DocNrock's First Grow Log -- 2013 Grow Has Begun!

Hi all. I've learned so much from reading the Glogs of others that I've decided to put mine out there. Hopefully someone can say, "Hey, you're doing it wrong!" before its too late.

I got seeds from Refining Fire Chiles. The seeds were for Butch T, Bhuts, and Douglah. I soaked them overnight in water that I had boiled then cooled to room temp. All the seeds sank to the bottom, which I've read is a good thing. (?) Anyway, I got one of those 72 cell Jiffy Mini-Greenhouses with heater pad to germinate these. I didn't use the peat pellets. The germinating instructions that came with the seeds said not to use peat pots because of their acidity. I didn't know if this applied to the pellets or not, so I filled the tray with Organic Seed Starter Jiffy Mix. I sterilized it first by running boiling water through it in a sieve. I've since seen a number of posts on here using the peat pellets, so note to self they work.

Moving along, I've been watering (but not too much) with a misting bottle filled with boiled water that has 1/4 cup 3% H2O2 and 1 cup brewed chamomille tea in a total of one quart.

Here is my germination setup:

After four days, Hello little guy! Baby Butch T.

 

[GA Growhead]

Nice update!
keeping coming.
ga gh

 

[DocNrock]

Thank you all for stopping in.

Nice plants! I'm happy to hear you dealt with those leaf miners.

I've found that the germination rates on seeds I buy are never as high as for seeds I save. Maybe you're right and the post office procedures has something to do with that. I always assumed that with bigger seed sellers you may end up with seeds that are a year or more old.

You know Stefan, on some level I find the leaf miners somewhat fascinating. To win a battle, it helps to understand your enemy. That said, I did some research on leaf miner biology. If I wasn't growing peppers, I might find them interesting. For now, they must die.

It may be a combination of both postal procedures and quality of the seed stock. From some seed vendors I've gotten great germination rates. From one in particular, zero. I'd like to think it wasn't poor seed from the origin. That's why I was thinking perhaps irradiation. I don't know. Maybe it was just me.

Plants look great Brent sorry about the few setbacks it happens to everyone. The establish plants are doing great should start budding soon or after the heat wave reduces. I see alot of space potential for peppers.

Thanks bud. No worries about the setbacks. Like you said, happens to everyone and if one is smart, each one is a lesson.

I'm thinking the roots of the established plants are just starting to get set up outside of the original rootballs, since I'm now starting to see more and more new growth on almost a daily basis. Its funny how some plants can set pods in the heat and others just drop every flower they produce. Must have something to do with their individual pollen's sensitivity to heat.

Good eye for the potential space. I'm already kind of thinking about next year's grow and yes, a good amount of that space is being considered. After I updated my glog yesterday, I moved my plants to another area of the yard, so even the area shown in the photos is now vacant.

Wow man. Really nice lookin grow so far!

Thanks, man. Its my first time and I've met with a few failures along the way, but I'm learning as I go along. This board has been a tremendous help. So many awesome grows and a huge collective knowledge base.

Your grow looks great, Doc, nice healthy looking sedlings!
You have overcome some obstacles already...I guess when
we put nice, succulent plants out in the world, something
will see it as a pantry! It's really cool when a plant forks
at 1 or 2" tall, they make a heck of a bushy specimen!

Good growin', brah!

Thanks, Paul. It's funny going back and looking at the original seedling pics and then seeing where they are now. Part of the reason I updated the dates was for myself so I could see the actual age of these plants. Hard to believe that seeds hit mix less than 1 1/2 months ago. Judging from the timelines of other glogs, they're probably about 3 months away from making pods, but that's OK. Fresh peppers for Thanksgiving! Our weather will probably be in the 70's to low 80's around then.

On some level, the obstacles are what make this fun. I have always liked a good challenge. This is a new one for me, but so far if I didn't win a battle, like sprouts that suddenly die, I have a better idea about prevention for future seasons. Like you said in a previous post, in the end they're just (interesting) vegetables. That said, the pantry comment is spot-on. There is a definite food chain in nature and when we put these plants outdoors, they become part of that chain unless we do something to intervene.

I'm really intrigued to see what that particular seedling is going to do. Yours that forked early looked pretty bushy if I recall.

Nice update!
keeping coming.
ga gh

Thanks GA GH. To you and all of you above, I aspire to the poddage that you all post on this board. Really gives me something to look forward to.

Have a great week.

Brent

 

[Lavatung]

Im glad you sorted out the miners Brent and I agree they are fascinating creatures. I don't think we get them here in Oz. Just every other sap sucking little menace!

 

[DocNrock]

Im glad you sorted out the miners Brent and I agree they are fascinating creatures. I don't think we get them here in Oz. Just every other sap sucking little menace!

Nice. I'm wondering what the next sap-sucking little creature is that I will encounter.

 

[DocNrock]

Checked out a local nursery yesterday. Found a Caribbean Red almost three feet tall loaded with pods and flowers. For $9.99, I couldn't pass it up, so I have yet another addition to my garden. Checked it thoroughly before buying, couldn't find any pests except for one leaf with - you guessed it - a leaf miner! Plucked the leaf and brought it home. Its in quarantine for now in case it shows signs of more leaf miners or other pests later.

And I decided to go ahead and germinate some more seeds: Yellow Brain, Chocolate Scorp, and Red Rocoto. The first two are from pods purchased from Biscgolf. The Red Rocoto seeds were given to me by SocalChilihead. I know its late in the season. I'm thinking I can always put these under grow lights in the winter or overwinter them in the garage. They are three strains I know I'm going to want a lot of next season.

 

[SocalChilehead]

Lol Brent it not called a deal by most but a pepper addict welcome to the club. The hab is really loaded with pods they should be ripe in no time. That is a great find glad to hear your started new seeds I just transferred my seedlings into one gallon. For a pepperhead it is never late in the season just an early start.

 

[Lavatung]

Nice score Brent!

 

[DocNrock]

Lol Brent it not called a deal by most but a pepper addict welcome to the club. The hab is really loaded with pods they should be ripe in no time. That is a great find glad to hear your started new seeds I just transferred my seedlings into one gallon. For a pepperhead it is never late in the season just an early start.

Ha! Nice. I just checked it and two pods are starting to turn. Sounds like your seedlings are on their way. I like that, early start.

Nice score Brent!

Thanks! Considering what I paid for my smaller established plants it seemed like a steal!

 

[DocNrock]

Yesterday morning before work I checked on my plants like I always do. My White Hab had some green leaves lying in the pot by the plant. I checked it for pests: none. No wilting, no yellowing or other discoloration, nothing. The leaves looked green and had a normal texture. I gently brushed the plant and more healthy-looking leaves fell off. This was not at the bottom of the plant, more towards the middle and top. There is new leaf growth coming in. Is this something that will pass, or is there something of concern? I did a search and found nothing specific.

When I got home from work yesterday, I noticed my Fatalii is doing the exact same thing. The rest of my plants look great. The White Hab and Fatalii were not near each other. They were separated by about six plants. For now the two are in quarantine in partial shade.

They weren't overwatered. Underwatered, if anything. They, as well as all of my other plants have been in full sun at 100+ degrees for the past week and a half. They didn't seem to mind it. They were "fertilized" about two days before this happened with Fox Farms Big Bloom, but my other plants really seemed to like this stuff.

Pics:

White Hab:

Fatalii:

The barren branches on both plants were pretty leafy the day prior. This was pretty sudden. Any thoughts?

 

[HabaneroHead]

Hi Brent,

That Caribbean Red was a great deal, hopefully it will be clean after the quarantine.
Too bad for the White Hab and Fatalii...I have similar things going on. I added too much cow manure compost to the soil mix I was using for my potted plants, and due to it the Bhut started to grow very small leafes, and it set back its growth by weeks. The other, which is more similar to your issue is with my small pepper bed, which I digged next to the place where the pork manure is kept, and I guess the soil was infected...2 out of the 6 plants died (well, one is till alive, but it is more like a zombie, it grows light green small leafes not producing anything, and it is a dwarf), and guess which of them? Of course which were the closest to the poo. Coincidence? I reall doubt that :-)
What soil mix are you using? 2 years ago I tried to grew basil, but the soil which I bought contained some nasty staff, and all died because of damping-off.

Balázs

 

[DocNrock]

Hi Brent,

That Caribbean Red was a great deal, hopefully it will be clean after the quarantine.
Too bad for the White Hab and Fatalii...I have similar things going on. I added too much cow manure compost to the soil mix I was using for my potted plants, and due to it the Bhut started to grow very small leafes, and it set back its growth by weeks. The other, which is more similar to your issue is with my small pepper bed, which I digged next to the place where the pork manure is kept, and I guess the soil was infected...2 out of the 6 plants died (well, one is till alive, but it is more like a zombie, it grows light green small leafes not producing anything, and it is a dwarf), and guess which of them? Of course which were the closest to the poo. Coincidence? I reall doubt that :-)
What soil mix are you using? 2 years ago I tried to grew basil, but the soil which I bought contained some nasty staff, and all died because of damping-off.

Balázs

Thanks for stopping in, Balazs. So far the Caribbean Red seems to be OK. No signs of pathology, a couple of pods ripening every other day, new pods setting and new flowers blooming.

Regarding the others, I had to cut back the White Hab and the Fatalii. Hoping they are going to make it. My Black Naga got moved to quarantine, as well, as it is starting to do the same. After doing an extensive search, I can't find much to explain it except for possibly some form of root rot. I flushed the three last night and am going to let the soil dry out a bit and see what happens. Before this happened, I treated all the plants similarly. All are in Miracle Gro Moisture Control potting soil. I'll choose a different soil next year just because I don't care for Monstanto's business practices, but for now the other plants seem to be just fine with it. No poo in anything, except for some organic fert I used (Fox Farms Big Bloom), which has bat guano. The other plants seem to have loved it.

Anyway, if they don't come back, at least they were not the plants that I would have absolutely hated to lose (Douglah, Moruga, Aji Panca, Yellow and Chocolate Bhuts). I'm on-call this weekend so no time for a photo update. Sometime this week I'll snap some pics of the good, the bad, and the ugly and post up.

Brent

 

[HabaneroHead]

Hi Brent,
My theory is that you can never know what nasties are in the soil you are using. It may be infected by bacteria, viruses and the plants are reacting differently to them. The weakest ones will just fall out. Last year I tried to overwinter some of my plants, and only those made it, which were coming from pots, using potting soil. All the rest which I dug out from the garden, died, due to fungus and some brown spots. This year I found a product which contains beneficial bacterias to help to uptake the nutritients from the soil and to fight against the harmful bacterias by making the immune system of the plant stronger. I am going to try it with the OW plants this year.
Cutting back usually helps, they will come back to life, I am sure!
And just to show you, it can be worse (at least for me :-), here is one of my plant I was talking about, pic taken on the 21st of July:

 

[PaulG]

Hi Brent. Leaf drop is a bummer. Most of my plants are dropping
some lower and interior leaves since the weather got hot (98.6 average
for last 7 days), but your plants look like something different.

Good luck getting that squared away. I would suspect some issue in the soil.

 

[DocNrock]

Hi Brent,
My theory is that you can never know what nasties are in the soil you are using. It may be infected by bacteria, viruses and the plants are reacting differently to them. The weakest ones will just fall out. Last year I tried to overwinter some of my plants, and only those made it, which were coming from pots, using potting soil. All the rest which I dug out from the garden, died, due to fungus and some brown spots. This year I found a product which contains beneficial bacterias to help to uptake the nutritients from the soil and to fight against the harmful bacterias by making the immune system of the plant stronger. I am going to try it with the OW plants this year.
Cutting back usually helps, they will come back to life, I am sure!
And just to show you, it can be worse (at least for me :-), here is one of my plant I was talking about, pic taken on the 21st of July:

Is that plant one that came back after cutting? It looks pretty good. Thanks for stopping in!

Hi Brent. Leaf drop is a bummer. Most of my plants are dropping
some lower and interior leaves since the weather got hot (98.6 average
for last 7 days), but your plants look like something different.

Good luck getting that squared away. I would suspect some issue in the soil.

Thanks Paul. I agree, pretty sure it is some sort of fungal root thing. More on this at the bottom of my update below. Thanks for stopping in!

Here is an update. I was going to call it the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but I only have good and ugly, unless you consider bad and ugly the same. Anyway, here is the Good.

What are left of my orginal seedlings started at the beginning of July seem to be doing OK (Home Depot Bell Pepper off to the right). Butch T, Brain, and ?Moruga. One thing I have noted is that they are growing in width, but the main stalks do not seem to be growing in height. They also seem thinner than I would expect for the amount of foliage. Any thoughts?

The ?Moruga that I thought was going to branch looks like it indeed did branch.

Barrackpores started towards the end of July are doing well for their age.

Chinese 5-Colors growing like weeds. Datils just to their right planted at the same time.

Douglah is budding up like crazy and the Moruga established plant has three buds on it. Couldn't get good pics, so I'll have to post pics when when they flower up.

Poddage!

Jamaican Yellow Mushroom:

Malaysian Goronong:

Now time for the Bad/Ugly, the "plant hospital."

White Hab cut back:

Fatalii cut back:

Black Naga not looking so good:

I think this might be something fungal attacking the roots. I've put them where they get a bit of morning sun and am going to let the soil dry out some more. When they get watered again, I'm thinking about trying aspirin in the water. I've read that salicylic acid is an immune mediator for plants and aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is easily deacetylated by plants. If that doesn't work, I might do the hail Mary and pull them out of the soil, wash and prune the roots, then repot them in fresh soil. They look like they might die anyway. I would either cure them or euthanize them by washing and pruning the roots. So we'll see. If anyone has any better insights or ideas, please, let me know!

There it is, the Good and the Bad/Ugly.

Have a great week, everyone.

Brent

 

[SocalChilehead]

Hey Brent the plants look good except for the one with issues. You stated that you were using the bloom fertilizer for the white hab and fatalii switch it to grow fertilizer. Your plants are still small and require nitrogen rather than Phosphorous and at what strength are you feeding the plants sometimes 1/2 strength is better than full strength. I had the same issue with my naga morich, but I switched to compost tea it was related to using the wrong fertilizer for the plant. Hopefully things get better with those three plants

 

[DocNrock]

Hey Brent the plants look good except for the one with issues. You stated that you were using the bloom fertilizer for the white hab and fatalii switch it to grow fertilizer. Your plants are still small and require nitrogen rather than Phosphorous and at what strength are you feeding the plants sometimes 1/2 strength is better than full strength. I had the same issue with my naga morich, but I switched to compost tea it was related to using the wrong fertilizer for the plant. Hopefully things get better with those three plants

Thanks for the tip, Fernando. The "bloom fert" (Fox Farms Big Bloom) is actually like a compost tea. Here is the link: http://foxfarmfertilizer.com/products_liqfert1.html The free NPK content is extremely low: 0.01, 0.3, 0.7. I used this on all the other plants and even my seedlings without such an issue. Maybe these plants don't like compost tea - like concoctions. Maybe the organisms in the Big Bloom are having a war with the endogenous soil organisms and the plants are collateral damage. Hell, I don't know. At least as of this morning, they seemed stable. No more dropped leaves. The Black Naga is a bit less yellow. The Fatalii and White Hab both at least don't look any worse.

 

[SocalChilehead]

Wow that is low I was looking at their Tiger Bloom product which had 2-8-4, which I thoug could have been the problem since you have buds that look burnt. Some plants react differently some may like it others may not happens just trying to figure out what they like is a battle in itself. That good the plants seem stablized. Hopefully everything works out.

 

[DocNrock]

Wow that is low I was looking at their Tiger Bloom product which had 2-8-4, which I thoug could have been the problem since you have buds that look burnt. Some plants react differently some may like it others may not happens just trying to figure out what they like is a battle in itself. That good the plants seem stablized. Hopefully everything works out.

Thanks, man. Unfortunately, the White Hab, Fatalii, and Black Naga died. Oh well, I still have plenty more plants to keep me busy. Its my first year, I can't expect every plant to fluorish. All I can do is learn from what went wrong and try to prevent it next year.

I'll try to get some new pics up this week. The plants in cups (Barrackpores, Aji Dulce, Chi-5, and Datils) are rockin' I have a Cayenne that I wrote off for dead over a month ago that is only about 6" tall and already has two buds on it! So the ugly for now has came and went. For the time being all is good.

 

[GA Growhead]

DocNrock,
You win some and you lose some. I never have success in pots. Envious of anyone that can pull it off. I gotta keep eveything in the ground. I have a couple this year in pots and only one has taken off, and its a small plant that is still small. Thats just me though.
Glad the others are rocking along.
I had my first datils over the weekend. They are really as good as i have read. And not nearly as hot as i thought they would be. Was gifted some, so keep some seeds.
Your young ones look good. Plenty of heat coming up there. They seem to take forever when in that stage.
Had to check you out when i saw u had an update.
Take care
Ga gh

 

[DocNrock]

DocNrock,
You win some and you lose some. I never have success in pots. Envious of anyone that can pull it off. I gotta keep eveything in the ground. I have a couple this year in pots and only one has taken off, and its a small plant that is still small. Thats just me though.
Glad the others are rocking along.
I had my first datils over the weekend. They are really as good as i have read. And not nearly as hot as i thought they would be. Was gifted some, so keep some seeds.
Your young ones look good. Plenty of heat coming up there. They seem to take forever when in that stage.
Had to check you out when i saw u had an update.
Take care
Ga gh

Thanks GA GH. Hope you ate a pepper today.

So here's an update. Got a curry leaf tree! I'd post a pic here, but that would bring me to 11 pics, so I posted it in my curry leaf tree thread: http://thehotpepper....ee/page__st__20

On to peppers!

Carribean Red that I bought has remained disease-free, has been up-potted, and has pods ripening daily:

Plants from Jim Duffy. As mentioned previously, I killed the White Hab, Fatalii, and Black Naga. Oh well, the rest are doing OK. I'd like them to grow faster, but they are going to do what they are going to do. At least they look healthy and are alive. Left to Right: Goronong, Choc Bhut, Aji Panca, Peter, Douglah, Jamaican Yellow, Moruga, and Choc Hab. Yellow Bhut not shown, but looks like the rest of them.

Most of these are budding up, but I'm very excited about the Moruga and Douglah.

Moruga:

Douglah:

The other store-bought plants, except the small cayenne in the front which I grew from seed. Left to right rear: Mohawk, Hot Red Cherry. L to R middle: Thai Dragon, Chenzo, Bell Boy.

Check this! The little cayenne that could:

Small plants I started from seed back in early July. These are just under two months from seed to soil.

Brains (seed from pods bought from Baker's):

?Moruga (left two, Baker's pods) and Butch T (right, seeds from Jim Duffy):

Update on some upstarts. Includes Datil, Aji Dulce, Marble, Anaheim, Chinese 5-color, and Barrackpore. Probably going to put most of these in pots this weekend.

Finally, a little experiment. A Chinese 5-color I am going to try to grow on my office desk. 6" pot.

That's it for now. Thanks for looking. Good luck to everyone else on their grows!

Brent