Genetikx 2018

Bhuter · May 25, 2018

Looking fantastically! Great job all around! My biker Billy's are doing the exact same thing. The pods look like Serranos. But these pods set inside, so I'm hoping the outside pods grow bigger. I've only ever started one jalapeño, and that was farmers market that didn't set until it was outside. I usually buy an established plant. May I ask where you got your seeds? If this is a Serrano, I need to buy a jal. Lol

fcaruana · May 25, 2018

Wow this looks great! So cool that you have a beautiful open spot in the community garden like that, and only 5 minutes away!

I have Zapotec and biker Billy’s this year as well, neither have set pods yet, but I’ll definitely follow up when they come.

Which pepper(s) are you most excited about this year? Looks like you’ve got an awesome selection!

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Devv · May 25, 2018

Well done Ryan!

I'm glad to see all the babies in the dirt

Genetikx · May 25, 2018

Bhuter said:
Looking fantastically! Great job all around! My biker Billy's are doing the exact same thing. The pods look like Serranos. But these pods set inside, so I'm hoping the outside pods grow bigger. I've only ever started one jalapeño, and that was farmers market that didn't set until it was outside. I usually buy an established plant. May I ask where you got your seeds? If this is a Serrano, I need to buy a jal. Lol

Lol, most of my biker billy pods were formed inside as well, so not super surprised. I got the seeds from a seed train probably 2+ years ago, and don't know the original source. I think we'll be alright! But yea, very tempting to pass on the plants at the nursery, grocery or farmers market grrrrrrr lol

Genetikx · May 25, 2018

fcaruana said:
Wow this looks great! So cool that you have a beautiful open spot in the community garden like that, and only 5 minutes away!

I have Zapotec and biker Billys this year as well, neither have set pods yet, but Ill definitely follow up when they come.

Which pepper(s) are you most excited about this year? Looks like youve got an awesome selection!

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Hey Frankie! Thanks for stopping by! I'm excited for all of them really, as long as they do what they're supposed to do.

It's interesting tho, and I appreciate the question. I can say there are some that look so cool that I've never had before, like the Scotch Belize I got from Jedi. Or, those zapotecs that I've seen Gary aka windchicken grow for a while, and this is my first season trying.

OR, mustard habanero that I grow every year, is probably my all time fave. Damn, Omni Bonnet from D 3 might be special this year! OR, I had a lot of fun with Jonah yellow back in '15 and I'm growing a plant from seed of my finest pod of that year... haven't grown jonah since then. Ooooh, this year's growdown is brain strain yellow, that one was awesome in '15 too!!!!

So a bunch I'm excited about, those are top of mind tonight!

Genetikx · May 25, 2018

Devv said:
Well done Ryan!

I'm glad to see all the babies in the dirt

You're telling me! Always a question of whether the dirt will be dry enough at the time that they should be in dirt. Mother nature usually cooperates there! Lucked out again!

Genetikx · May 26, 2018

Trying to kick off memorial day weekend correctly with smoked ribs. These were about halfway thru and dusted with Jedi's rub

Made some hot sauce too from peppers aged close to three years

TrentL · May 26, 2018

Yeah those plants still look amazing. I'll just go on to say that "there's a reason I haven't posted any close-ups of my farm rows" lol. My plants look like hell. Wind beaten, sunburned, abused like a red headed step child..

I have like 10 rows of "skinny jalapenos" in my grow. All of my pods that set indoors (and there are many) are scrawny little shits, like common mexican rat chili's. Hopefully now that they're in the ground they'll start producing bigger pods.

I found a brainstrain the other day that's smaller than a dime. Poor little bugger is so tiny. Those 4" pots kept the plants alive, but they sure as hell weren't thriving in them. Rootbound to hell and gone.

Genetikx · May 26, 2018

I'm hoping the plants still look amazing. Haven't seen them in a few days but hoping to get over there early tomorrow to water. Heat has been intense, as I'm sure you've experienced... Think we went from 30's to 90 in just about a week. Veggies love that lol

TrentL · May 26, 2018

Genetikx said:
I'm hoping the plants still look amazing. Haven't seen them in a few days but hoping to get over there early tomorrow to water. Heat has been intense, as I'm sure you've experienced... Think we went from 30's to 90 in just about a week. Veggies love that lol

Yeah they do. We FINALLY got some much needed rain yesterday south of you. My part of Tazewell county has been a dust bowl for a month and a half. From mid April to last weekend we only had 1/10th of an inch of rain. The field was bone dry down to the 9" mark. Not even weeds sprouted!

Then last weekend we got 7/10ths and yesterday we got another 7/10ths, so everything is finally starting to take off.

I could go without this damn heat, though. Makes it miserable planting out. I had to bow out today at about 2 PM, got sick. Body finally just had enough.

Pretty much all the veggies we grow do their absolute best at about 86F, so the current temps are about ideal. Especially for plants setting flowers and pods.

Most of mine are budding up like crazy right now, should have a ton of flowers opening up here in a day or two. Yours doing the same?

Genetikx · May 26, 2018

TrentL said:
Yeah they do. We FINALLY got some much needed rain yesterday south of you. My part of Tazewell county has been a dust bowl for a month and a half. From mid April to last weekend we only had 1/10th of an inch of rain. The field was bone dry down to the 9" mark. Not even weeds sprouted!

Then last weekend we got 7/10ths and yesterday we got another 7/10ths, so everything is finally starting to take off.

I could go without this damn heat, though. Makes it miserable planting out. I had to bow out today at about 2 PM, got sick. Body finally just had enough.

Pretty much all the veggies we grow do their absolute best at about 86F, so the current temps are about ideal. Especially for plants setting flowers and pods.

Most of mine are budding up like crazy right now, should have a ton of flowers opening up here in a day or two. Yours doing the same?

Yea a good amount of mine were budding inside the house, or very close to it. Probably 2 weeks from now and I'll have a good amount of tiny pods.

We did get 2-3 inches of rain over the past week which is why I haven't gone to the plot often to check on them this week. Think your 7/10ths were the outskirts of our storms. Wish I could have shared some of that with you, coming down like buckets

I only went once to check the plants this week and did nothing other than put up a few bamboo stakes for plants that were tipping sideways from wind. This plot gets all day sun and good wind, just not quite what you get.

TrentL · May 27, 2018

The wind at the farm is BRUTAL. There are no windbreaks from my farm to the horizon in any direction. Zip. Zero. Nadda. So we get the absolute full fury of mother nature. There's actually a commercial wind farm - one of the largest in IL - within eyesight of the farm, if that tells you anything about our wind conditions. Hundreds of those big turbines dot the horizon to the east and northeast of our farm.

The plants are used to it though. When we had 70+ mph gusts come through Friday, with the big thunderstorm, I wasn't the slightest concerned. Not so much as one broken branch on any of the 3000+ plants out in the field. They saw one full day of 30+ mph solid wind with gusts 50+ routinely hitting them a few weeks ago. Peppers did fine, nothing hurt, but the tomatoes got sheared off at the soil line. Since they've all stood the test at this point, I don't have the slightest concern about wind. The weak ones are all dead, the strong ones still stand. That's good enough for me.

I used bamboo stakes at home, as well, when I grew out in the yard. They work alright, although the smaller ones can be a bit fragile. My biggest problem with bamboo was over the course of the year the part that sticks in the ground starts decaying and then they lose support.

When it starts drying out for the summer what's your watering plan? I just ordered an assembly of parts to do drip stake emitters in the isolation high tunnel, you could probably do the same pretty low cost in yours. Basically plug a garden hose in to a pressure regulator, which then goes to a 3/4" line that has woodpecker emitter valves in it, that you plug 5/3 hose in to. The other end of that 5/3 (1/4") hose goes to these 6" long drip stakes that you put in next to the plant that are hollow, so the water goes directly in to the soil. Not hard to set up and makes watering easy; just plug it in and go out for lunch or something. Each stake emitter puts out .5 gallon per hour so if you want to put a half gallon of water in, turn it on for an hour. If you need less, turn it on less.

I'm going to do the same exact thing for the indoor grow - I bought enough piping to do my whole 2100 sq foot grow room. Bottom watering was a serious pain in the ass - 170 gallons of 5 gallon buckets had to get carried around every 3 days to dump in to the tables, and the amount of evap caused it to rain indoors!

Those stakes I ordered are 17 cents each, a 4-way valve to feed 4 stakes is 13 cents, the woodpecker emitter is 25 cents, the 5/3 tubing is $48 for 1,000 ft roll, the punch tool is $14, and the pressure regulator was $14.

To do the entire high tunnel w/ 150 potted plants cost me $0.29 cents per pot for the emitter parts, stakes, and 6' of tubing for each plant, plus $28 for the regulator and punch tool. $78 to get irrigation set up in a 24x96' high tunnel. (Well, a little more than that as I have 200' of overhead 3/4" tubing as well, plus some bits and pieces to plug it in all in to my big irrigation manifold system, but that's not really relevant for what you're doing here.)

There's no way in hell I'm going back to manual waterings ever again. With as cheap as it costs to build a small scale distribution system that puts water directly in to the soil next to each root ball, nothing else is gonna work for me again.

Genetikx · May 27, 2018

TrentL said:
I used bamboo stakes at home, as well, when I grew out in the yard. They work alright, although the smaller ones can be a bit fragile. My biggest problem with bamboo was over the course of the year the part that sticks in the ground starts decaying and then they lose support.

When it starts drying out for the summer what's your watering plan? I just ordered an assembly of parts to do drip stake emitters in the isolation high tunnel, you could probably do the same pretty low cost in yours. Basically plug a garden hose in to a pressure regulator, which then goes to a 3/4" line that has woodpecker emitter valves in it, that you plug 5/3 hose in to. The other end of that 5/3 (1/4") hose goes to these 6" long drip stakes that you put in next to the plant that are hollow, so the water goes directly in to the soil. Not hard to set up and makes watering easy; just plug it in and go out for lunch or something. Each stake emitter puts out .5 gallon per hour so if you want to put a half gallon of water in, turn it on for an hour. If you need less, turn it on less.

I actually pull out the bamboo stakes once the plants have enough roots and a thick enough stalk. So they're not out there decaying all season.

I'm growing at a community garden so the emitters are not an option for me. Basically, I give the village $25 and they give me a 24'x24' plot to grow on. There's 81 plants in there now, could easily fit 100, and will get close to that once I drop in these seedlings I've got on the back deck. But need to save a little room for veggies.

Luckily the village supplies water lines and one set of spigots is 10 feet from my plot. I just fill up a 5 gallon bucket and dump water on each of them. Needed to fill up the bucket 8 times this morning. The village doesn't allow you to hook up a hose, they actually filed down the spigots.

Going to be 95 here today. Fiyyya

Devv · May 27, 2018

That's pretty darned hot for where you are...

We're at 93° right now, and the forecast scares me 100-107 all the next 10 days. I'm hoping they're full of crap.

stickman · Jun 2, 2018

Everything's looking stellar in the community garden Ryan, nice job! It's good you dodged that hailstorm last month.

Biker Billy Jals are hybrids to start, so you never know what you'll get if you save seeds from them. That's my biggest beef with Ed Curry... he rushed the Reapers into seed production before he stabilized the strain.

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Bhuter · Jun 2, 2018

Genetikx said:
Lol, most of my biker billy pods were formed inside as well, so not super surprised. I got the seeds from a seed train probably 2+ years ago, and don't know the original source. I think we'll be alright! But yea, very tempting to pass on the plants at the nursery, grocery or farmers market grrrrrrr lol

I never did tell you: I got my seeds for the Biker Billy this last fall from Tyler Farms. It's still small but producing like crazy...all little guys. Hopefully they beef up.

Ghaleon · Jun 2, 2018

TrentL said:
The wind at the farm is BRUTAL. There are no windbreaks from my farm to the horizon in any direction. Zip. Zero. Nadda. So we get the absolute full fury of mother nature. There's actually a commercial wind farm - one of the largest in IL - within eyesight of the farm, if that tells you anything about our wind conditions. Hundreds of those big turbines dot the horizon to the east and northeast of our farm.

The plants are used to it though. When we had 70+ mph gusts come through Friday, with the big thunderstorm, I wasn't the slightest concerned. Not so much as one broken branch on any of the 3000+ plants out in the field. They saw one full day of 30+ mph solid wind with gusts 50+ routinely hitting them a few weeks ago. Peppers did fine, nothing hurt, but the tomatoes got sheared off at the soil line. Since they've all stood the test at this point, I don't have the slightest concern about wind. The weak ones are all dead, the strong ones still stand. That's good enough for me.

Wow!

Genetikx · Jun 3, 2018

Gave all the plants a compost/manure top dressing, 80 lbs of it went in. Here's an angle I havent posted before. The 4x4 post on the right is the water supply

D3 sent some Paper Lantern seeds when he originally mailed seeds from his crosses. Remember him saying how productive they were, growing now for the first time. Yup they sure look productive

One of D3's el scorponeros all gnarled up

Scotch Belize, looks like a super producer

Peach Hab from AJDrew's seeds

One of my Brain Strain Yellows for the growdown

One of my own Brain Strain Yellows from my '15 grow. Going to be following this one closely

It was debateable back in '15 whether these were really Yellow Jonah's. It's what the package said so I'm going with it

Hab purple. My problem here might be knowing when they're ripe since they start out purple. No clue if the eventually change color or not. Anyone know?

Love me some mustard habs

Devv · Jun 3, 2018

Wow!

Poddage galore!

Congrats buddy!

Genetikx · Jun 3, 2018

stickman said:
Everything's looking stellar in the community garden Ryan, nice job! It's good you dodged that hailstorm last month.

Biker Billy Jals are hybrids to start, so you never know what you'll get if you save seeds from them. That's my biggest beef with Ed Curry... he rushed the Reapers into seed production before he stabilized the strain.

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Thanks Rick! I've got a jala update coming soon and agree with the varying pods. I'm not completely convinced it's due to being a hybrid since I don't know the source of seeds. Definitely could be the reason though

Bhuter said:
I never did tell you: I got my seeds for the Biker Billy this last fall from Tyler Farms. It's still small but producing like crazy...all little guys. Hopefully they beef up.

Awesome, take a look at my next update

Devv said:
Wow!

Poddage galore!

Congrats buddy!

Yessir! Most plants have pods at this point unless they were started late or if I never potted them up and lwt them get a bit root bound