Don't Panic! 2020 - The Year of the Covid

Alright, Mitch, off to a great start.
 
Really liked your annotated grow list.
 
Good luck going forward, my friend.

nice grow list of a variety of different peppers. the black rings, what are they? they look repurposed?  how tall? diameter? also in your first pic there are piles of something in the background. what is it?  also, the shade may be a good thing in your area. good luck with everything. 

PaulG said:

Alright, Mitch, off to a great start.
 
Really liked your annotated grow list.
 
Good luck going forward, my friend.

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Thanks Paul. A big chunk of this years peppers are thanks to you!
 

luvmesump3pp3rz said:

nice grow list of a variety of different peppers. the black rings, what are they? they look repurposed?  how tall? diameter? also in your first pic there are piles of something in the background. what is it?  also, the shade may be a good thing in your area. good luck with everything. 

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There's stories behind both of those questions.
 
A few years back, somebody abandoned a section of 48" diameter corrugated plastic pipe in the field next to my house.
 

 
At first, I assumed either the City or one of our utilities had staged this pipe in anticipation of a project.  After a year and a half, we concluded it was just dumped here.
 
I was mad for a while.  We couldn't get anybody to haul it away.
 
But when you have lemons, you just have to make lemonade.
 
I cut it up into several 10.5 inch sections to make the raised beds you see.
 
I've still got one biggish section I use to organize my compost piles.
 

 
As far as the dirt piles, our local water utility is tearing up the green space next to my house to put in new sewer pipes.
 
They've actually combined those dirt piles into one big dirt pile now.
 

 
They're using an interesting plastic pipe.  They've actually drilled some segments of this pipe, adapting the same technology they use to drill fracking wells.
 
They drilled this segment here 30 feet underneath the creek behind my house.
 

 
 
It's an interesting solution to the problem of squeezing in new sewage infrastructure into an area that's already developed.
 
But I'm still scratching my head about some aspects of this project.  It just doesn't make sense to me to have a big 30-40 foot low spot in a sewer line.  I just don't see how that's going to work.

nice getting free stuff for building raised beds. 
 
as for the sewer line, in my city of around 90,000 residents the sewer plant is in the lowest elevation in the city and nearly all sewer lines simply gravity feed to the plant. there are a couple of spots that the lines run uphill and there are pumping stations to keep it moving. its possible that is what they will do on that line. 

From what I gather from discussions I've read on this forum, some people would express concern for my soil preparations.

I'll paint a target on what I've been doing.  Feel free to express a comment if you're inspired. 

I used a commercial potting soil (along with some perlite) for sowing my seeds.  But I use mostly dirt and compost after I get my seedlings going.

My compost pile is mostly leaves collected from my yard.  I try to add as much coffee grounds and kitchen scrapes as I can, but I can't seem to get as much as I'd like.  So the leaves are the main component.

I can get pretty good results from my compost pile if I can age it for 9 months to a year, while turning it over a few times during this period.

I've found I need to add a certain portion of plain dirt to promote worms in my compost.  If I have just straight leaves in my compost, I don't see much worm activity.  But adding a little dirt seems to promote worm activity in my compost.

Here's a picture of what my aged compost looks like this year:


 
 
In my raised beds, I removed about half of last years soil, and mixed in this compost to make make up the removed volume.  I mixed by compost in back in December and January, giving it a few months to work in before I planted out.

In my pots and grow bags, I've been using mostly compost, with some dirt mixed in.
 
I get a lot of rain, and this soil mixture seems to be working as well as can be expected.  If it didn't drain really well, one my my frequent frog stranglers would quickly drown my plants.
 
Some people strongly recommend against using dirt and compost in containers, but like this approach.

You hit it right on the head about adding plain old dirt to the compost. It has all the goodies to get things going.
 
That, and use what you choose as a grow medium. There are so many options.
 
Have a great season and enjoy it

Great to see your glog up and going DP.  And that you'll have some volunteers and stump peppers, again!
 
That repurposed pipe is awesome.  Wish someone would leave some lying around near me  

I add my coffee grounds right into my garden soil.


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Everything looks good to me. It appears you have the room to build a few more beds. It won't help the overcrowding because you will just grow more plants, but at least you will have more plants.

Mr.joe said:

Everything looks good to me. It appears you have the room to build a few more beds. It won't help the overcrowding because you will just grow more plants, but at least you will have more plants.

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When they finish up with all this construction, I should have more room.  Hopefully, next year.

The Sri Lankan Chili Red seeds we used for the 2019 Growdown Throwdown were non-isolated, and threw off a few interesting crosses for several participants.
 
PepperGuru, the supplier of the 2019 Growdown Throwdown seeds, had a diverse garden in 2018, so there's a number of possibilities for potential parents for the crosses.
 
PaulG had one example he called a "Mr. Sausage".
 
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/70224-growdown-throwdown-2019-sri-lanka-chilli-red/?view=findpost&p=1635736
 
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/72929-paulg-2020/page-15#entry1670143
 
PaulG graciously offered me a few of these seeds, and they are indeed curious.
 
The Sri Lankan Chili Red is almost certainly an annuum.
 
But here's what I'm seeing from one of the "Mr. Sausage" plants (I've been referring to it as a "PGPG Sausage Pepper", since PepperGuru supplied the seeds to PaulG, hence PGPG):
 

 
Several nodes have two or three flowers.  Annuums don't do that!
 
It's sporting a lot of purple in the stalk, although the leaves aren't showing any purple.
 
PaulG had also mentioned that his pods where showing purple.
 
This particular Sausage Pepper plant is noticeably more vigorous that the other two Sausage pepper plants I have going.  I'm curious to see what kind of peppers it puts out.

That plastic pipe is just too cool. Great work.
 
Jealous of your compost! Looks like you're set up for a great year.

It seems like most growers strive for consistency and stability in their pepper varieties.  But for my part I've been curious to see what happens if I leave my plants open pollinated and non-isolated.
 
So far, in past seasons, I've only had one cross I was sure of.  I haven't seen many clear examples of cross pollination.
 
This season is starting off differently.  I have three early examples of peppers that are either crossed, or are exhibiting an unusual amount of variation.
 
None of these are super exciting, bumpy, gnarly super hots.  That's OK with me.  I'll let everyone else concentrate on the super hot crosses.  I'm enthusiastic about finding some interesting annuum crosses.
 
This first one here was supposed to be a Jamaican Yellow Mushroom.  But this doesn't look anything like the typical Jamaican Yellow Mushroom pod shape.
 

 
It's growing like crazy, so that would be consistent with hybrid vigor.
 
There are several possible candidates for the other half of this cross.  I don't think I'll every know.  But I'm still enthusiastic to see how this plant turns out.
 
 
One of my "Utility Cayennes" is going nuts.
 
Normally, my Utility Cayennes are on the smallish side, around 1 inch long.
 
But this one is throwing off 3 inch pods, and it's only in a two gallon pot.
 

 
I've never seen this much variation in this variety, and I've been growing it for years.
 
Ironically, this was one of my "extras" this year.  I came really close to just throwing this plant away.  After all, it was just a cayenne.  I count myself lucky I decided to put it in a pot.
 
 
One of my volunteers has also caught my attention (I always have a soft spot for saving at least a few of my volunteers every year).
 
It's been growing more vigorously than my other plants (possible hybrid vigor), and the early pods it's putting out are slightly confusing.
 
Many of the pods are growing upright, like my Orange Thai.  But the pods are much bigger than my Orange Thai pods.
 
Since this is a Volunteer, I've got no idea what either parent is.  But the only plant that gave me upright pods last year was my Orange Thai.
 

 
It's not exactly like anything I grew last year, so it's either a cross, or it's exhibiting a considerable amount of variation.  Either is interesting to me.
 
 
On a different note, there's a construction project going on next to my house that has placed literally miles of erosion barrier.
 

 
I'm thinking that they'll just throw all this out when the project is completed.  I might have access to a ton of weed barrier cloth, stakes, and trellising if I can collect some of this before they haul it off.
 

My vender purchased seeds seem to throw out almost as many oddball pods as my open pollinated saved seeds. I have another jalapeno plant on the second round since last winter and the pods are different than the original or round one, I will post pics when the pods ripen. Also, just an FYI on that silt fence by the construction zone, it would make an excellent weed barrier as long as you do not need water to pass through it. Some types are fairly water tight.

Some great looking crosses so far. When I first seen that erosion barrier my first thought was that you built a really long narrow planter box

skullbiker said:

My vender purchased seeds seem to throw out almost as many oddball pods as my open pollinated saved seeds. I have another jalapeno plant on the second round since last winter and the pods are different than the original or round one, I will post pics when the pods ripen. Also, just an FYI on that silt fence by the construction zone, it would make an excellent weed barrier as long as you do not need water to pass through it. Some types are fairly water tight.

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This type seems pretty porous.  It seems to pass water about as well as my grow bags, but the cloth isn't nearly as strong.
 

Mr.joe said:

Some great looking crosses so far. When I first seen that erosion barrier my first thought was that you built a really long narrow planter box

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Hhhhmmm, that may not be such a crazy idea. 

Cool looking crosses.
 
And I like the pack rat that runs in your veins

Here's an end-of-the month snapshot of my plants.
 
There's nothing super-exciting going on right now, but I wanted to take some pictures so I could track the progress through the year.
 
Nothing is ripening yet, but things look good in general.
 
This is my South-East raised bed...
 

 
Going clockwise (starting in front), I have a Junk Yard Mutt, Orange Thai, Utility Cayenne, Crossed Jamaican Yellow Mushroom (hidden from view), a Jalapeno, a Cajun Belle, and in the center is a Sri Lankan Chili Red.
 
Here's my Mid-South raised bed...
 

 
Going clockwise (starting in front), I have a Bahamian Goat, PGPG Sausage Pepper, BJh-2, BJh-Mystery, Aji Jobito, Trippaul Threat, and a P. Dreadie in the center.
 
Here's my South West bed...
 

 
Going clockwise (starting in front), I have an Orange Thai, Jamaican Yellow Mushroom, Jalapeno, Junk Yard Mutt, Sri Lankan Chili Red, Aleppo, and a Cajun Belle in the center.
 
This bed gets the most shade, so it is slow to get going.  But the Aleppo is getting off to a strong start...
 

 
Here's my North East bed...
 

 
Going clockwise (starting in front), I have a mystery volunteer (looks like a cross), a Trippaul Threat, an Aji Margaretino, an Aji Jobito, a Bahamian Goat, a PGPG Sausage Pepper that is getting off to a slow start, with a P. Dreadie in the center.
 
Here's my North Fence-line bed...
 

 
Going clockwise (starting in front), I have an Utility Cayenne, an Orange Thai, a Sri Lankan Chili Red, an Aleppo, a Jamaican Yellow Mushroom, a Jalapeno, and a Junk Yard Mutt in the center.
 
This bed gets the most sun.  I'm getting great growth out of this bed, but it hasn't set as many peppers as some of my other beds.  Hopefully, it's because the plants are taking advantage of the extra sun to put on some growth, and waiting a while to start setting peppers.
 
This potted BJh-Mystery is behaving a little strange...
 

 
I'd hoped to see more purple coloration.  And the leaves are crinkled right at the edge.
 
I'll have to wait and see how this one develops.
 
Here's a shot of my Large Utility Cayenne.
 

 
Right now, this plant is putting out unusually large peppers for this variety.  I'm curious to see if it settle down into a normal growth pattern as the season progresses, or it continues to crank out these larger pods.
 
It's a little boring right now, but everything is coming along.  I can already tell I'm going to get buried in Orange Thai's. 
 
(Edited to fix a picture link on the Cayenne...)

Looking good, DP!  Looks like you're at the time where it's mostly water and wait, but things will be flowering and podding up soon.  Aleppo pods are looking great.
 
FYI - those frilly edges are normal, coming from the recessive fr gene of the bhut parent.  I have a some of my BJh's showing that too.