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AJs 2012 Season - A Pictorial Discussion

I am getting a one day jump on last season...today is my 2012 season start...

The Germinator has been cleaned, I am using new trays for seed starting and Hoffman's Seed Starting Mix as my grow media...

If any of you decide to use Hoffman's Seed Starting Mix, be patient, it takes as much as 24 hours pre-soak to get this light weight mix totally wet...I have said it before and I will say it again...this is the cleanest seed starting mix I have ever used....clean and light weight means better root growth IMO..

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All circuits and systems are a go on the germinator...am stabilizing the temperature for the next 24 hours...as you can see, the upper box is about 93F and the lower box is 85F...I have to vent the top to let both chambers reach the same temperature...

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something tells me this is going to be another hot summer....close to record heat again...so the season will go as mother wants it to...I am learning each year how to change my grow techniques and am adapting to North Texas...

hope you folks enjoy this thread...if anyone has any questions or comments, they are welcome...
 
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PIC 1 said:
AJ,
What type of lighting do your plants receive when they're on the dining room table?
Are those the next batch to enter the hoop house.

Greg
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I replaced the small bulbs in the 5 bulb chandelier above the table with 42 watt CFLs 2700K...it is about 2.5 feet above them...plus they get a lot of indirect sunlight and some direct sunlight late in the evening..

Yes, these are the next ones to go into a hoophouse, gotta build another one for these...matter of fact, my task today is to build 2 more hoop houses for them... I figure with the spacing they will need, I can only get about 50 in a 4' X 8' area...I will start hardening them off this coming week...Sunday morning the temp is supposed to be 40F but the next week is showing low 50s and a couple of high 40s...in the event of a freeze, they will simply be moved back inside overnight...I think our "winter", even though we didn't really have one is over....

I am going to start transplanting to 5 gallon containers this next week...this is my really busy time of the year...I have plants that are still in the starter trays that are due transplant next week and 54 in 3.5" containers that need to go in 6" containers (my indian types) so I have a lot of transplanting to do...I still have 6 trays of scorpions to transplant that will end up giving me probably 300-350 plants...the germination rate on these last 6 trays was decent at about ~80%....
 
I just got done looking through this entire GLOG and it is pretty damn impressive. Makes my puny little number of roughly 150 plants seem wimpy.
 
Eephus Man said:
What are those cute little guys in the 72 cells?
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6 trays on the right are scorpions...two trays on left are a mixture of annuums...Billy Bikers, Cayenne, super chili, serrano...

dvdpfstr said:
I just got done looking through this entire GLOG and it is pretty damn impressive. Makes my puny little number of roughly 150 plants seem wimpy.
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150 is not slouchy...I just happen to be set up to grow 350...


BakersPeppers said:
Looking good as usual boss :) How many plants you growing total this year??
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thanks Dale...about 350 here at the house and between 550 and 600 down in Wahlberg

PepperJam said:
Awesome AJ, i really like that side shot of phillipperv plant. would be a good wallpaper :)
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I kinda like it too...thanks PJ....
 
Thanks for the reply on the long tailed scorps AJ. Best wishes for continued success.

That 7 Pot PPerve has flowers on it already. That is one solid, healthy good looking pepper plant.

You know you should probably contact Botanicare and start getting paid for all the wonderful advertising you do for them. I'd be willing to bet you made them thousands$$ just from folks switching over to them right here. Let me know if you need an agent. :halo:

Have a great weekend and don't work too darn hard.
 
patrick said:
You know you should probably contact Botanicare and start getting paid for all the wonderful advertising you do for them. I'd be willing to bet you made them thousands$$ just from folks switching over to them right here. Let me know if you need an agent. :halo:
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Now THAT is great idea! Wouldn't hurt to try.
 
I picked up a few plants from AJ a few days ago and those things are beefy.. If you look up the word beefy in Hot Pepper Dictionary, if by some creepy chance it exists, you would see AJs plants. Thanks for the plants AJ, I look forward to watching these things grow and produce a mouth full of fire this season!

-J
 
patrick said:
Thanks for the reply on the long tailed scorps AJ. Best wishes for continued success.

That 7 Pot PPerve has flowers on it already. That is one solid, healthy good looking pepper plant.

You know you should probably contact Botanicare and start getting paid for all the wonderful advertising you do for them. I'd be willing to bet you made them thousands$$ just from folks switching over to them right here. Let me know if you need an agent. :halo:

Have a great weekend and don't work too darn hard.
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never thought about contacting Botanicare but it's a thought...I believe some of their research had to do with peppers and the results were amazing and the reason I started using it...

wrightdaddy said:
awesome grow AJ I love the pics
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thanks wd...

Torno said:
I picked up a few plants from AJ a few days ago and those things are beefy.. If you look up the word beefy in Hot Pepper Dictionary, if by some creepy chance it exists, you would see AJs plants. Thanks for the plants AJ, I look forward to watching these things grow and produce a mouth full of fire this season!

-J
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I just hope they grow well for you J...


OK...I simply could not stand it so I prepped my raised bed today...planted 4 Cherokee Purples, 4 Porters, 4 Better Boys, 4 Foodarama Scotch bonnets, and 50 1015 sweet onion sets..

If by chance we have another freeze, a makeshift "greenhouse" structure will be easy to incorporate...

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peppers and tomatos on 24" centers...I used about 100 lbs of rabbit poo that was tilled into the soil....I have a soaker hose buried about 3" deep in the middle of the bed for fertigation/irrigation...the cover is 70% shade cloth, the depth of the bed is 16"...this is my first year using rabbit poo, but I have heard great things about it...
 
Wow Ronnie! Those plants look amazing! I cant tell you how motivating this thread is!

I like the side yard setup. Can't wait to see the they explode.
 
70% cloth? I'm under some 60% right now and It's too much...plants going full sun tomorrow....3 feet tall plants that are still too limp.....full of flowers and thick stems...fall right over when sprinklers turn on....I thought they were hard enough...I was wrong...as usual...lol
 
MGOLD86 said:
Wow Ronnie! Those plants look amazing! I cant tell you how motivating this thread is!

I like the side yard setup. Can't wait to see the they explode.
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thanks MG...

this bed is really my tomato bed but I didn't plant as many toms this year as I usually do because I am expecting another scorcher down here...with any luck, I may get some ripe FSBs before the furnace arrives in July...

BakersPeppers said:
70% cloth? I'm under some 60% right now and It's too much...plants going full sun tomorrow....3 feet tall plants that are still too limp.....full of flowers and thick stems...fall right over when sprinklers turn on....I thought they were hard enough...I was wrong...as usual...lol
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wind Dale, wind...you have to exercise the stems several times a day with a fan or some means of moving the whole plant...even walking down between them and bending them as you brush over the tops a couple of times a day will work...and you have to start exercising them when they are mere babies...my plants get a hard fan on them 6 times a day for 10 minutes when they are in "AJs bootcamp" then every other day they get it twice a day for 30 minutes...

exercising the stems in this manner or via mechanical means (pickin the plants up and shaking them, grabbing the stem at the bottom and shaking them, or as I mentioned above just brushing your hand across the tops to similate wind)...when the stems are "exercised" it causes the walls of the cells in the stem to thicken up...just like a body builder building muscle...fast growth is good, but if it is fast growth without exercise, you get fat...

think of it as standing on one leg on the beach with the wind blowing about 15-20 knots...if you do this several times a day, that leg will be a lot stronger than the other one...
 
oh...those are galapagense...
 
I remember when I had rabbits. Built a cage with fall through to vinyl chutes and it all collected in the 3 catch bins(bottom six inches cut off of 55gal. plastic drums). Used to dump them over the back wooden fence into the brush where I used to live. Amazing what all grew like mad in those piles.
 
Dale...I was mistaken...the shade cloth is 50%, not 70%

here is the 10 day weather forecast so I am taking a chance and moving all my first starter plants outside today...wonder if I will have to move them back in...

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I am going to put them under 75% shade cloth that is under 30% shade cloth to begin with for a couple of days, then move the 75% cloth off of them an hour at the time increasing daily until they are transplanted...they should be good and hardened off then...this is the area I am putting them in...sheltered from the north wind by my storage building and the east wind by my house...

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As usual more info then I can process in a single sitting-that "improvised " green house looks like a really good idea....
My cousin stopped by my house yesterday, repotted and set them out to harden.....then we got dumped on-6" in 4 hours.
oh well, got more starting on board in my cabin.....hehe-good thing now.
Thanks for info as always-
Have a good one-
Dave
 
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