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BPWilly's 2014 grow

Well, I am finally creating a blog here.  I started making my wish list back last year and collected seeds throughout the year.  Weeded it down a bit, but then I ordered some addtional seeds from PepperLover and of course I got a bunch or extra seeds which I had to include in my grow this year.
 
Here is the list of what I finally put into the germination pots.  I listed where I got the seeds so I could trace how successful they were as well as what the differences might be is I have the same kind of pepper from a couple different sources.
 
These were all started Mid January.
 
 
Type                                                   Obtained from
7 Pod Barackpore                               seed swap  June 2013  Torno
7 Pod Brain Strain Yellow                    Pepperlover Orig and bills 2013 seeds
7 Pot Brain Strain 2014                      PepperLover
7 Pot Chaguanas  purple                    Pepperlover Orig and bills 2013 seeds
7 Pot Congo SR Gigantic Yellow        PepperLover
7 Pot Jonah                                         PepperLover
7 Pot Primo                                         Watcom Seed
7 Pot White                                         PepperLover
Aji Panca                                             PepperLover
Bahamian Goat peppers                      From MidWestChilihead  2013
Bhut Jolokia                                        seed swap  June 2013  Sicman
Bhut Jolokia Chocolate                       seed swap  June 2013  Brad Ford OP
Bhut Jolokia Peach                             PepperLover
Bhut Jolokia Red                                Pepperlover
Bhut Jolokia White                             Pepperlover Orig and bills 2013 seeds
Bhut Jolokia Yellow                            PepperLover
Biquinho Yellow                                 seed swap  June 2013  Dragon Peppers
Black Naga                                         PepperLover
Blue Mystery                                      PepperLover
Carolina Reaper                                  Pepper Joes   Orig order 2012 and bills 2013 seeds
Charleston Hot                                    seed swap  June 2013  RedHawk
Chocolate 7 Pot                                  PepperLover
Chocolate Habanero                           seed swap  June 2013  Sicman
Chocolate Habanero                           PepperLover
Congo Trinidad Black                                    PepperLover
Congo Trinidad Red                           Tomato Growers 2012 and Bills 2013 seeds
Congo Trinidad Yellow                        PepperLover
Devils Tongue Chocolate                    PepperLover
Devils Tongue Yellow                          PepperLover
Dorset Naga                                        seed swap  June 2013 - Unknown
Dorset Naga  2014                              PepperLover
Fatalii Chocolate                                 PepperLover
Fatalii Yellow                                      Tomato Growers 2012
Fish Pepper                                         seed swap  June 2013  Spoonman
Fresno                                                 Wapato 2012 Orig and bills 2013 seeds
Giant Mexican Rocoto                        PepperLover
Habanero Big Sun                               PepperLover
Habanero Chocolate Long                  seed swap  June 2013  Dragon Peppers
Habanero Mustard                              PepperLover
Habanero White                                  PepperLover
Jalapeno                                              Wapato 2012 Orig
Jalapeno Corking                                seed swap  June 2013 - Unknown
Jalapeno Cracked                                PepperLover
Jamaican Yellow Scotch Bonnet          PepperLover
Jamaican Yellow Scotch Bonnets MoA         From Steve954
Jay's Peach Ghost Scorpion                From Maxius
Lemon Drop                                        seed swap  June 2013  Sicman
Lemon Drop (ají limon)                       Totally Tomatoes  bills 2013 seeds and Orig
Manzano                                             Smokemaster  2013
Mystery                                               seed swap  June 2013  nutenaro
Nagabon                                              seed swap  June 2013
Red Goat                                            Wapato 2012 Orig and bills 2013 seeds
Silver Surfer seeds                              seed swap  June 2013
Super Chile                                         seed swap  June 2013
Sweet Cayenne                                   PepperLover
Tepin                                                   seed swap  June 2013  Brad Ford OP
Trinidad 7 Pot Brain Strain                 Pepperlover Orig and bills 2013 seeds
Trinidad Douglah                                PepperLover
Trinidad Perfume                                PepperLover
Trinidad Scorpion                               seed swap  June 2013  Sicman
Trinidad Scorpion Butch T strain       seed swap  June 2013
Trinidad Scorpion Butch T strain       Pepperlover Orig and bills 2013 seeds
Trinidad Scorpion Moruga                  PepperLover
Trinidad Scorpion Moruga                  seed swap  June 2013  Sicman
Trinidad Scorpion Moruga Yellow     PepperLover
Trinidad Scorpion Orange                  PepperLover
Trinidad Scorpion Yellow                  PepperLover
Trinidad Scotch Bonnet Red              PepperLover
Trinidad Smooth                                 PepperLover
True Cumari                                        PepperLover
Unknown pepper                                From Maxius
 
Off to the races,  Will include pictures of how it is going so far.
 
OK so here are a few pictures of my indoor grow area.  Last year I had it in the house, and had T8's all over the place.  This year I have a room down in my garage so I sort of cleaned it out a bit and managed to get a 8x8 area to grow these as a start until it warms up enough to plant them outside.
When I originally set this up I got a real bad bloom of gnats or some thing like them.  A few days of spraying with Azomax and some whitefly sticky traps seems to have taken care of them, as I have not seen any since thenSince this is a unheated garage, I have been having fun keeping it warm enough as I only have the germinating mats going.
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Once I added the HID lights, the warmth problem was fixed, but now I need to watch the heat as when it warms up, this place will get pretty warm.
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I will be adding some fans/vents in the ceiling soon or I will be having some problems
 
Here is how it looks today.  UIt is fun to be able to look back and see how much they have grown in 10 or so days
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I am just fumbling my way through this grow room set up, but so far it seems to be working out real well.  I tried a new trick this year when I pot them up.  Not sure if it is making much of a difference, but the delay or shock from repoting seems to be less this year.  I have been mixing some bone meal, some blood meal, some azomite and a plant starter mix and adding a tea spoon or so to the root zone for each plant that I repot into the 5.5 square pots.  At first I was concerned that the roots might get hurt from contacting the mix, but so far I have only had 2 out of 250 plants die within a week of repotting.
 
Plus I have been foliar spraying them every other day with a weak AACT tea
 
Check these 2 pictures out that are 9 days apart
 
March 9th
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March 18th
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Well, I managed to get a real good buy on 4 600 watt digital ballasts.  Since I already had bought some econo wing reflectors when one of the local shops was closing out their inventory, I now have a way to reduce the heat and elec being used.  The 1000 watt lights I had are a bit overkill at this stage, but these new ballasts are dimmable, so I will be taking them down to 50% for a while and see if everything still grows OK.  I think it should since the plants are still fairly small.  Swapping out (2) 1000 Watt ones with (4) 600 Watt ones and running them at 50%
 
I also managed to get a couple 16 inch oscillating wall fans, so got them up and removed the 4 little 6 inch fans I had.  Kind of cleaning up all the power cord connections as well so it does not look like a mad scientist lab.
 
While doing this, I managed to drop one of the fans as I was trying to get it mounted on the wall.  It landed on a couple of my Biquinho Yellow plants and broke one of them in half.  So I guess I get to see what involuntary topping will do for the growth of this plant.
 
Also spent some time cutting the flowers and buds off some of the plants that seem to be getting them a bit earlier than I wanted.  The Fresnos and a pepper I have called Red Goat (think it is a Fresno cross or something) have been getting flowers already and the plants are no more than 8 inches tall.  I figure I want then to grow a bit more, so I hope this does not hurt them.
 
Nice to have a week end to play around with the plants!
 
Just a quick update.  The Biquinho Yellow is recovering nicely, and it has some side branches starting to show up after the topping. 
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I intentionally topped one of the Blue Mystery peppers I got from Pepperlover.  These are real healty plants and if I had not topped it, it would have been the tallest plant I have so far.  Very solid stem as well
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Here is a shot of the 7 Pot Chaguanas that I grow last year from pepperlovers seeds.  I had a couple of the plants stay very purplish, so I saved seeds from them, and it seems they will do the same this year.
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Finally a few plants getting buds started
First a Giant Rocoto and then a Chocolate Habanero
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Thats about all for now, still many weeks to go before I can get these in the ground, so been letting it stay kind of cool in the grow room, hoping it will slow them down a bit.
 
Ready to go as soon as mother nature lets it happen!
 
Awesome grow list and setup!  Cant wait to see what your outdoor grow area looks like!  Seattle peppers rule!
 
Well, I have been slacking off on updating this glog, but everything seems to be growing well so far.   I managed to pick up some commercial ground cover cloth and plan on using that on my outdoor garden this year.  I used the stuff from Costco last year, and while it did not last more than a year, it sure saved me a lot of time by not having to weed nearly as must as when I just had bare dirt.
 
This year I am not going to till the ground, just used the same rows I had last year.  I have been very careful about not walking on them, so the dirt should still be pretty loose.  Since the ground cover cloth is black, it should also help warm things up, as up until recently, it has been fairly cool around here.
 
Anyway, here are a few shots of some of the plants before I get them, in the ground.  Hoping to do that this weekend, as they are getting larger every day, and I don't want them getting root bound in the pots.
 
Here is a picture of the first Lemon Drop pod of the year.
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And here is a picture of one of the Blue Mystery seeds I got from PepperLover.  All three of the ones I have growing are getting very tall.  This one is in a 7 gallon pot outside
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Here is a picture of one of the Rocotos I started from seed from PepperLover
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And finally one of the MOA's I started with seed from Steve
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A shot of the green house where I am starting to harden them up after moving them out of the grow room
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They spend 3-4 days in here, then get moved out to the direct sun.  Seems to be working for the first batch, which should be getting panted in the garden this coming weekend (if the weather holds out)
Got a couple of pals in the grow room who seem to think that the fish/bat guano fertilizer is a good thing
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I will make sure I update this glog a bit more regular once I start getting plants out of the grow room and into the ground this weekend.
 
Thanks for the update. The plants are looking good. The hard part is almost over. Pretty soon you can sit back, water and collect the pods. Good luck with completing the hardening off and ground work.
 
OCD
Fingers crossed.  At least this year is less stressful than last.  I fussed and worried about every little thing about the peppers.  This year has been a lot easier, as I know they really are pretty hardy if watered and fed OK.  They do not need much beyond that, but I am eager to get them in the ground so they can really put some roots down.  Plus I always get that 1-2 week delay after transplanting before they kick it back in again.
 
New pics soon of the garden (and hopefully with some plants in the ground
 
Well I got a nice surpirse today.  I was moving some of the plants around to get more outside for hardening and found out a few peppers that I did not know had podded up
 
Some much larger Lemon drops  that were hidden
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And some a Bahamian Goat pepper with pods.  First time growing these, but bought a MFRB full of fresh ones last year.  Beautiful color when ripe.
 
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Plus as I shared on the Manzano thread, my very first ever Rocoto pods  (very small, but they are actually there!
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They are a interesting looking pepper, color wise, and have a pretty good flavor.  I am thinking of doing a femented sauce with them to see if the color will carry through.  Will see when I get around to doing it.
 
Well,  Finally got started on planting the peppers in the garden.
 
Here is a shot of the garden in the front of the house.  I left the rows standing from last year as well as the old ground cover, and laid the new ground cover over the top.  The old stuff was starting to tear and fall apart, so I figured I would leave it and have just a little bit more weed protection.  This will be the first time I have done a no-till garden, so will be excited to see how well this works compared to other years where I tilled the heck out of it.
 
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The garden is 80ft by 21ft.   I will be using the same drip emitter hoses I got last year.  They have a 1/2 gal/hr emitter every 12 inches.  That maxes out m well output, so I leave them on for 4-6 hours each watering, as I am don't never reach the max gal/hr output.  Nice this is that they hoses look like they will last for quite a while, which is a lot better than the soak-er hoses I use to get.  They seemed to last about 1 season, then started getting holes.  Frustrating to come home a see a geyser in the garden.
 
Here are some of the first 70 plants going in.  Mostly the Corking and cracked Jalapenos, the fresnos, the red goats (not sure their real lineage - think Fresno), the Carolina Hots, the Fish peppers and a few Habaneros (Mustard, Big Sun and White)
 
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More pictures later as I finally get these out of the green house and into the gardens.  Now the real fun happens as they get past the shock and get their feet in the ground and have a chance to real stretch.  I am trying to lossen the root balls (for the ones that seem to be getting root bound) to see if that helps.  On some of the plants that I pulled out of the ground from last year, I found the main chunk of roots still int eh shape of the post that they were transplanted from.  Hoping this time they will move on from that point and maybe get larger.   More learning lessons in gardening challenges for me ahead.
 
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