bionut's glog 2023

I will try to document my pepper garden from this year here. I am not very good at reminding to take photos, but i hope i will have enough to post.
I sown the first seeds on January 7 , i had some very old seeds, some were older than 6-7 years... The only ones that germinated were:
- Habanero red
- Chiltepin
- Aji Chiripita
- Carolina Reaper
- one Rocoto that i don't know what variety it is, but to me it tastes like figs...

On january 20 i got some seeds from Sinenomine but i only planted Fatalli and Tepin x Lemon Drop until now, i will be planting some more soon (the varieties that doesn't need a very long growing season).

Two days ago i got the envelope with the seeds from Semillas.de (ordered around january 10...) and sown as follows:
- Zing
- Apocalypse
- Butch T
- Jolokia Peach
- Lemon Drop
- Carolina Reaper

For growing the seedling i made a PVC pipe mini tent with emergency blankets and i use a cheap chinese LED growing light and a heat map with temperature controller. As the plants grow i will be moving some to the windowsil.

This is the tent after the first seeds were sown, i used transparent plastic for one side so i can see inside, but it didn't worked as planed, it wasn't transparent enough.


Here you can see the side with emergency blanket. The top is also made from this kind of plastic blanket and i cut a portion for the lamp.


This is the tray with the Habaneros, which grew the best of all, and the Carolina Reapers.



The Habanero from the picture above, the one in the front left side. Is not as yellow as it looks in the photo.

Rocotos, Chiltepin and Aji Chiripita. It could looks better, maybe it's because of the old seeds i used?...



The tray with the Fatalli and Tepin X Lemon Drop, plus the cups with the seeds sown two days ago.



I hope i will remind to take photos when i will be sowing the other peppers soon. I also need to sow the tomato seeds for this year.

 

[PaulG]

Plants looking great!
Good luck this season.

 

[bionut]

As i said, i'm not very good at documenting my work. The peppers have grown, some of them are already in the flowering phase (Habaneros and Lemon Drop X Tepin).

These are the Habanero plants:

Fatalii:

Mistery Rocoto:

Chiltepin:

Aji Charapita:

Some of the superhots that were sown later:

Some "normal" peppers (and red onions):

Finally, my tomatoes getting ready for the greenhouse:

 

[Ratatouille]

It looks like a proper nursery. Lovely!

 

[MarcV]

... and documented in the way we like it!

 

[bionut]

I reached the time to move some plants in the ground, in my little greenhouse. Because i had a lot of tomato plants i was left with only one row for the peppers. I still have some of this plants in little pots, waiting to be planted outside, as well as some annuums.
In total i planted 200 tomato plants and 33 pepper plants.
The blue bits at the base of the plants are used against mole crickets, we have a lot of them in this area and they can cut a lot of plants in a short time frame...

Mistery Rocoto:


Sugar Rush Ripley:



Aji Charapita




Tepin X Lemon Drop


Chiltepin


Lemon Drop


Carolina Reaper


Fatalii


Apocalypse


Butch T


Jolokia Peach


Zing


Habanero



And now some pictures with the whole greenhouse:

 

[Sulsa]

Plants looking great and ready to take off. That greenhouse will certainly speed up your season.

Are those blue pellets Mesurol based insecticides? They were banned in the Netherlands more than 10 years ago.
In the beginning they were still available in Belgium and France, so when i went on southbound vacations by car i made sure to stock up on them. The past 8 years or so they also aren't available anymore in those countries...

Mole crickets are very rare in my country, they are only found in a few places and ofcourse one of them is my vegetable garden! Beautyfull creatures but they sure are destructive towards seedlings and young plants. If Mesurol is still available in Romania i might have to shift vacation plans more to the east i guess!

 

[bionut]

Mesurol was banned here around 2017 i think. Now i use product product with Lambda Cyhalotrin as the active ingredient. It seems to work just as fine as Mesurol used to, the tomatoes are planted 2 days ago and until now not a single one was cut by the mole crickets.
I don't know what alternatives do you have dor Mesurol, but if you need some of this thing that i use i can send some to you.

By the way, i seems that mole crickets love to love in soli that was amended with animal manure. That's what i observed in my garden. I am not sure if it likes the manure and it nests there ori simply matured manure contain a lot of mole crickets eggs...

 

[Sulsa]

Did some research and Lambda cyhalotrin is allowed in the Netherlands and readily available too.
Only problem is that it looks to be only available in sprays and concentrates, not in granulated form combined with an attractive additive for mole crickets. Might have some to do with the protected status the mole cricket has in the Netherlands... we are actually not allowed to kill them....
Will continue my search though and if i won't find any i will remember your nice gesture!

 

[bionut]

In fact those aren't pellets but corn grits covered in the poisonous substance. You can make them yourself if you want to.
Mole Crickets are protected here also (it seems it's an endangered species), but in commercial greenhouses the use of pest control substances it's allowed.
It's so happens that i have a commercial license to grow vegetables, so i can use those products. Although nobody asked me about that when i bought it...
Speaking of that, let me show you my big greenhouses that i use commercially (my parents are the ones that take care of them though, not me - i help with the harvest usually).
I choose to use the small greenhouse that is in my yard because it's closer to me and i can work in it every evening after i come home from work.

 

[Ratatouille]

Stop it bionut, those greenhouses are to gorgeous to casually show off with just a handful of pics. I need more.

Also, I will be moving to Romania this weekend.

 

[Tinkerbelle]

wow just think how many peppers I could grow in THOSE tents

 

[bionut]

Stop it bionut, those greenhouses are to gorgeous to casually show off with just a handful of pics. I need more.

Also, I will be moving to Romania this weekend.

I also have some videos made after their construction

 

[Tinkerbelle]

wow! I want one.
What do your parents grow in them?

 

[bionut]

Pretty much everything, green onion/garlic, green beans, radishes, parsley, dill, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, basil, celery, etc, depending the time in the year. They are never empty, it's always something growing in there.
They sell the product at the farmer's market, from time to time, when the harvest is too big they can also sell in bulk.
It's a lot of work...

 

[Sulsa]

That sure is a lot of nice growing space!
I've done a lot of greenery work when i was younger and you're right it's hard work, but to me it was very satisfying.

In fact those aren't pellets but corn grits covered in the poisonous substance. You can make them yourself if you want to.

Thanks for the info... i see a little project coming up!

 

[ahayastani]

Thanks for the info... i see a little project coming up!

In the late 1990s, I was an intern in a lab where a technician learned me how to make my own succesful pesticide formulation. Ever since I read about the granules, I've been trying to remember what pesticide it was, and now I finally remember. I covered corn kernels with Temik (aldicarb) to produce an extremely effective product that would almost instantly kill mice and rats . The technician had warned me to hide it well, because birds would be easily killed as well. As a student, I was surprised at how easy it was to make the product. I dissolved Temik in chloroform (would be dichloromethane these days...), added the corn, and allowed the solvent to evaporate over the weekend. And voila, killer corn... Temik is not legal anymore either, apparently...