2024 - Let's save friends from death by chili pepper

Hi!

In the last 6 years my pepper cultivation has always been ecological and spartan: no heating, no lamps, no fertilizers, no pesticides.
But this year, after starting with the usual setup, I decided to change on the fly and upgrade, at least with a radiator and LED lamps, given that the C. chinense and the wilds didn't agree very well with my natural choices, and I am always open to change. So I recovered a growbox from the cellar that I hadn't yet used for peppers.
I'm very late (actually I'm on par with other years, but being surrounded by professionals from two forums I feel the pressure ).

At the moment I have 35 live cultivars out of 40: the failed ones are sterile interspecific crosses, problematic wilds or poorly preserved seeds. But I'm satisfied.
In total there are 119 seedlings: 64 under the lamps (one for each variety, those to give as gifts and a few crossbreed phenotypes), and 55 as probes out in the cold on the balcony for which I will have to invent something.
I have a bit of everything, the 5 domestic species, some wild ones, some crosses of mine, but I like a moderate spiciness so many peppers are under 100k SHU to be able to balance them in cooking and also invite friends without them dying.
Well, they actually die every year anyway, even with C. annuum But let's invent a goal!

I have never used fertilizers or pesticides in any type of past cultivation, in order to obtain clean organoleptic profiles and respect the life of insects. I therefore expect healthy, but very slow, medium sized plants, and daily battles with various insects with which I will try to coexist in harmony. Except with the damn aphids!! Which I will crush by hand daily.

Some pictures:

Indoor plants

Outdoor plants

C. baccatum with 3 cotyledons (a classic)

C. rabenii with 0 cotyledons (I decapitated it during surgery, but waited patiently for the true leaves to come out anyway)

C. pubescens with butterfly cotyledons

Rocopica (also half decapitated, but recovering)

C. cardenasii

Chiltepin

A few more mixed shoots or crosses

Well what can I say, the bulk of it is done now, I just have to be patient! I hope to harvest at least a few C. annuum in early summer to start making sauces.

See you soon!

 

[CaneDog]

Great looking balcony picture, SF. Looks like you're off to a good start.

Best of luck for the season!

 

[Tinkerbelle]

Looking good

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Thank you!
Last year I only had 51 plants and the situation on the balcony in the late vegetative phase was this... I almost couldn't get through!

This year it's more than double... lol

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Dear friends, growing peppers is truly a school of life; I had to accept the failure and the anger towards myself in having made the cultivation worse compared to last year, despite having theoretically introduced many improvements.

I identify the problems in two branches:
1) human errors in the choice of soil, excessive hydration during the first phase, and the use of unsuitable lamps
2) unfavorable environmental conditions: inclement weather, north-facing balcony with little sun and absence of fertilizers by choice

Finally in these warmer days some seedlings have started to grow and are worthy of the first photos; but practically almost all chinense are still traumatized at a root level, and the wild ones are hyper slow.

At this point everything is fine this season, I'm in the acceptance phase: I'm happy again

Cabai burung ungu (C. frutescens)

Rocoto de seda (C. pubescens)

Lazzaretto abruzzese (C. annuum)

Bishop's crown (C. baccatum)

Chiltepin (C. annuum var. glabriusculum)

different leaf development is seen compared to other domesticated species

Ulupica (C. eximium)

Cumari (C. rabenii)

Ulupica (C. cardenasii)

perhaps the strangest, small leaves like greek basil/lesser calamint, and immediate bifurcation. Very fragrant like leaves, with green tomato and tropical tones, like other wild, pubescens and baccatum.

As anticipated, the chinenses are all stuck on the first and second pairs of leaves, waiting for the heat (or euthanasia). The only ones further ahead are my crosses: perhaps due to the hybrid vigor of the F1s, or perhaps because I had paid more attention to drainage for them in the early stages.

Pimenta da Neyde x Biquinho amarelo

it takes its traits from its mother PdN, the leaves show that softness and those nuanced colors of hot toilet paper!!
The biquinho is not spicy, so I'm hoping to get the flavor of the PdN but a more tolerable Scoville rating.

Pimenta da Neyde x Wraith

this one, however, seems to have acquired the wrinkled trait of the leaves from its father, which was this:

Finally the CT1 (it is an F3 that I carry forward for its yellow color and good flavour, it is a cross between an F5 of Calabrian annuum selected in recent years and the Cedrino)

it has some snake tongue leaves. The yellow color is certain to be there again this year, having already been obtained in the F2 selection. I hope the flavor is also close to the mother.

For the rest I continue in the daily fight with aphids and ants, in the company of some lizard friends who also this year live in the balcony walls; they come out in the morning and bask in the sun resting in the warm earth of the pots. This year the green aphids prefer the C.annuum, the red ones the C. chinense, and I always remove them by hand; baccatum, pubescens and wild are instead immaculate, I hypothesize due to their scent and/or pubescence which act as a deterrent.

See you soon! .

 

[CaneDog]

That's a great selection and, despite their slower start, they're looking strong and healthy! I hope the improved weather will have them growing quickly, now. It was a slow start to the season here as well.

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Hello end of season update. One word: total disaster

The C. chinense didn't get enough sun, I put them out late and the summer was very short, unlike last year.
The C. frutescens and pubescens were attacked by mites, it is the first time I have had them and I treated them too late with sulfur.

I only collected a few annuum, baccatum and chiltepin.

I am waiting for the annuum crosses to ripen

Several plants now have just flowers or immature fruits

Many wilds are just stems (e.g. C. eximium)

Minimum temperatures are already close to 9 degrees Celsius (48 Fahrenheit). I will try to bring at least C. rabenii (stupendous flower) and chinense crosses into the house soon, to obtain at least one fruit.

I'm already looking forward to 2025, I've already ordered the seeds and I'll definitely start much earlier.

I went to visit some friends of the Italian forum and was lucky that they supplied me with samples: as you say, pepper people are the best!

For the rest... I started the season with beliefs that have changed radically, just as man evolves mentally: first of all, next year I won't have mercy on insects and I went from "eating not very spicy" to abuse it, with many tastings of super hot peppers. To return to the title of the topic, in the end I'm the one who wasn't saved

Thanks to all the readers, and see you next year for a richer year!

 

[NJChilehead]

Hello end of season update. One word: total disaster

The C. chinense didn't get enough sun, I put them out late and the summer was very short, unlike last year.
The C. frutescens and pubescens were attacked by mites, it is the first time I have had them and I treated them too late with sulfur.

I only collected a few annuum, baccatum and chiltepin.

I am waiting for the annuum crosses to ripen

Several plants now have just flowers or immature fruits

Many wilds are just stems (e.g. C. eximium)

Minimum temperatures are already close to 9 degrees Celsius (48 Fahrenheit). I will try to bring at least C. rabenii (stupendous flower) and chinense crosses into the house soon, to obtain at least one fruit.

I'm already looking forward to 2025, I've already ordered the seeds and I'll definitely start much earlier.

I went to visit some friends of the Italian forum and was lucky that they supplied me with samples: as you say, pepper people are the best!

For the rest... I started the season with beliefs that have changed radically, just as man evolves mentally: first of all, next year I won't have mercy on insects and I went from "eating not very spicy" to abuse it, with many tastings of super hot peppers. To return to the title of the topic, in the end I'm the one who wasn't saved

Thanks to all the readers, and see you next year for a richer year!

Best of luck next year! Anything in particular you're excited about trying in 2025?

 

[CaneDog]

I think more than a few of us are looking forward to a better next season, but hopefully good things from this one as well. That rabenii flower is truly impressive. All the white space really makes it pop!

I'm curious too, what you're excited about for next season.

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

That rabenii flower is truly impressive. All the white space really makes it pop!

you're absolutely right! It makes me want to see the flowers of all the other species in person

Best of luck next year! Anything in particular you're excited about trying in 2025?

Thanks!

I'm curious too, what you're excited about for next season.

I will sow all this year's failed cultivars again, and many others... maybe even more plants per pot, even if I shouldn't, but I don't have room for them all and I can't choose what to remove
Specifically, I will also try all the wild ones that I am missing: C. lanceolatum, chacoense, rhomboideum, tovarii and galapagoense above all; some particular mutations such as the habanero green or a purple flowered baccatum; the Bulgarian fish pepper, which I bought in a supermarket in Sofia a few days ago, crunchy and tasting like a delicate rose; some peppers that I always read as references in the American Scoville scales, but which are not used here, such as Datil and Hungarian hot wax; some Chinese pepper sent into space; the Numex Nobasco, I'm curious to experience the flavor of frutescens without the spiciness; several edible annuums of friends that I selected this year; and some heirlooms like the original Bih Jolokia.
I still don't know what will grow and what won't, but that's okay, I'm happy even when it's just leaves or flowers. In a few years I will probably have just a few cultivars, but for now I am in the midst of a compulsive pepper syndrome

 

[CaneDog]

Sounds like you have plenty to look forward to. That will definitely keep things interesting!

 

[NJChilehead]

I am in the midst of a compulsive pepper syndrome

You're not the only one!