A very small rolling glog in Andalucía

hadanero · Mar 21, 2023

It's been about a month, and temperatures are improving here. Never had a frost, which is nice, but it's getting genuinely pleasant in the mornings now.

I'll start with the seedlings in cans:
Pic 1 & 3 - Down to just one Fresno, and I went ahead and re-canned it so I could bury it a bit deeper to deal with the stretch it gave me. I've pushed all of the seedlings up closer to the light and that seems to be helping a lot with leaf growth. The first picture is immediately after re-canning on Sunday. The last picture shows it today and it seems like it's settling in well.
Pic 2 & 3 - MOA Bonnets are continuing slowly but well. I've killed a pair of seedlings and I'm waiting to choose which of the remaining two I'll keep.

Next up, the porch plants:
Pic 1 - The Maybenero is going fine, but slow. Lots of good new leafy growth up top, but maybe some nitrogen burn on the lower leaves? I've done very minimal feeding, but the damage showed up after a recent feeding. I don't like the pot it's in, but I'm not going to mess with it for now--it doesn't dry out well. The bags have convinced me that they're a better option for a patio plant, so I think I'm generally done with plastic pots going forward.
Pic 2 - The two Black Pearls are in a bag and have really kicked off with good new foliage after the trimming I gave them. They respond really well to the fish mix from BioBizz. These are on my "definitely grow" list for when we get to Pennsylvania. I don't know what they taste like yet, but my wife likes the way they look, and I like my wife.
Pics 3-5 - The Buena Mulatas are doing their thing. I started these with zero-to-little knowledge of what I was doing, so their current weak output and shape is a consequence of not even knowing the term "leggy." Still, I'm getting a flush of peppers. The strange thing is these peppers all look stubby and chubby rather than elongated like the first crop. And the blooms look more twisty/gnarled than prior blooms. This might be from the generally low temps over January/February, or I'm doing something wrong with the nutrients. I've been feeding with BioBizz's BioBloom and occasionally giving some cal-mag.
Pic 6 - The three 100s & 1000s Cherry Tomato plants are sharing the bag without too much difficulty. There are 100s of blooms on these three plants. It's wild. Very easy to grow, and really have seemed to benefit from the BioBloom. My son wants to know if we can try to make a ketchup. We'll see.

Sulsa · Mar 21, 2023

The color of the light in your porch pictures have some serious summer vibes, really makes me wanna put on the flip flops.

Nice looking plants!

hadanero · Apr 20, 2023

Okay, so a quick update. I might get to do one more of these before I have to re-home the plants as we move across the Atlantic.

I work with a religious organization, and every couple of years they have a gathering that the whole family goes to. That took place over Easter, and we were gone for 12 days in total (added a few to see Paris before we left Europe; managed to miss all the strikes and protests).

I hired the daughter of some friends to care for the plants in our absence, and she did a great job! With one exception (not her fault), they all came back very healthy and happy.

Buena Mulatas: They have some good new foliage and they're filling up with peppers, and several are nicely ripe. They have a strange phenotype--short and stubby. I don't know if it was the cold weather or if I did something weird with the nutrients. I'll see how they taste next week.

Black Pearls: Also doing great. Very flush with flowers, and several new pods are all showing up this week. Still black - looking forward to when they ripen as I think it'll look very nice overall. The flowers are beautiful--rich purple all over.
Fresno: The re-canning a month ago served it well, and it's looking strong! I really doubt I'll get anything from it before I go, except for knowledge, which as Indiana Jones let us know, is the true treasure.
Maybenero: Sitting to the far left, this saw a lot of new leafy growth. I'd have trimmed back some of this strong branching if I had been here when it happened, but I'll just go along with it for now. There are nascent buds forming on each branch, so we'll see if I get a fruit from this before we go. I'm very hopeful!

Eagle eyed viewers will notice I'm missing my canned Bonnet. I think it may have been overwatered. It was clearly suffering when I picked it up, but I don't think she did anything differently with it than she did with the canned Fresno. I'm guessing the Fresno benefited a good deal from having the soil broken up and dried a bit during the re-canning.

Oh, and I suppose I've included pictures of the 100s and 1000s. They bloomed like crazy just before we left, and they're currently ripening (very slowly). The plant guardian's grandfather decided they needed a really good trimming and ignored her protests (and her parents' protests), and so it's looking shaggy and burned in some places. Oh, well. I've done worse things to better plants, so I can't really hold it against him.

Nulle · May 11, 2023

A big thank you to @hadanero for the letter I got in the mail today with Fresno Supreme seeds

I know it's pretty late in the season but I'm going to try to put a few in soil anyway. If nothing else I can overwinter the plants and give them a head start for next season.

Thank you for taking time out of your probably very busy schedule to get them in the mail for me

hadanero · May 11, 2023

Nulle said:
A big thank you to @hadanero for the letter I got in the mail today with Fresno Supreme seeds

I know it's pretty late in the season but I'm going to try to put a few in soil anyway. If nothing else I can overwinter the plants and give them a head start for next season.

Thank you for taking time out of your probably very busy schedule to get them in the mail for me

My goodness those took a long time! I think I mailed them about a month ago! Mine grew quickly, so hopefully it does great for you.

Nulle · May 11, 2023

It doesn't surprise me that the mail took forever. Their service is getting worse day by day.

Here's keeping my fingers crossed that they grow just as quickly for me

hadanero · May 15, 2023

Okay, so final update on what I originally thought was going to be a multi-year rolling glog, but since we're moving across the ocean in 3 weeks, I have to wind it down.

The Maybenero: Lots of foliage, a few buds that dropped, and one that fruited. I have a pod set and growing nicely.

Looks habanero-ish, so I'll let it go until we move and then try it out. Happy this worked out! (Picture 1)
The Buena Mulatas: I came back from a short trip to find all of my peppers covered in aphids. I now know why people swear so vociferously about these little pests. The Buena Mulatas were the worst off, but had a fairly healthy harvest waiting for me. I picked what I could--about 60 peppers or so--and then "retired" the plants a couple weeks earlier than planned. The peppers taste okay while purple, but better ripe, so I let them ripen for a week in a paper bag, and I've just made an okay hot sauce with them. My wife likes that the sauce is purple. (Picture 2 for the harvest, plus a quarter of the cherry tomatoes we got from the 100s and 1000s.)
The Black Pearls: Looking great! Fewer aphids, and they've mostly died off with a dish-soap and water spray. I'm going to pick what I can in two weeks. They are not ripening as fast as the Buena Mulatas, and they don't taste nearly as useful as an unripe Buena Mulata, but they look great, so that's nice! (Pictures 3 & 4)
Fresno-in-a-can: Nothing much. Lots of leaves, very tall, looks okay. I topped it to see if I could force some better growth lower down, but it's not really doing that for me. I think this plant needs a good pot or plot. I have not tried growing peppers in cans before, and I'm not entirely a fan at this point. But I've learned something. And as NBC once told me, "The more you know..." And who can doubt NBC? (No picture because it's embarrassing, though you can catch a glimpse in Picture 3.)