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2013 Pepper Start

WichitaChief

WichitaChief

We here goes nothing. I've lurked for years but never posted or joined. Some time back I signed up so I could reply and post. This is my first post so we'll see how it goes. I'm one of those who seems to always be in motion. Taking time to stop and edit pictures and type this out required a decision to just get it done. I've grown a garden or helped grow a garden for approx 40-45 years or so. Doesn't mean I'm still not learning. I just kinda know what works for me in my area, in my soil, in my time constraints. I focus on what grows well, requires minimal to moderate attention and reaps good harvests in my garden size. Typically that means tomatoes, eggplants, beans, some squash (when the squash bugs don't take over), cukes, lettuce and greens, garlic and peppers. Lots of peppers. In years past it was japs and habs. Then I discovered ghosts. Then 7 pots and scorps. I grow in ground and my garden sets up with irrigation and is mulched heavily. I'll start with my start up when I got the seed going in January. I was shooting for January 1st. It ended up being January 27th before the seeds hit soil. I have never put pictures on here so we'll see how my sizing goes.

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Just a couple of pictures of the simple table I attached to the wall of an unfinished room in my basement. Simple angle metal leftover from a shelving unit I had left over. Topped with some old leftover plywood painted white to seal it and we have a seed starting table.

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Hang a array of 4' T12 shop lights I had used in previous years but with a twist to help hanging and light adjustment. I added small 90 deg tabs to the lights and bolted them to strips of aluminum with bolts using nylon lock nuts so I could leave the bolts loose and the lights via the tabs would pivot when changing light heights. Simple hooks and jack chain hang it all. Hook the lights to a 15a power strip controlled by a timer and we're good. I'm using Home Depot Sylvania 6500K daylight bulbs.


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A couple of heat mats connected thru a 15a power strip controlled by a thermostat and we're almost there.

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4 1020 trays full of 6 6 cell 1206 inserts is what I went with this year. Ease of rearranging them as growth rates vary and the low cost influenced my decision.

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An overnight soak in a weak hydrogen peroxide water solution in cups with numerical reference on blue painters masking tape on their bottoms.

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Here they are planted in the inserts with the simple Popsicle craft sticks split up with the numerical reference on the sticks. I'll use names on the sticks after the first transplanting. Now we wait.

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We have a winner! #18 (Aja Amarillo) is he first up. More follow shortly.

I have 56 variety's planted. Bumped to 57 in the last week. Not to count the over wintered ones from last summer.
I'll post this to see how it comes out. I'll get pt 2 us later today if i didn't get this too screwed up! Enjoy!
 
I'm lucky to get this done..I still need to do a post on the over winter plants and the perils of doing that the wrong "easy" way. LOL! I'll get pt 2 of this up later after I get some time this evening.
 
Alright. It looks ok. So here is a list of whats growing: Edit. My list didn't post properly from excel so I'll have to try again another time.

It's not all my fault. Those damn free seeds pepperlover adds to my order and some of last years varieties I had left. As you can see not all are superhots. I grow to give away too. Some I just grew to check them out and see if I like or have a use for them. So, where did I leave off. Oh yeah. I have sprouts. Here are some progression pictures.

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Poof! like magic they got bigger. Growth rates sure vary between the types. The last picture shows the larger bell types exploding. I shoulda waited to start them but I had to do it when I could. Due to my busy schedule and procrastination on ordering my 3.5" nursery pots and trays I kinda let them stay in the inserts too long. The big snowstorm a few weeks back delayed my shipment and once it got here i had to wait till the following weekend to pot up the little buggers.

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As you can see they are getting pretty rootbound and some plants are yellowing and suffering because of this. That's a hazard of using the small inserts and not keeping up on them.

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So it's off to the larger pots. Boy does that take up lots more space. They plants are responding and picking up growing again in spurts. I assembled another stand with more angle metal. If I was smart I would have assembled a free standing unit that I could use in the garage next year but instead chose to attach it partially to the framing and create more work. Ugh. I used some 4" T8 fixtures from Home Depot and once again used Sylvania 6500K daylight bulbs. I chose T8's over T5's due to the price of the bulbs. Since the light output is close between the too sizes and the effiency is close also I went with the T8's since I can buy bulbs for about $3.50 or so each in a 10 pk. T5's were close to $8-$10 each.

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As you can see the lights are awesome! Plants are booming.

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As you can see they're taking off. The big bell, griller types are close to where you'd start thinking about hardening them off and get toward moving them outside. The only problem is we're at least 3-5 weeks away from that being possible. Avgerage date of last frost around here is April 15th or so. It looks like they may require another re-pot and move to under a MH soon.
 
Looking good.
Just a tip if you put [im g] without the space before the picture link and [/im g] without the space after you can turn

this
http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a527/WichitaChief/Seedlings20131_zpsf521741e.jpg

into this
Seedlings20131_zpsf521741e.jpg




and welcome to the forum. :clap:
 
Ohhhhhh!
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Like this!
Potting soil I started to use but held wayyyy to much water. For days! So I blended it in with some other to get a better mix. Thanks for the tip!
 
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