Casper's 2016 Peppers

A New Adventure
What’s up guys? I joined and introduced myself to this great community yesterday. You can visit that post right here. First of all, let me thank you for your warm welcome!  Since an online community is all about sharing knowledge an having fun I thought I would share my current situation right away. Any kind of feedback, tips and tricks are appreciated. As I said before, This is my first year growing peppers seriously and I still have lots te learn.
 
Growlist 
Habanero Chichen Itza 
Lemon Drop
Chinese Five Color
Hot Paper Lantern
 
Cayenne (Overwintered) 
 
Early Jalapeno (Currently germinating) 
Bulgarian Carrot (Currently germinating) 
Hungarian Hot Wax (Currently germinating)
 
03 Feb 2016
These pictures were taken around two weeks ago. 

Habanero Chichen Itza 
 

Lemon Drop Pepper
 
Before I go any further I would like to talk about my current setup. I made a simple grow box, like you see in those DIY YouTube videos. But I believe I kind of upgraded mine. I used a 100L (26 gal) storage box and covered the insides with reflective tape. I then put 4 light sockets in the lid, which are now used for four 23w CFL bulbs. I used small pc fans for ventilation. I used an 80mm pc fan for in-flow at one side and a 120mm pc fan for the out-flow in the lid. 
 
Total lumens: 5600
Color temperature: 6500K 
Lumens per bulb: 1400
Lights: 15-16 hours per day. 
Day temp: 24-26 (depending on in-flow) 
Humidity: 30-40% (depending on the last time I watered the peppers)
 

*temperature in this picture is a little lower because I opened the lid for a while to take some pictures.*
 
14 Feb 2016
I started noticing some fungus nats in my grow box, so I added a thin layer of sand which took care of the problem in two days. 

Overview
 

Habanero Chichen Itza 
 

Habanero Chichen Itza, Some of my seedlings have already started forming the 'Y', quite early I think. Don't really know if it is a good or a bad thing this early on. Any opinions? 
 

Lemon Drop Pepper
 

Chinese Five Color Peppers, these are starting of really slow. Just started showing true leaves, planted at the same time as the Habanero and Lemon drop. 
 

Hot Paper Lantern, starting to see some yellowing on the leaves. Is this anything serious?  
 
Finally my first and only overwintering pepper (Cayenne), this plant never grew really big last year. It was a very wide plant. Cut it all the way back, leaving almost no leaves. No artificial lighting, just a north-facing window. Thankfully this plant is still alive. 
 

 
 
I have not started fertilising my seedlings, but I guess now would be a good time to do so? I also noticed that my plants are growing new leaves quite fast, but are not growing the actual size of the leaves that much. Is that something that depends on the kinds of the peppers? Again, any kind of feedback, tips and tricks are appreciated. As said, this is my first year growing peppers and I still have lots te learn.
 
May we all have a great growing season
// Casper
 

 

[chiltepin]

hallo,
 
You are doing so many things right, as you know!  I like the fan circulation in your grow box.  This is a nice touch with the pc fans.  The play sand is a common remedy for fungus gnats as is perlite. Good you got control of the gnats.  I just battled them myself.  I had my babies in high humidity grow tent.  Once the fungus gnats showed up, I took them outside for a bit and dried things out. Applied perlite to the top much like you did the play sand.
 
The yellowing leaves may be due to too much water.  Regarding your temperature at 26° C is very good in my opinion especially with your fan set up. 
 
You should think about a bonchi project with that awesome looking cayenne.  You are 2/3 there my friend! See what Jukka has done here, http://www.fatalii.net/bonsai_chiles_bonchi.  I have a c. rhombodeum set up for bonchi project. 
 
Overall, things looking very good!
 
Thanks for sharing your grow!
 
Dag,

 

[mpicante]

Nice set up and pics.Good luck on your grow

 

[AyeCasperJack]

You should think about a bonchi project with that awesome looking cayenne.  You are 2/3 there my friend! See what Jukka has done here, http://www.fatalii.net/bonsai_chiles_bonchi.  I have a c. rhombodeum set up for bonchi project. 

 
Thank you for your feedback. Too much water might be it indeed, we will see if and how it will recover the next few days. I really love bonsai trees and have done lots of research, but I have always thought it would be really hard to maintain. A pepper bonchi is really cool, but I am wondering is there any other positive sides to creating pepper bonchi? Besides from an aesthetics point of view or the amount of space, are there any other benefits? Might be something worth looking into after this season! 

 

[AyeCasperJack]

Quick Update
New seeds are germinating
 

New signs of life
 

Jalapeno Early
 

Chinese Five Color Pepper, since the last batch had a very bad germination rate. 
 

Cayenne Peppers
 
May we all have a great growing season
// Casper

 

[tsurrie]

Nice looking plants. Loving the photos.
Everything looks really nice.
 
What kind of sand did you use to prevent fungus gnats ?

 

[AyeCasperJack]

Nice looking plants. Loving the photos.
Everything looks really nice.
 
What kind of sand did you use to prevent fungus gnats ?

 
Thank you, It is just some regular play sand which I testen with some vinegar. To be honest I don't know what the vinegar reacts to, but I read somewhere that when the vinegar bubbles it is not safe to use for your plants. 

 

[AyeCasperJack]

Extremely small update
First seed that sprouted with thee cotyledon, I guess that is what the first leaves are called  . After some quick online research it seems to be nothing special. Could mean it is a hybrid pepper, but not necessarily. I also lost the tag for this seedling so I guess we will have to wait and see.. 
 

 

[cubbieblue82]

your box setup sounds and looks pretty awesome. i already have most of that stuff sitting around at home and would like to try one out - mind showing some more detail of how you built it?

 

[AyeCasperJack]

your box setup sounds and looks pretty awesome. i already have most of that stuff sitting around at home and would like to try one out - mind showing some more detail of how you built it?

 
Sure! Here are some more pictures. I also tried to make a some kind of technical drawing, note that I am not a professional technician so I have no idea if this is the right way to do this, but it works  ! If you have some more questions, please ask. 
 

Technical Drawing
 

Top view. Lid opens in the center. All the lamps eventually connect to one regular plug. 
 

Fans both connect to a DC power jack connector. 
 

Everything is connected to this power strip thats on the side of the box. This way I only have to use one power outlet and I can turn everything on/off with the button. 

 

[AyeCasperJack]

As you might see, my first glog is not off to a great start. The peppers are growing great, but it has been 2 moths since I have updated this glog. I will try to upload more regularly. 
 
The peppers are still in my grow box. I started feeding some liquid fertilizer on 1/3 to 1/2 of it recommended strength about every 1.5 to 2 weeks. And have also been putting them outside when the weather lets me. I have been topping and pruning the peppers to contain the size of plants, my growbox is a little small for 13 plants. It is about time to pot up, but I don't have any room for bigger pots and it will still take about 3 weeks until I can plant outside. Well enough text, picture time! Again, any feedback or tips are appreciated. 
 

 These are my Lemon Peppers. They are certainly the fastest growers of them all. These plants are both topped and pruned. 
 

Habanero Chichen Itza peppers, growing quite slowly. The top two plants are both pruned and topped, the other one is not topped but has developed a nice shape (see picture 2).
 

I Have been trying some LTS (low stress training) on some of my peppers. This is my only Cayenne pepper. 
 

Early Jalapeno, topped and pruned. 
 

Hot Paper Lantern Pepper. Topped, pruned and LTS. Has developed a very dense bush with some very low and horizontal branches.
 

I also tried a little DWC setup. Just two noodle cups, one with hydro pallets and one with hydro nutrients. The brown roots are the roots from when the plant was growing in soil. The white roots have been developing since the hydro setup. 
 
Lastly, my overwintered Cayenne pepper. It has not been doing so well. Here is a quick shot from the symptoms. I also made a post about this plant in the overwintering topic (If you have any thoughts or advice, please share) 
 

 
 
// Casper
 

 

[AyeCasperJack]

Quick Update
 
The weather has been great the past week and decided to transplant a little early. I am sure they will be fine. I have been pulling off all of the flowers, but I am letting one plant flower right now (the krakty/DWC one). More pictures of the plants outside soon, but here is one of the flowers about to open up.