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BigB's first pepper log/grow

Hello and thank you for viewing! This is my first season in miami fl focusing on peppers. Last season was my first ever grow in general and I seem to have a green thumb when it comes to a lot of plants, but peppers seem to be different. I use self watering containers which you can see in the first picture of my yellow scotch bonnet + ? pepper. These boxes save me when it comes to watering everything especially tomatoes, but peppers I think are different since they need the soil to dry out right? Anyways, my ignorant self is very open to any guidance and opinions on what I should be doing.
 
So here's two pics of my yellow scotch bonnet that I bought last year and a pepper plant which I thought was a bhut when I started it but it's probably a pequin bird chili based on the seeds that I have. The scotch bonnet was doing decently but now it seems not as happy.
 
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Surprisingly, my most healthy looking plant is something that popped out of my mushroom/worm compost bin. It topped it and it grew nicely, but has always been infested with white flies and ants. Now that the temp has been going down, they have somewhat left and it started to produce some peppers. Not sure what it's going to be, but we'll see soon. That's a jackfruit in the corner of the box if anyone near miami wants one by the way.
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So like I said, the white flies down here are kinda nasty. Makes it impossible to put anything that's small and not established outside. I have this grow light setup with other small plants like my heirloom tomatoes.
 
growsetup.jpg

The first is one of two non hot pepper, a lunchbox pepper from johnny seeds
 
lunchbox2.jpg

An aji pineapple I got from Wicked Mike
 
ajipineapple.jpg

Round of Hungary Pimento from johnny seeds, my other non hot pepper
 
RoundofHungaryPimento.jpg

Cream Fatalii from Wicked Mike
 
creamfatalii.jpg

Trinidad pimento seasoning pepper from some Trini guy I met
 
trinipimentoseasoning.jpg

This one isn't doing so well, what do you guys think? It's a hot santa fe grande in my grow box under a light. I water from the top instead of put water in the reservoir
 
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t29/xarsharn/pepper%20log/santafe.jpg
And finally a cachucha 
 
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t29/xarsharn/pepper%20log/cachucha.jpg
I have about 30 mild-hot plants on my wishlist (mostly aji and chinense's) from chileplants.com but they don't ship till january. Got on wicked mike's seed train too so i'm looking forward to starting some of his super hots and I have a couple of other pepper seedlings i'm trying to get started: more pimentos, aji lemon drop, fish peppers, bhut and my yellow scotch bonnets. I think i'm getting myself into something a bit too big but oh well, can't have too many peppers 
 
Looking mighty fine, great seedlings. :)
 
When do you plan on planting up the smaller ones? Are you going to put out in spring? Or earlier? The florida growers could give you tips on year round gardening there.
 
Well I know our seasons are opposite. We basically never have a frost, so winter is our primetime for gardening. In my experience, anything that bears any type of fruit like tomatoes, squash etc can veg in the heat, but until it gets cool enough the flowers won't set. The only exception to this that i've experienced was my everglades cherry tomatoes which are tiny and fruit all year long and the seminole pumpkin. They're native species that have adapted to the climate. 

At first i thought put everything in these grow containers that have a water reservoir in the bottom which is wicked up through slotted drainage pipes filled with potting soil. Then I noticed how not well my scotch bonnet did in there. It survived and put out plenty of peppers, but it never grew. I think the soil has to dry in order for the pepper's roots to seek out water? So I'm thinking keep the peppers in pots and just water as needed. Now that it got cool here as of yesterday, I'm thinking about put the plants outside as they get to a decent size over the next month. The white flies are still here and suck the sap/life out of them, that's why I wanted them to get to a decent size indoors first. 

In terms of feeding them, I try to stay organic. I use rock dust for trace minerals in the soil as well as decent potting soil or this wondersoil seed starting mix which has lots of worm gold plus and microrhizae, good coco coir tested for the right ph from a certain coconut and other benificial properties, foliar sprays of boogie brew's worm tea and ocean solution (trace minerals and microbiology), as well as sea 90  and pure protein 15-1-1 in foliar sprays and compost teas. I have a liquid organic fertilizer that I also give it from time to time, but the scotch bonnet has been kind of neglected till recently so I'm trying to bring that back to life
 
Slizarus said:
Looking mighty fine, great seedlings. :)
 
When do you plan on planting up the smaller ones? Are you going to put out in spring? Or earlier? The florida growers could give you tips on year round gardening there.
 
In South Florida, this is the time. I've started moving my smaller plants out into full sun, and planted a few of the beds with lettuces, carrots, and beets this weekend. Much more yet to do.
 
Brandon, I can help. Getting mature plants through a Miami summer isn't easy. You may want to rethink the organic thing. It just doesn't work in Miami the way it might in say, Nebraska or Illinois. That said, we don't have to drench our plants in carbamates, sulfamates, or organophosphates either. There's a happy medium.
 
Your little'uns look pretty good. Time to get them outside. Just be careful to get them in direct sunlight a few hours at first, and work your way up to all day.
 
When we both have time, I'm happy to have a look at your plants and help you to sort things out. Oh, and I've got a free plant for you that I think you'll dig.
 
Wicked Mike said:
Your little'uns look pretty good. Time to get them outside. Just be careful to get them in direct sunlight a few hours at first, and work your way up to all day.
 
When we both have time, I'm happy to have a look at your plants and help you to sort things out. Oh, and I've got a free plant for you that I think you'll dig.
 
^ Good man right there. When you say in direct sun for a few hours, does that mean I put them in the shade after or back in the house under the lights (16/8)? That's a lot of moving lol. Let me know when you're free, I'm usually studying for the mcat en mi casa 
 
Honestly, I'm sure you just put them out. When I'm setting plants out that were under heavy shade, I try to only do it for a few hours and increase the length of time each day; the idea is to not burn them. You're moving from artificial to natural light, which probably doesn't run that risk as much, it at all. I'm not versed in indoor growing, though, so I'm just guessing.
 
I mean they say that it's to harden the plant right? Does that mean that if I already topped them and they established a nice stalk it should be fine? I don't know lol 
 
I'm not sure if these look good or bad, I'm thinking about just putting them outside. Don't know if it's the lights or over nute / water or even pests, but my santa fe grande just put out a million miniature flower bulbs and didn't open up and looked dead, so I killed it. What do you guys think? I feel like aside from the aji pineapple and maybe the cream fatalli, they just stop growing, the new leaves are small and curl and just stay like that. I did see some white flies but not many, maybe thrip?
 
Hungary Round
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Lunchbox
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Aji Pineapple 
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Cream Fatalli
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Trini Seasoning Pepper
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yea, that thing went crazy! I have to thank wickedmike for the plant, damn good genetis or something
 
PaulS said:
The leaf curl doesn't seem right to me you might have some bugs? Have they been treated?
 
No they haven't yet, I'm about to treat them now. It has been real windy down here so I didn't want to spray the ortho yet since it said it's dangerous to the skin and lungs
 
jalapeno
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cream fatalii, but it's red?
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cream top view
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Aji pineapple
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recovering bishop's hat
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trini seasoning
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compost everglades cherry tomato
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so here's a little update. I bought some plants from mike and potted them up, got a free bhut, and just did some pruning. Here's what I got:

Lunchbox pepper. 
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its pepper, i've already eaten a few
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wicked mike's venezuelan tiger in a 15gal
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another tiger along with a different trini seasoning, by wicked mike
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brazilian starfish from mike
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aji mango
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free bhut I got from the nursery when i got some 15gal pots
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cream fatalli crossed with something red, spicy as shit
IMG_20150421_121054.jpg

 
aji pineapple
IMG_20150421_121133.jpg


I think I mixed up some plants at one point, but i think this is a trini seasoning pepper I got from some trini guy, though it's not the trini seasoning from before
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bishop's hat and some lunchbox pepper
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