Ethansm - 2019 GLOG

This year has officially started for me! I started last year in a new house with a backyard that hadn't been touched in a decade. Just clearing out a space large enough for peppers in time was difficult, and I learned that the soil is pretty well drained of any nutrients. I put 10 wheel barrel loads of compost, a wheel barrel of perlite, 5 lbs of blood meal where I was going to be planting and it still wasn't enough for the peppers. So lesson learned!
 
This year I really cleared out the yard! (before and after pictures) The before picture is before growing season last year, but most of it was still there. Had a friend with a mini excavator that really expedited clearing it out. It took 4 loads on a 24' flat bed stacked 5' high to get all the saplings and foliage cleared out.
 
Grow list this year w/ vendors :
Refining fire chilies
5 x zaptec jalapeno
5x cayenne long thin
10x serrano tampiqueno

Lawrence family farms (Thanks Trent!)
5x biker billy jalapeno
5x turkish cayenne
10x poblano

Pepper Joe's
5x ghost pepper
3x trinidad scorpion
 
Planted the ghost peppers and the trinidad scorpions today. Went into a 1:3 mixture of perlite and sphagnum moss. Moistened with MG general fertilizer 1tbs in a gallon.
 
I'll start the rest of the plants about the second week of February.
 
Good luck in 2019 everyone!

 

[CDNmatt]

Lots of potential Ethan...Look forward to seeing how you make out and best of luck to ya sir!

 

[Ethansm]

Only had enough seeds for 3 ghosts. So far one ghost and one scorpion have sprouted. I put my cinnamon tree on the warming mat and under the light, it likes it there a lot better than the window. Getting to cold by the windows for it, high 8 tomorrow low -6 what I'm hearing.

 

[Ethansm]

Well I only had one ghost and one scorpion sprout, I think I dried out the soil too much. Planted the rest of the seeds a bit ago, went with 5x poblano instead of 10, also planted:
2x peppadew
2x pepperoncini
2x more Trinidad moruga Scorpions
2x Peter peppers

I would've planted more ghosts too but didn't have any more seed

 

[PaulG]

Welcome to the 2019 grow season, Ethan.

Clearing that lot was a ton of work! Good for
you for tackling it! Any plans for amendments?


Good luck getting the new seeds to germinate!

 

[CDNmatt]

Was wondering how you were making out....I went and got some Pobalnos after reading your first post and plan on keeping around 4-5 as well. Hope ya have better luck germing the next set Ethan.

 

[Hawkins]

Well I only had one ghost and one scorpion sprout, I think I dried out the soil too much. Planted the rest of the seeds a bit ago, went with 5x poblano instead of 10, also planted:
2x peppadew
2x pepperoncini
2x more Trinidad moruga Scorpions
2x Peter peppers

I would've planted more ghosts too but didn't have any more seed

 
Do you want some more ghost seeds?
 
I've got some that I grew the peppers last year, and saved seeds from. It only took them about 7-10 days to pop up once I planted them this year. I could send them out on Friday.
 

 

[Ethansm]

PaulG: It was a lot of work! I don't have a ton of plans for amendments, I know I should get a bunch of compost at least and dump it back there. The lot needs to be leveled back out, hopefully I can get some top soil / compost back there before I start leveling it. I'm open to suggestions on the amendments.
 
CDNMatt: Yeah hopefully this round goes better, I think it will as long as I don't dry out the soil like I did last time.
 
Hawkins: I'd love some if it's not too late! Sorry just saw all the comments, if it's too late don't worry about it.
 
 

 

[Ethansm]

I have been slacking on updating this.

It's been a bit of a rough grow season, the plants are 1-2 feet tall in 3" grow pots now. Just put them outside to start hardening off, they're desperate to get out of the pots. I also messed up a few weeks ago and didn't water them for... several days and almost all of them lost their leaves. I also did this after heavily over watering them and giving them some really bad edema. They looked like sticks in the pots after drying them out, but damned if they're determined to live. They've bounced back really well and are starting to look like healthy plants again. I just realized my labeling method was wholly inadequate and I'm not real sure what is what at this point, so it'll be interesting when they start setting fruit.
 
I also found a pot that I didn't thin out to only one plant, so I cut the secondary and decided to try and root it. I've never rooted one before so I put it in a glass with sugar water, that's what my dad use to do and it seemed to work well for him. It's been about a week now, no roots yet but it hasn't dropped any leaves and one of the flowers on it set a pod! I'll be surprised if it doesn't eventually drop it.

I was concerned about the soil quality in the back yard, but wasn't sure what to ammend with so I got a soil savvy test off amazon and my back yard is lacking in everything but sulfur and calcium, so I'm working on getting some fertilizer in the ground before plant out. Here's the results from the test in PPM:
 
N: 7.26               Optimal range: 20-30
P 1.82               Optimal range: 4-10
K 18.93               Optimal range: 30-55
Ca: 249.18               Optimal range: 90-175
Mg: 27.69               Optimal range: 15-35
S: 20.18               Optimal range: 6-12
Na: 5.65               Optimal range: 1-20
Fe: 0.72               Optimal range: 0.5-2
Mn: 1.16               Optimal range: 2-4
Zn: 0.03               Optimal range: 0.1-0.2
Cu: 0.08               Optimal range: 0.05-.01
B: 0.05               Optimal range: 0.1-0.2
Al: 0.9               Optimal range: 1-5
pH: 7.14
 
 
 
edit: formatting is hard

 

[CDNmatt]

Helleww Ethan!! .Good to hear your plants are doing ok this time and look forward to seeing them at some point whenever your able man.
 
Keep on keeping on eh!!

 

[luvmesump3pp3rz]

its a lot of work to take 10 years of neglected land to get into good shape but once you get it there it will be easy to keep up. keep up the updates when you can!