A Fishy Winter Grow: Stuff in a Tent

Be it ever so humble...
 

 
Currently, there are three pepper plants on the bottom (the four all the way on the right are garlic experiments). The one that's nice and rootbound in a tiny container on the right is a manganji, which I pretty much just want to see the pheno from. In the bags on the left, there's shishito (which I found out my wife loves, so that goes on the list), and Greek pepperoncini, a.k.a. Friggitello.
 
I'm really hoping to grow giant white habanero, both over the winter and outside next year, but so far I've had no luck at all getting them to germinate. Which really sucks, because I was hoping to cross those with CGN 21500 and possibly larger sweet varieties. 21500 was also supposed to be the fourth tent pepper. I should have isolated seeds for that coming from my current plant soon.
 
But as I've been attempting to germinate those GW habs, I also started a couple other things. My purple UFO did not grow true, but I started more to see if I can get something on-pheno; on the top shelf, I have two new seedlings from that envelope in rockwool. I also have two very healthy-looking sugar rush peach in there. While I'd prefer to grow the peach outside next year, if I can't get those GW habs to take, I might have to switch, and that could be a pretty good candidate.
 
So the current plan is to have four one-gallon bags on the bottom with a nice selection of mild to medium hot peppers, and go through just as much hybridization experimentation as I can with rockwool and Khang Starr style mini-Kratky bottles.

 

[Uncle Eckley]

My Twilight did that crusty thing this year until I got it outside.  It still ripened pods no problem even before going out.  I bet yours all hang on and grow.
 
 

 

[internationalfish]

Leading with the crappy picture. My Little Manganji is fruiting happily, and seems to be on-pheno, which is nice.
 

 
The picture I don't find irritatingly weak is my Friggitello, which is fruiting away, though the pods seem a little too long thin to be right... which is really disappointing, because that'd be the second completely off-pheno plant I got from Refining Fire Chiles. Not that I'd bother telling him; I didn't really like being called inept and then ignored last time, and it's not an experience I'm keen to repeat.
 

 
They do look similar to some pictures of pepperoncini that come up on a Google image search, but nothing like the ones on his product page. Hopefully they at least taste good, I guess. The last off-pheno pods (which weren't even vaguely close) I got from his seeds sure didn't. 
 
The third plant in there, shishito, is doing well but the pods aren't ready for their close-up yet. Thinking about swapping the 1000W light into the top to see if they like it; might as well give them as much light as they're comfortable with.
 
The Kratky experiments are producing plenty of leaves, roots, and algae.
 

 
Probably going to cut the bottles down further. As it is, the roots are probably going to have too much room to grow; Khang Starr just posted a video specifically about this, and his results are coming from bottles with much less reservoir space.

 

[internationalfish]

Quick shot of the office plants (kung pao and 7JPN). Not much in the way of pods, but plenty of good foliage growth.
 

 
They're going through a whole lot of nutrients and water, so hopefully they'll stay healthy and start fruiting soon.

 

[Sinn]

 
The picture I don't find irritatingly weak is my Friggitello, which is fruiting away, though the pods seem a little too long thin to be right... which is really disappointing, because that'd be the second completely off-pheno plant I got from Refining Fire Chiles. Not that I'd bother telling him; I didn't really like being called inept and then ignored last time, and it's not an experience I'm keen to repeat.
 

 

 
Funny i had the same problem with his "isolated" seeds but yeah it must be us    

 

[internationalfish]

Funny i had the same problem with his "isolated" seeds but yeah it must be us  

 
Bleh. Which one(s) grew wrong for you? I have caribe (red and long; grew into something squat and yellow) in addition to those pepperoncini.

 

[internationalfish]

The friggitello and shishito are fruiting nicely. The latter doesn't have any that are full-size yet, but the former does; tried one this morning, it's pretty good. Disappointingly not-as-advertised, of course, but still not bad. I expect they'll work well in salads and as pickles.
 

 
The shishito is a freaking bush.
 
Just started another round of the please-please-germinate game with giant white hab seeds. Also started a few for corno di toro yellow; figure I might as well just grow everything I want to plant next year. Think I'm just going to scrap the manganji and go with the corno di toro. Seems like a better pepper all around.
 
Got several more ripe isolated pods in, and since I put drying them on the calendar today, I'll maybe finally do it some time this week.
 
I've been reviewing my choices for next year, and I think I've got them nailed down.

• Corno di toro yellow
• Alma paprika
• Zapotec jalapenos
• Sugar rush peach
• Naglah

I toned down the heat for the winter tent grow, probably a little too much... and I had nothing with much heat at all planned for next season. So I threw in the naglah to be able to add some real kick when I'm making sauces. Was considering either that or bhut jolokia.
 
Also mulling over how to mulch the bags outside. Thinking of using glass beads. Trying to get everything nailed down as much as possible, including scheduling and hardware, so I don't end up with such a weird combination of container volumes and processes next time.

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Sounds good, fish. I like your thinking.

 

[PaulG]

Disappointingly not-as-advertised, of course, but still not bad. 

 
That is the issue when growing only one plant of a variety.
I discovered, when I started growing out multiples of the
same plant variety, that the plants produce a variety of pods.
Shape and even color can change. Even a strain with lots of
generations can produce a plant that has different pods than
its sisters. Even the same plant produces a variety of pod
shapes, witness my Yellow Scorpion. Even choosing seeds
from the same pod and growing multiples, I get some variation.
Sometimes good, like the BJh-2 Purple Thunder that produced
the yellow/caramel pods this season, sometimes not so interesting.
 
In a limited space grow like yours, growing multiples is difficult. If
you have space, growing a couple of seeds from the friggitello
might give you an interesting result, but really may not be worth
the time and space to play with. 
 
Don't ya love growing capsicums?

 

[PaulG]

Hey, 'Fish, saw on DW's page you were looking for
BSF larvae information. This is one of the more interesting
vids I ran across. More on the side bar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrS-EPo-GQA

 

[internationalfish]

In a limited space grow like yours, growing multiples is difficult. If
you have space, growing a couple of seeds from the friggitello
might give you an interesting result, but really may not be worth
the time and space to play with.

 
The two purple UFO and two sugar rush peach I have in mini-Kratky are kind of my attempt to do this for other varieties. Two of each still isn't great, but hopefully I can get at least one of everything to grow true so I can isolate pods... which obviously still won't be a sure thing, but better than nothing.
 
I'd be more inclined to go this route for the friggitello if it were something like the caribe, where I got something that just wasn't very good (at some point I might grow out more of those seeds, but it was so far off I suspect it might have been a packaging mistake rather than normal variation). My wife and I both liked the flavor, though, so it's still going to work.
 

Hey, 'Fish, saw on DW's page you were looking for
BSF larvae information. This is one of the more interesting
vids I ran across. More on the side bar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrS-EPo-GQA

 
Thanks! Interesting stuff. I doubt it's something I'll ever actually get to do, given the lack of space and any kind of yard, but I love the idea.

 

[Smoking Gun]

Hey Fish,  I know I am new here but I caught this thread and thought I could point out a few things, particularly with your Kratke plants.  You are getting some serious yellowing going on and it should be pretty easy to fix.  It doesn't look like you have changed that water since you first put your plants into the pots, that is a big problem, available oxygen has long since been depleted and that will become problematic as you go along; particularly as you get more algae in there.  It also looks like you have provided them with no nutrients, they are starving and begging for food.  You are specifically deficient in iron and magnesium, why your leaves are going so yellow.  But with no food they are actually going to be deficient in all elements, its time to provide them a little nutrition.
 
Your soil plants are looking very lush and I love the variety of peppers you have.

 

[internationalfish]

Hey Fish,  I know I am new here but I caught this thread and thought I could point out a few things, particularly with your Kratke plants.  You are getting some serious yellowing going on and it should be pretty easy to fix.  It doesn't look like you have changed that water since you first put your plants into the pots, that is a big problem, available oxygen has long since been depleted and that will become problematic as you go along; particularly as you get more algae in there.  It also looks like you have provided them with no nutrients, they are starving and begging for food.  You are specifically deficient in iron and magnesium, why your leaves are going so yellow.  But with no food they are actually going to be deficient in all elements, its time to provide them a little nutrition.
 
Your soil plants are looking very lush and I love the variety of peppers you have.

 
Hey! Thanks for the input.
 
They did have nutrients, and the solution was changed out entirely either that day or shortly after. Most of them are still fairly unhappy, though it seems like it's either overfeeding or overlighting, and I backed off with both starting this morning to check... I'm absolutely not an expert, but the other plants in this thread are all in coir rather than soil and getting the same nutrients as the Kratky plants with no sign of deficiency.
 
Really hoping I can get some giant white hab to sprout soon. As it is I have nothing hot in the tent; gotta remedy that, yields are dropping off from the ones outdoors.

 

[Bookers]

Awesome. I currently have started my winter plants 3 weeks ago and planted seeds last week. Just started the lights a couple days ago, as the window gives great southern sun.
I did notice some bug activity (gnats) I hit em with neem a couple times we shall see. The 4 with leaves are my over winter reaper, chocolate moruga, Cappuccino scotch bonnet, and I think not choc primo but not sure lol. See the seed chart for the 36 I planted. 9 are herbs...

cheers...party dance! Sorry iFish prob should have started my own thread...

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[Smoking Gun]

One of the problems with hydro is that once you see problems they occur quickly and can often take a lot of time to come back.  You could also be over-fertilizing the Kratke ones if you are using the same strength as the larger ones in coco.  If you are over-fertilizing you can actually end up locking out the nutrients you are providing to your plants.  I would say try getting some calcium and magnesium to them.  If using a CalMag product you should have a fair amount of nitrogen in there and all three of those elements will help your plants turn the corner and come back to health.  I would also suggest hitting them with a foliar spray of high quality kelp.  After your plants begin to look like they are growing again you can apply the rest of your fertilizer products to continue providing them all the food they need.
 
You really should keep an eye on your PPMs and pH in their containers.  You should really be running them at a lower PPM than your coco plants.  Coco can hold onto nutrients and release them later allowing you to feed your plants a bit more without too many negative effects.  In hydro your plants roots are taking the nutrients directly from the water and will take up as much as the ambient environment allows for.  This does mean you probably want to provide nutrients at a lower concentration to your hydro plants than you would give to your coco plants; not to mention they are much smaller than your coco plants.
 
Are you using a heat mat to sprout those GW habaneros?

 

[internationalfish]

Awesome. I currently have started my winter plants 3 weeks ago and planted seeds last week. Just started the lights a couple days ago, as the window gives great southern sun.
I did notice some bug activity (gnats) I hit em with neem a couple times we shall see. The 4 with leaves are my over winter reaper, chocolate moruga, Cappuccino scotch bonnet, and I think not choc primo but not sure lol. See the seed chart for the 36 I planted. 9 are herbs...

 
Looking good! Dig the variety, particularly with the cilantro in there.

Getting bugs inside is what got me started on soilless in the tent.
 

cheers...party dance! Sorry iFish prob should have started my own thread...

 
Haha, no worries. But you should definitely start your own thread so everyone can watch it. Cheers! 
 

One of the problems with hydro is that once you see problems they occur quickly and can often take a lot of time to come back.  You could also be over-fertilizing the Kratke ones if you are using the same strength as the larger ones in coco.  If you are over-fertilizing you can actually end up locking out the nutrients you are providing to your plants.  I would say try getting some calcium and magnesium to them.  If using a CalMag product you should have a fair amount of nitrogen in there and all three of those elements will help your plants turn the corner and come back to health.  I would also suggest hitting them with a foliar spray of high quality kelp.  After your plants begin to look like they are growing again you can apply the rest of your fertilizer products to continue providing them all the food they need.

You really should keep an eye on your PPMs and pH in their containers.  You should really be running them at a lower PPM than your coco plants.  Coco can hold onto nutrients and release them later allowing you to feed your plants a bit more without too many negative effects.  In hydro your plants roots are taking the nutrients directly from the water and will take up as much as the ambient environment allows for.  This does mean you probably want to provide nutrients at a lower concentration to your hydro plants than you would give to your coco plants; not to mention they are much smaller than your coco plants.

 
Thanks, I'll switch them out with a lower concentration solution and a splash of CalMag this evening.
 

Are you using a heat mat to sprout those GW habaneros?

 
Nope. I do have a heat mat, but with the tent mostly sealed up for winter, it's keeping them at a good temperature. I've been attempting germination alongside other seeds that grew well (most recently in rock wool) but these specifically just have not wanted to pop. This round is in coffee filters, which I've historically had much more consistent results with (certainly due more to my comfort with it than any difference in effectiveness).

 

[Bookers]

The bugs are from the soil. I had 30 or so container plants on my deck. I dumped all the soil in a wheelbarrow to reuse. The cold has got the balance but the over winter plants went inside. Meh we'll see lol. Cheers brother happy grow!!!


Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[internationalfish]

The bugs are from the soil. I had 30 or so container plants on my deck. I dumped all the soil in a wheelbarrow to reuse. The cold has got the balance but the over winter plants went inside. Meh we'll see lol.

Ugh, yeah, that's how I ended up with bugs as well. My coworkers were not happy about the ones that piggybacked their way into the office... 

 

Cheers brother happy grow!!!

Thanks man, good luck! 

 

[Bookers]

I think we'll be ok 2 doses of neem already

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[internationalfish]

So my shishito started producing pretty recently. And SURPRISE SURPRISE...
 

 
At least this is one I can easily, legally get more seeds for here. But this is way past annoying and well into "really, what do I pay you people for" territory. I might as well throw all of my seeds into a single bag, play catch with it for a while, and pick them at random, because it's not like any of them grow true anyway.
 
At this point I'm convinced my son is going to be born and the doctor is going to say "congratulations, sir, it's an antelope."

 

[Mr.joe]

Wow, father of an antelope, that one got me. Lol