2016 is Ohjay's year of the habanero

Ohjay · Jan 20, 2016

We finally have liftoff! Or.. groundbreaking, or whatever you want to call it :fireball:

My first seedling broke ground monday night and the winner was the Hab Antillais. A close second, about 2 hours later, was the Aji Melocoton.

This shot is from yesterday when I woke up, a lot more seedlings:

I also got the fabled 3 cotyledon seedling, this one is from a Hab Hand Grenade:

And today I woke up to a Peach Ghost Jami slowly getting out of bed:

So far I've gotten these to show themselves(for some even both seeds I sowed):
Hab Antillais
Hab Hand Grenade
Hab Manzano
Hab Orange Devil
Hab Paper Lantern
Hab Roatan Pumpkin
Aji Melocoton
7 pod White
Peach Ghost Jami

Maybe it's just me but I found it extremely funny that the first peppers broke ground as we got the most snow yet of this winter(30cm / 12"). It's somewhat surreal to grow peppers and seeing this outside the window:

Lovepeppers · Jan 20, 2016

Great Habanero varieties you have growing!
I hope you have a great 2016 haul.

Ohjay · Feb 1, 2016

Judging by what I've seen in other glogs I can tell that my progress has not been as good as people who use light fixtures and such things.
I rely solely on sunlight and my little seedlings aren't growing as fast as they are for other growers. As of today I still have no true leaves on any seedling although I have some slowly developing.
This is something I will keep in mind for next season. If I am to start early again I will probably use a light fixture to make a better start for the plants.

In terms of progress then. Out of 36 planted seeds I got 28 to sprout. I planted two seeds of each variety and I got at least one to sprout for each one, except the Princess Faten & Bob's Pickling.
On a positive note I got both Reaper seeds and Peach Ghost Jami seeds to sprout and these are probably the plants I'm most excited about!

This was how my seedlings looked this morning:

I mentioned 3 coty's in an earlier post. I can do one better now. 4 coty!
Looks weird, yet so good :dance:

Then I went ahead and did something scary, for me at least.
I decided to repot the seedlings because I didn't want to risk any root entanglement between the seedlings.
I've always repotted from single pots before so it was a bit scary to dig out the first plant and put it into it's own pot. But I think I did good and have yet to see any major shock to any seedling. Hopefully now they can slowly start to grow into their beautiful adult counterparts.

I still have a few to repot but I ran out of pots so that will have to be done later in the week.

Ohjay · Feb 15, 2016

It's been really slow going here in the cold northern hemisphere...
Most days have been overcast and very little sunshine which has affected the growth of my little chili plants.
On the flip side we're now on our 3rd day with brilliant sunshine and the plants have been growing a lot during these days but they are still tiny, oh so tiny.

They are somewhat pale which I attribute to the lack of light. Hopefully things turns around as we get more and more sun(and more hours of daylight).

I promised myself I would not do this this year... but I couldn't help myself:

Planted 12 new seeds... I really, really, really don't have space for them but we'll see what I can manage to do to accommodate them. I have some rough ideas in mind, I'll let you know later what that is

As for the newly planted seeds, they follow this years theme of the Habanero:

Habanero White Giant
Habanero Mustard
Habanero Luciferino
Habanero Cappuccino
Habanero Pastel
Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Chocolate
Douglah Billyboy

Now at a total of 15 habanero varieties, and it still only feels like I've skimmed the surface. There are so many varieties of the habanero :fireball:

Ohjay · Feb 19, 2016

Even though it's only been about a month since I planted the first seeds I've come to learn a bit more about this whole growing chili thing.. You never stop learning, right?

Starting seeds in January is not really an advantage where I live since the amount of sunlight is quite limited.
Last year I started in late february and I have not gotten much of a head start by starting earlier.
So this got me to thinking... and I thought I should do an experiment. Plant seeds one month later(the aforementioned 12 seeds) and put them under lights and see how much faster they would grow.

Said and done, I bought some T5 lights, a shelf and of course the seeds.
Seeds were planted on the 15th of february and they went under the lights today(but no hooks yet).
Since I had some spare room I also put some of my seedlings under the lights as well:

I'll start with a 18/6 light cycle for now and plan on going down to 12/12 once they've grown a bit bigger.
I don't really know what I'm doing though since I've never grown with lights before, so it is a bit of trial and error right now.

As for the space issues I mentioned in my previous post... My plan is to have 3-5 plants growing under lights the whole season.
I initially thought that T5's would work for this, but upon further reading it turns out it might not be so good if you want to get fruit. So I would love opinions on this matter. Would it be better to buy a LED fixture(Max Hydro seems popular right now) and use that as a source of light when they've grown bigger?

Some random plant images I took today:

Comptine · Feb 19, 2016

Sounds like a fun experiment to run! Those coty leaves look really fun. Do you plan on discarding the experiment peppers or will you try to keep them?

Ohjay · Feb 19, 2016

Plan is to keep them but it all will come down to space.
I'm up to at least 23 plants right now, which is more than I have room for. But if I try to have some under light for the entire season I might be able to do it(+ add a couple more maybe)

Coup · Feb 19, 2016

That's always the trade-off isn't it? We love our babies but just don't have room for them all! And you always want more and more...

Ohjay · Feb 20, 2016

Got 3 hooks this morning when I woke up:

2x Luciferino and one Douglah Billyboy. 5 days ain't bad.
Hopefully the others will show up soon as well.

Ohjay · Feb 21, 2016

Yesterdays hooks:

Luciferino:

Douglah Billyboy:

Today I woke up to one more hook, White Giant:

Yesterday I started noticing that the leaves on the CGN21566 was starting to darken...
I did some quick searching and came to the conclusion that this is normal for this strain, the leaves can be dark.
Then today... I see the same thing on a Paper Lantern and that definitely isn't normal.
These two plants are under lights and I have one of each strain that isn't under lights and those plants are not showing any of this.
I don't think it's sunburn, but what could it be?

CGN21566:

Paper Lantern:

Ohjay · Feb 22, 2016

One more hook today, Habanero Pastel.
So that's 5 out of 12 seeds so far.

Still no idea what is going on with the CGN21566 and Paper Lantern.
It looks like the leaves are turning purple but the Paper Latern shouldn't have purple leaves as far as I know.

dragonsfire · Feb 22, 2016

Ohjay · Feb 23, 2016

Another 4 hooks today:

2x Habanero Mustard
Habanero Cappuccino
Habanero Pastel

I can already tell that the lights are a major difference for the new seedlings. The first hooks from a few days ago have developed a lot faster than the hooks I got a month ago that solely relied on sunlight.
It's going to be really interesting to follow these new seedlings and their progress.

Ohjay · Feb 28, 2016

Figure it's time for an image update, right?

All of the extra 12 seeds I planted have now germinated. The Moruga Scorpion was the last one to sprout, but it's doing it's best to catch up.
Getting the T5 light was the best thing I've done I think. It's been 8 days since they sprouted and the Luciferino is already working on it's second set of true leaves:

The ones I planted earlier didn't even start their first true leaves for well over a week after sprouting so it's definitely a huge difference.

Not quite a sea of green but they are working on it:
This is most of my plants, but I do have 7 plants in a window that did not fit under the light. Those 7 are now way behind the others in terms of growth.

Speaking of differences. I had one CGN21566 plant under the grow light from the day I got the T5 and one that's been in the window until a few days ago.
This is the one that has been under the T5:

This is the one that's been in the window:

It might not look like a major difference but the plant that's been under the T5 is a lot happier.

Nice big leaves on both a 7Pod White & Habanero Hand Grenade plant:

This Orange Devil has been in the window it's entire life and it's tiny compared to the other plants:

I'm pretty sure I'll get another light fixture pretty soon. I just don't know what type I'll go for tho.
Either another T5 or some sort of LED setup like Mars Hydro or a DIY setup perhaps.

dragonsfire · Feb 28, 2016

They look great ! nice pics

Ohjay · Mar 3, 2016

I mentioned differences in my last update and I thought I'd show a true comparison for you guys.

The left plant has been under the T5 lights for 13 days while the right plant has relied solely on sunlight.
They both relied on sunlight for 37 days prior to one plant going under the T5.
Both plants are of the same variety(Hab hand grenade yellow).

The only difference apart from lighting is that the left plant has need water more often and it has been fed slightly more nutes because of it.

I have more to update you on, but that will have to wait for tonight, I running late for work :shh:

bpiela · Mar 3, 2016

Great glog! I have a question. Where did you find the info that the T5's are not good to grow under all season? I ask because my OW's are under t5's (as well as my seedlings) and I have gotten pods off of them. I am certainly open to more info on this. If I can do better with some other lighting system, that is a good thing. Always learning.

Comptine · Mar 3, 2016

Wow, that difference is insane!

tsurrie · Mar 3, 2016

Good comparison Ohjay... got to give them enough lights. Nice looking plants and great photos.

Ohjay · Mar 3, 2016

bpiela said:
Great glog! I have a question. Where did you find the info that the T5's are not good to grow under all season? I ask because my OW's are under t5's (as well as my seedlings) and I have gotten pods off of them. I am certainly open to more info on this. If I can do better with some other lighting system, that is a good thing. Always learning.

It's nothing conclusive or anything scientific... but I did some google searching and 9 out 10 reported bad or no results using T5 lights so I drew the conclusion that T5 wasn't very good for getting plants to produce fruit.
But then again their results could just as well be because they didn't take care of their plants and the sample size is not great. Also many of the forum posts I found(not just on THP) were 2+ years old which could also be a factor.

Comptine & tsurrie, thanks!
I wish I had a few more plants to do the comparison with but I did not think about that when I put plants under the artificial light...
But all plants that were relying on sunlight are a lot less developed than the varieties that were under the artificial light.