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Glog of small things - Now with pods

Last year was a pretty mixed bag.  I hope to put what I learned into practice.  I have a few over winters in my corner like this chap:
 

Red Jonah
 
I also have around 100 new starts this year:
 

Pubes and bhuts
 

Scorpions, 7 Pods and Reapers
 

Some annuums, not very exciting at this stage. They grow so quickly when it warms up I reckon I could have started the annuums in September.
 

I also have a few thing out in the little green house although it might be a touch early. 
 
The yellow traps are for the fungus gnats I am fighting again this year.
 
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Looking good. Rob!   You definitely have some heat going there.  
You should have a great season with those starts!  Is the OW Jonah
a red or a yellow?
 
The little greenhouse ought to work great.  Is there room for a
small space heater inside?
 
The over winter is a red Jonah.  I do actually have a yellow 7 pot too which was very productive last year.  It looks likely to survive the winter too.
 
The llttle greenhouse is ok but I would have misgivings about having any electrical device in it as it isn't totally water tight.
 
Where abouts in NZ are you?
Winter is pretty friggin cold this year,they are probably a bit slow because of the weather.They will perk up when it gets  warmer  :)
 
I am in Auckland in Otahuhu. Where I am there are not frosts as we are close to the water.  The 3 white trays are just perched close to North facing windowsills inside but the house gets down to say 10c overnight, it is not well insulated. The temperature outside is much the same as inside to be honest. I will plant out Pubes 1st October and then 2 weeks after for the rest so I am hoping with new fertilizer regime and warmer temps and fewer f^&*ing gnats  I can get some decent plants ready for plant out.
 
BTW I grew up in Hamilton so I am not just some latte swilling nancy. 
 
Nice overwinter and the seedlings have taken root...and will only improve with time and care..
 
Looking at the color of your potting medium I'm just a little curious.
Are you using a peat based medium or a sterile potting soil  ? It looks heavy.....the addition of perlite with some vermiculite about 50 % of your medium for small seedlings will help thwart off fungal gnats. I still bottom water indoors, keeping the top of the soil completely dry is the key. Best of luck with the continual progress.
 
Bruce..Greg..... :D 
 
PIC 1 said:
Nice overwinter and the seedlings have taken root...and will only improve with time and care..
 
Looking at the color of your potting medium I'm just a little curious.
Are you using a peat based medium or a sterile potting soil  ? It looks heavy.....the addition of perlite with some vermiculite about 50 % of your medium for small seedlings will help thwart off fungal gnats. I still bottom water indoors, keeping the top of the soil completely dry is the key. Best of luck with the continual progress.
 
Bruce..Greg..... :D 
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The mix the plants are in is an off the shelf mix of compost and fine bark.  In the pack it came mixed with sheep pallets, dolomite lime and blood and bone.  I took a close up image of a couple of plants so that it could be seen more clearly:
 


The chinense in this image is showing some yellowing.  This plant is 6 weeks old. There are about 6 more weeks until the earliest I could plant out.  Should I repot everything?  At my disposal I have about 20lbs of fresh worm castings and a small pile of 2 year old chipped mulch.  If I am replanting I am happy to buy whatever I need.  Perlite is about 30USD for 25 Gallons here and available in 4 grades with medium being 0-4mm size.
 
The current soil needs watering only every 2 weeks so it is probably not ideal.  Also I have only bottom watered once and the external waterline would have been half the soil height.  After a 30 mins soak they were removed but over the next 12 hours the tops of the cups became damp so I will probably try with the waterline at 1/3 of the soil height.  Nothing has been fertilized yet, should I be mixing fertilizer with the bottom watering?

One of the outdoor garden beds, just mulched with some broken down wood chips:


The bed has a few pretty sad looking overwinters like this one.
 

Another garden bed.  Basically I have about 4 beds this size and space for a few more.  I just need to up my skills some some plants survive to plant out!
 
So I am going to water the seedlings today.  I was thinking about soaking some worm castings in the water to make a weak fertilizer.  I am interested in opinions on whether this would be worth doing and if there is any risk involved.  I was thinking 1 part castings to 4 parts water so it wouldn't be very strong. Or would a good quality off the shelf fertilizer serve me better?
 
So I checked with a guru and my worm casting soak got the ok.
 

Castings in the tray
 

Separating out the worms, pretty painless as they had largely migrated. Thanks to my girlfriend for the help, she is small but packed with awesome!  I no longer put egg shells in the worm bin but at one stage it seems lots went in.
 

Soaked castings in some de-chlorinated water, strained it and then soaked seedlings in it for 10mins each. Few batches went through
 

Are you finished messing with the worm juice yet?
 
Hm, I have seedlings of comparable age, but I wish I still had so many growing months ahead of me as you do.

Im sure your plants will enjoy the worm tea.
 
rick_pitcher said:
I use African violet fertilizer got that tip from tmudder ☺
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Thanks for the tip. I had the worm castings at my finger tips so thought I would give them the first crack.
 
 
Slizarus said:
Hm, I have seedlings of comparable age, but I wish I still had so many growing months ahead of me as you do.

Im sure your plants will enjoy the worm tea.
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Where is Bakersfield?  I have been to Torrance maybe 20 times and it is a warm tropical paradise, am I wrong to assume that is how CA is?
 
 
PaulG said:
Everything looks great, Rob.  Nice to have a good helper!
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Maybe my photos are a bit deceptive then!  I am still pretty bummed about how slow everything is growing but they do seem to have accelerated recently. 
 
Regarding helpers I am very lucky.  I have 2 four legged helpers and 1 two legged helper.  The 4 legged helpers mainly spot fertilize the lawn ;) . I haven't checked the plants after their worm juice bath but I suspect I won't be able to squeeze into the kitchen for the explosive overnight growth.
 
In most states, you could visit one part and you'd know what it was like, but California has the widest range of biomes in the US, Forest, Desert both high and low, coastal, grassland, mountains, foothills, tropical, Mediterranean, lake, and river country..

I doubt I even covered it all. Bakersfield is situated in a valley in South Central California. Originally the area was a mix of scrub and Rivercountry with a Desert Climate, Now it's more Urban Desert with lots of people wasting water on lawns in a place with 0-10% humidity and daily 100+ temperatures. With some areas worse than others because the town covers a wide above sea level range.
 
Torrance was on the coast, Bakersfield is 2 and a half hours north of that and due to Cali's curve, much more inland.
 
I am wondering if the largest of the hot peppers are ready to pot up.  During the bottom watering I wanted to dial the processes so I pulled one from the container and while definitely not root bound the roots are all the way to the bottom pretty conclusively.
 
Time for an update.  I have 4 pubes in flower, 3 in the garden and 1 in a pot:
 

This is a Rocota de seda in 50L of soil.
 

New Zealands climate seems ideally suited to pubes.
 

 
Chinense in the garden doing pretty well too:
 

Borwn moruga
 

Infinity
 

Yellow Moruga, actually the red, brown and yellow are all going well.  Probably the smallest of the chinense is the Reaper which seems to be growing faster as it warms up.
 

Jalapeno M has set quite a few fruit.
 

Brasilian Pumpkin is one of the few not to have flowered yet but looks like it is close
 

Costa Rica Yellow in the garden.  The top 12" is compost rich but the soil beneath is quite clay rich.  I suspect the pubes are able to thrive in the clay rich soil as all of them have done well in the garden.  It has a lot of flowers and although not many have set fruit yet, its rate of growth seems to be accelerating.  The hope is it will be perennial in New Zealand.
 

White bhut which has been good to grow. 7 of 7 seeds popped with some as quick as 3 days to germinate, crazy. Since then they have been very energetic plants. I ended up giving 5 plants away and have 2 in the garden.  I am really looking forward to trying these.
 

Group shot. From left to right, red moruga, brown moruga and carolina reaper.  The reaper is starting to pick up so hopefully I can get a few pods to taste as well as save seeds from.
 
To counter the clay rich soil for the last 2 years I have turned over the top 15" and added a lot of compost, chicken and horse manure and dolomite lime to offset the acidity of the break down of the organic matter.  This year I added some perlite to aid drainage/aeration and although the perlite would only be in the region of 10% by volume it seems to be benefited the all the plants, not just the hot peppers.
 
Yes, very nice plants! It's awesome to be able to see your garden during the summer months when its cold and snowy here (-10 celcius today, not too bad) during our winter. Keep up the great work and enjoy!!!

HB
 
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