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]

Oh, jeez. Hail right after you put them out, huh? Seems like there's always something nature will throw at you to keep it from being too easy!

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

Well, in the end I did well to put the plants outside already, I surprisingly got an anomalous streak of days of intense sun! The plants are already growing, and after 2 days in which they moved like flags in the wind, now they are stable.

This powerful sun has caused some burn damage on some leaves, but nothing serious, also thanks to the only half day of sun they get.
By the way, does anyone have experience of sunburn on C. pubescens and C. lanceolatum? It seems that, instead of the classic white-yellow spots like on annuum and chinense (first photo), these two species have reacted by making a sort of "silver dots" appear on the leaves (second and third photos), if that is the reason.

I tried to make a solution of water, sulfur, potassium soap and neem oil, in order to prevent infestations of mites and aphids, but it came out a mess : the potassium soap made the pH skyrocket and I should buy citric acid to balance it; the neem oil floats, is sticky, clumps the sulfur and is difficult to wash. Having read that sulfur (effective against mites) is also useful against aphid nymphs, I decided to abandon this theoretical concoction and stick to sulfur alone. After spraying it 2 days ago on 4 pots as a probe, I applied it to the rest of the plants.

I drew a map with the varieties I have, because I'm starting to not see the labels on the pots anymore, covered by leaves or sunk during watering... there are 127 varieties, it's easy to get lost

Today I am very happy because the first flower has opened, and it is not just any flower: C. lanceolatum, a marvel!

 

[MarcV]

The sun will always damage your plants when you just put them outside, but they will recover just fine!

 

[CaneDog]

Lanceolatum flowers are very cool looking. I like the splayed calyxes in particular. Glad to see that things are starting out so well!

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

The plants are fine but growing very slowly also because it has been raining for days and will rain for another 2 weeks, but it is not a problem, it is always like this when I put them outside in March, there is plenty of time to grow starting from mid-spring. In my environment putting them outside in May has always been much worse.

a small forest-style canopy

Aji white fantasy has huge leaves!

C. rabenii is also a beautiful plant. It has started to fork

C. lanceolatum is losing flowers and some leaves, but is creating a bunch of new shoots at the base. It seems that this alternation is one of its characteristics

F1 C. chinense crosses have already opened their first flowers, beating all other C. chinense to the punch thanks to their famous hybrid vigour. I can't wait to try my new creations!

Some shades of purple, brought out by the sun

Tiger anaheim (a variegated one)

Sunburns, once the hardening off is finished, are over. I am however experiencing other small problems. I therefore document the casualties of 2025, which are to be taken into account. Mainly we are talking about the smaller and more delicate plants, which have not passed the hardening off test. The lesson is therefore to solve the problem of small plants upstream, which has various causes.

C. flexuosum and C. tovarii have such long germination times that they should have been started earlier (perhaps in November).

C. flexuosum: man down! For the second year it dies when it is very small. Maybe I should look for fresh seeds, I think they are many years old and that could affect the general health. Goodbye flex, see you next year!

same for C. tovarii, the stem has thinned and no longer stands upright

the two little Jamy are dried up, but I could already see from the first indoor stages that something was wrong, there was little chlorophyll in the leaves and I think the reason is that I extracted them from the only fruit of 2024, not fully ripe

this is the Ebay test: very low germination (most of the varieties not born), and the few born are practically still. The reason is surely old seeds and not well preserved. I am used to serious sellers like Semillas (RIP) where germination is very high, so we are really talking about two opposite worlds. I feel sorry for the young growers who maybe only buy on Ebay or Amazon and then think they have a black thumb

the stem of C. rhomboideum has been hollowed out by something, or perhaps weather damage

the last ones are unfortunately among my favorite varieties, Pimenta da Neyde, which have curls/malformations on the new leaves that I fear are attributable to broad mites, which last year decimated the crop. I immediately intervened with sulfur, fingers crossed

See you soon!