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A Fishy Winter Grow: Stuff in a Tent

Be it ever so humble...
 
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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.
 
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Fish,  I would try using the heat mat to germinate those GW habaneros, it could make all the difference.  I have had that issue before with seeds and as soon as I turned the heat mat on I got better germination rates.  Sometimes there are just finicky varieties that really need the extra warmth to get going.
 
@Bookers, to help with your fungus gnats try a layer of perlite or clay pebbles on top of your soil, this adds a dry layer that the gnats will not want to lay eggs in nor will they try and burrow down into the dry layer.  And yellow sticky traps, not the fly tape that comes in the little tubes, will help you keep an eye on the flying population as well as removing some breeders from the mix.  For the larvae in your soil I would recommend BMC from Microbe Lift; it is a Bacillus species that infects the gut of the larvae and forces them to starve, it works very well.
 
Smoking Gun said:
Fish,  I would try using the heat mat to germinate those GW habaneros, it could make all the difference.  I have had that issue before with seeds and as soon as I turned the heat mat on I got better germination rates.  Sometimes there are just finicky varieties that really need the extra warmth to get going.
 
@Bookers, to help with your fungus gnats try a layer of perlite or clay pebbles on top of your soil, this adds a dry layer that the gnats will not want to lay eggs in nor will they try and burrow down into the dry layer.  And yellow sticky traps, not the fly tape that comes in the little tubes, will help you keep an eye on the flying population as well as removing some breeders from the mix.  For the larvae in your soil I would recommend BMC from Microbe Lift; it is a Bacillus species that infects the gut of the larvae and forces them to starve, it works very well.
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Here were go! Starve those gnats!!! Close up reapers and a lemon drop popped ...

Spare bedroom is now a grow room...Party, Dance :)
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Smoking Gun said:
Fish,  I would try using the heat mat to germinate those GW habaneros, it could make all the difference.  I have had that issue before with seeds and as soon as I turned the heat mat on I got better germination rates.  Sometimes there are just finicky varieties that really need the extra warmth to get going.
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Problem is, "extra warmth" in that tent with my heating mat means over 100F. I keep a thermometer in the towel I wrap my coffee filter bag in; it's in a good range, and if I hit it with the heating pad (which has no regulator; a lot of stuff that's normal in other places is either nonexistent or stupidly expensive here), I'll end up with little pre-chili tempura again. I just don't have enough seeds left to risk that.
 
Many thanks to Smoking Gun for the advice; the little hydro plants are much happier now. :)
 
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Still nothing on the germination. I'm trying to get them to a more comfortable temp without frying them, so we'll see; it's only been two weeks, so maybe it's not a loss yet... anyway, with the hydro plants looking promising, I might just end up with sugar rush peach and purple UFO instead of white hab and CGN 21500. Wouldn't be the end of the world, but it wouldn't be nearly what I was hoping for.
 
Oh, and the little red Halloween hab is riddled with bugs. I'd been checking but somehow missed them. Fortunately, I noticed in a nice day, so it's outside, soaking in insecticide, waiting for its second helping. If nothing else, I wish at least one of the fruits on the thing would freaking ripen; that thing sat in a flat of orange and red hab plants pretty much its entire life, so I don't much care if I end up with something cross-pollinated, as long as it looks and acts something like a nice, standard habanero.
 
I do have a decent harvest of friggitello. Planning to start these pickling tonight.
 
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My shishito continue to not be shishito. I also gave the manganji a try. I think it's growing true, but frankly, it's such a boring pepper I don't know why I'd keep it... maybe it was just more appealing when I wasn't drowning in heatless pods.
 
Quick update from the office. Someone else brought in a pepper plant! Think it's just a little ornamental, but it's still fun.
 
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Kinda blending in with the trees across the street. Oops, didn't notice that.
 
Also, the 7JPN in the middle is sloooooowly working on a pod. It doesn't look spectacular.
 
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Well, it's been over three weeks since I was in the office, but my plant-loving coworkers jumped in to keep the peppers alive. However, because the 7JPN is a freaking tree, they got moved to a conference room until I get back in to do some serious trimming.
 
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On the home front, I got my Kratky bottles protected from the light; algae problem solved, and the growth is looking solid (also swapped out the 300W light for a 1000W and they seem to be happy with it). I'm having a hard time keeping the tent at a good temperature, so I think they're coming along more slowly than they should be, but they're still flowering nicely. Still no pods; hopefully soon. And since the sugar rush peach are looking more shrubby than expected, if one of them actually grows true, I'll probably bag it in coir in place of one of the three tent plants I still haven't managed to germinate.
 
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Got my first batch of seeds dried; the silica gel method seems to work nicely. The J hab x Fatalii are the best so far. I think the CGN 21500 may have had some problems, and the choco habs are ugly as sin, but then so were the seeds I got that this plant grew from, so I'm hoping that's OK. I really should do a germination test to make sure I haven't killed them all, but I'm not sure that's in the cards any time soon.
 
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Speaking of germination, I stuck some more seeds in rock wool a week or two ago, this time with varieties that I haven't had trouble with before. Really hoping I haven't somehow managed to kill all of my seeds; that'd be... uh... kind of a bummer.
 
In better news, the Friggitello that clearly is not the Golden Greek variety got kind of left to its own devices, aside from being fed, and I didn't notice that it'd ripened a pod on the branch. I'd read that this resulted in a decrease in flavor... well, not with this plant. That was an incredibly tasty, sweet pod with way more kick than I expected; I'm thrilled that this plant came out not just better than expected but freaking delicious.
 
My son, the fruit of my loins, continues to grow slowly but steadily, and also makes a lot more noise than my plants. Learn from the plants, boy.
 
Not much sense bumping last season's glog, so I'll just stick this here. Most of the outdoor plants haven't actually given up; the ones on the balcony are alive and reasonably healthy, though they've completely stalled. I pulled a few chocolate habs and goronong for seeds, and a bunch of lemon drops (that one basically being vines sitting under the other plants, I wouldn't trust any of its OP pods to yield true seeds, so they're just here for sauce or whatever).
 
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The 7JPN is the only thing out there that hasn't fruited but is still doing pretty well, so I figure I'll just let it go and see if it survives the winter. The rest should probably be cut down over the next month or two.
 
I've rearranged the tent a bit; since I have one plant instead of three up there, I managed to consolidate the bottom-shelf experiments and put the 1000W up top. Hopefully this'll keep it more consistently warm; so far it seems to be working.
 
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Got another batch of seeds dried. Definitely going to need to test these, though, and I'm pretty nervous that I've screwed up everything I wanted to keep.  :confused:
 
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Since I still have a bunch of those little Kratky bottle widgets, I figured I'd actually use some of the seeds they came with. So here we have the start of a yellow cherry tomato plant. Still trying to find a bottle that's exactly the right form factor for full koozie coverage. I really like these little things, even though they didn't turn out to work too well for peppers.
 
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I'm behind schedule on some of my seed starting for next season, but with the germination trouble I've been having, I'm fine with delaying that a bit to see if the current rock wool test manages to get sprouts before I pile on even more. Hoping to get alma paprika, Naglah, and Zapotec jalapenos nice and healthy in the tent in time to move them out near the start of spring.
 
You have things going on, 'Fish, that's more than I
can say for my own grow! Just patiently waiting for
something to germinate.
 
Keep up the good work, my friend.
 
BTW I have some spice containers (if they make it
through the mail). I can send some powders with
seeds as we discussed if you want. Let me know
what you would like.
 
PaulG said:
You have things going on, 'Fish, that's more than I
can say for my own grow! Just patiently waiting for
something to germinate.
 
Keep up the good work, my friend.
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Germination seems to be both of our sticking point at the moment.
 
PaulG said:
BTW I have some spice containers (if they make it
through the mail). I can send some powders with
seeds as we discussed if you want. Let me know
what you would like.
Click to expand...
 
Wow, thanks! I actually got a little care package of pepper powders from Justin at WHP just a couple of weeks ago, so I don't think that should have any problems making it through. :) Will drop you a line.
 
I'm back at the office today after almost four weeks at home. Since I took a late shift to help the wife get some much-needed sleep, I slept in a little and managed to stick myself right in the middle of Tokyo rush hour. Not a great reintroduction to my commute.
 
Fortunately, the pepper trees I had at the office did well enough. I trimmed them way back and got them into the window again. Gotta get fertilizer in here tomorrow, but they don't look much the worse for wear... on the other hand, the little ornamental one of my coworkers brought in appears to have been ignored by whoever was watering my plants. Hoping I can nurse it back to health.
 
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