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container First time container growing, need help with moving indoors

rjrauso

rjrauso

So this is my first time post and I need a little help from the experts. I live in Nebraska so growing peppers is a bit challenging with the short season. I've grown a variety of Jalapenos, Habanero and Ghost Peppers in raised gardens with relatively zero challenges other than it usually takes up until this time of year to really get the Capsicum type peppers to mature. With this in mind I decided this year to grow them in 5 gallon containers.  I recently built a house and had my first child so building new raised gardens wasn't possible with the time restraints plus I wanted a more modular method so I could let the plants mature and bring in more pods every year instead of starting over every spring.
 
Well long story short, containers are much more difficult than simply putting them into the ground. I believe I followed all the correct information as to what type of soil, drainage, ferts watering habits, ect. Just didn't get anything to pod... mostly just a ton of flowers and ended up dropping.  I fought threw a bout of nursing them too much with a slight fert buring and a couple bug/aphid attacks but nothing went horribly wrong.
 
Now onto today, I've since moved the plants inside. I have a pair of each: Carolina Reaper, Trinidad Scorp, Moruga Scorp, Chocolate Scorp, Brown Moruga, Naga Beast, and a variety of Jalapenos and milder peppers.
 
I have most of my favs in front of a south facing sliding glass door and window and my top choices in a 5' x 4' room with the following lights on a timer:
3x https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HJP8UF0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
4x https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GNWK2XO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
1x https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019J3UPUS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
The peppers in the door/windows seem to be doing fine, some are even growing pods and I water them maybe once in every 10 days. The ones in the room (6 plants total) were on a 16/8 light schedule and I am watering them every 3/4 days due to the soil drying out so fast.  Those little plants are the ones I'm more concerned with. It seems they are losing most of their leaves and although they are growing new ones, they are losing those as well. I will post images once I figure that out... The leaves are turning yellow with ashy like grey spots around them.  I've been giving them a half dosage of ferts and recently added more soild/fert as well as crushed egg shells.
 
 
 
The plants in the room may be suffering from inadequate lighting. How did you go about selecting the lighting system you are using?

BTW, welcome
 
I did research, the t5 lights were always mentioned the most and the leds were for the sides.  Is this not adequate? I have the 4ft. 8 bulb model.
 
thanks for the welcome, I hope to learn a lot about this hobby :)
 
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For one, leaf loss is common when going from outdoor grows to an indoor one. No man made lighting system is ever going to equal that of the sun.
 
T5s IMO are best suited for seed starting up to plants 16" or so where for a short time the entire plant is at the max spectrum the light has to offer. I dont feel T5s offer enough penetration to suffice mature plants beyond the canopy. This is why when I decided to go indoor I chose HPS. I sometimes have more light than I need and have to turn it down.
 
I dont feel that lighting is your sole problem though. I think you have nutrient issues as well. What are you feeding and what is your schedule. Can you get a pic of new growth?
 
Currently I would say none of the plants are 16" or larger yet and was hoping adding leds to the sides wiuld help. A lot of conflicting information throughout the internet.

Here is a pic of the products and feeding schedule I was on. Some weeks I would substitute just water with epsom salt instead of the biofeed. Didnt use the biobud... haven't used the biobloom since bringing them inside either.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=12211&pictureid=243168

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I am a beginner, not a pro, but started my plants indoor, would get a ton of flowers, a ton of bud drop, some leaf drop, then when I moved them outside they exploded with pods.....Insects found the flowers and pollinated my plants.....
 
So far in my experience indoors you do not need as much nutrients because you do not need to water as much but you will need to manually pollinate your plants or get you some insects but I dont think you want bugs all over your home.
 
I brought mine back indoors from being outside for a couple months just to save them till next spring when they will go back out and again begin producing pods.
 
I didnt use any special nutrients, just an all purpose 10-10-10 liquid but will be experimenting with a new nutrient/fertilizer soon, I just have not decided exactly what I want to go with yet.
 
I grew mine under T8's till they got too large for my little tent and let them grow out in our sun room till I decided to put them outside.
 
I have read that the bubbled cupped leaves are a nutrient deficiency I also have that on some other plants and I actually think mine got this because of adding too much nutrients and the plants couldnt use it efficiently, I would go straight water for a while and see how it goes.
 
I have read you can flush the nutrients from the soil and begin fresh but it seems like quite a bit of work for peppers, the article I read was for a different kind of plant.... :high:
 
There are some very experienced growers here so maybe they have some better info, this is all I got....
 
Good luck
 
Thanks for the replies, I stopped giving them nutrients the last week or so because I haven't given the plants by the window much water or any nutrients since moving them in and they are looking much better. One of my Morugas by the window is even growing a pod.
 
I upped the light schedule to 18/6 yesterday and I will stop watering them as much even though the soil is dry to moist. I'll post updates if they start doing better. If not, I might just prune them back and keep them alive until next spring. In that event, I'll try and start some seedlings with the lights I have.  I have dried Reaper and Ghosts I can get seeds from...
 
Thanks again!
 
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