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2019 Hay Bale Pepper Patch

I've been a member for a while but never posted a grow log. My usual garden is too boring for that. I use 20-30 pots and overwinter my mama plants in a hillbilly winter shelter. Our ground here isn't good for in soil gardening and I've not been enthused enough to undertake the work and expense to build raised beds.
 
Now I have my peppers working the way I want and have the need for a much larger grow to supply a project. The main peppers I'll grow will be reaper, douglah and fatalii. For a couple of years I'll do hay bale gardens and heap tons of organic trash into the area. I have monumental amounts of pine straw, oak leaves and bonfire ash every year to dump in the walkways. I think this will do a world of good to make this new garden area mo'betta for eventual in ground growing.
 
I closed off a 38x38 patch in the NE field that gets full sun. This is the area I chose. The big painted guy is my fertilizer supplier.
 
The little painted guy is my running buddy and load inspector.
 
 
 

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Yeah I have a couple outdoor "Heavy Duty" timers as well..though not in use as of yet. I also have a few cheaper Stanly brand timers and one digital which I have yet to test and see how it works.
 
But aye great call on the timers it will certainly save ya a few $'s in the long run....So do you have lights on during the day or are they getting real light? Like I seen the pics of your lighting set up just wasn't sure if you had everything in that or not.
 
Edit -  Would ya look at that..an unintentional PT in DW's thread
 
Good job on the page toppa  ;)
 
The 1200w grow light (weird mini UFO propulsion system simulator:-) is on from 4 PM to 8 AM. Since it puts out a bit of heat I figure it's best to run it at night and let the plants have their dark period during the day when it's warmer. When it's cold I've been running the IR heat lamp an hour on an hour off to keep the temp above 60°. Not sure if and how running IR may goof up their day/night rhythm. Best I can tell peppers shouldn't be bothered much by that since they're not a photoperiod plant. Their "nighttime" IR is limited anyway.
 
I put another french fry light in the hillbilly winter shelter tonight and set that for the same cycle. I'll probably just switch off to a couple of 40w incandescents since they cancelled the hard freeze warning. Now they say it it's gonna slowly creep down to 28° and stay there for a minute.
 
5 day fertilizer test. pics.
 
On 1/25 I gave a half gallon of MasterBlend 19.5-18-38 to one tub of plants. See result in the first side by side picture set. Picture on the left taken 1/25 and on the right 1/30.
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On 1/25 I gave a half gallon of plain ol' well water to the other tub with the No Fert sign. On the left taken 1/25 and on the right, today 1/30.
 
My phone photgraphy isn't well coordinated but the plants themselves occupy the exact same positions in the tubs. Interesting thing is the "No Fert" plants finished uptaking their half gallon of water 2 days sooner than did the fertilized tub finish with their half gallon of MasterBlend.
 
Quite honestly, it appears to me as though the non fertilized plants made more progress since last Friday. Go figure.
 
 
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In other news I bagged up the the first 10 pots of tomato plants today. Amish Paste with pink toe tags and A Grappoli D'Inverno with the blue tags.
 
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In further news, I called Ferry Morse yesterday morning for some info on my pelleted Juliet Hybrid and Independence Day tomato seeds that haven't shown a sign of life since being planted on 1/17. They called time of death on Jan 27 and even though I bought the seeds from Lowe's, they graciously offered to send me replacements in the mail. I accepted and meanwhile put the few remaining seeds in coffee filters in a plastic sleeve, doused them with purified water and put this into the 72 hole jiffy greenhouse with the dead bodies still in the peat pellets and soil cups.
 
What a bite. I've successfully germinated a shit ton of seeds since last month and this last bunch are the only deaders. All I really need is another dozen plants and I'll be done. Except for some miscellaneous goodies like a few additional pepper treats, green beans, squash, spaghetti pumpkin and some herbs and greens, etc.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thanks for the info. I've never used pelleted seed before. I think I will avoid it in the future. Even though they were packaged last month, they all seem dead as a hammer.
 
Right now I have a dozen bags mixed between Amish Paste and A Grappoli D'Inverno with 8 more to bag up over the next few days. Way more than enough. If all else fails, I'll trade some of these to a neighbor also growing Independence Day and a super sweet cherry similar to my Juliet grape.
 
I had a few of those heirloom seeds pop a silly string looking sprout. They were all from seeds that popped in 48 hours.Crazy looking.
 
DWB said:
Right now I have a dozen bags mixed between Amish Paste and A Grappoli D'Inverno with 8 more to bag up over the next few days. Way more than enough. If all else fails, I'll trade some of these to a neighbor also growing Independence Day and a super sweet cherry similar to my Juliet grape.
 
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Juliet is one of my favorite "saladette" types. Just about the only thing I didn't like about it was having to pick every day, they were that productive.
 
nmlarson said:
Juliet is one of my favorite "saladette" types. Just about the only thing I didn't like about it was having to pick every day, they were that productive.
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Did you ever grow them from pelleted seed? If I can get any plants to start, I hope they're productive. I can just go out to the garden and eat tomatoes for lunch every day.
 
I was considering use of this once the plants hit the bales. The man at the fertilizer company likes this stuff for peppers and tomatoes because it has quick acting K Mag in it. He says it's very popular around here for these particular crops
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It may be too high on the nitrogen and I don't particularly care for the (up to) 1% chlorine. Any advice?
 
It's only $14 a bag but it may be better just to keep putting it on my grass
 
 
 
 
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I don't think so Paul. Chlorine converts to chloride in the soil. CARDI says it's bad juju but I wonder how much is too much? 1% ain't a whole bunch.
 
"Pepper plants are chlorophobic meaning
that they are sensitive to the element
chlorine and its derivatives, therefore, the
less chlorine a fertiliser contains the better
the yields and the quality of the crop."
 
I have a lot of different types of fertilizers around here. Most (including Osmocote, the Miracle Gro liquids, ENC foliar and my new MasterBlend hydrostuff) don't admit to having chlorine. Many of the more industrial ones range from 1% to 8%.chlorine.
 
Not sure but I don't think so. Supposedly there's 1 pound of nitrogen in every 800 pounds of horse manure along with 2.4 pounds of phosphorus and 4.5 pounds of potassium. That doesn't seem too rich. I don't think the composting hay is all that rich either. Another source quotes 0.7%  N for perfectly composted horse manure that doesn't have any nutrient loss due to leaching, etc.
 
I know I put at least 800 pounds of poo on the bales when I top dressed them but I only did that once. I've dumped tons of it in the walkways between the bales so that can melt into the ground along with the composting leaves.
 
I put much more actual nitrogen in the form of ammonium nitrate on the bales to start the composting. That stuff is 34% nitrogen and I put a good handful in every bale a few times. Easily 20 pounds of it.  I'm pretty sure that's been digested and/or leached out too. I need to figure out how I can get a decent read on both pH and nutrients in this composing hay but I haven't figured that one out yet.
 
 
 
I have low and high range water tester chemicals for pH but that would be testing the water with added hay juice.
 
I wonder if I dried and ground up some of the actual growing media from inside the bales if I could get an accurate reading testing that it as if it was soil? The soil test is pretty accurate for N, P, K and pH when your testing soil. I suppose I should call the county agent and ask him.
 
DWB said:
I have low and high range water tester chemicals for pH but that would be testing the water with added hay juice.
 
I wonder if I dried and ground up some of the actual growing media from inside the bales if I could get an accurate reading testing that it as if it was soil? The soil test is pretty accurate for N, P, K and pH when your testing soil. I suppose I should call the county agent and ask him.
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Ive tested ph by testing my rain water (7.2 ph) and adding same amount of soil then testing mixture which was showing 6.9 so my soil had to be roughly 6.6 to bring the 7.2 ph down to 6.9. I think that is correct or at least close
 
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