2025 - LEAVE OR DIE

CHAPTER #01 - LIKE REPTILES

It's never too early to say "it's never too early to get started" so this year, to counterattack a possible fake summer effect like in 2024, I started 3 months in advance (18th of december).

Chiltepin cappuccino - 2024

I sterilized the seeds with a 9:1 water/bleach solution, and presoaked them for 24h, then I put them on paper towel on every heater of the house.

As soon as the roots emerged, I put them in soil (instead of waiting for the cotyledons to open on the paper, that maybe was causing more stress to the roots).
My friend gave me reptiles heatmats and a reptile UV lamp, that I'm using to heat the soil filled pepper cups (my apartment is cold, now I have 5C degrees more).

Soil is a brand new one, no more fungus-filled recycled one thanks!!

So, everything seems to be better and working well, apart from a big problem... I decided to go all-in and grow 130 varieties, even if I only have a small balcony. I couldn't choose what to remove, so I thought of putting 2-3-4 plants per pot. That's for two reasons: the first is that I'm insane the second one is that, having only 4 hours of sun per day, I realized that for my environment it may be better to grow small plants: I'll expect competition among them, and hopefully many small tastings.

I started with 60 varieties: wild ones, pubescens, and a mix of chinense and frutescens; to be fair, after all this babysitting I've already got the pepper burnout. Also, I'm already out of space! Time to mount a twin structure.

The wild ones I chosed are:
C. lanceolatum
C. chacoense
C. rhomboideum
C. tovarii
C. galapagoense
C. eximium
C. cardenasii
C. flexuosum
Also, a couple of C. rabenii, a couple of C. annuum var. glabriusculum, a C. baccatum var. baccatum, a purple flowered baccatum and some wild chinense/frutescens.

On late january/february I'll start with C. annuum and C. baccatum ones; mutants, variegated and F1 to F4 crosses included.
Some friends are trying to overwinter at home some of my last year's cultivars that couldn't set fruits (especially F1 and C. rabenii), anyway I sowed them again.

C. lanceolatum seeds surprised me because they are black and way smaller than any Capsicum seed I've had, included C. eximium.

I will also radically change the way I grow them outdoors, from the composition of the soil to the way I'll manage insects; but this will be told on march .

 

[CaneDog]

Looks like a great start to the season, SF! Nice to see that they're already starting to sprout. I like your plan of growing more varieties, even if some of the plants will be smaller as a result. It's a great way to try more things.

I hope the weather and bugs cooperate this year and you get great results!

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Nice to see that they're already starting to sprout. I like your plan of growing more varieties, even if some of the plants will be smaller as a result

Thanks CD! It seems that presoaking seeds has helped sprouting early, and no helmet heads until now.
I also sowed seeds just 2mm down instead of 5-10mm, and I'm weighing waterings.
So many little differences to experience, if we have patience

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

CHAPTER #02 - FEELING ALRIGHT

Everything is going well better than ever, as I recall struggling more with sprouting, especially for the wild ones.

I mounted a second structure with a full-spectrum LED. That's too strong for peppers, so it's quite distant to avoid tip burnings.

Now unborn plants stay separate in the first structure with the reptile lamp and heatpads.

But I will put some new heatpads even in the second structure, under the plants, to keep roots warm.

Different colors are for different Capsicum species: yellow (chinense), blue (baccatum), pink (pubescens), red (frutescens), and green for all the wild ones. C. annuum will take the white PVC ones. No more DIY water-melting paper labels
Symbols are a simple code to remember seed position and date of sowing.

Luckily, I managed to give birth to all my last crossbreeds, as last autumn i had mildew attacking every seed in the cellar; since then I properly keep seeds isolated in the fridge

 

[NJChilehead]

Everything looks beautiful overall! I see Ecuadorian Red PFH as one of your pubescens. I grew that one last year and absolutely fell in love with it. Looking forward to seeing how it all progresses!

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Everything looks beautiful overall! I see Ecuadorian Red PFH as one of your pubescens. I grew that one last year and absolutely fell in love with it. Looking forward to seeing how it all progresses!

Thanks! I chose a couple of peppers based on some THP users'opinions (e.g., RPFH and Jamaican hot choc from you, and aji chombo from Marturo ). I have others in list, but I couldn't find seeds here (lesya, chile rayado, tasmanian black). Maybe next year!

I put the new heatpads under the plants, and that's good (25C on the pads; the environment goes from 16C during nighttime to 20C during daytime).

But anyway I start to have the usual humidity problems: the top soil is often wet because the powerful LED has to stay far, so I don't have heating from above (the reptile lamp is in the other structure, and BTW doesn't cover a wide area) and some algae or white fungus dots are emerging.

I know that they will start to spread, even if now I am removing them with a spoon. I'll try to reduce waterings more, because I can't find other solutions to dry the upper part of the cups. Any idea?

I also started presoaking all the C. baccatum seeds, plus some unborn ones from the first cycle. Dividing the cultivars in steps is less stressful

And I put away the last 2024 seeds, after more or less 1 month drying. Maybe they don't need 1 full month, but I'm used to do that because it's easy to compare dates.

C. amarillo (one of a few C. baccatum that I started early, because it takes ages to ripen; this is the "fat" one, because I also had a "slim" one) are already the tallest ones.

I am curious to taste it, because the fruit comes from a peruvian market in Milan and it was very watery and almost not hot. The ones I grew were very tasty and hot (they were the slim ones... but I don't think it's relevant). I suppose it depends on the growing methods, and not from the genetic. We'll see.
You can see different stages of auto seed removal. This year I'm not helping them anymore.

C. annuum var glabriusculum, instead, is already compact, and started developing the first set of true leaves.

I don't know if the next one is a human error (like planting two seeds together, even if I manage them one by one), or two rocoto sprouts emerged from the same seed. BTW I like the picture, it reminds me of trees in a microworld

Rocotos often give me some weird cotyledons (here: a tricot and a butterly one nearby), I suppose it's something bound to the species

 

[NJChilehead]

Thanks! I chose a couple of peppers based on some THP users'opinions (e.g., RPFH and Jamaican hot choc from you, and aji chombo from Marturo ). I have others in list, but I couldn't find seeds here (lesya, chile rayado, tasmanian black). Maybe next year!

The Jamaican Hot Chocolate is a really nice pepper, you'll enjoy it!