Four-Pepper False Start Glog

internationalfish · Jul 19, 2019

Starting with the stuff that's already come off the plants: I gave those pickled peppers a try. Hoo boy, yup. No duds here.

Unfortunately, the garlic isn't really strong enough. Which I guess just means I have not yet added enough garlic. At least it's a problem I can fix.

My not-quite-true purple UFOs are doing well; lots of pods growing and starting.

Finally, it turns out I have two healthy chocolate hab plants outside, and both are putting out decent pods in addition to the runts that have ripened. Here's a couple that will hopefully be ready in the next week or so; lots more where they came from (being photobombed by a lemon drop that's also taking its time).

Think I'm going to whip up a fresh hot sauce tonight and make chicken wings, because the ferment I have going in my room smells too damn good and I don't want to jump the gun on it.

CaneDog · Jul 19, 2019

Man 'fish, ferments, fresh hot sauce, pods. You're doing it right.

Long way from the false start.

internationalfish · Jul 19, 2019

CaneDog said:
Man 'fish, ferments, fresh hot sauce, pods. You're doing it right.

Long way from the false start.

And bugs. Good lord, the bugs. Still fighting them with noxious insecticide.

Now that I actually have peppers growing, I'm thinking I'll start isolating flowers on the plants I like. One of my goronong in particular is an absolute champ, and while my alma paprika is not faring very well, I'm pretty sure that's because it's basically Frankenstein's monster at this point with everything I've put it through, and it's still putting out nice pods (they just aren't ripening all that quickly).

After realizing how many seeds I have that aren't going to grow true, that's looking a lot more important, particularly since I can't really order replacements.

I did, however, hear from another Japan pepper person on Reddit. So now I do have two other hobby growers here to trade with, which is a big plus.

internationalfish · Jul 26, 2019

I spent... I don't know, a week and a half, getting peppers pretty much daily. For some reason, I forgot I had a dehydrator, so instead of that I ended up with a this-is-definitely-going-to-end-up-brown pot-luck fermentation.

Choco hab, lemon drop, mutant purple UFO, day-glo devil's tongue, fish peppers, hawk's claw, SLR, and goronong.

I threw a bunch of garlic and some onion at them and gave them a mix.

Really did not expect to fill this jar... it's close. The weight sank a bit today, and I've got a couple wee floaters, but another few days of being topped up with freshly-picked peppers and this will be my second full jar o' safely-rotting happiness.

I have a massive Korean pepper that's ripening, and a whole bunch that are still growing; most of the rest have slowed down quite a bit. I think the CGN 21500 I brought home from the office, despite its aphid infestation, is starting to produce again. So that's exciting.

Also, my F1 red hab/Fatalii gourmet plants are budding and I think they might also produce soonish. Which would be exciting.

Finally, today I was at the grocery store picking up my Friday night discount sashimi dinner (because I'm classy like that), and I happened to check the normally-really-boring veggie section for peppers. Which I found! Manganji, a variety from Kyoto. There was one pack with a pepper that was starting to ripen; I don't know how well it'll work, but I'm going to let it do its thing in the window and hopefully the seeds will be viable.

I have a bunch of hot peppers but no really good mild ones, which I kind of need to make any cross I might actually enjoy. The J bells are kind of interesting; I pulled seeds out of a single red pepper, and one plant is ripening red, another yellow. So who knows what's going to be up with those.

CaneDog · Jul 26, 2019

Kyo-yasai, iFish! Maybe try putting a couple ripe bananas with it for the ethylene.

internationalfish · Jul 27, 2019

CaneDog said:
Kyo-yasai, iFish!

Haha, yup! I'm an authentic fake Japanese. :cool:

CaneDog said:
Maybe try putting a couple ripe bananas with it for the ethylene.

Interesting, thanks, I wasn't aware of that. Sucker's ripening fast, though; another day and it'll likely be free of green.

Pictured here with the massive Korean pepper I picked this morning.

Also, current status of my 7JPNs and kung pao cayenne:

The 7JPNs are getting separated into their own little pots tomorrow morning.

internationalfish · Jul 28, 2019

What? No, I totally didn't plant more peppers... I don't know what you're even talking about...

... but if I had planted more peppers, I'd probably have pulled some seeds from that manganji, and given them some friends, possibly pepperoncini golden Greek, sucette de Provence, and shishito.

Just, you know, hypothetically.

CaneDog · Jul 28, 2019

Well, if you had planted more I would have said "tasteful choices" and been really hoping to see the Manganji seeds produce.

If you had planted more, that is.

BTW, I didn't just start a few more either... :rolleyes:

internationalfish · Jul 28, 2019

CaneDog said:
Well, if you had planted more I would have said "tasteful choices" and been really hoping to see the Manganji seeds produce.

If you had planted more, that is.

BTW, I didn't just start a few more either...

I'm very thankful that we both have such impressive self-control. Imagine the predicament we'd end up in if we HAD planted so many extra peppers! Unthinkable, really. :!:

lespaulde · Jul 28, 2019

I'd say it's only madmen that start seeds this late in the season (on the northern hemisphere that is) - hence why I am also not all going to start a few more in 2 weeks or so... Thatta be crazy!

Those choices do sound really good though, I hope they will produce well for you once you eventually do find the appropriate moment for seeding them

Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk

internationalfish · Jul 30, 2019

I went full murderhobo on six plants today and pulled everything off of them before brutally dismembering and discarding them. PH33R M3.

Along the top: Two Japanese bell pepper plants. One was growing yellow pods and the other red; both were taking their damn time and just not turning much out (what you see here is all they've grown in... four months?). Those pods are heavy, though; I'm impressed with that much, at least.

Bottom left: On top, chocolate habaneros. I had two plants and kept one; this one still had yet to manage a ripe pod. On the bottom, mutant purple UFO (which I've decided I'm going to call an Unidentified Fruiting Object. But not for long since, you know, it's dead now).

Bottom right and center are two of my three SLRs. The one left alive is my growdown plant, which has more room and is doing much better than either of these was.

I think that brings me down to 13 plants on the balcony. It's certainly feeling less crowded now.

lespaulde · Jul 30, 2019

Well done on the culling, that's never easy! Now it looks like you do have a little feast for yourself and the missus!

Oh, and completely forgot to congratulate you on the inbound family member - awesome news!

Hope all is going well, and it'll be exciting to have another human being to instill your love of peppers onto!

Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk

internationalfish · Jul 30, 2019

lespaulde said:
Well done on the culling, that's never easy! Now it looks like you do have a little feast for yourself and the missus!

Oh, and completely forgot to congratulate you on the inbound family member - awesome news! Hope all is going well, and it'll be exciting to have another human being to instill your love of peppers onto!

Thanks very much!

I actually still had one more plant to cull; there were three Korean pepper plants, one of which was in an undersized container, and I didn't really feel the need to pot it up. Since these plants have turned out pods but also ripen really slowly, I let two plants live but made them sacrifice their fruit.

The plan was to make a green fermented sauce, so I pooled these with the other unripes I got from the previous cull...

...and gave them a new home.

The reddish tinge is a bit of kimchi juice I tossed in as a starter. Haven't tried that before... I'm betting it's not enough to significantly change the final color of the sauce, but regardless, I didn't want to just keep doing exactly the same thing with every ferment. And any excuse to show off my kimchi is fine with me. The jar has since been weighted, and I'll probably pull and add some more unripe peppers until it's packed down comfortably.

Out in the carport, along with the Korean peppers, I have a CGN that was doing very poorly at the office. It's coming back and fruiting again, which is great; I think that's my favorite out of any of the pods I've tried so far. Never really noticed the calyx color, though; is that normal for this variety?

Also, there's what's supposed to be a Caribe out there. It's finally fruiting. This plant got its start as one of my failed Kratky water bottle experiments; it was moved to soil months ago, but just was not too enthusiastic. Within the last week or so it's been looking a lot better and even started fruiting. Looks nice and off-pheno, but that's pretty much par for the course at this point, so hopefully it at least tastes good...

internationalfish · Aug 1, 2019

Chilidude said:
https://www.amazon.co.jp/協和ハイポニカ-KJA002-協和-ハイポニカ液体肥料-A・Bセット/dp/B0038JFTJC/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?__mk_ja_JP=カタカナ&qid=1546687748&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=hydroponic+fertilizer&dpPl=1&dpID=51xKPkbW%2BgL&ref=plSrch

Since you are living in Tokyo, is this fertilizer familiar to you?

Npk values are good for chili growing, so perhaps you could to a test grow using this stuff in 100% coco coir and it is hydroponic fertilizer, so should work fine in coco coir growing.

This stuff have Combined NPK:

4-3,8-9,4

Resurrecting this slightly old response because I finally actually did it.

Well, just started doing it, anyway. Just gave the tent plants a good feeding; hopefully over the next few weeks I'll start to see some FREAKING PODS.

internationalfish · Aug 2, 2019

Going through and figuring out what I have and what I want to try when this season is over, I have kind of a tentative plan of attack for the end of the year.

This is what's... probably, maybe... currently in the tent:

CGN 21500
Ghost
Chocolate habanero
Lemon drop

This is what I'm thinking of moving to over the next few months:

CGN 21500
Friggitello (golden Greek pepperonicini)
Shishito
Giant white habanero

Assuming I'm right about what I have in the tent currently, and if the new hydro nutes work some magic, the new new new plan is to try crossing the CGN 21500 with the lemon drop once they both start setting pods. Kind of a curiosity project, since I don't really have a healthy sweet pepper to work with right now. Depending on how the manganji and sucette de Provence grow, I'll probably either use one of those or order some red bell seeds to work on crossing with the angrier peppers. Spending a ton of time growing out hybrids that are too hot for me to enjoy isn't really what I'm going for.

Since my Kratky bottles ended up being a bad idea, for growing things out quickly-ish, I'm going to try the same half-plastic-bottle-and-net-cup setup Khang Starr actually uses. The net cups are on order, so once they arrive, I'll start a few giant white habaneros. Also, this weekend, I'm going to start isolating buds for seed collection; when those pods are ripe, I'll start growing out the day-glo devil's tongues as an off-season project in the likely event it's unstable.

Now I just have to survive the summer.

internationalfish · Aug 3, 2019

One of my WHP Jamaican red hab x Fatalii gourmet jigsaw F1's has set a pod.

Kinda small, kinda wonky, but still interesting. Looking forward to seeing what these guys end up putting out, even though they're likely to be pretty far out of my league heat-wise. I have three of these; one of the others is also about to set pods.

The growdown plant is looking pretty good:

I'm not in love with the flavor, but that's OK. It's still a pretty good plant, and it's feeding my fermentations pretty well.

Here's the rest of the balcony.

I went through and isolated buds on most of my plants. True to form, I started having fun and managed to abandon my own plan, and instead of just the plants I intend to grow again I isolated... pretty much everything. This has been justified because maybe someone here will want to trade for seeds I'm not interested in, and this way I can give them more reliable stock. Yeah, that's what's going on.

You can see the hose on the left, which I pulled up to the third floor in the morning and left it tied off up there until the evening, since it's been so hot I had to water these guys twice yesterday.

After barely a week, I already have a sprout from the pepperoncini and a hook from the shishito!

My little kung pao is looking pretty happy, and putting out plenty of buds:

I didn't manage to get a very good picture, but the CGN 21500 in the tent is budding like there's no freaking tomorrow.

So far so good with the new fertilizer.

PaulG · Aug 4, 2019

Lots of great stuff going on here, Fish!
You have really pulled it together!

How is the bronchi graveyard doing?

internationalfish · Aug 4, 2019

PaulG said:
Lots of great stuff going on here, Fish!
You have really pulled it together!

Thanks, Paul! Hoping things keep going this well.

PaulG said:
How is the bronchi graveyard doing?

It's looking OK.

I had intended to pot it up over the weekend and then start pulling the soil down, but it's been too hot to spend enough time outside for that. Gotta get it into something larger soon, though; it's getting hard to keep it healthy in that little container.

internationalfish · Aug 4, 2019

On the way to work this morning, I snapped a quick pic of the carport plants.

On the right, two Korean peppers that are finally staked and happily upright (though they're going to start sagging again if I don't prune them soon).

In the middle, the Comeback Kid, my formerly-in-the-office CGN 21500. Not a lot of new pods, but a few, and they're looking good.

On the left, almost certainly not a Caribe. I get a bunch of variations searching for pictures of that variety, but none of them seem even close to what this plant is growing. Meh.

Also this morning I checked in on the tent... wow. My little 7JPNs are growing noticeably from one day to the next (I'm attributing that to the nutes, which are going to continue getting excessive praise from me until it becomes obvious I'm being too optimistic). And I have a new sprout from the grocery-store-Manganji-harvested seeds, so that's exciting, and another hook from the Greek pepperoncini.

Ended up running out of Mason jar lids, so the next shipment coming in from Amazon is a pack of those. After that, net cups, and Round Two of the mini-hydro challenge, for which the giant white hab seeds are already stewing in their little rockwool homes.

The tent lemon drop is white with flowers, and the 21500 in there is weighing itself down with buds. So once the latter starts opening some flowers up, I'll finally get some use out of the fancy-ass tweezers I bought months ago and try my hand at crossing those two lovebirds.

internationalfish · Aug 7, 2019

Last night I braved the mosquitoes in the carport (and the giant carnivorous aphids on the balcony) to put out another round of little mesh bags for isolation.

Pulled these out of the tent for a brief photo shoot. The kung pao in back continues to bud and flower, and the 7JPN's are still that gorgeous dark color, so I'm pretty hopeful for these.

Now up to a sprout and a hook on the shishito (first time these seeds have germinated for me at all), and two sprouts apiece for the manganji and friggitello [edit: Just noticed the new hook in the manganji. Good thing I actually look at this stuff after I take pictures of it]. Nothing from the sucette de Provence... it still hasn't been that long, so I'm not giving up just yet. But if none of those comes up, I'm going to replace it with corno di toro yellow.

Nothing yet from the rockwool giant white habs. Still got up to a week and a half before the net pots get here anyway, so not really a big deal, but I'm hoping those guys get their act together sooner rather than later.