FireEater101 2013 Glog

Hello friends and fellow chiliheads! My name is Mike and 2013 is my third year to grow a garden. I am a chili pepper fanatic and last year my interest in gardening blossomed immensely. I have been on this board now for one full year reading and learning from all the experience and knowledge that many of you hold. I decided as much as I love gardening and peppers that there is no way I will get locally as plants any superhots or peppers that I really wanna grow. This year will be my first year to grow superhots. I decided for 2013 to adopt the motto of "Go big or go home" so for this year having received a grow light (T5) setup for Christmas I am going to start my entire garden from seeds. Yes I do grow other veggies but this glog will be about the chilis that I grow this year. I am not an expert gardener just a microbiologist who has become passionate about gardening due to my love of chilis over many many years. I decided since I am starting from seed and just beginning here this weekend for the season to start a glog to share pics, obtain advice if needed and share my progress for the year. I hope to make this a success and for you all to enjoy seeing what I have going on here.

My growlist this year for Chilis was obtained from two vendors of Pepperlover.com and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Here are the peppers I have just planted.

1. Red Bhut Jolokia
2. Trinidad Scorpion Original strain
3. Large Red 7 Pod
4. Fatali
5. Early Jalapeno
6. Scotch Bonnet
7. Caribbean Red Habanero
8. Tabasco
9. Cayenne
10. Serrano Tampequino
11. Blue Mystery (extra from pepperlover)
12. Dedo de Moca (extra from pepperlover)
13. Cap Chacoense (extra from pepperlover)

I started a 24 hour soak on all of my seeds yesterday 1/26/13 in some tap water

This morning was planting day 1/27/13

The endpoint for the day my Germination Station is completely full, heatpad turned on, little water on the bottom of the tray and there she will reside. I plan to leave the shades cracked so some light gets in and hopefully I will at least get 50% germination rate as I wanna plant 5-6 plants of each pepper and 4 of the extras I got too. Hopefully I will have an update soon and thanks for following along this year chiliheads!!

Mike

 

[FireEater101]

Alrighty folks another week another update. Today marks 5 weeks since all of the chili peppers were planted. This week I hit all the plants with some diluted nutes Neptune's Harvest Fish and Seaweed Fert at 25% strength (man that stuff sure does smell like fish I wanted to sing Mickey D's fish mcbites song "fishy fish") and I am getting second set of true leaves on many. The annums are of course going nuts and the superhots are making their way too. I did upgrade the lighting on my setup on Friday. I added a 4ft T8 fluorescent 2 bulb fixture with each bulb a GE Daylight T8 rated at 6500K each. That coupled with my 3300K T12's should bring my total K of my lights up to 19600K..all I can say is I feel like I am lighting up the night sky no need for a nightlight for my kids this time of year. I needed to free up the Hydrofarm T5 I started off with by upgrading this setup so that I can give more light to all of the other nonchili's I got planted and sprouted. All in all another great week of fun and happy that I am having continued success. Pics below of the current setup and seedlings followed by a bunch of the peppers and some I have not shown pics of yet either. Thanks for stopping in again!!

Current Setup

Overhead shot

2x7 Pot bottom center

Bhut Jolokia Red

4xEarly Jalapeno

2xDedo de Moca

4xCayenne

4xTabasco

2xScotch Bonnet Yellow

I had to post one more pic below of a Serrano then when germinating the seed I gave it a suntan but as you can see she is making her way just fine too.

 

[FireEater101]

Hello again THPers!! Time for another update!! Haven't done anything different this week just let the lights shine bright 24/7 and keep the bottom watering going and a bit of the dilute Neptune's Harvest again. I feel like these babies are starting to really look like pepper plants!! Yeah baby!! Ok enough of the talking time for some pics! Thanks again for checking out my glog and enjoy the pics...

Pic of the peppers showing a bit more vertical climb

7 Pot (4 plants)

Early Jalapenos

Cayenne (6 plants)

Fatali (4 plants)

Tabasco

Ghost Bhut Red

Caribbean Red Habanero (6 plants)

Dedo de Moca (4 plants)

Trinidad Scorpion Red

A few more pics

Scotch Bonnets (3 plants)

A pic of my tomatoes Chadwick Cherry, Floradade and Beefsteak and sweet peppers Jimmy Nardello, Red Marconi and Emerald Green

Beans, Peas, Cucumbers and Watermellon

 

[stc3248]

Those are some happy and healthy babies you got there! Nice and green! Good job!!!

 

[FireEater101]

Those are some happy and healthy babies you got there! Nice and green! Good job!!!

Thanks Shane!! Really enjoying this experience and it keeps getting cooler the further along I get. I can't wait to get these outside in a month and see how big they are then too.

 

[FireEater101]

Took the day off today and had an awesome day!! Finally my peppers have a home outside!! I spent the day filling 5 raised beds with 50/50 compost/soil, peat moss, vermiculite and cow manure. In addition I added and spread 100% compost onto my sandy soil for my non peppers this year. It was a sunny, warm glorious day and I loved it so I am sharing the outside pics tonight but tomorrow I will snap some pics of the peppers they are really taking off good. Ok Mother Nature hopefully only 3 more weeks to plant out so please bring more days like today in April and we will be outside for good.

A quick shot of the peppers anxiously awaiting being outdoors

 

[Sawyer]

Soon those guys will be very happy in their new digs.

 

[FireEater101]

So a pepper update is long long overdue for me so here we go: I have been just letting the peppers do their thing and just watering them once a week. They have really grown in size and I am planning now that mother nature has sent us consistent good weather that in two weeks I will be planting out my peppers unless things turn cold again. I can not wait to say the least!! I will say this and check the first picture below but while I was doing my weekly watering today I saw yes to my surprise the Early Jalapeno's have started to fruit!! Three of the eight plants have pods forming at the top..I am amazed I know these lights are bright but I never figured I could get a pepper plant to fruit before putting it outdoors to get some real sun. Pretty exciting I say!! Yea!! So here are some pics of the peppers and thanks for stopping in again!! I can't wait to get these babies outside now that the garden is ready to go!!!!

Mike

Pods!!! Pods!!! Pods!!! Early Jalapeno

Caribbean Red Habanero

7 Pot Red

Ghost Pepper Red

Fatali Pepper

Scotch Bonnet Red

Trinidad Scorpion Red

Tabasco Pepper

 

[stc3248]

Pods, Pods, Pods!!!


Love that feeling! Well done on the plots. Think your plants will be hard to walk between even with the spaces in between!

 

[FireEater101]

PLANTED OUT!!! I got the rest of the peppers all planted outside today. I still can't believe the indoor growing is over but it is and here is the pepper plant breakdown for 2013. I could not help but keep thinking to myself in amazement that each one of these plants I have came from seed that I grew and not a store bought plant like I have always done in the past. Thanks THP!! I may not post a lot but I sure learned a lot from all of you just reading on here.

11 Ghost Pepper Red
8 7 Pot Red
3 Trini Scorps Red
10 Fatali
10 Caribbean Red Habs
11 Tabasco
3 Maya Red Pepper
5 Scotch Bonnets
3 Blue Mystery
7 Dedo de Moca
6 Serranos
6 Early Jalapenos
12 Cayennes (6 Baker Creek and 6 Pepperlover)

95 Plants total!!! That is a far cry from the 10 plants I had last year!! Have a great rest of the weekend and I can't wait to post pics of pods pods and more pods!

Mike

 

[annie57]

Mike have you got a plan for . . . it can frost at 39 if there's no wind and tonight's iffy and tomorrow, unless, they lying about weather for Raleigh, which I'd appreciate, because that's gorgeous stuff you got, lows hanging from 40 and < that from 2am until 8am Sun. night. Sunday night does appear to be the worst of it for y'all so . . . man, those are pretty. Probably be alright. I hope so!

 

[Sanarda]

aahahahaha Annie you are comical..... Those are some great looking beds. Do you think that if you cover them they will be ok?

 

[FireEater101]

Mike have you got a plan for . . . it can frost at 39 if there's no wind and tonight's iffy and tomorrow, unless, they lying about weather for Raleigh, which I'd appreciate, because that's gorgeous stuff you got, lows hanging from 40 and < that from 2am until 8am Sun. night. Sunday night does appear to be the worst of it for y'all so . . . man, those are pretty. Probably be alright. I hope so!

aahahahaha Annie you are comical..... Those are some great looking beds. Do you think that if you cover them they will be ok?

Thanks Annie and Sanarda!! It is exciting to finally see these plants in the ground and not in 18oz red cups. The beds were fun to make too and apparently I have more room for more peppers.

As for the temps I saw they would be lower the next two nights but tonight is gonna be about 46 as a low. I have a frost cover I could lay over the beds but I figured the temp would not be low enough and we don't have a frost warning either. I hope Mother Nature spares me those crazy storms last night with 50+ mph winds almost blew over some of the peppers I planted earlier this week.

 

[stc3248]

Plants in the Ground, Plants in the Ground...haha. Hope your weather holds out. Your spacing is tight! Many of the big growers (Like Spicy Chicken) do that. They'll look like one huge plant by late season. Going to be really cool to look at! Can't wait to see some shots under the canopy with pods of all shapes and colors hanging underneath. Will be cool fo-sho! Nice job!

 

[FireEater101]

Plants in the Ground, Plants in the Ground...haha. Hope your weather holds out. Your spacing is tight! Many of the big growers (Like Spicy Chicken) do that. They'll look like one huge plant by late season. Going to be really cool to look at! Can't wait to see some shots under the canopy with pods of all shapes and colors hanging underneath. Will be cool fo-sho! Nice job!

Thank you!! I will admit I did realize yesterday when I was almost done that I could have spaced out the peppers a bit better in the 4x8 beds. I will remember for next year and shoot for 6 a row and not 8. I won't mind crawling down in there to get pods though that is for sure!!

I got the equipment today I need to start making AACT and might start a batch tonight and get that going. So many fun new things this year I am loving it. Thanks for stopping in again!!

 

[FireEater101]

Hello again Pepperheads it's been awhile.  I have not visited much or posted here in just over a month.  After I got all of my chili plants out in the garden that large glowing ball of fire in the sky didn't give my pepper plants a nice welcome.  After 3 days most of the 50-60 plants I got in the ground all of the leaves turned silvery/white and the next day it got windy so most of those leaves got pulled off the plants.  All I was left with on just about every plant was a green stem sticking maybe an inch or two out of the ground.  Oh goodness I will raise my hand to Mr Novice Gardener here.  It seems as though I did a crappy job hardening these off and they got sunburned.  I posted for advice and took a few pics which were my Ghosts here if anyone wants to check it out:  http://thehotpepper.com/topic/38909-poor-hardening-off/#entry817059  I took the advice and showed patience and collected and foliar sprayed the plants with runoff from my compost bin aka compost tea.  Well it has been about 5 weeks and I believe these peppers are making a comeback so yea!! I am excited since I have really enjoyed this experience.  THANK YOU GREATLY to all of those that gave me advice I really do appreciate it!!  Mother Nature has really warmed up here and highs yesterday, today and tomorrow are around 88 degrees and sunny.  So here are a few pics below.  My lower heated peppers are doing really well Jalapeno, Cayenne, Serranos lots of buds and lots of peppers coming in too.  Just a quick update and thanks for stopping in. 
 
Triniscorps in the foreground and back row are 7 Pots

 
Red Ghosts chuggling along slowly

 
 
Tabasco and Fatali along center row, 7 Pots along right row

 
This entire bed got wacked by the sun but these are Car Red Hab, Fatali, Scotch Bonnets

 
 
Left row are Dedo de Moca and some Blue Mystery front left.  You can see some of the Serrano, Cayenne and see the size difference

 
 
First and largest Early Jalapeno with many more coming in but this one should be gone by the weekend.  

 

[JoynersHotPeppers]

Nice update, looking forward to seeing more as the grow continues. 

 

[FireEater101]

Long overdue for an update!! Wow what an adventure this year has been from seed starting to killing most of my plants with poor hardening off to now the Chili Peppers plants are rocking away.  I picked this morning for about 2 hours and came away with lots of peppers Trinidad Scrops, Scotch Bonnets, Fatali, Serranos, Cayennes and Jalapeno.  Still waiting to pick my first 7 Pot, Red Ghosts, Carribean Red Habs, Tabascos and Dedo de Moca.  Here are a few pics I snapped off today.  Now I gotta figure out what to do with all these peppers!!  Thanks for stopping in again!!  Enjoy and hope everyone's season is fiery HOT!!
 
Today's Harvest (Trinidad Scorps, Scotch Bonnets, Fatali, Serranos, Cayennes and Jalapenos)

 
My first 7 Pot starting to turn red

 
Here are my Red Ghosts coming along nicely

 
More Red Ghosts

 
Tabasco

 
Carribean Red Habs

 
Dedo de Moca