Greetings from Sunny Durban, South Africa

Name: Douglas Chambers
Location: Durban, South Africa
Age: 22 years old, 23 in March.
Occupation: Entrepreneur/ Web Designer
 
I developed a fascination with Succulents because my mother loves them and as such I grew some (It also helps that the garden in the house that I live in was planted full of them). Whilst at a nursery in December buying my Mother a X-mas present, I mentioned that it would be cool to grow some chillies, pointing at a packet of Habanero seeds.
My mother for X-mas bought me a packet of Habanero seeds, a packet of Serrano seeds and a Jalapeno plant. I assume that the plant is about 2 to 3 months old as it has its second Jalapeno pod growing.
 
Well with Xmas, comes X-mas money and with X-mas money comes shopping sprees.
I first bought some Styrofoam cups for the seeds, bought a bag of bone meal, 2 bags of potting soil.
I Started by planting 2 seeds per cup in to 10 cups 5 cups of Hab’s and 5 of Serr’s.
Then I went shopping today...
I went to a new hardware shop that had just opened and I see their substantial array of Seeds and Plants.
So I bought:
1 x bag of “Hot Pepper, Hot Chilli Mix”. A special selection of Chillies varying in shape, size and pungency – “R14 - $0.89)
PEPPERHOTCHILLIMIX_zoom.jpg

(inserted picture incase someone has used them and/or knows what pods are in the picture.)
 
1 x seedling tray of “California Wonder’s (12 x plants) – (R12 – $0.77)
1x seedling tray of “Chilli Long Slim” – (12 x plants) – (R12 – $0.77) No idea what the hell these are but heck at this stage I need the practice and spending R1 per plant that I can experiment on will be fun, interesting and good.
1 x small pot with 2 x what they call “Capsicum Paprika – AKA Sweet Pepper or Paprika” – These plants were so close together in the pot that they could not be separated. (R18 - $1.15)
 
So suddenly I have a lot of plants that I was not expecting but I had been collecting bottles of Milk and Concentrate juice that I can cut in half and put the top inside the bottom bit, sort of making a bigger version of the Styrofoam cup method – this should do okay for a while, at least until I get some big pots.
 
In total I now have:
1 x Jalapeno Plant - With one Flower and one Pod (Still Green).
1 x “Paprika”  (Although it is 2 plants but too tangled to separate)
5 of 12 x California Wonder (other 7 will be fully replanted later)
4 of 12 x Chilli Long Slim (other 8 will be fully replanted later)
10 x Habanero Seeds in 5x Styrofoam cups – Planted 01-01-2016
10 x Serrano Seeds in 5x Styrofoam cups – Planted 01-01-2016
5 x Habanero Seeds sitting on a wet paper towel covered by cling-wrap. “Planted” 02-02-2016
5 x Habanero Seeds sitting on a wet paper towel covered by cling-wrap after being soaked in tea. “Planted” 02-02-2016
5 x Serrano Seeds sitting on a wet paper towel covered by cling-wrap. “Planted” 02-02-2016
5 x Serrano Seeds sitting on a wet paper towel covered by cling-wrap after being soaked in tea. “Planted” 02-02-2016
20 x “Hot Pepper, Hot Chilli Mix” seeds sitting on a wet paper towel covered by cling-wrap after being soaked in tea. “Planted” 04-02-2016
 
I plan to keep this low budget and experimental at this stage. I want to learn as much as possible. I want to learn how to Graft, Cross Pollinate, Create Seeds, Hot Sauce, Chilli Powder and I want to have fun. Once I feel comfortable I plan on going onto the bigger (And HOTTER) ones.
 
I will create a Glog once I am able to upload pictures and have tidied up my growing area.
 
:welcome:  to the THP forums from South Carolina! Sounds like your off to a very good start! You certainly found the right spot to indulge all your pepper growing talk and to find any information you may want to know... or people who can offer you first hand knowledge for anything you may be interested in, need opinions/need clarification on, etc. All of the things you mentioned you'd like to get into are also detailed all over Youtube as well. It's easy to jump in with both feet and end up getting burnt out, just go a bit slow I'd say- plenty of time for growing, grafting, crossing, powders, sauces, etc...etc. 'New' excitement is always awesome, enjoy it! Don't overburden yourself wanting to try everything all at once though! (I speak from experience- I'm sure MANY others know all about this too!!)  :party:    
 
Welcome from Romania!
 
It looks you are on the way to become one of us :p  You are already plagued with the capsicum disease.
I hope you have a garden, or a bigger place where to grow your peppers, because soon will have the dilemma most of us have: so many seeds, so small place to grow them... 
 
Well, enjoy the forum, enjoy growing and eating peppers!
 
Wait till you get a chance to try growing exotic-looking peppers like Brazilian Starfish and MOA Scotch Bonnet, unique flavor profiles like Aji Jobito and CAP 691... and many others.
Except for the Habaneros, it sounds like your endeavors are restricted to some fairly conventional strains of Capsicum annuum -- there are other, less well-known strains of C. annuum, 4 other domesticated species of Capsicums, and many other wild species of Capsicum.

You're going to enjoy this Forum. It's a font of knowledge.
 
Welcome to the forum! I love Haworthia, Adromischus, Aloe, Gasteria, Lithop and many other succulents from South Africa. My favorites are Haworthia and Adromischus. Do you go out to see them in situ? Hope you enjoy your time here.
 
Welcome from Oudtshoorn.
That seed mix will give you 90% cayenne and jalapenos.
Still no problem there, as someone on this forum once said , those are the gateway chillies,
 and  still my favourites .
 
First of all to everyone that has welcomed me, A Big thank you, it seems like this is a very close and friendly community. 
 
 
Alchymystic said:
:welcome:  to the THP forums from South Carolina! Sounds like your off to a very good start! You certainly found the right spot to indulge all your pepper growing talk and to find any information you may want to know... or people who can offer you first hand knowledge for anything you may be interested in, need opinions/need clarification on, etc. All of the things you mentioned you'd like to get into are also detailed all over Youtube as well. It's easy to jump in with both feet and end up getting burnt out, just go a bit slow I'd say- plenty of time for growing, grafting, crossing, powders, sauces, etc...etc. 'New' excitement is always awesome, enjoy it! Don't overburden yourself wanting to try everything all at once though! (I speak from experience- I'm sure MANY others know all about this too!!)  :party:    
 
I will  try my very best not to overburden myself, but it is so hard     :cry:
 
 
rghm1u20 said:
Welcome from Romania!
 
It looks you are on the way to become one of us :P  You are already plagued with the capsicum disease.
I hope you have a garden, or a bigger place where to grow your peppers, because soon will have the dilemma most of us have: so many seeds, so small place to grow them... 
 
Well, enjoy the forum, enjoy growing and eating peppers!
 
I do have a reasonably sized area where I can grow them, I plant to cull most plants once I have learnt how to start and look after them. 2 of each type should be enough.... I hope.
 
 
 
mikeg said:
Wait till you get a chance to try growing exotic-looking peppers like Brazilian Starfish and MOA Scotch Bonnet, unique flavor profiles like Aji Jobito and CAP 691... and many others.
Except for the Habaneros, it sounds like your endeavors are restricted to some fairly conventional strains of Capsicum annuum -- there are other, less well-known strains of C. annuum, 4 other domesticated species of Capsicums, and many other wild species of Capsicum.

You're going to enjoy this Forum. It's a font of knowledge.
 
The plan would be to get into the more exotic ones but at this stage I would rather have a bunch of cheap peppers to mess around with and then once I am confident, Then I will go into the exotics 
 
 
 
Paphlady said:
Welcome to the forum! I love Haworthia, Adromischus, Aloe, Gasteria, Lithop and many other succulents from South Africa. My favorites are Haworthia and Adromischus. Do you go out to see them in situ? Hope you enjoy your time here.
 
I have 3 species of Aloe in my garden, I also have a small Haworthia as a small pot plant. I have not gone out to look at them in the wild tho, But I would very much like to.
 
karoo said:
Welcome from Oudtshoorn.
That seed mix will give you 90% cayenne and jalapenos.
Still no problem there, as someone on this forum once said , those are the gateway chillies,
 and  still my favourites .
 
Awesome, I am actually happy with that.  That means I should have the following plants:
Jalapeno's
Serrano's
California Wonder's
Paprika's
Habanero's
Cayenne's
and "Long Slim Chilli"
 
Quite a nice, yet basic grow list, Really happy with the variety here.
 
The Serrano seeds are already sprouting out roots 7 of the 10 and the Habanero's only 1 is doing it so far.
 
 
Thanks for the welcome guys!
Regards,
 
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