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Random rambling glog of 2018.92 and onwards

[SIZE=medium]I have a job that requires meticulous record keeping. Consequently, when it comes to leisure pursuits my note taking can be a little lackluster. This glog is my attempt to find a happy medium between keeping a laboratory notebook, and not remembering when I planted things and how long they took to grow. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]A quick picture of the gang right after I brought plants in from the garden to over winter. The grow tent is an inexpensive one off of amazon with dimensions of 4’x4’ (1.2mx1.2m). The two on the left are hydroponic plants that have been grown inside the apartment for the past 3 years. The remaining have all been dug up out of the ground. I stripped all of the leaves off the plants to combat aphids that came inside with the plants. Additionally, I ordered up and released 1,500 ladybugs inside the tent.[/SIZE]
 
 
[SIZE=medium]First Pic: This is an overhead shot of my Aji Dulce a few weeks later taken on 12/11/18. The leaves are growing back quickly. In general this plants gives quick vegetative growth by comparison to my other plants.[/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=medium]Second Pic:[/SIZE] The top left in the hydroponic setup is an orange habanero that is also 3 years old. Top center is a MOA Scotch Bonnet that came in from the garden. It is 1 year old. The top right is a mystery variety. I grew the plant out from some Thai chili seeds that were saved from my mother’s garden. They grew out with a larger pod than the previous generation with a slightly thicker wall. I believe it to have hybridized with an Anaheim that I grew out from seeds I took off a ristra while riding my motorcycle through Hatch NM. I however am not sure. The plant is actually two years old. Unfortunately my over wintered plants got ripped out of my garden. I however found this one and put it back in the soil. I thought it was dead but it is showing a little bit of life. I am hoping that enough of it will come back that I can take a couple of clones to save the hybrid since I don’t know what it really is. The remaining two plants are another mystery variety. I ordered white bullet habanero seeds from rareseeds.com last year. Upon growing out the plants were most certainly not white bullet habaneros. They appear to be some type of sweet chinense variety with yellow/gold fruit that is ~3” in length with a strong chinense flavor but no heat. While I was disappointed to not get the white bullets, I really enjoy the flavor of this pepper.
 
[SIZE=medium]Third Pic:[/SIZE]A couple that I already started this year. I don’t quite remember when this seeds hit the peat, but the picture was taken last night. The peter pepper is saved seed so I am not sure it will breed true, but I will find out. The ghost is yet to sprout, but it is pretty old seed, and anymore you can buy the plants from the hardware store, so I will not be very concerned if it doesn’t sprout.
 
[SIZE=medium]The last pic is of the seeds I am starting as of yesterday. The two on the left are varieties of tomato varieties that I received from a friend in Seattle. I don’t know what variety they are but I liked the flavor so I saved some seed. I didn’t bother fermenting the seed, so we will see if it sprouts or if I get mold before sprouting. The other two baggies are a generic cayenne, and a second generation of the aforementioned Thai chilli cross from my mother’s garden.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]The seeds I am waiting on in the mail are orange and red rocoto, and fatalii.  [/SIZE]
 

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Looks like fun times ahead!
Good luck carrying those forward...
 
Thank you. I hope they carry forward as well!

No real updates. Potted up my seedlings but haven't thinned the number yet. Still no aphids, but the fans in my lights are putting a hurting on my ladybug population.

Pics show an extra week of recovery after stripping the leaves, and the seedlings slowly growing their first set of true leaves.
 

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I thought about screens before I put the bugs in there, and I was just a little too lazy. The good news is that some of 30th he ladybugs are still alive, and I haven't observed any aphids since stripping all the plant leaves.
 
I started 6 red rocoto seeds on 12/13/18. Four of the 6 have broken so I transferred them into soil. I only plan on using a single plant so I am not worried about waiting on the other two.
 
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I potted up my baby plants and culled to the single strongest.
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In the below pictures you can see how much quicker the hydroponic plants are recovering from having the leaves stripped by comparison to the soil plants. My aji dulce are showing some edema. There are a couple of possible causes in my mind. I didn't cut the roots back when I stripped the leaves, so the water uptake may have been more than normal. The humidity got a little high inside of the tent also which could have contributed. I only see it on the older leaves and not so much on the newer growth, so I will let it play out and see what happens. I also have small buds forming on my hydro aji dulce, hydro orange habanero, and my soil scotch bonnet. I am starting to run low on hotsauce, so this is a very good thing. We will see how fast they come in and how many set. I generally have a low percentage set on the chinense varieties inside, but still end up with acceptable yields.
 
Mystery thai cross in the foreground and mystery sweet chinense in the background
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The larger of the mystery sweet chinense plants.
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Aji Dulce
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Orange Habanero
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Scotch Bonnet
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I also started some butterball lettuce. I started three plants in jiffy cubes, and then put in the hydroponic system. Just for fun I sprinkled some seeds around the drip ring at the same time to see how well they germinated. For hydro lettuce I think I will just direct sow around the drip ring in the future. I will probably have to do some thinning on these guys in a couple weeks.
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Lots going on there, Gabriel. Healthy new growth 
showing up all over.
 
Good to see another Red Rocoto fan.  I was going to
only have one this season, but now I'm thinking about
keeping both starts  :think:  :D
 
I have actually never eaten a rocoto, so I can't say that I am a fan yet, but I plan to be a big fan. I have read a lot about it, and it sounds like it will be an awesome pepper to cook with fresh. It also sounds like with the plant's temperature preference it will be perfect for growing indoors year round.
I have six yellow rocoto seeds that I put in a paper towel at the same time, but I am yet to see any germination. My plan was to have multiple starts of each the yellow and the red and then graft onto one plant to save space and see which I liked better in terms of flavor. From there I can focus utilizing my limited space for that variety, or keep the grafted plant and have both varieties.
 
I received a yellow and black fatalii seeds that I ordered from pepperlover. I also got goats weed and aji angol as freebies. All four went into bags today to sprout.

The scotch bonnet popped open the first flower since stripping the leaves for pest control.
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I also snapped a couple pics of the ladybugs nomming on some grape halves.
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The red rocoto that I sprouted in a paper towel and baggie are breaking the soil surface. Four sprouted in the baggie, but I put all six seeds in soil. Three have broken the surface.
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The yellow rocoto is a little behind, but I do see a hint of two seeds budding a white tip out. Unfortunately I also have a little mold showing up at the bottom of the bag. I will probably have to transplant in the next couple of days.
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Off topic
Oregano is starting to sprout
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One of two jiffy cubes sprouted culantro. We will see if the other sprouts or not.
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I decided to plant the yellow rocoto seeds today as mold was starting to take hold in the bag. You can see just a bit of fuzzy mold in the pictures if you zoom in on the seeds. A little sooner than I would like, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Four of the six had started to sprout. All six went in the soil.
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Three of the six red rocoto have emerged and look healthy. As long as they all survive this should be sufficient for my purposes.
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That's awesome, Gabriel! Pretty good results, I'd say.
Your germinating technique seems pretty solid.
 
Did you put the grape halves out for the aphids? Being
carnivores, they must like it for the water content, maybe?
 
Anyway, seems like a good way to keep them around
after they have done their job!
 
Good luck going forward, brother! I wouldn't be surprised
to see the rest of those Rocotos popping up!
 
I noticed a fourth red rocoto break soil today. I also now have flowers on my aji dulce and orange hab that have opened. I suspect they wont lead to fruit though as in a couple of weeks I will do the hydro to soil conversion which may stress the plants.



PaulG said:
That's awesome, Gabriel! Pretty good results, I'd say.
Your germinating technique seems pretty solid.
 
Did you put the grape halves out for the aphids? Being
carnivores, they must like it for the water content, maybe?
 
Anyway, seems like a good way to keep them around
after they have done their job!
 
Good luck going forward, brother! I wouldn't be surprised
to see the rest of those Rocotos popping up!
I actually put the grape halves out for the ladybugs. I didnt realize it until after I ordered the ladybugs and started searching the net for using ladybugs in growtents, but it appears as though several ladybug species are omnivores. When I first released them in the tent, I also put out damp paper towels. Some ladybugs went to the paper towels for a drink, but 10x the number went for the grapes. The net had actually suggested soaking raisins in water, but the bugs seem to prefer grape halves. I had always been taught they were carnivores.
 
Nice glog bro, lovin all the pics of progress. As for the ladybugs, Ive read the same that they will eat certain fruits and pollen in addition to aphids and white fly larvae. Its pretty kool how they work
 
Well the ladybugs seem to really like them, which is good.  They'll take off in a hurry if there's not something they like keeping them there.  And good to see the rocotos being so cooperative. I think your grow is going to be on a roll when it comes time for...
 
chili red!
 
Ghostpepperevolution said:
Nice glog bro, lovin all the pics of progress. As for the ladybugs, Ive read the same that they will eat certain fruits and pollen in addition to aphids and white fly larvae. Its pretty kool how they work
Thank you much for the compliments.
I hoping the ladybugs do a bit of pollinating for me. It means that I will have to isolate flowers if I want to save seed, but hopefully it will up the fruit production.


CaneDog said:
Well the ladybugs seem to really like them, which is good.  They'll take off in a hurry if there's not something they like keeping them there.  And good to see the rocotos being so cooperative. I think your grow is going to be on a roll when it comes time for...
 
chili red!
I am psyched to get the chili red seeds going in a couple of days, but I am still undecided if I will go hydro or soil, and if I will do an indoor or outdoor grow for them. Fortunately I still have time to decide. I am hoping to be competitive, but do not expect to be in the top 5 after looking at the previous growdown threads and the competition this year. I will be interested to see how your chili reds do.
 
My aji dulce is exploding with new growth, but is showing signs of eadema. I suspect the humidity is a little on the high side inside of the tent for it. The orange habanero is in the back and doing well also. Both have flowers that emerged in the last week.
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The little guys are coming along. I keep my apartment pretty cold on account of being a cheapass. I think that is slowing their growth but they will get there.
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The lettuce enjoys the cooler temps though.
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And of course the throwdown has started. It is game on.
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Update on the new before the old:
A mixture of 3 cells of black fatalii, and 3 cells of yellow fatalii. I have never grown either variety, I will be interested to see how they turn out.
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When I ordered the fatalii seeds, I got Aji Angol as a freebie. Has anyone ever grown this or know much about it? I have sprouts either way.
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My red rocotos are coming along nicely. Five of my six seeds eventually popped up. Unfortunately I have seen nothing poke above the surface for the yellow rocotos. I suspect I had too much mold on the seeds when they hit dirt. I started a couple more seeds in a paper towel two days ago, but gave them some very dilute H2O2 first.
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The MOA scotch bonnet is really bouncing back from being trimmed:
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My mystery thai chilli cross is still fighting for survival. I am hoping in another month or two to take a couple of clones.
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One of my two mystery sweet chinense varieties is really recovering nicely. The smaller of the two is struggling to recover, but has some life. If things keep going as they are for this big one, I will be taking clones of it this spring, and then trying to save isolated seed next year to see if it will grow true for me.
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The orange habanero has a new home! I transplanted this guy about a week ago from hydro to soil. I am wanting to make room inside to grow the rocoto hydroponically, as the rumors I hear is that the rocoto will not like the heat we get in the summer. Also if I am hard up for orange habaneros, I can always go to the store so I would rather utilize the hydro to grow strands I have not tried before quickly. I took pictures of the process but then life happened and I didn't post them. I trimmed the roots and foliage back a fair bit. There was 1-2 days of looking a little droopy, but now everything is looking good.
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The orange habanero went well, and was my test subject. Today I tackled transplanting my aji dulce. Rather than trim the roots, I cut away as much of the net pot as I could, and removed as much of the lava rocks as I could. I just didn't think with this plant I could get the net pot out as cleanly. I also did not trim, as this plant has been showing a little bit of edema, which means to me that I am not too worried about loosing excess moisture due to transpiration.
Before:
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As I was inspecting the plant I noticed a flower had set, and I have a fruit. This also contributed to me not trimming.
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In process shots:
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And one of it in the new home:
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My only current hydro plants are my lettuce which I will remove in about a month to make room for a hydro rocoto plant.
 
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