Duston 2015 Glog

dustonj2008 · Apr 24, 2015

Still fighting the anchors on the greenhouse. I've been delayed a lot this week. My family has caught a stomach bug that took us all down as well as dealing with rainy weather. One of these days I'll get that fucker finished lol.

Here's some quick pics of the ladies. They really need to go outside soon...

ribbedturtleneck · Apr 24, 2015

Lush is a word that comes to mind. Beautiful, healthy plants from the way it looks. Keep up the good work.

dustonj2008 · Apr 24, 2015

Thanks ribbedturtleneck!

dustonj2008 · Apr 27, 2015

So I've officially given up hope on placing the greenhouse in the yard. I'm convinced that my backyard has a gravel driveway 18" below the top soil. There's just no way in hell those anchors are going in the ground. I've decided to make some room on my concrete slab patio and anchor that way. It sucks giving up the patio space but I'm tired of fighting the gravel pit. Plus the girls needed to get outside to get some more elbow room about two weeks ago.

I noticed in the past couple of days some flowers have opened on a few plants. I was surprised to see that happen inside. I was clipping all the flowers previously but it became too much of a chore and I didn't have time for it.

dustonj2008 · May 1, 2015

So the greenhouse is up and anchored on the patio.

I moved the girls out there yesterday to harden off. There's not a whole hell of a lot of room left in the greenhouse lol. I took a couple pictures from the back window this morning.

The plan is to get these guys hardened off over the next week. Once they're hardened off I'd like to get the hydro peppers out there to start they're hardening off process. There's just not enough room to harden all of them off at the same time. We'll have to see how cooperative Mother Nature is over the next few weeks before plant out.

Runescape · May 1, 2015

Damn, thats a lot of healthy plants...

Scorched · May 1, 2015

Wow those babies are ready to go. The leaves on some of them are huge. Nice looking little greenhouse you've got. Sucks you couldn't put it where you wanted it.

dustonj2008 · May 1, 2015

Runescape said:
Damn, thats a lot of healthy plants...

Scorched said:
Wow those babies are ready to go. The leaves on some of them are huge. Nice looking little greenhouse you've got. Sucks you couldn't put it where you wanted it.

Thanks guys! My babies are definitely ready to leave the nest. I'll have to count them up tomorrow and see how many I have stuffed in that little 8'x6' greenhouse. I completely lost track of how many plants I have in the 1 gallon pots.

As far as the greenhouse placement goes, it wasn't a big deal in the end. I was trying to avoid taking up patio space if possible. If it would have worked out I would have had to sacrifice yard space. It's a trade off either way. It will get full sun on the patio so it should be fine. As long as the wife isn't pissed about giving up patio space and it doesn't fly away I'm fine with the placement.

dustonj2008 · May 4, 2015

So the official count outside in the greenhouse is 73 plants. I gave them a nice bottom watering yesterday and it was definitely a pain in the ass moving them back and forth between the greenhouse and a larger container for soaking. Overall they definitely look like they're enjoying the sun more than the T5 HOs and T8s. The goal is to get them all hardened off by the end of this week. If the weather holds out I'll put them outside in the yard and move the hydro plants into the greenhouse to start their hardening off process.

I REALLY need to get the hydro peppers outside. They are getting out of control:

My 7 Pot Primo Red is kicking ass and taking names

Trident chilli · May 4, 2015

Incredible healthy plants all 73 of them ... 7 pot Primo Red a real beauty ... have you a special place for this variety

dustonj2008 · May 7, 2015

Still working on hardening off the 73 soil peppers. They're making progress:

dustonj2008 · May 31, 2015

It's been a crazy busy few weeks working to get the garden ready when the weather is cooperating. At any rate we got the beds laid out, compost tilled in, and everything planted. Everything appears to be doing well.

Here's a wide shot of the majority of my peppers. I rigged up some DIY trellis supports from some extra fencing I had laying around and some spindles.

The vast majority of the peppers have already put on pods. I took a few pics of the bigger pods.

7 Pot White

Red Scotch Bonnett

California Wonder Bell

I have been calling around looking for a good source of free mulch in my area. Hopefully that pulls through. I have a good free source of several different types of manure (rabbit, horse, chicken, cow). I'm planning on top dressing with some rabbit manure prior to mulching if all goes according to plan. I'll probably add some horse, chicken or cow manure to the compost pile so it's ready to go this fall.

chocolatescotchbonnet · May 31, 2015

nice job on hardening them off! all of mine got severely burnt especially the chinense! but, all are bouncing back.

dustonj2008 · May 31, 2015

Thanks CSB! Sucks to hear your girls got sun burned. I'm sure they'll be fine. A lot of mine were somewhat root bound because of garden prep delays and weather delays. In the end it was probably a good thing I got delayed because my neighbor lost a bunch of plants due to a few late cold nights.

dustonj2008 · Jun 6, 2015

So I have busted my ass in the last week or so.

The dutch bucket hydro peppers were getting so tall that they were growing into the ceiling of the greenhouse. So we tore down the greenhouse.
Redesigned the layout and spacing of the DBH.
Setup the plumbing for the DBH.
Noticed the 5 gallon buckets were very top heavy with the media being perlite. So I added braces to keep the buckets from tipping over and added 3 4' bamboo stakes for support. That seemed to help out a lot.
Researched and decided on a potting soil recipe. It's mostly plagiarized from "All about soil" sticky. I essentially pieced together a few of my favorite recipes from that thread.
Mixed up my soil mix and potted up 2 Red Rocotos, 1 Black Pearl, 1 Jay's Peach, and 1 White Bhut into 15 gallon root pouches I got from greenhousemegastore.com.

I'll post some pictures here this weekend.

dustonj2008 · Jun 6, 2015

Here's my potting soil recipe that went with for the 15 gallon root pouches:

Perlite - 1.5 cu ft
Wiggle Worm Earthworm Castings - 1 cu ft
Ecoscape Organic Compost - 1 cu ft
Green Envy Leaf Compost - 2 cu ft
Green Envy Mushroom Compost - 1 cu ft
Vermiculite - 4 cu ft
Wholly Cow Peat & Composted Manure - 2 cu ft
Golden Trophy Organic Peat - 2 cu ft
Azomite - 1 cup
Kelp Meal - 1.5 cups
Rock Phosphate - 4.5 cups
Blood Meal - 4.5 cups
Bone Meal - 1.5 cups
Plant Success Mycorrhizae - .5 cup

If I could do it over again I would probably use more of the peat/manure mix and less vermiculite. I'd probably add another cu ft of perlite but I used all I had left in the bag. We'll see what happens since this was my first go around at making my own mix.

To take the soil mix test a step further, I started an experiment to see how it stacks up to Happy Frog. I planted 2 Red Rocotos in 15 gallon root pouches. One in Happy Frog and one in my soil mix. I plan on treating them both the same for the rest of the year. The plants were started at the same time and are about the same size currently. I'm assuming this should be a pretty sound test of whether or not my mix sucks or not lol. Time will tell.

PaulS · Jun 7, 2015

Thats a lot of ingredients in your soil mix! I only have about 5!
No wonder your plants look so good

dustonj2008 · Jun 7, 2015

So here's the dutch bucket setup

Here's the 5 peppers in 15 gallon root pouches (top: Jay's Peach, Middle: White Bhut, Red Rocoto in mix, artichoke Bottom: Red Rocoto in Happy Frog, Black Pearl)

Baby hydro Reaper

7 Pot Bubble Gum - I really love how these pods look.

Supposed to be a Red 7 Pot Primo but looks more Bhut-ish to me so far.

Garden update to follow

dustonj2008 · Jun 21, 2015

Here's a few hydro pepper pics:

7P Bubblegum is starting to rippen :-)

Carolina Reaper

7PBS Yellow - not overly bumping but still a nice looking pod

7P Primo

dustonj2008 · Jun 26, 2015

So I came back from a week of vacation to this lovely site on my porch.

Hydro

7P Bubblegum with several ripening pods

7PBS Yellow is just LOADED with pods. There are a few that are ripening as well.

Black Pearl

Red Rocoto in Happy Frog soil mix is putting on flowers before the home made soil mix. Other than that the plants looks pretty similar in size and health.

My artichoke is doing well since moving into the fabric pot.

Last but not least, this came in the mail today :-) Thanks Cappy!