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The Great Kiwi Pepper Thread

Swampy_NZ

Swampy_NZ

A place for all us fellow kiwis to share and discus our projects and ideas.
With the new law just introduced prohibiting seed importation into New Zealand it is going to be harder to find those certain seeds you have been after.
Hopefully with the growing popularity of pepper growing here we can get together and spread the love around.
So jump in and introduce yourselves and show us what you have been up to.
 
This year I have Dorset Nagas, Reapers, Yellow Scorpions, Choc Bhuts, Cayennes and BigJims.I have also just put down some Peach,Yellow and Red Bhuts and fatalli and red 7 pots.
 
 
Excellent!
 
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Man they are some fantastic plants you have there Swampy fr this time of the year!
 
Heres my wee set up.
 
House #1
 
Direct in to the dirt in raised beds, house #1 is 8ft x 10ft and polycarbonate, this house has at the back 10 Jalapeanos and a single "wildfire" to the back right. on the back left is a Babaco tree.
 
The left hand side has a butch T, a yellow 7 pot, a red bhut that looks like a hybrid, a red moruga, a choc bhut, a naga morich and a yellow bhut.
 
The right hand side has 7 carolina reapers.
 
The soil has a ph of 6.8 (I'm working on it) and could be best described as a rich organic loam. 
 
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House #2 went up in August, it's lined with cheap canvas covers and is a 8ft x 12ft  of polycarbonate construction also.
 
1-1.jpg

 
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A chocolate bhut with a small basil pot for company below
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House #2 contains several store bought "wildfires", 2 red (hybrid no doubt) bhuts, 3 chocolate bhuts, 3 naga morich, a yellow bhut, 2 butch T's, a single red moruga, 2 red thai scorpians a friend gave me, a reaper and a reaper bonchi, a red hab and also 6 - 8 wierd capsicums such as jimmy nardello etc, a small handful of unusual tomatoes (for NZ) and a seedling shelf that has something like another 60 odd plants on it maybe.
 
Looking like a frost here tonight but I'll be happy if the temp is 2 - 4 degrees c at sunrise.
 
Cheers.
 
The yellow 7 pods are at it, I'm picking I'll have my first pod forming in a few days. The choc bhuts and nagas are starting to form buds as well and the Jalapenos are just getting in to flowering. This year I'm going to just let them do their thing. I picked the Egmont 45ltrs up for $7 each, I think the shop had wrongly priced them but they held to it. The 100ltr was $13.75 I think.
 Everything else is in PB 40's.
 
I've already decided that next season I'll do house #2 with just the Egmont 100's, I could fit 12 - 14 in. A handful of beasts rather than an army of Dwarfs maybe?
 
Looks like a late frost again, I can hear the choppers buzzing the orchards.

We'll see what the damage is when I get back home tonight.
 
Lot of work to get through this long weekend. Repotting into larger pots and starting to plant out some into the vegetable garden. The grow got a bit out of hand this year and i am probably over 100 plants by now. Will get some photo's up after the work is done this weekend. Currently i have plants in a grow cupboard , 9 x mini greenhouses and in a 8'x10' polycarb greenhouse.
I lost my last parcel of seeds due to the new rules coming into effect suddenly. Luckily i have plenty of seeds stored. Was hoping to get more plants out of the greenhouses into the direct sun, but we hit 6C last night, just when i thought the double figures for the evening temperatures were stable.
 
Looks like a -2 frost at home, my houses were down to 1 and 2 degrees c at 6am.

Hi Rush35.

Shame about the seeds. Looking forward to seeing ya pics!
 
Random note on this seed restriction nonsense.
 
 
Don't label them as seeds. "Toy Gift/Birthday Card" works for billions of dollars of trade from China, and works just as well for seeds. Asking a seed vendor to ship in nondescript packaging shouldn't cause much grief on either end. I am unsure of NZ postal regulations, but here at least, Canada Post needs a search warrant to open a package. At worst from what I have seen and experienced, the seeds are discovered and destroyed, and you may or may not receive an angry but ineffectual note in the post.
 
miguelovic said:
Random note on this seed restriction nonsense.
 
 
Don't label them as seeds. "Toy Gift/Birthday Card" works for billions of dollars of trade from China, and works just as well for seeds. Asking a seed vendor to ship in nondescript packaging shouldn't cause much grief on either end. I am unsure of NZ postal regulations, but here at least, Canada Post needs a search warrant to open a package. At worst from what I have seen and experienced, the seeds are discovered and destroyed, and you may or may not receive an angry but ineffectual note in the post.
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All mail entering NZ is put through an Xray machine that is able to identify even the smallest amounts of organic matter.Our customs is one of the tightest in the world due to our reliance on Agriculture and horticulture and the paranoia of some pest/disease entering the country and wiping out our industry.Not labeling the seeds would probably allow a small percentage of seeds to get through but you have to weigh up how much you are willing to spend to get your seeds through as it normally costs more for the shipping than the actual seeds.It can add up if you are spending a lot on seeds that don't get through. 
 
Swampy_NZ said:
All mail entering NZ is put through an Xray machine that is able to identify even the smallest amounts of organic matter.Our customs is one of the tightest in the world due to our reliance on Agriculture and horticulture and the paranoia of some pest/disease entering the country and wiping out our industry.Not labeling the seeds would probably allow a small percentage of seeds to get through but you have to weigh up how much you are willing to spend to get your seeds through as it normally costs more for the shipping than the actual seeds.It can add up if you are spending a lot on seeds that don't get through. 
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Not too surprising I suppose. If I had to pick the worst country to receive seeds in, AUS wins hands down but perhaps I should revise that :P
 
Packages and letters are xrayed?
 
miguelovic said:
 
Not too surprising I suppose. If I had to pick the worst country to receive seeds in, AUS wins hands down but perhaps I should revise that :P
 
Packages and letters are xrayed?
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Yep.We have a program on TV here called border patrol which focuses on  Auckland International airport and its customs facility.Its quite good as it shows them Xraying mail,pointing out suspect packages/letters and catching people trying to smuggle drugs and other contraband into the country. :)
Its a real eye opener when you see the lengths people go through to get drugs into NZ
 
nice plants guys!
Built a new raised bed on the weekend..
the weather has been quite cold..I forgot to bring some of my small plants that id usually bring in and got a bit of a fight finding them all droopy in the morning..they all seem to have recovered though.
 
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I still need more dirt in the other sides, but I put a couple of Douglah's in one section. Hopefully they handle the cold ok.
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this jonah is my closest plant to ripe pods so far this year
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and heres a random photo of a little spider eating some kind of small flying insect on a brown bhutlah plant :)
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Thanks, im going for a mixture of things.. some plants in the ground, some in pots and some in raised beds :)
The new raised bed i made cost about $30 not including soil or screws. bargain. (screws were about $18, but iv got enough to make about 5 more) Nails would be way cheaper..but i prefer screws since I have an impact driver. (awesome piece of kit)
 
I might do another next weekend..all you need is 
8 x 1.8m fence palings
6 x 45mm square pointy posts. (i would have got a length of 45square but it was sold out so just got the pre-cut things, which are more expensive)
some nails or screws
 
keep the length @ 1.8m. Cut the 1.8m lengths in half to get the width :) ends up holding a couple of hundred liters of soil.
 
Hey quick question for you NZ guys, do any of you do anything to your water before watering, or do you water with straight tap water? Do you know the PH of whatever water you water with? Maybe you collect rain water? id like to know :)
Reason I ask is I seem to be plagued with recurring issues, that I think is caused by my tap water being a PH8.
 
My theory is that my plants become iron deficient after a couple of months of being fed the PH8 water.
 
I started lowering it a few months ago when new growth started yellowing. I got lazy and stopped it after the symptoms went away..now they are back and im back to lowering the PH...
 
Just wondering if any of you guys experience anything similar and what you do, or if it could be something else im doing wrong..
 
Got some iron chelate today and sprayed the effected plants with a very weak dose. Im interested to see if that cures it (as its only got iron, no other trace elements)..if it does i think iv finally figured out whats going on
 
I always used tap water, but my ph is also around 8. Just got a rain barrel set up to start watering this way...should improve the soil ph. Depending on the outcome i may need to add ph down to the barrel to help a bit more.
 
Swampy_NZ said:
We are on bore water.Comes out bang on 7 with very low TDS.
Also with town water do you guys let it sit to remove the Chlorine?
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Nice, that backs up my theory i guess as all your plants look damn great :) not to say its the water that makes your plants looks so good, but it may contribute.
I do not let it sit to remove chlorine..i guess this is something i could look at doing
 
This is interesting.

I have no idea what ph my water is. At the end of each day I put a new 20ltr bucket of water in house #2, but I don't water every day.

House #1 I water with a hose and cringe at the cooling effect it has on my soil temp.

Our water is slighty chlorinated, I've been so meaning to set up a rain water storage facility.

Btw I do have a bit of yellowing going on, mainly in morugas and butch ts.

But I do believe alot of chillis are happy with a ph of up to 8.5?

The Mrs just threw a sache of "Plant tonic yellow leaf remedy" at me.

Seems to cure iron deficiency in Azealeas, rhododendrons, camellias etc.

I'm toying with giving a few test subjects a moderate dose, along with ph testing my water in the morning.

Does an alkaline soil inhibit the uptake of iron?
 
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