glog 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!

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Some updates. Starting every post with a chapter + song is causing me some mental delay so I'm abandoning this format

I started all the missing peppers, 50 varieties of C. annuum. 10 are crosses of mine, that I decided to revive after talking about the multicolor alien in another thread:

until a couple of years ago I was carrying out a cross for the alien face, but then I abandoned the project

unfortunately I lost the alien seeds somewhere... but I found the previous generation, so I'm starting back from that.
I also found some grandparents of him, and a nice uncle (informally called "green dragon" because it lost the anthocyanins in the intermediate step of maturation, that are instead a prerogative of the alien lineage).
Here is the green dragon, that somehow reminds of the alien shape:

Many seeds have from 2 to 5 years of age, so I don't know which ones will be born... BTW today the green dragon ones made some root
Some crosses (all C. annuum because I started crossing local varieties):

I hope for the yellow ones to go on, because they had a good flavor. I selected the yellow gene in F2.
Last year I got some F4 seeds but they were from green fruits; in paper towel they appear to be a little transparent, so I don't know if they will live; time to start with some F3 as a backup.

Apart from C. annuum, the other species proceed well. I solved the humidity problem of the soil by letting the cups dry more than usual.

C. rhomboideum and C. galapagoense were finally born:

only C. flexuosum and C. tovarii aren't still germinating among the wild ones.
C. flexuosum is always very slow. I don't know how C. tovarii behaves, does anyone have experience?

C. chinense crosses are in good health

Well what can I say.. I'm at a good point with this year's plan, from now on it should all be downhill. I decided to keep 2 plants of each type (one as a backup), and in order to have them small to risk rootbinding them in the cups for another 1 month before transplanting them into pots outside. I gave away about 70 surplus sprouts to friends and acquaintances everyone is happy! Someone received a wild one... I'm curious to see how they behave in different places!

 

[CaneDog]

Wow! So much going on. Looks like you're off to a great start to the season. Too bad about the alien seeds. Hopefully the previous generation will produce what you want again. Tovarii are slow for me, among the slowest, with 45 days +/- not being uncommon. Has your lanceolatum sprouted yet? I didn't notice. They are really cool little plants.

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Wow! So much going on. Looks like you're off to a great start to the season. Too bad about the alien seeds. Hopefully the previous generation will produce what you want again. Tovarii are slow for me, among the slowest, with 45 days +/- not being uncommon.

Thanks CD! I hope so! And thanks for telling me your C. tovarii timings, i'll wait. Maybe next year I'll start even before with that and the flexuosum one.

Has your lanceolatum sprouted yet? I didn't notice. They are really cool little plants.

Yes, here you are!

I take this opportunity to ask if these damages are caused by light. I hope it's nothing related to viruses or insects. My nightmare last year was mites:

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

It's never too late to say "I started too early" next year I'm going to start in mid-january, because maybe now I'll need to transplant some peppers before my original planning (that was putting them outside in the first days of march).

This 7pot bubblegum yellow has produced a plant with a very low level of chlorophyll:

if it survives and keeps the mutation it will be interesting to cross it with something else (maybe some of my purple crosses?).
I'm already fantasizing about many possible future crosses

P.S. the pre-Alien cross seeds aren't germinating, I think that lineage has come to an end; but 3 of its relatives, including UP2BGD ("green dragon") are born, so I'm still happy

 

[MarcV]

It's never too late to say "I started too early"

Hmmm yeah... with that amount of plants it may become a little tricky...

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Hmmm yeah... with that amount of plants it may become a little tricky...

problem solved! Today I transplanted about ten peppers.
Here are the photos of the root development (I thank my friend Leonida for suggesting to use transparent cups, it's cool to see the roots) and the transplant

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

...aaaaand after 36 days, C. flexuosum has a root

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

let's drink to celebrate one more step (and the hard work of these two days, including bringing upstairs six freaking quintals of soil...).

I started repotting several plants into their final pots, upgrading from the selected soil of recent years to a custom recipe: neutral soil, fossil wood, vulcanic pumice, perlite and osmocote.

repotted plants:

I also put some blue and yellow chromotropic traps to prevent different kind of pests (none so far).

Here are the rest of the plants:

The only thing I'm not sure about yet is my idea of multiple seedlings per pot. As you can see there are 5 or 6 plants per pot. The idea this year was, since I only have sun from 9 to 13 on the balcony, to make small plants to speed up the time (as well as actually being able to fit all the varieties in the little space I have). I will therefore struggle with the competition between plants, their proximity, and the intertwining of roots; however, competition should help produce small plants and early flowers/fruits.
I'm not interested in abundant harvests, but rather in multiple tastings and flowers available at crossings, the goal of the season.
So on paper it seems to me that the idea makes sense, but in practice I don't know if it's bullshit and it's better to eliminate some of it. Suggestions?

 

[MarcV]

I also put some blue and yellow chromotropic traps to prevent different kind of pests (none so far).

Looks like it keeps elephants away also, b'cause I don't see any...

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Looks like it keeps elephants away also, b'cause I don't see any...

right, even chupacabras and pepper-eating aliens...

Finally C. tovarii also germinated! (after 23 days)

like other difficult wild seeds, it seems that a little hydro-shock helped (letting the wet paper towel to dry).
Now the wild army is complete

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Update. Every 3-4 days I do some transfers to break up the rhythm and reduce the load on my back. I moved on to permanent repotting, since in this multi-plant setup intermediate repotting only added unnecessary complications.

The house is full of plants and they are all fine including some wild ones that suffered damage from light (e.g. C. chacoense) and which have recovered.

The blue and yellow chromotropic traps fortunately remained empty.

The small seedlings are the C. annuum and some varieties of other species that are emerging or growing at a slow pace (including the wild ones: C. flexuosum, C. rhomboideum, C. galapagoense and C. tovarii).

Other goodies: RPFH rocoto has started to fork; C. lanceolatum is truly unique; the house smells like C. baccatum when I water the plants.

In mid-March I plan to put them all on the balcony.

 

[CaneDog]

Wow, everything's looking great and so many peppers. Hope they don't grow you out of your home before you reach plant-out! Lanceolatum look so cool when they're young plants. They're so unique. The dark foliage variety in the picture above it is a real looker too!

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Wow, everything's looking great and so many peppers. Hope they don't grow you out of your home before you reach plant-out! Lanceolatum look so cool when they're young plants. They're so unique. The dark foliage variety in the picture above it is a real looker too!

thank you! The house will be so empty and lonely when they are out!

The dark variety is wonderful, it's a purple serrano that luckily has always had a dark foliage phenotype (many pics online are just green). I will take some photos of the fruit ripening process because it goes through beautiful color stages! Last year the damn broad mites killed all the flowers..

I will also try to cross it with other C. annuum I like. A couple of years ago I managed to cross it with aji limon (lemon drop, C. baccatum), the first successful interspecific cross, the fruit strangely took two months to ripen and the offspring were sterile. I didn't know much about genetic barriers, or that was better to use a C. chinense as a bridge, anyway it was a cool random attempt. Maybe one day I'll try the bridge process, but this year I think I'll stick to intraspecific crosses (but who knows? when I have pollen in my hand I become like a bee )