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NinjaR's Super Awesome Pepper Explosion Show Log

I guess I'll start keeping a grow log.  At the moment, I have 15 reaper and 15 ghost pepper juveniles and 26 habanero seedlings.  The habs are on their third sets of leaves, so I'll probably be transplanting them soon.  The reapers and GPs are in Solo cups under grow lights waiting for the temperatures to get warm.

Today's temperature outside was an unseasonably warm 81 degrees, so I set the reapers and GPs outside for a couple of hours.  Curiously, the cotyledons on some dropped.  Otherwise, they looked just fine.  I was a little hesitant to put them outside because I didn't want any sort of weird fungi or weed seeds or anything else blowing in their cups.

After I set them outside, I fired up the old Troy-Bilt tiller -- this thing is old as hell, but it's a freakin' beast with front wheels and rear tines -- tilled up the bed they'll be in and spread out compost.  Looking at putting them out toward the end of March if the forecast looks OK (zone 8a).
 
I realized a little earlier this evening that, although I have a bunch of stuff in my head that I want to plant, I have no idea where it's going.  I'm gonna have to sketch out a new garden plot this evening, and I'll probably mark everything up tomorrow afternoon.

Here's a picture.  Excuse the fence; my neighbors are the worst ever and abandoned their home about four months ago.  The new land owner tore down the existing house and is putting up a new McMansion there, but told us they don't plan to put in the new fence for a while.  I offered to do it for cost since we put up our privacy fence around our property and we have the stuff to do it, but apparently that's not good enough.

Everything to the left of the bed has been covered with leaves since November to mulch over the existing weeds.  Looks like hell, but under those leaves, it's actually pretty nice.  

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Excellent backyard ... You have plenty of space to grow crops. Why did your neighbors go? Why did they leave the house?
 
Not much going on the pepper front.  They're just sitting there growing under lights and a fan.

Experiencing some dying off with my habs.  Not sure what's going on with them.  The media was pretty dry, so I went ahead and gave 'em some water.  One is withered, a few others look to be withering.  We'll see what happens.  The rest are fairly short and strong.
 
Argentine said:
Excellent backyard ... You have plenty of space to grow crops. Why did your neighbors go? Why did they leave the house?
I have no idea why they left.  I don't like neighbors so we really don't get along.  They abandoned the house, and the local police used it for SWAT practice once.  Most people would be annoyed by that.  I thought it was awesome.

Sorry I didn't answer earlier -- didn't see your post.  I haven't used forums in about 10 years, so it's taking me a bit to get used to again.
 
Still not much on the pepper front, but it's that time where not much is supposed to be going on.  After watering, all but one seedling perked back up and they look great.  The one withered seedling stalk is standing up straight, but its foliage is wilted.  I don't really know what that means.  I should probably pull it, but I want to see what happens -- if it starts sprouting new leaves or not.

The growth and germination rate of the habaneros is a little disappointing.  I think I may have gotten 60%, whereas I got 80+% from the reapers and ghosts.  Same planting method (into sterile soilless media), same everything.  They also took longer to pop out of the ground (eight days vs. five).
 
Well, I may have killed a few of my plants.  I know It's really easy to overwater them and kill them pretty quickly so I usually hold back on the water. Yesterday had been a week since I watered them, and although they felt a little light, I'm all, "Eh, they look fine. I'll let 'em go another day."
 
Yep, walked in the grow room today and lots of 'em were wilted with some leaf drop and yellowed leaves. I'm all, "AW DAMMIT." Got some water in 'em and hopefully they'll perk up over the evening. That's *usually* what happens with plants outside, but I'm not too sure how that translates to pepper seedlings.
 
We'll see, I guess. I stress about the little stuff with them while they're inside, but they'll probably be fine, or the large majority probably will be.  There are a few I'm worried about.
 
Nothing to really worry about with the peppers.  They popped right back up within an hour.  The one I was really worried about looks like it'll be fine, too.  It lost four lower leaves, but the top foliage is just fine.  There's a bit of leaf drop but nothing substantial...mostly cotyledons among the few that lost leaves.

Bought a new garden cart this evening to tow compost from my truck to the garden area.  I can hitch this one up to my lawnmower.
 
Stage 2 of Operation Compost Cover is complete.  That garden cart made such a difference!  It's smaller than my Vermont cart so I can't haul as much...but pulling it behind my riding mower took damn near all of the work out of the chore.  Shovel in, haul, shovel out.

Transplanting my habs to new pots tomorrow.  I'd intended to do it after I hauled all that compost out, but eh....tired now and there's no sun left outside.  I'd do it inside, but I really don't feel like cleaning up all the dirt.  They can wait another day.

Two more truck loads should finish it out nicely.  Was considering mulching the area with wood chips, but I'm not so sure I'll need it.  The stuff on the right was spread last week.
 
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I'm actually really looking forward to seeing what happens in the area *not* to the right.  I've planted things there over the years, but nothing really planned.  Everything I plant is usually on that top section to the right, but I've put in vining plants to the left.  Things seem to grow well despite the soil not being the greatest...it's fairly clayish with some pockets of sandy areas.  

My only real worry is when the rain comes -- for the past two years, we've had a month of straight rain which floods out that lower left section with an inch of standing water.  If the weather is anything like that this year, I'm worried I'll end up losing some plants in that area.
 
Not too much goin' down in Pepper Town.  Finished laying out compost in my beds this afternoon.  I lost my source of good, well-composted horse manure which kind of ticked me off because the supplier was begging me to take it out....I showed up Friday and all they had was a truckload of newish manure and I could actually *see* the old pile I'd been drawing from.  My guess is that they found someone to buy it up.  

I'd gone out there to get something, so we went ahead and loaded it up.  Came home, unloaded Saturday morning in a new compost pile that I guess I'll end up putting down at the end of the growing season.  

Anyway, I searched on Craig's List and found a source of some decent-ish, year-old cow manure lumped in with a bunch of hay.  Went out yesterday afternoon, picked up a truckload of that stuff, and loaded it out this afternoon.  There's a marked difference between the two, and there was a bunch of hay in there...it probably made up a quarter of the bulk.  I'm not overly concerned about it, though...I think I've probably prepped more area than I'll actually be using.  I went ahead and tilled it all in knowing that area probably won't be used for a couple of months.  At least I know the soil will be good if I plant more next year, though.

Pepper plants are looking OK.  A few are still getting past the dry spell they had a couple of weeks ago and their leaves show it -- mostly the ghost peppers.  Those things just look funky from all the close lighting...looking forward to getting them the hell out of the grow room.  It's getting to be a big chore watering them

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i was wondering if you could possibly post a pic or a few of the plants you have so far. the garden looks good. how much more are you planning to put in there?
 
Blitz527 said:
i was wondering if you could possibly post a pic or a few of the plants you have so far. the garden looks good. how much more are you planning to put in there?
I'm sure I'll post some pictures eventually -- I've taken a few, but they never really look like much of anything other than a bunch of juvenile plants, really.  

I don't plan on doing much more ground work in the garden for now.  I might go along and till up where I laid down the cow manure one more time before planting just to disturb some of the newer weeds that'll take root.

The top section should be 44 super hots -- 11 reapers, 11 bhut jolokias and 22 habs.  The rest will just be filled with whatever I feel like growing this year -- some peppers, tomatoes, watermelons, maybe a pumpkin or two.
 
Checked on some TAM jalapeno seeds I planted nine days ago....I planted some tomatoes along with them and they're coming up OK, so I figured the jalapenos would be coming up, too.  Dug up some of the seeds....not a single one had germinated.  I might just have to buy seedlings when it comes time to plant instead.  Disappointed in these.  I don't plan to abandon them for a while, but I'd figure I would have seen at least one pop up, especially after having seen my reapers come up in five days and bhuts and habs come up in seven.
 
Been a bit since I've posted.  Got laid off from my job a couple of weeks ago which put somewhat of a damper on my garden plans.  I still have all the peppers, though, and I started putting them in the ground yesterday.

Planning on seeding in watermelons and sunflowers soon, although the coming rain might put a damper on that (and they're not peppers).

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Not much to update.  Peppers have been in the ground for about a week now.  Had some pretty bad storms blow through here over the past couple of days -- they all held up just fine.  That really surprised me...the winds were estimated to be around 60 mph.  I thought I'd surely walk out there and see some snapped stems, but they are all doing very, very well.

Habaneros are putting out blossoms.  I don't quite know how I feel about that just yet.  I don't top my peppers, but I wasn't quite prepared for them to start producing anything just yet.  I really hate pinching off blossoms.

Put sunflowers, tomatoes, watermelons and cucumbers down last week, too.  It's all a welcome break while I'm trying to find a new employer.
 
Hi there, folks.  Been a while since I've posted.  I took some photos of the plot this afternoon, as well as some blurry photos.  Everything seems to be producing nicely.  I have a few ripe habaneros I'd like to pull, as well as a couple of ripe ghost peppers.  The last ones to produce were the reapers, and it'll be a week or so before they start to ripen.  I haven't pulled anything yet because I plan to sell them at a local farmers market if I can get in there without too much hassle or expense.

Here's the plot.  Compare with the original back in March.  Most of these are about three feet tall, some are on their ways to four feet.
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