Show us your holy grail of growing

Hey guys,
 
I've been watching from the shadows for a while already, and I've read some great stuff. But now that I start to be familiar with some names on here I would like to have a thread with everyone sharing their 'holy grails' of pepper growing. What I mean with that is I'd like to be able to have a look inside the works of you pepper gurus. How you fertilize, what soil-mix you use, and maybe even some cool tricks from grandma.
 
Just so we can learn from eachother. Knowledge is meant to be shared after all!
 
I've made a short form so it's nice and clear to read. Ofcourse  I'll  Fertilizer will start it off right away. If anyone has any cool questions to add to the form, let me know and I'll edit it.
 
How do you germinate?
 
What is your soil mix made of?
 
What do you do to your soil after it's been mixed?
 
What do you fertilize with and how often?
 
Do you prune, top or fim, and why?
 
Do you rather plant in pots or in open ground?

How do you germinate?
 
I put my seeds ontop of a wet paper towel inside of a chinese take away container untill i see the 'hooks'. Then i plant them in individual pots.

What is your soil mix made of?
 
Potting soil, perlite, osmocote pellets, coco coir, blood and hornmeal, lava meal

 
What do you do to your soil after it's been mixed?
 
I mix everything when i need it inside of a large container then fill the pots that I need and use it straight away.
 

What do you fertilize with and how often?

I fertilize once every 2-3 weeks with a spraying of epsom salts. And sometimes when i feel like it i give my plants some GHE Floranova Bloom.

Do you prune, top or fim, and why?
 
Nope, I have a pretty shorts growing season, I dont want to extend it by making the plant work harder to make more foliage. I find it works better to just let plants grow how they want to, especially in shorter growing season areas.
That being said, when you overwinter you should cut your plants back a bit, if only to make them fit inside your house.

Do you rather plant in pots or in open ground?

I use pots since I have no room to plant in the open ground. I've planted some in the open ground at my grandparents place though and those plants just got huge in comparison to mine.
I'd love to plant in the open ground if I could. But for now it's pots.



 

How do you germinate?
When I started I used the damp cloth method. But I like the surprise of waking up and suddenly seeing peppers popping their heads up, so now I put them in the soil, in a humidity box. Or if the box is full I put them in a small planting pot with a lunchbag over it. Worked every time so far, so I don't see a reason to switch back.
 
What is your soil mix made of?
Because of financial constraints I've been using store bought compost mix. Finally found some decent quality stuff here. Also I made a bag of basic compost-peat-perlite mix which I've been using for some pepper plants.
 
What do you do to your soil after it's been mixed?
I mulch with dry leaves from the citrus trees on the property here, which I break up between my hands a little before putting it on. Works great but I need to kill the seeds in them next time. Grass and weeds are popping up through it.
 
What do you fertilize with and how often?
I've got a standard organic liquid fertilizer for fruiting plants which I use on the plants once every two weeks, alternating between a full cup mixed in and 1/3 cup mixed in. The off week I spray the foliage with magnesium sulphate. Just started with that though so I can't say anything about the results. First observation is that they seem to love it, but that might also be the roots settling in.
 
Do you prune, top or fim, and why?
Not this season because I started very late. I was moving from the Netherlands to Portugal this summer so I had a short season. Didn't want to potentially set back any plants, just because I felt the need to torture them (j/k). Coming season I might try it on a few plants but I like the natural way for most things. If I see a plant growing super tall though I might need to cut them back anyway.
 
Do you rather plant in pots or in open ground?
Because I don't have the best soil for growing peppers directly in the soil without amending it, I grow in pots at the moment. But as that is very space consuming I would like to make a raised bed or two if the landlord allows it.
 
 
As you can see I'm growing on a budget at the moment. I'm slowly starting to change that with time, investing in some stuff here and there. I love to use basic solutions like making a nitrogen tea by blending stinging nettles and water, letting it sit for a night and straining it after. I didn't try it on peppers yet but I grew another plant that most would call a weed, and they seems to love it. Stringing nettles are a nitrogen-loving plant so the idea is that they're full of the stuff.
 
 
 
Edit: Dammit Fertilizer I said I would start off LOL. I should learn to type faster. Or not get distracted with stuff when I'm making a post....

There are other threads pinned to the top of the Growing topic that cover much of these things already. You might check those out, as they are heavily relied upon by many members.
 
Regarding germinating, if you use paper towels you might find yourself in the same predicament others have already experienced. If the root gets too far along, you'll find the weave of the paper towels is too loose to prevent the root from digging in. Then it is difficult to remove without killing the sprout. Some use damp coffee filters, instead, as they have a much tighter weave. I used to use those but switched to plain water in a cup, changing the water every couple of days. No chance of mold starting with this approach.

How do you germinate?
pre wash / soak seeds in solution of kno3 or chamomile tea (study)
put seeds in wet coco pellets and wait
 
What is your soil mix made of?
coco coir
 
What do you do to your soil after it's been mixed?
no mix necessary just water it
 
What do you fertilize with and how often?
fertilize every watering with injector and drip system or flood system indoors
HortAmericas hydro or Masterblend + mgso4 + cano3
 
Do you prune, top or fim, and why?
once i have around 5 main branches i trim all lower branches / leaves. this creates better airflow and focuses plant growth at canopy. aka lollipoping
 
Do you rather plant in pots or in open ground?
coco slabs are wonderful just a bit expensive to buy every year. Pots in general i like unless you are trying to go to scale.
if growing thousands of plants... then in ground plasticulture probably.

How:
Directly into bag mix potting soil in 3" square pots in a humidity dome under T-5 lighting. I want it to fight to want to grow.
 
Soil:
Indoor starts and container gardening.
Sunshine mix #4 or similar amended with mycos, perlite, seaweed.
 
Outdoor beds:
Sand, manure, composted grass, bark, leaves.
amended each spring with broadcast of dry aged chicken manure..mix in, plant, mulch.
 
Fertilize:
Fish fertilizer at start, Epsom salt as a topical dress, miracle grow every 7 days as needed (been using less of this last yr though)
 
Prune:
Top juveniles at 4th or 5th node and let it go...like others, I want growth asap.  Fim? No... I am growing peppers, not cannabis
 
Pots/ground:
Raised beds and containers do to space, pets and other hobbies.
 
 
 
 
 
 

geeme said:

There are other threads pinned to the top of the Growing topic that cover much of these things already. You might check those out, as they are heavily relied upon by many members.
 
Regarding germinating, if you use paper towels you might find yourself in the same predicament others have already experienced. If the root gets too far along, you'll find the weave of the paper towels is too loose to prevent the root from digging in. Then it is difficult to remove without killing the sprout. Some use damp coffee filters, instead, as they have a much tighter weave. I used to use those but switched to plain water in a cup, changing the water every couple of days. No chance of mold starting with this approach.

Click to expand...

Yeah sorry I've seen that topic. I just like to see things in easy to read lists. Not meant this as a topic for a huge discussion over what is the better method either. Just to show eachother how different growers do their thing, with some banter here and there
 
I've actually had that happen before, the coffee filters are a great tip! Tried the cup of water method too. Loved it, except that I didn't have a sieve so refreshing the water was too much of a hassle for me. Decided to just stick to the simplest method, plant and wait.
 

Masher said:

How:
Directly into bag mix potting soil in 3" square pots in a humidity dome under T-5 lighting. I want it to fight to want to grow.
 
Soil:
Indoor starts and container gardening.
Sunshine mix #4 or similar amended with mycos, perlite, seaweed.
 
Outdoor beds:
Sand, manure, composted grass, bark, leaves.
amended each spring with broadcast of dry aged chicken manure..mix in, plant, mulch.
 
Fertilize:
Fish fertilizer at start, Epsom salt as a topical dress, miracle grow every 7 days as needed (been using less of this last yr though)
 
Prune:
Top juveniles at 4th or 5th node and let it go...like others, I want growth asap.  Fim? No... I am growing peppers, not cannabis
 
Pots/ground:
Raised beds and containers do to space, pets and other hobbies.

Click to expand...

 
LOL yeah I added that because I saw a video yesterday about someone talking about fimming peppers. It is indeed something I remember from the one season I grew da 'erb (a Dutch gardeners life is not complete without trying to grow weed at least once ). and I was wondering if anyone actually does that to peppers. I'm guessing this counts as a no
 
Could I ask what you are referring to with Sunshine mix #4?
 
Edit: Here's the video I was talking about: 
https://youtu.be/Vj3EZYcjyyI

Imo, I don't feel pepper plants have the same structure wanted for Fim, but I'm sure it's been tried...I just don't see the point, however I do top them at least once...might even try twice on a few this winter.
 
 
Sunshine #4
 


 

How do you germinate?
 
Usually in paper towels, but I have used the peat pellets in the past and will try the coco pellets this year to see how they do
 
What is your soil mix made of?
 
I tend to use Botanicare Cocogro Coco Coir because it's available and it's a quality product. I've used others in the past, but they are harder to find.
 
What do you do to your soil after it's been mixed?
 
I use a light mixture of approx 5ml CalMag to 1L of RO water when expanding my coco bricks. Once it's dried up some I run it all through a fine steel mesh strainer to separate the fine pith from the coarse grain coco. I find it offers better drainage and a higher air/water ratio for the rootzone.
 
What do you fertilize with and how often?
 
I have used other ferts, but I've been sticking to General Hydroponics Flora series Micro and Grow. I feed with every watering
 
Do you prune, top or fim, and why?
 
Never topped or pruned or FIM. I may try it this year and see how it goes with a plant or two.
 
Do you rather plant in pots or in open ground?
 
Pots. My season is far too short and cold for me to grow in the ground. I have an average of 90 days in my season. That's not long when you consider most super hots have a DTH of 160 days or so. It's also the reason I switched from soil to coco. I simply couldn't get the plants to produce in soil.
 
 
Neil