2019 - The Farm

TrentL · Jan 19, 2019

Yeah after dinner think I'll put a couple trays of Reapers and Reaper x Moruga down.

Reason I'm doing full trays of those, MOA and big sun I want 100 plants each in the field, excess plants will get sold at market. Reapers and Moruga x Reaper we sold completely out of last year, every viable pod that grew got sold. So I might do more of those.

I'm building 5 of those shelves, so I'll have 15 2x4 shelves for 1020 trays, which will be 60 flats per cycle, or 4,320 cells. Chinense goes in first, when those get transplanted to 4" second half of feb (3240 plants). Then annuums go on late feb / early march, another 60 flats. When annums get transplanted in April, they're going straight out to the high tunnel in 4" pots. Figure to have about 6,000 plants total. Try to move some to local nurseries, some at the early farmers markets, we'll have a hell of a lot more peppers than we need.

We *might* experiment with shipping live pepper plants this year, in late April / early May, but it will depend on how much free time we have (my guess, is very little).

Anyway feels good to have the first 600 or so seeds in something now (trays were double seeded, 2 per cell, plus whatever my fat fingers dumped in by accident.

saiias · Jan 20, 2019

Nice list Trent. Hopefully we will get a chance to visit the farm this year too.

TrentL · Jan 20, 2019

First 8 trays on the warming mats. They're in our downstairs bathroom for now since I'll be rebuilding the basement grow room on Monday.

144x each of

MOA Scotch bonnet
Big Sun Habanero
Reaper
Moruga x reaper

I guess this one sorta counts as an overwinter. It was seeded last January 22nd, 2018, was the sole survivor of the potting soil pH fiasco that wiped out my first 6 trays last year. This has lived in the same potting soil with no fertilizer added since it was potted up last February, on our kitchen windowsill. Occasionally someone would squirt a little water in it when it looked sad, otherwise there was nothing done to it whatsoever.

I'm going to repot it in 100% coco tomorrow and give it a dose of Coco A+B hydro to perk it up some, it's leaves are falling off in the cold east facing windowsill, and intra-vein necrosis is starting, so it's short on a lot of shit.

Took 7 hours to get done, mainly because seeds were still dried on placentas and had to break them up and mix up a big enough well-randomized batch.

At one point I had to do emergency face wash because I'd collected so much dust, when I blew my nose, I blew reaper dust up in my eyes. My entire face was lit up so bad I had to break out a bottle of isopropyl alcohol to clean off the dust. Water just wasn't cutting it.

Same with the hand wash when I was done, straight alcohol to wash. Capcaisin that strong doesn't wash off with soap and water. The moruga reaper seeds felt *waxy* they had so much dried capsaicin oil on them!

Now we wait. According to last year's spreadsheet I had first reaper hooks at 8 days (buckeye) and 10 days (pepperlover), and moruga x reaper hooks at 6 days. Peak sprouting for Reaper curve was at 15 days, Moruga reaper was a spread between days 9-12, with a bit of a lull in the middle. (Moruga x reaper hybrid is slightly faster growing and slightly better producing, pod density wise, for what it's worth.)

BlackFatalii · Jan 20, 2019

TrentL said:
Forgot to mention in the OP, but one of the more interesting (passive) experiments will be on germination rates for old seed. Since I'm going "all in" for seed production, every type of seed I've ever laid my hands on is going in the dirt. Some of the seeds I'll be putting in the dirt are *8* years old now, and have spent nearly a decade lost in the back of a kitchen cabinet. I'm not overly optimistic about their viability, but... "we will see"!

PaulG said:
I've started a few 'teenaged' seeds this season.
Not very old, but back to 2013. Any tricks for
spurring the old-timers into action?

There is a gardener on YouTube who successfully germinated 87 year old tomato seeds. He said that he presoaked the seeds for 4 to 5 hours in sugar water (1 tsp sugar in 1 cup water), the idea being to replenish some of the carbohydrates that the seeds have lost over time. He said that you need to be careful not to soak them for too long in the sugar water. I have not tried this myself, but I thought it might be worth mentioning. Here is a video of him starting the seeds. He talks briefly about the sugar water soak at 6:30 and 19:20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeQRrj6YTQQ

Blitz527 · Jan 20, 2019

Man, as always, I am impressed. Your logs are always inspiring. I really hope to have a large grow, time will tell. We have plans to clear and till about 2 to 3 actres at my father in laws for veg and another couple for fruit trees and Christmas trees. But most of the work there will be done by me alone. My boys are a great help but they are 8, 2 and 1... My father in law will help some but with arthritis, he is kind of limited. Long story short, within 5-6 years, we plan on having a large garden area, orchard and I'd like a large green house as well to aid in our grows. But there are a lot of variables that work into this so I am not getting my hopes up as of yet LOL I'll be following along for sure and if ever given the opportunity to come by, I'd like to check your place out during the grow season.

TrentL · Jan 20, 2019

BlackFatalii said:
There is a gardener on YouTube who successfully germinated 87 year old tomato seeds. He said that he presoaked the seeds for 4 to 5 hours in sugar water (1 tsp sugar in 1 cup water), the idea being to replenish some of the carbohydrates that the seeds have lost over time. He said that you need to be careful not to soak them for too long in the sugar water. I have not tried this myself, but I thought it might be worth mentioning. Here is a video of him starting the seeds. He talks briefly about the sugar water soak at 6:30 and 19:20.

That's interesting - makes sense that complex carbs would break down over time. Even stuff in the deep freeze loses a little over time. Enzymes keep working even in deep freeze, e.g. we have to blanch corn to kill the enzymes so the sugar in corn doesn't continue to break down in the freezer.

I remember reading about beans that had been excavated in a clay pot at an archaeological site that were 2,000+ years old, which germinated.

Some of the oldest of the old, I'll give it a shot, see if there is any difference. The only ones I have a big enough sample size to test would be some cayenne seeds, I think.

TrentL · Jan 20, 2019

Blitz527 said:
Man, as always, I am impressed. Your logs are always inspiring. I really hope to have a large grow, time will tell. We have plans to clear and till about 2 to 3 actres at my father in laws for veg and another couple for fruit trees and Christmas trees. But most of the work there will be done by me alone. My boys are a great help but they are 8, 2 and 1... My father in law will help some but with arthritis, he is kind of limited. Long story short, within 5-6 years, we plan on having a large garden area, orchard and I'd like a large green house as well to aid in our grows. But there are a lot of variables that work into this so I am not getting my hopes up as of yet LOL I'll be following along for sure and if ever given the opportunity to come by, I'd like to check your place out during the grow season.

2-3 acres would be really tough, maybe impossible for 1 person, if it was all in manual vegetables.

This year it's just me and wife doing the grow. I have a carpenter that'll help me do the high tunnels, concrete pour, etc, but the plants will just be me and wife. Might bring on some temp help at a few points, such as potting-up. Although I got a plan to make that a lot easier this year, so might not need 'em.

The hardest part will be keeping up with any sort of harvest this year. There were 3 of us at harvest time last year and we had a hell of a time trying to keep up.

SpeakPolish · Jan 20, 2019

So did you profit last year? Hope you get way more buck for your bang.

DWB · Jan 20, 2019

TrentL said:
At one point I had to do emergency face wash because I'd collected so much dust, when I blew my nose, I blew reaper dust up in my eyes. My entire face was lit up so bad I had to break out a bottle of isopropyl alcohol to clean off the dust. Water just wasn't cutting it.

The problem with that plan is when the alky hits the cap it goes to vapor and you get pepper gassed. It's especially bad with crystalline capsaicin. All you can do is keep your eyes tightly closed in fear of impending pain and wait it out.

This is my solution to working with things like capsaicin and reaper powder. Triple filtering with air locks and a load of carbon in between. If you can't smell the alcohol when you wash your gloves, you know you have it right. My wife called me Walter White but oh well.

TrentL · Jan 20, 2019

SpeakPolish said:
So did you profit last year? Hope you get way more buck for your bang.

Oh shit no, we lost nearly $300k in the first year. Most of it was infrastructure set up. Just labor costs (not counting any materials or infrastructure or equipment or anything) we lost about 35 grand.

This year I don't have to spend nearly as much money though. I have an 8k seed budget (mainly because industrial hemp seeds are $1 ea for high CBD strains). I've spent $1500 of that so far.

I still have to finish the irrigation plan, and build two high tunnels. Those are two of my big two expenses this year. I need hundreds of yards of 3" bell end PVC, have to build manifolds, fertilizer injectors, etc. I also have to buy the pump, and build a pump house around it so I can house the irrigation control system in a weatherproof shed. The high tunnels I already have the materials for, but have to pay labor for a helper and have concrete costs (each 24x96 tunnel takes approx 24,000 lbs of concrete for the posts).

The third big expense is refrigeration. Still working on a plan for that, probably pick up insulated shipping containers and use wall AC's with the electronics altered to maintain a lower temp than usually possible (have to override the AC electronics and redesign it so it can cool to a lower temp setting, as well as cycle the AC during cooling phases to keep from freezing it up)

A minor expense will be greens bubble washer, that'll cost me about $500 to build (with the bulk of that being a tank and plumbing) and a greens dryer (which I already have an old washing machine I can hack up for that)

So there's still some big ticket items, but nowhere near as bad as last year.

Most other materials I already have - dripline, fittings, water holding tanks, soil mix equipment, retail area is built, trellis, posts, ground fabric, straw, etc. A lot of money was spent last year on materials that should last quite a long time.

PaulG · Jan 20, 2019

Thanks for posting the tip about the sugar water, BlackFatali :thumbsup:

TrentL · Jan 20, 2019

DWB said:
The problem with that plan is when the alky hits the cap it goes to vapor and you get pepper gassed. It's especially bad with crystalline capsaicin. All you can do is keep your eyes tightly closed in fear of impending pain and wait it out.

This is my solution to working with things like capsaicin and reaper powder. Triple filtering with air locks and a load of carbon in between. If you can't smell the alcohol when you wash your gloves, you know you have it right. My wife called me Walter White but oh well.

Yeah I need to get a hood. My glorious man beard does not allow me to use a standard face respirator.

m1hagen · Jan 20, 2019

TrentL said:
Yeah I need to get a hood. My glorious man beard does not allow me to use a standard face respirator.

Seems like I remember you shaving that glorious man beard off last year. Might be worth it to avoid being gassed.

TrentL · Jan 20, 2019

m1hagen said:
Seems like I remember you shaving that glorious man beard off last year. Might be worth it to avoid being gassed.

Not a snowballs chance in hell of me shaving when there's single digit high temps outside, buddy.

Sinn · Jan 20, 2019

DWB said:
The problem with that plan is when the alky hits the cap it goes to vapor and you get pepper gassed. It's especially bad with crystalline capsaicin. All you can do is keep your eyes tightly closed in fear of impending pain and wait it out.

This is my solution to working with things like capsaicin and reaper powder. Triple filtering with air locks and a load of carbon in between. If you can't smell the alcohol when you wash your gloves, you know you have it right. My wife called me Walter White but oh well.

YO Mr White! [emoji4]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

TrentL · Jan 20, 2019

Seeded 1/20/2019. If it's listed twice it's because it split trays. All of the old pepperlover seed I had left went in the starter trays today (well, no annuums.)

7-Pot Chaguanas PL2012 x6
7-Pot Jonah PL2012 x10
7-Pot Long PL2012 x3
7-Pot Orig Red PL2012 x6
7-Pot Yellow Brainstrain PL2012 x7
Bhut Jolokia Brown PL2012 x2
Bhut Jolokia Brown PL2018 x22
Bhut Jolokia Indian Carbon PL2012 x2
Bhut Jolokia Red PL2012 x7
Bhut Jolokia Yellow PL2012 x5
Brain Strain Red PL2012 x18
Brain Strain Red PL2012 x15
Butch-T PL2012 x2
Butch-T PL2018 x4
CAP215 PL2012 x6
CGN 19198 PL2012 x5
CGN 22091 PL2012 x10
CGN 22794 Goat Pepper PL2012 x6
CGN 227972 PL2012 x6
CGN 24360 PL2012 x3
Datil PL2012 x15
Dedo de Moca PL2012 x7
Dorset Naga BE2018 x6
Dorset Naga PL2012 x5
Giant Aconcagua BE2018 x1
Giant Mexican Rocoto PL2012 x18
Habanero Chocolate PL2012 x1
Large Red 7-Pot PL2018 x4
Mako Akokosrade PL2012 x3
Monster Naga PL2012 x3
Moruga x Reaper PL2018 x6
Naga Morich PL2012 x3
PI 497974 Orchid PL2012 x5
PI281429 x1
Pimenta De Neyde PL2012 x5
Reaper x Bhut PL2018 x6
Tobago Scotch Bonnet Red PL2012 x4
Tobago Scotch Bonnet Yellow PL2012 x2
Tobago Seasoning PL2012 x4
Trinidad Douglah PL2012 x8
Trinidad Moruga Scorpion PL2012 x6
Trinidad Moruga Yellow PL2018 x6
Trinidad PI 281317 PL2012 x6
Trinidad Scorpion Cardi PL2012 x2
Trinidad Scorpion Original PL2012 x1
Trinidad Scorpion Yellow PL2012 x6
Trinidad Smooth PL2012 x1
True Cumari PL 2012 x1
White Bhut Jolokia PL2012 x7

TrentL · Jan 21, 2019

Grow Room V2 is underway

Bold Badger Sauces · Jan 21, 2019

TrentL said:
You betcha! My wife got more hours on seed packing than I did, so she deserves the lions share of the credit.

I did, however, most definitely win the "most snot" award. Even with a respirator, which admittedly was ill-fitting due to my beard, I managed to lose about a gallon of snot doing the ultrahot seeds.
My wife, apparently, is fully immune to pepper dust, as she didn't so much as sneeze ONCE, without a mask.

Hell I walked by the table last night and my mouth started burning. I have no idea how she can hover over a big bowl of 20,000 ultrahot seeds breaking up seed from placentas, and not so much as sneeze or sniffle. Meanwhile, our kids, which were totally isolated from the seed counting activities upstairs, were sneezing and coughing.

Anyway, hats off to the missus, because she's got a much higher tolerance for airborne superhot particles than I do.

This makes me glad I didn't try to separate all the seeds I saved from last year. I had a feeling that would have been a bad idea, lol.

Really looking forward to your 2019 glog! Last year I didn't find it until it was already like 70 pages deep so it was like binging a show on netflix. This year I'll be suffering the frustration of waiting for your updates in real time.

TrentL · Jan 21, 2019

Bold Badger Sauces said:
This makes me glad I didn't try to separate all the seeds I saved from last year. I had a feeling that would have been a bad idea, lol.

Really looking forward to your 2019 glog! Last year I didn't find it until it was already like 70 pages deep so it was like binging a show on netflix. This year I'll be suffering the frustration of waiting for your updates in real time.

Thanks man! Dude I tell you, today was insanely horrible. We dehydrated over 200 lbs (probably closer to 400?) of ultrahot peppers in that room this last fall. EVERYTHING was chemically hot. Floors. Walls. EVERY LAST DUST PARTICLE THE TOOLS KICKED AROUND.

I wore a respirator for part of it, lost a gallon of snot, at least, and think I turned at least one lung inside out coughing. The *air* was hot. Lips, nose, mouth, throat, eyes, everything burned.

Horrible, horrible, horrible.

DWB · Jan 21, 2019

Haha gallon of snot and spitting lungs.. Been there, done that.