7cardcha's Newbie Grow Log

capsidadburn · Feb 17, 2014

Welcome 7card! It's a great way to learn by just plunging right in as it sounds like you have. You are bound to make mistakes this season that you'll do a better job of next season.

Can't tell where you are germinating your seeds at. It's definitely to early for outside where you are. You can start indoors and move them out after your last danger of frost date.

Hardening off should be minimal sun, wind exposure (2 or 3 hours) early on, progressing to longer periods of time as a week or two passes. Just watch at the peak hot sun times for wilting.

Remove to shade or indoors. Shade for young seedlings is a good place to start. Full sun once they are hardened and growing. If you just have the 3 varieties just use plastic cups with

holes added for drainage. Watch their growth. If they get fairly large and or root bound you should transplant/ pot up to something in the one gallon range. You mentioned that you did not

have a good window. Maybe purchase an inexpensive light for indoors. There should be good instructional light info in some pinned threads in the growing forum.

Probably the earliest you might see hooks would be around 4 days unless you are using paper towel method maybe 2 or 3 days. Just starting out learning usually take much longer. 10 days is

normal but 2 to 4 weeks is not unreasonable.

Good luck with your grow and post some pics.

Mike

7cardcha · Feb 17, 2014

capsidadburn said:
Welcome 7card! It's a great way to learn by just plunging right in as it sounds like you have. You are bound to make mistakes this season that you'll do a better job of next season.

Can't tell where you are germinating your seeds at. It's definitely to early for outside where you are. You can start indoors and move them out after your last danger of frost date.

Hardening off should be minimal sun, wind exposure (2 or 3 hours) early on, progressing to longer periods of time as a week or two passes. Just watch at the peak hot sun times for wilting.

Remove to shade or indoors. Shade for young seedlings is a good place to start. Full sun once they are hardened and growing. If you just have the 3 varieties just use plastic cups with

holes added for drainage. Watch their growth. If they get fairly large and or root bound you should transplant/ pot up to something in the one gallon range. You mentioned that you did not

have a good window. Maybe purchase an inexpensive light for indoors. There should be good instructional light info in some pinned threads in the growing forum.

Probably the earliest you might see hooks would be around 4 days unless you are using paper towel method maybe 2 or 3 days. Just starting out learning usually take much longer. 10 days is

normal but 2 to 4 weeks is not unreasonable.

Good luck with your grow and post some pics.

Mike

Thank you for all the info. I planted them directly in little cups, I'll post pics as soon as I have any. The seeds are fresh from the 2013 growing season, right out of someone's garden so they should be good. Thank you for all the advice.

The last frost date is late April for me, won't the peppers(edit I mean pepper plants) be rather large by then? Crap maybe I've planted too early. No issue, if this fails I'll just use the other half of my seeds. I'm not keen on an indoor grow. Can I put them in pots and move them inside on cold nights?

capsidadburn · Feb 17, 2014

No problem moving them in on cold nights. Just pot them up to larger pots as needed before plant out.

Solem22 · Feb 17, 2014

7cardcha said:
Thank you for all the info. I planted them directly in little cups, I'll post pics as soon as I have any. The seeds are fresh from the 2013 growing season, right out of someone's garden so they should be good. Thank you for all the advice.

The last frost date is late April for me, won't the peppers(edit I mean pepper plants) be rather large by then? Crap maybe I've planted too early. No issue, if this fails I'll just use the other half of my seeds. I'm not keen on an indoor grow. Can I put them in pots and move them inside on cold nights?

The plants should be past seedling stage by then but shouldn't be too large. This is around the time I started last year and I also live in NC. Last year I got two good rounds of peppers off of my plants. I started earlier this year (too early honestly). I would try to get them started soon. It will take them a while to get to maturity to start forming pods. I would imagine that the moruga and the reaper will take longer than the hab to produce. You can pull them in on cold nights but I am not too sure how seedlings will do with the temps being only in the 50's to 60's during the day. There are some cheap ways to germinate indoors without a heatmat. Last year I used a baking pan and some christmas lights underneath to heat them. Lol.

Where do you live in NC? If you still are having trouble I could give you a plant or two as I have way too many and you could grow them out this season. Either way, good luck this year!

7cardcha · Feb 17, 2014

Solem22 said:
The plants should be past seedling stage by then but shouldn't be too large. This is around the time I started last year and I also live in NC. Last year I got two good rounds of peppers off of my plants. I started earlier this year (too early honestly). I would try to get them started soon. It will take them a while to get to maturity to start forming pods. I would imagine that the moruga and the reaper will take longer than the hab to produce. You can pull them in on cold nights but I am not too sure how seedlings will do with the temps being only in the 50's to 60's during the day. There are some cheap ways to germinate indoors without a heatmat. Last year I used a baking pan and some christmas lights underneath to heat them. Lol.

Where do you live in NC? If you still are having trouble I could give you a plant or two as I have way too many and you could grow them out this season. Either way, good luck this year!

I live waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy away from you in Apex, NC. I'm not sure if I'm having trouble yet, since I just planted yesterday. Thanks for the advice.

Spicegeist · Feb 17, 2014

7cardcha said:
I've never grown peppers before. I've always been fascinated with hot things though, so finally I ordered some seeds off the internet. I'm going to attempt to grow:

- Carolina Reaper

- Chocolate Trinidad Moruga

- Habanero

I like to make things hard on myself so I'm not going to use sterile starting mix or much fertilizer. Natural growing conditions only

That being said I would like some advice. I've got a lot of questions.

- How much sun do the seedlings need starting out? It is already pretty warm here in NC(It will be over 65 for the next 5 days and it is colder then normal this year) and I don't have any really sunny windows, no south facing ones on my house. Should I stick them outside in semi-shade for a part of the day?

- I'm going to be sticking them in my sunny garden. At what size should I move them from a pot to the garden? What's the hardening off routine?

- What daytime/nighttime temps do they need?

- Do they like full direct sun?

Thanks very much in advance if you can answer any of this.

I'm making this thread because I have very much enjoyed reading other grow threads, and I want to have a record of growth. I'll post here once they sprout.

Status: 1 day old, no sprouts.

I'd say take it one step at a time... step one: germination. what does your setup look like? post some pics...

I like your pepper selection, some hot stuff there!

7cardcha · Feb 17, 2014

Spicegeist said:
I'd say take it one step at a time... step one: germination. what does your setup look like? post some pics...

I like your pepper selection, some hot stuff there!

Here is my germ setup. Tell me if it sucks because I still have lots of seeds. The Habanero seeds haven't arrived yet(supposed to arrive today, but Presidents Day), so that is just the Trinidad and the Reaper. There is also catnip so not only peppers there. I think for the Habanero's I'll try the paper towel method of germination. If I do that when it sprouts do I just stick the seed part in the ground and leave the sprout part above ground?

That window gets to 80 degrees in the day and reasonably warm at night.
,

Spicegeist · Feb 17, 2014

It looks like they are heating up since there are droplets on the insides of the bags. I don't know how your windows are, but mine tend to get kind of chilly at night... that would be my main concern regarding temps.

Also, with the droplets, it looks like they're plenty wet, I'd be careful to avoid having them too wet so they don't rot...

7cardcha · Feb 18, 2014

Spicegeist said:
It looks like they are heating up since there are droplets on the insides of the bags. I don't know how your windows are, but mine tend to get kind of chilly at night... that would be my main concern regarding temps.

Also, with the droplets, it looks like they're plenty wet, I'd be careful to avoid having them too wet so they don't rot...

Mine aren't too chilly at night. They aren't as wet as they look but I'm letting them evaporate some. I did this right as I woke up and my stupid sleepy muscles knocked one of the cups over, Dang. It is fine though.

No pepper sprouts yet(None to be expected either at 2 days) but the catnip popped up.

Spicegeist · Feb 18, 2014

It's always fun to see which are the first to pop up...

7cardcha · Feb 18, 2014

The habanero seeds just arrived. I'm going to try the paper towel and ziploc method. I only planted three seeds because I'm running out of pots to put these in. If I fail now I'll plant the rest when it is warm enough to transplant to the ground quickly. I'm determined to get home grown pods from these plants.

7cardcha · Mar 3, 2014

Finally some more action! Weeks later and one has finally germinated! It is a Reaper and it looks very healthy IMO. I'm guessing the long germination time is because of the low temps. It used to be 80 during the day(for a few days) but now it is only 65-70. Is two weeks unusually long with those conditions. I hope the others germinate soon.

I got some Jalapeno and Trinidad 7 pot seeds and I am debating whether to plant them.

No luck with the Habanero's. Maybe I'll stick them in dirt.

7cardcha · Mar 3, 2014

I decided to go ahead and paper-towel the 7-pods. I taped said paper towels in a bag to the side of the lamp I'm using. They are getting sufficiently warm now. I'm just using lamps while the weather is crappy.