BeagleStorm vs 2011 - My Chile Grow Log

Ok first up is some photos of my over wintered plants. Scorpion, Naga Morich, Chocolate Bhut, and 2 x Harold St. Barts. More of an experiment... I have never tried to over winter plants before. Did not super prune the plants or the root balls. I just left them in their pots out in the semi-cold during early November and most of the leaves started falling off. Then I did a minimal prune to remove any remaining leaves and to clean them up a bit. Gave them a cup of water each and threw them in my parent’s garage. I gave them a second cup of water last weekend. They seem to be doing great. One plant had what seemed to be a few Aphids so I sprayed it with Organocide but they have been bug free for the last month. I want to keep them in pots, so I think I will need to transplant them into fresh soil and maybe bigger pots this spring. Just not sure how I am going to do it or what process I am going to use. I do know that I am going to keep them at my parents so they do not pass any nasty critters to my seedlings before spring comes. Any recommendations?

 

[Beaglestorm]

More pictures tonight when I get home. But for now, the plants are really taking off. It looks like they took the Botanicare supplements in stride. Although I think ferts take a few days to take effect so I am probably still seeing the worm tea doing its magic right now.

A few stragglers are learning the hard way about survival of the fittest. They are getting less light and quickly overgrown by their surrounding neighbors. I have an Orange 7 and Morouga Yellow Scorpion that are going to have to start growing up or get reduced to worm food. LOL

One last thing, is it just me or does everybody's plants grow like gangbusters when the lights go out. After the 6 hours of darkness each night, the plants have noticeable growth. Makes me wish I had started them on an 18/6 schedule sooner than I did at 6 -7 weeks.

 

[madhatter]

I have to agree. I found they grow much better when you give them their lights out time.

 

[mmcdermott1_thehothalf]

Wow...just started reading the post ... read thru all 6 pages. You have such beautiful plants. I may have to have the hubby try out that worm tea on ours. Good luck to you as the season progresses.

 

[Beaglestorm]

I have to agree. I found they grow much better when you give them the light out time.

Hi Yann good to see you here? How is your season going? Were you ever able to get your Chocolate 7 seed going again? I sowed 9 but had 0% germination. The rest of my seeds were at 90% so I must have had some immature seeds as I feared. Beth never ended up have any available so I will be begging Jacob next fall for more seeds. I hope he is growing it this year.

Wow...just started reading the post ... read thru all 6 pages. You have such beautiful plants. I may have to have the hubby try out that worm tea on ours. Good luck to you as the season progresses.

Thanks, your plants are 1 month younger than mine as I planted in early January. With all the love they are getting they will easily be as big or bigger than mine when they are the same age. Nice to see you all working as a team. 400+ plants all under the care of one person would not be much fun in my opinion. I am pulling my hair out with just 137 of them. LOL Looking forward to see your season as well, my 2 boys love helping as well and they are excited to start planting outside.

 

[lazienfat]

good lord i need to make some tea! Looking forward to this test of yours for sure!!

 

[Beaglestorm]

good lord i need to make some tea! Looking forward to this test of yours for sure!!

It sure seems to work well... smells alot better than fish emulsion too if you plants are inside.

 

[Beaglestorm]

Here are some updated pictures of the plants after the lights came back on tonight. This is 48 hours after the Botanicare fertilizers and 11 days after the Worm Tea. I am shifting the trays around from back to front to balance the growth so older pictures are not exactly comparable but it has been 4 days since my last pictures.

Scorpion's (Back) & 7's (Front)

Center of the grow area - A little bit of everything

Habanero's and Scotch Bonnet's

Here is a leaf from one of my Brown 7 plants:

Does anyone think I need to be worried about all the bumpy leaves? Since they otherwise look healthy and are growing vigorously I am not really concerned at this point. They have had a dose of Epsom salt and a dose of Cal-Mag and the leaves still look the same. I suppose it could be a drainage issue as I did not enlarge the small stock holes on the bottoms of my pots... (Does anybody?) If that is the cause, the plants will just have to deal with it for another week or two. There is no way I am going to enlarge the holes on all 137 little pots. LOL But, it would be nice to know for next year if anybody actually makes the standard holes bigger before using them. It would be easy to do before hand.

 

[Omri]

Those are some beautiful looking plants! no doubt you've done great work!

 

[buddy]

beagle: great looking plants. looks like you're going to have a lot of chiles this year. you may have to double your growing space

 

[mmcdermott1]

wow beagle those are fantastic. Isn't it awesome looking in and seeing all the overlapping. Looks like a little jungle! Very nice color in those leaves. I have never used worm tea but might have to read up on that a little closer

 

[madhatter]

Hi Yann good to see you here? How is your season going? Were you ever able to get your Chocolate 7 seed going again? I sowed 9 but had 0% germination. The rest of my seeds were at 90% so I must have had some immature seeds as I feared. Beth never ended up have any available so I will be begging Jacob next fall for more seeds. I hope he is growing it this year.

Hey dude

Man the plants look great! growing them this year but they are the F2's. Got about 80 varieties growing. Will post a thread on my stuff a little later in the spring. In the meantime its nice to enjoy seeing the great success your having along with everyone elses grow logs. Havent seen Jacob on here for a while?

 

[Beaglestorm]

Hey dude

Man the plants look great! growing them this year but they are the F2's. Got about 80 varieties growing. Will post a thread on my stuff a little later in the spring. In the meantime its nice to enjoy seeing the great success your having along with everyone elses grow logs. Havent seen Jacob on here for a while?

Yea Jacob has been missing for a while. I hope all is ok with him. Hopefully his peppers are out of control and he has been having to spend all his time in the greenhouse. Here are the pictures of the Orange 7 that you wanted to see. At this point they look similar to the other 7's. Also, just like the others 7's I have, there is 1 or 2 strong ones and 1 runt. The bottom photo is my Orange 7 runt that is testing out the survival of the fittest theory. It needs to start growing or it is going to get snuffed out by it brothers. LOL

Orange 7

Orange 7 Runt

 

[Beaglestorm]

Those are some beautiful looking plants! no doubt you've done great work!

Thanks Omri, This is the first time I grow anything resembling healthy plants. I am praying I can keep them looking nice all season with help from everybody here.

beagle: great looking plants. looks like you're going to have a lot of chiles this year. you may have to double your growing space

Thanks, I am already having a hard time deciding which 34 plants to abandon. 30 pots is my limit this year as part of the deal with building my raised garden was that I would not have 60 pots all over the yard like last year. 30 is pushing it but I think I can get away with it as long as I put them neatly next to the raised garden. LOL

wow beagle those are fantastic. Isn't it awesome looking in and seeing all the overlapping. Looks like a little jungle! Very nice color in those leaves. I have never used worm tea but might have to read up on that a little closer

Thanks! Yes, I have to admit that I have wished several times that I could shrink down and walk under my pepper forest. I am curios to see how the manure tea compares to the worm tea. Seems like it should work just as well... all though I have to say I think I prefer getting worm poop on my hands over horse poop. Then again... free horse poop vs. 25 bucks for a bag of worm poop... now has me thinking about putting on a pair of latex gloves and going for the triple crown. LOL

 

[logchief]

Those are great looking little guys Michael. Are you using the worm tea on them now??

 

[Hot Pooper]

Lookin good man! I decided to go with the Fox Farm stuff for my plants. They start it on Monday. They just got their 1st shot of "tea" today as well. I SWEAR they already look greener!!!

 

[buddy]

beagle - great looking plants. looks like i have a future source for fresh chiles

 

[Beaglestorm]

Those are great looking little guys Michael. Are you using the worm tea on them now??

I have only used the tea on them once so far. Then the next watering was plain water with Epsom salt. Then the first application of the Botanicare products. I am going to be using the Botanicare for the next one or two waterings, then I am going to finish off with the worm tea as my final watering during my transplanting outside. Once outside the Botanicare stuff will only be used in soil for my container plants and as a foliar feed for my raised garden. Or at least that is the plan if all goes well… LOL

Lookin good man! I decided to go with the Fox Farm stuff for my plants. They start it on Monday. They just got their 1st shot of "tea" today as well. I SWEAR they already look greener!!!

I almost went with the Fox Farms stuff as the place I bought my lights sell that line and they have free shipping and you can use a 10% off coupon. In the end I was lazy and did not feel like researching what the equivalent FF products were to the Botanicare stuff I was considering. Plus I have pretty much tried to copy everything AJ has done so why stop now.... LOL

beagle - great looking plants. looks like i have a future source for fresh chiles

Absolutely... Be looking for a cornucopia in your mailbox this fall. I think I have an extra webcam I can throw in the box too... that way you might feel guilty enough to do at least 1 video review for us. LOL

 

[Beaglestorm]

Oh somebody asked me about my over wintered plants from the start of this thread...... Back at the start of February the record cold that hit a lot of the country actually made it to down here too. We broke pretty much every record ever set and had 78 continuous hours below freezing and like 36 of them were below 10 with an all time low of -1. Needless to say I had a lot more important things on my mind at the time and forget that the plants were in my parents garage... They are now in a compost pile. LOL My scorpion was the only plant to survive but it was right at the level of the dirt.... I decided someone did not want those plants to be on this earth (They did not do much for me last year anyway) so I gave them back. It helps me sleep at night to think that the plants may have had some disease or perhaps whitefly larva in the soil that would have ravaged my seedlings if I had brought them over and planted them alongside the new family...

Oh and here are some pictures of them getting their first few hours of real sunlight today out in the yard. I am hoping I can get them hardened in a week since they have been under the strong T5's:

Scorpion's

Habalokia's

7's and my Pimenta Tiger's

 

[woody3says]

Great lookin babies!

 

[Beaglestorm]

Great lookin babies!

Thanks Woody. I have never exhibited any form of green thumb in the past so I am cautiously optimistic. Fertilizer burn is the main thing I am worried about but the instructions say they are safe to give every watering sooo... I guess I will find out soon enough if that is true.