I've been away from the forum for some quite some time. Over the last 2.5 years I've been blessed with a son, have had to move to 2 different cities and transfer jobs twice. I really didn't have time or room to grow anything let alone focus on peppers. Now that I'm settled in and have a few extra $ on hand, I've been able to invest in a 180w UV Blackstar LED and have started growing in Coco.
Why coco? I've grown in soil before and had decent results. The problem was that my growing season is around 90 days. We don't get the heat or sun needed to grow super hots to their full potential. On top of this soil needs fairly large pots for the plants to really produce a large plant, but again we don't get the heat needed to let the pot dry out and stress the plant. I'd have great tasting peppers, but no heat.
I've done a bunch of reading (mostly the 420 sites) and it would appear that coco offers the ability to grow large plants in rather small pots. It offers a great root zone alternative that will allow you to develop massive roots. Once the root ball is fully developed, they fill the pot to the point that you can water every day (during growth), and every other day during fruiting. The ability to control the water/wilt schedule should allow the plant to stress out enough so that it produces nice hot peppers. We'll see how this works though.
Fertilizers I'm currently using are:
Botannicare
- CNS-17 Grow (stand alone)
- CNS-17 Bloom (stand alone)
General hydroponics (using a modified version of H3AD's mixture)
- Flora Micro
- Flora Bloom
Advanced Nutrients
- Monkey Juice A
- Monkey Juice B
Suppliments
- Botannicare Cal-Mag+
- Botannicare Huvega (nothing more than expensive dissolved epsom salt)
Problems experienced so far:
I had a bunch of issues getting the seeds started. They'd start, die. Next set wouldn't start. Set after that started and provided me with enough seedlings to get going.
Next problem. I started with Botannicare's CNS-17 grow. Everything started fine, seedlings were doing ok, but it wasn't too long in before I realized that I had a huge problem with my tap water. It's extremely hard. After a few weeks the leaves were going yellow and dropping. Especially when I added a small amount of Cal-Mag+. The problem drove me a little nuts and is why I have a 3 different ferts! I didn't know the water was the problem and tried a different brand. Oh well. I bought a TDS Meter and found that my tap water is a little over 500ppm. After I found this out, I switched to bottled water and noticed an immediate improvement.
I'm only growing two types of peppers so far:
- Yellow Scotch Bonnet (bought from Stokes)
- Bhut Jolokia (two strains. One from a friend and one that was bought off e-bay by my in-laws).
EDIT:
Newly added pepper! Jamison was kind enough to provide me with MoA Bonnets! They arrived today (Dec 31, 2013).
Why coco? I've grown in soil before and had decent results. The problem was that my growing season is around 90 days. We don't get the heat or sun needed to grow super hots to their full potential. On top of this soil needs fairly large pots for the plants to really produce a large plant, but again we don't get the heat needed to let the pot dry out and stress the plant. I'd have great tasting peppers, but no heat.
I've done a bunch of reading (mostly the 420 sites) and it would appear that coco offers the ability to grow large plants in rather small pots. It offers a great root zone alternative that will allow you to develop massive roots. Once the root ball is fully developed, they fill the pot to the point that you can water every day (during growth), and every other day during fruiting. The ability to control the water/wilt schedule should allow the plant to stress out enough so that it produces nice hot peppers. We'll see how this works though.
Fertilizers I'm currently using are:
Botannicare
- CNS-17 Grow (stand alone)
- CNS-17 Bloom (stand alone)
General hydroponics (using a modified version of H3AD's mixture)
- Flora Micro
- Flora Bloom
Advanced Nutrients
- Monkey Juice A
- Monkey Juice B
Suppliments
- Botannicare Cal-Mag+
- Botannicare Huvega (nothing more than expensive dissolved epsom salt)
Problems experienced so far:
I had a bunch of issues getting the seeds started. They'd start, die. Next set wouldn't start. Set after that started and provided me with enough seedlings to get going.
Next problem. I started with Botannicare's CNS-17 grow. Everything started fine, seedlings were doing ok, but it wasn't too long in before I realized that I had a huge problem with my tap water. It's extremely hard. After a few weeks the leaves were going yellow and dropping. Especially when I added a small amount of Cal-Mag+. The problem drove me a little nuts and is why I have a 3 different ferts! I didn't know the water was the problem and tried a different brand. Oh well. I bought a TDS Meter and found that my tap water is a little over 500ppm. After I found this out, I switched to bottled water and noticed an immediate improvement.
I'm only growing two types of peppers so far:
- Yellow Scotch Bonnet (bought from Stokes)
- Bhut Jolokia (two strains. One from a friend and one that was bought off e-bay by my in-laws).
EDIT:
Newly added pepper! Jamison was kind enough to provide me with MoA Bonnets! They arrived today (Dec 31, 2013).
send me some of that 
