• Blog your pepper progress. The first image in your first post will be used to represent your Glog.

Bike808's first GLOG

Hello.
 
So, i drug my feet doing this whole thing; started late for my zone (7a) but at least I got it going at all.  I have a bunch of little sprouts going on with cotyledons and all that, but DANG, i feel like i'm way behind, with the final frost s'posedly coming in the next few weeks.  So, I also ordered some plants from Cross Country Nurseries (aka chileplants.com) as a Plan B.  
 
I gotta get a bunch of pictures up, but all i have right now are some nondescript sproutlings in some dirt.  I also gotta build some raised beds and whatnot.  So, yeah, I'll take some pics once i have interesting crap to take photos of.  The plan is to put a few 8'x4' beds into my tiny backyard, and work a few beds over at the local community garden.  And, then I'll put whatever i don't have room for in buckets or grow bags or whatever.  
 
Enough babbling; here's the list of stuff i've successfully germinated, and hoping to grow:
chinense
-7 Pot SR CARDI
-Trinidad Scorpion yellow CARDI
-SBJ7 (reds and yellows)
-White Fatalii
-Cream Fatalii
-Orange Habs (seeds were sold as "organic" and those things germinated right away and are growing most quickly out of all of'm)
-Various Scotch Bonnets (special shout-out to Trident Chilli for some of the more esoteric stuff...) specifically, I got Schneider Farm,              Beth Boyd, Papa Joe's, Saraga, TFM (I got TFM seeds from Semillas and from pods i bought up at the Trenton Farmer's Market-          the latter had a very high germ rate, and are coming along better than anything but the Habs...), and some seeds i saved from              some tasty red bonnets i bought at a nearby Asian Food Market ( http://www.asianfoodmarkets.com/ )
-Frontera Sweet
-Ecuador Sweet
-NuMex Suave (reds and oranges)
-NuMex Trick or Treat
 
annuum
-Hot Rod Serranos
-"Early" Jalapeños
 
 
Shit I ordered from Cross Country Nurseries, in case i'm way too late and/or i otherwise fail:
-7 Pot Brainstrain (yellow and red)
-Naga Morich
-Congo Trinidad
-Yellow Fatalii
-Orange Habs
-Red Dominica Habs
-Jamaican Hot Chocolate
-Paper Lanterns
-Generic Yellow Bonnets
-Safi Red
 
Yeah, most of it is redundant to the seeds i started, but that's the kinda shit i want to grow, and the idea is to have a back-up plan for the seeds.
 
I started everything with paper towels, and transferred them to one of these plastic starters with the tray and the clear plastic high-top lid, with like 72 little cells... I tried to germ some Yellow Fataliis, but they're running far behind. I checked'm again earlier today, and just one has the beginnings of a little hook. I'm hoping they'll do ok in the end. I'm really looking at this whole project as a first year learning experience; even if the whole thing crashes and burns, i feel like i've already learned from the whole ordeal.
 
Advice is, of course, welcome and appreciated. Thanks for reading, and i promise to get some pics up once i start dickin' around with building these beds...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Click to expand...
peppamang said:
They look great in the solo cups, nice and green and lush! Don't beat yourself up so hard, my first couple grows were awful. I remember the first year I lost half my seedlings, and the second year I forgot to water them and cooked a few bone dry. Loss and learning by error is part of the experience. 
 
Im pretty close to you and when you started was not late at all. This year I started around late February and I had to deal with plants in my house for far too long before they could have gone outside. Plus with the weather the way it's been in NJ the last few years, you can usually leave out the plants until late October before freezing temps, and even then, just drag them in the garage and wait for the last few pods to ripen. 
Click to expand...
 
Yeah, those are some of the better ones...  I lost quite a few seedlings, and I have a bunch of yellowish dwarf seedlings in the crap soil, looking like a zombie army of reanimated chile plants.... But I think I have 90-some seedlings that might ultimately produce for me, plus quite a few of the plants I got from CCN (I hadn't killed any of those, but the one definitely seems to be on its last legs...) so, yeah, not a total loss.  Maybe I am being too hard on myself?
 
You might be right about when I started; a lot of other zone 7 folks are saying exactly like you did, so i probably started them about right... i just mismanaged the seedlings in terms of growing conditions and nutes, so they're lagging behind, size-wise.  I STILL think I'll need to start some of the very late superhots a lot earlier in 2018, though...  And yeah, I was going to plant in beds, but i'm going with grow bags now b/c I'm realizing that it might be helpful to bring a few indoors to beat the first frost....
 
PaulG said:
Those look great.  Here's hoping for a long summer!
Click to expand...
 
Thanks; some of them do look rather nice, if still small.  A long summer just might salvage this whole thing for me... :dance:
 
PaulG said:
Grow bags are great - I used them for a couple of seasons.
They require more attention to watering, but the air-pruning
aspect of them produces awesome root balls - lots of fine
roots and zero circling.
 
Your plants in the cups will take off in bigger pots and decent soil!
Click to expand...
 
The plan is to re-pot them in the bags on Saturday; at least the bigger ones which are pretty well hardened off at this point.  It's been brutally hot out, so i'm being cautious with it. . .
 
I put twenty of the chiles-dem into 7 gallon fabric bags today.  Most of'm are stressin' a bit, but this one Cream Fatalii plant is just such a danged boss; it looks happier than ever.  
 
xx8oQ1h.jpg
 
My wife took a vid of me mixing up some soil for the bags; had some left over that i stowed in the shed for later.  I thought i'd ordered more bags, but I only had twenty.  Gonna probably have to build some beds.  Kids: be smart; don't procrastinate.  LEarn from your dumbazz greenhorn Uncle, Bike808.
The mix was something like:
3cf peat moss
3cf topsoil
2.5cf composted cowshit
2 sacks of perlite
8cups pelletized gypsum
4cups pelletized lime
I tossed some ferts that I bought at CCN in there, too.  Some stinky granular stuff....
 
Well, day one of these 20 plants being outside F/T, and there's a scandalous thunderstorm with 16mph winds kicking thru.  It's calmed down now; some of the taller plants took a bit of a beating, but nothing has snapped so i'm hoping they'll straighten up some.  I put some sticks in their to stake'm up but, of course, it falls under the "too little, too late" category, maybe?
 
I'll see if they bounce back tomorrow....
 
Lookin' great, Bike! Better late than never with staking them. I find myself breaking out the stakes all season long. Always seems there's something either leaning or breaking due to fruit load and winds. I think this is the first time that I've seen white grow bags. I'll bet there's a temperature difference in the roots/soil...unless that's a myth. I'm sure the storm just strengthened them even more for you. Plants look happy! Great job!

-Adam
 
Bhuter said:
Lookin' great, Bike! Better late than never with staking them. I find myself breaking out the stakes all season long. Always seems there's something either leaning or breaking due to fruit load and winds. I think this is the first time that I've seen white grow bags. I'll bet there's a temperature difference in the roots/soil...unless that's a myth. I'm sure the storm just strengthened them even more for you. Plants look happy! Great job!

-Adam
Click to expand...
Thanks, Adam. I think you're right b/c the winds are gone now and it's just a steady rain, and the plants i had to stake have already "righted" themselves mostly; leaves are all facing rightside up, stems look like they've bounced, back, etc.  I'll have to pick up some twisties and some proper stakes; but the tall guys all have something temporary set up for now.
 
I had thought about the black v white bags, and i went with the white b/c our summers in Jersey can stay in the high 90s for weeks on end, so i figured that the white might be a good thing under those conditions. (I got'm from a vendor in China, via ebay....) My yard, such as it is, doesn't have much shade at all so I'll need to provide some with cloth, but being so danged close to the river, winds get nasty and i figure shade cloth will be difficult to secure.  Still, gonna have to try it anyway....
 
My beds at the community garden are just 3 blocks away but that seems to make all the difference, as far as the winds go. 
 
No new pics to share yet, but my Early Jalapeños, which i started quite late and are still quite small, are showing tiny buds.  More and more pods are setting on some of the plants I got from CCN: various Habs, Yellow Bonnets, Safi Bonnets, Red Brainstrain, Congo Trinidad, etc.  There's a tiny little pod on a Naga Morich plant that's been there for a while, but it hasn't increased in size, turned red, nothing.  It's just this weird little pod, sitting there doing nothing.  The other chinense pods are fairly small (with a few exceptions) but they get a wee bit bigger every day.  I know that early pods can be undersize and often weird shapes, but this thing seems to be "stuck" entirely... 
 
I just got caught up on your Glog :)
 
 
your doin' great and learnin' a lot  :clap:
Bicycle808 said:
 
 
And I guess that's how this thing works.  Beyond the seeds I sowed that didn't germ or that had lower germ rates (and therefore, fewer seedlings), I'm also already scheming and planning for other varieties for next year's grow.  I mean, my plants don't even have real leaves on'm yet, but I'm already ogling photos online of plants that I've just gotta try next season.  It's probably normal, but it feel goofy about it.  
 
Click to expand...
:D "one of us, one of us, one of us"  :rofl:
 
yeah it's totally normal now that you are a chili grower.
I had a laugh when i read that part i bold'd    I find myself doing the same thing each year  :lol:
 
 
lookin forward to following this Glog  :metal:
 
 
:cheers:
 
 
 
Guatemalan Insanity Pepper said:
I just got caught up on your Glog :)
 
 
your doin' great and learnin' a lot  :clap:
:D "one of us, one of us, one of us"  :rofl:
 
yeah it's totally normal now that you are a chili grower.
I had a laugh when i read that part i bold'd    I find myself doing the same thing each year  :lol:
 
 
lookin forward to following this Glog  :metal:
 
 
:cheers:
 
 
Click to expand...
 
I've definitely learned a lot, to a surprising degree.  I knew I had much to learn, but I'm learning about stuff that i didn't even know I'd have to learn about....
 
This Glog thing is a huge help, too.... if you hadn't quoted my earlier post,I might not have realized that my plants didn't even have real leaves on them on April first.  At this point, quite a few of those seedlings are pretty huge, now.... relative to how tiny they were then.  It helps put the progress into perspective. 
 
Following other ppl's Glogs has been helpful, too.... there are so many, it's kind of tough to keep track, but i think that's evidence of a healthy online community.  I'm trying to expand my horizons; my obsession right now is with chinense varieties, but seeing folks growing pubes and baccatums is kind of interesting, too.  (Full disclosure: i'm growing some Jalapeños and Serranos too, but that's just b/c i have grown them before through work, and i know they're kinda quick and easy.... )
 
It's good to know that I'm not the only pervert shopping seeds for the next year before the current year's plants have even sprouted.  I ordered some stuff from WHP just the other week.  I'm keeping track of all my errors, and coming up with better strategies already; looking forward to some more diversity next year.  (I went a bit too hard on Bonnets this year but, i'm still convinced that's a good thing...)  I'm also thinking about starting some hydro shit indoors; maybe germinate seeds for the project in August and get it rolling in September, to keep my head in the game during the off-season...
 
At the end of the day, growing peppers is awesome, and it becomes even more awesome when ya have a resource like this forum to see more content than I could ever hope to experience on my own....
 
Pics to follow, but all in all, i screwed things up at almost every turn, but i got green pods popping up on quite a few plants.  Nothing ripe yet, but barring any unforeseen huge disasters, i'll have some good chiles to eat before long. 
 
But, maybe I'm way off here, I feel like it's safe to say that in zone 7, if a chinense plant doesn't have at least buds by now, it's probably not going to have enough time to produce, is it?  B/c a lot of my plants don't.
 
I've really got to take some pics of my plants, but I'm not the smartphone kind of guy, so it hasn't been convenient. All i've really got is this right here:
bWPOh37.jpg

That, right there, is the first ripe pod from my grow this year.  I thought it was pretty funny; it's an Orange Hab, about the size of a frigging garbonzo bean.  But when I saw that glimmer of orangeness amidst the chile plant jungle, I was incredibly stoked.  Of course, i investigated, and found that all that orange glow was emanating from a runty little pea-sized pod.  It gave my wife and I a chuckle, for sure.
WizXOl7.jpg

I really got to snap some more pics of my plants; some of them have some decent unripe pods on them.  Many others, on the other hand, have very few or zero flowers on'm, let alone pods.  I've posted up a thread looking for nutrient suggestions, in hopes that i can convince some of these plants to flower before it's entirely too late: http://thehotpepper.com/topic/65084-point-me-in-the-right-direction-for-nutes-to-get-things-blooming/  I figured if I linked it here, maybe i'd get some more advice.  I know a couple of y'all are following this GLOG, and I appreciate your support with this.
 
But yeah, I've been kind of surprised by which plants are hanging the most pods right now.  The only thing that didn't surprise me is that the Congo Trinidads
are setting more pods than any other variety i'm working with.  Most all of the Congos have some green fruit strapped to the branches, and some of them are beefy, golf-ball plus wrinkly bastards.  
 
I got a Jamaican Hot Chocolate that is pushing out a mess of pods; some are turning brown as can be, as we speak.  I guess that's not so surprising, but i'm confused b/c the rest of the JHCs just aren't producing on that level.  One of'm has some sort of problem; weird crinkly leaves that are half-withered, half-normal looking.  I really need to take some pics.
 
The biggest surprise, to me, are these Brain Strains.  They're setting pods before a lot of the other plants, and some of those things look evil . . . .  I know, "pics or it didn't happen," but my wife and i both have off tomorrow.  This bullshit teaser post will serve as motivation to get out there with her, pull some weeds, and have her snap some pics with her phone.  But these Brainstrains, they're supposed to be hard to germinate, but they sprouted well for me.... they're supposed to be a late producer, but i have like six 7PBS plants (red and yellow) hanging pods already.  A lot of the pods are off-pheno, but i'm just real grateful to have'm....  
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top