

So at this point I think I can safely say that I'm not going to get any more varieties as it's getting too late in the season. Here's what I have now:

Chinense (mostly Habs) in increasing heat order:
2 - Grenada Seasoning (ebay) (~500 SHU)    (will keep both)
3 - Trinidad Perfume (ebay) (~500 SHU)       (will keep all 3)
2 - Aji Dulce (ebay) (<1000 SHU)                (will keep both)
4 - Apricot Hab (seaspring seeds) (700 SHU)   (Will keep 3 - and give away/cull 1)
2 - Aji Panca (ebay) (1000-1500 SHU)    (will keep both)
4 - Trinidad Scorpian Sweet (chillies-on-the-web (guess 10-50K SHU) (will keep 3)
0 - Cheiro Roxa (Refining Fire Chilies) (guess 20-50K SHU)
4 - Aji Limo (Seaspring Seeds) (35,000 SHU)    (will keep 2/)
1 - Datil Orange (Nicky's Nursery) (100-300K SHU) (will keep)
2 - Fatalii Yellow (nicky's Nursery) (125-400K SHU)                               (will keep both)
2 - Peruvian White Habanero (ebay) (200-300K SHU)                           (will keep both)
0 - Brown Habanero (Haddons) (300-500K SHU)

Bacatums
2 - Aji Dedo De Moca (ebay) (1000-1500 SHU)             (will keep both)
1 - Aji Amarillo (ebay) (30-40K SHU) (will keep)
2 - Aji Omnicolour (Nicky's Nursery) (30-50K SHU) (will keep both)
4 - Aji Limon (ebay) (50-100K SHU)    (will keep 2/3 and give other 1/2 away)

Annuums
4 - Poblano (Nicky's Nursery) (1000-1500 SHU) (will keep 2/3)
1 - Yellow wax (supermarket) (2-5K SHU)                                        (will keep)

Superhots
3 - Naga Morich (Bangladeshi market on Whitechapel road) (~1M SHU)    (will keep 2)
1 - Trinidad Scorpian Butch T (Refining Fire Chilies) (1-1.4M SHU) (will keep)
1 - Trinidad Moruga Scorpian (Refining Fire Chilies) (1.2-2M SHU) (will keep)
3 - Carolina Reaper (Refining Fire Chilies) (average 1.6M SHU)     (will keep 2)

This is a pretty fair selection of 20 varieties, though I'm a little disappointed from not getting any cheiro roxas. will have to try again next season. I also now have 10 varieties of tomato plants growing so I'm saturated for this year.

Progess updat to follow shortly

moosery · Mar 18, 2014

Greetings from Birmingham - hehe.
We have few similar varieties going on actually, and I also use Nicky's Nursery.. I'm quite excited about my aji lemon plants, so it's good to see yours did well with the UK climate last year!

Do you find the LED GU10 spots work well? I wasn't sure they kicked out enough light to grow with, so I've only been using them on tiny seedlings on really dark days like those seeds I sowed in December.

jonnyb · Mar 27, 2014

Hi Moosery,

glad to see some other brits here too. I love the Aji Lemons, from last year they were the best performers in terms of ease of growth and yield. So they are a prominent feature again this year. I founds GU10 LEDs do work well for the first couple of months, but if they have a tight spot of light, I unscrew the lens on top to spread the light more, or the central stem gets a beating and the rest of the plant is in the dark. I'm using 5 - 7 Watt bulbs. I found that the ones higher than that kept burning out, and lower weren't bright enough. This year additionally, I've built a light panel out of that led strip paneling you can find on ebay. Works darn well, and very even lighting:

remember, that plants should have a dark period too, so I have it on a timer, 18hrs on 6 hrs off.

Now the progress:

some of the plants have gone to my parent's house as I'm running out space indoors... already! not to worry though... I have some creative plans for the future.

Peruvian Habanero - looking good now, and some buds are forming too. will need to pot up soon

Grenada Seaoning, doing nicely; the other at home in a big pot is about twice the size now though... pot size really make a difference

Aji Dulce - one is coming along better, the other's still slow same conditions, really can't explain why

Fatalii - good (though the one at my parents' is in a bigger pot and about 50% bigger now

Aji Limon - getting bigger

Aji Amarillo - Just amazing... it's huge and growing at a phenomenol rate. I hope it's not stretching from lack of light, it gets direct sun for about 7 hours a day but I think they do just grow like that - will need a bigger pot soon

Trinidad Perfume - getting big, with 2 little babies as well which are doing well

Datil Sweet - A bit slow but coming along

Datil - a bit slow... coming along though, bit of a strange growth habit but think some little insect may have bitten the top off.

need a bump to do some more photos

Big Kahuna · Mar 27, 2014

Bump.

Plants are looking great. Now I want to build a light panel like yours. So many projects so little time...

jonnyb · Mar 28, 2014

Thanks ChiliNoob,

yeah, it's a really easy setup, as long as you're ok with a little bit of soldering. Took about 3 hours in total, 72W output and only cost about £20 ($30) for the strip and power transformer.

Back to the progress:

Datil

Aji Omnicolour on the left and 3 Apricot Habs on the right. Omnicolour is finally starting to pick up a bit

Nagas - coming along nicely

Moruga Scorp

Butch T

Sweet Scorpians and Carolina Reapers - 3 each

Poblanos

Aji Limo's

and the late surprise, finally got some Aji Pancas to pop up!

jonnyb · Mar 31, 2014

For anyone interested, here are the tomato varieties I'm also growing.

I had the fortune to buy a selection pack of 10 rare, tasty and unusual tomato seed varieties for only £4 and in the same curious interest as the pepper one, I decided to try them out.

Here are the varieties:
1. Black Cherry
2. Chocolate Stripes
3. Orange Banana
4. Yellow Grape
5. White Cherry
6. Black Krim
7. Big Rainbow
8. Rio Grande
9. Green Zebra
10. Yellow Brandywine - (Grown at my parents house due to lack of space in London)

They all seem to get rave reviews (with the exception of the white cherry) in terms of flavour so I'm very excited to try them out for myself

Here is a collage of the variety stock photos:

and here is the progress thus far: about 3 weeks from sowing the seeds:

Tomatoes are such quick growers compared to peppers it's hard keeping up with them: they already need seperating and potting up!