If we go back in time some ago, I used to think the famous tabasco sauce was hot.. oh boy how wrong I was!
Well long story short, my friend Lordbhorak bought a set of habaneros and set a challange, if he would eat one I would do it as well! Well at last new year I couped up with that challenge.. altough my friend suggested I'd notch it up a bit, as in playing guitar hero at the same time.. >_<
But anyways, that's when it all started. I thought it would be pretty nice if I could grow my own chiles and hopefully enjoy the harvest someday. Thus the idea somehow became quite an obsession
At first, I ordered around 15 different species from professional Finnish grower (www.fatalii.org) and indeed I got hefty amount to start with, for he sent me 5-10 seeds per species as well as some random seeds (which some may even be quite rare, like lancelatum or galapagonense) and before I knew I was ordering some fluerescent lights (2x36w) as well as some compact fluerescent bulbs for the little seedlings.
Following the instructions by Fatalii and some other chili experts I ordered some hefty amount of small rockwood cubes, in which I germinated my first chili batch. Altough my heater was waaay over the preferred specs (90 wats) I was able to maintain the stable 27-30 degrees by frantically putting it on and off manually.
That was around 1.5 months ago and right now I have 12 small chili plants growing, including couple of annuums (for ornamental and bonzais) some baccatums, one pubescens; the turbo pube which I know will be pretty hard to grow indoors, for I have no balcony or greenhouse... And one Tabasco (c.frutescens) and couple of chinenses for some extreme heat!
Right now all of my babies are growing in basic-fertilized peat and I'm using BioBizz fertilizers to boost the growth (BioGrow, Alg-A-Mig and Root-Juice for now) but when they go to flowring phase I'll add some Top-Max and start using Bio-Bloom as basic fertilizer.
But, as you know the hunger grows as you eat... So I'm building some hydroponics for couple of reasons. My studio is quite limited in space and I just can't put 10L bubblers to my window still. So I'm planning of building two Ebb & Flood systems. Both using aroudn 35L reservoir of nutrients. Other will get a shallow plastic box as an growing reservoir (around 70cm x 40 cm x 15 cm) and the other one will be quite like the balcony boxes... Like 80 cm long, 20 cm wide and around 15 cm tall. I'm planning to use FloraMato and FloraMicro (from General Hydroponics) as a nutrients and most likely I'll use big rockwool cubes as a growing medium to keep the plants up and straight!
I'll put baccatums and annuums to same Ebb & Flow and Chinenses & and Frutescens to same, for the all require different kinds of nutritions solution.
Sadly the tap water in my area (Helsinki, Finland) is around 8 so I'll drop it down with GH's Ph down solution to around 6.5-7 which is most suitable for chilies!
I'll gladly post the details of my planned Ebb systems if someone interested and please, as I'm a beginnner correct me if I'm wrong about something.
Well long story short, my friend Lordbhorak bought a set of habaneros and set a challange, if he would eat one I would do it as well! Well at last new year I couped up with that challenge.. altough my friend suggested I'd notch it up a bit, as in playing guitar hero at the same time.. >_<
But anyways, that's when it all started. I thought it would be pretty nice if I could grow my own chiles and hopefully enjoy the harvest someday. Thus the idea somehow became quite an obsession
At first, I ordered around 15 different species from professional Finnish grower (www.fatalii.org) and indeed I got hefty amount to start with, for he sent me 5-10 seeds per species as well as some random seeds (which some may even be quite rare, like lancelatum or galapagonense) and before I knew I was ordering some fluerescent lights (2x36w) as well as some compact fluerescent bulbs for the little seedlings.
Following the instructions by Fatalii and some other chili experts I ordered some hefty amount of small rockwood cubes, in which I germinated my first chili batch. Altough my heater was waaay over the preferred specs (90 wats) I was able to maintain the stable 27-30 degrees by frantically putting it on and off manually.
That was around 1.5 months ago and right now I have 12 small chili plants growing, including couple of annuums (for ornamental and bonzais) some baccatums, one pubescens; the turbo pube which I know will be pretty hard to grow indoors, for I have no balcony or greenhouse... And one Tabasco (c.frutescens) and couple of chinenses for some extreme heat!
Right now all of my babies are growing in basic-fertilized peat and I'm using BioBizz fertilizers to boost the growth (BioGrow, Alg-A-Mig and Root-Juice for now) but when they go to flowring phase I'll add some Top-Max and start using Bio-Bloom as basic fertilizer.
But, as you know the hunger grows as you eat... So I'm building some hydroponics for couple of reasons. My studio is quite limited in space and I just can't put 10L bubblers to my window still. So I'm planning of building two Ebb & Flood systems. Both using aroudn 35L reservoir of nutrients. Other will get a shallow plastic box as an growing reservoir (around 70cm x 40 cm x 15 cm) and the other one will be quite like the balcony boxes... Like 80 cm long, 20 cm wide and around 15 cm tall. I'm planning to use FloraMato and FloraMicro (from General Hydroponics) as a nutrients and most likely I'll use big rockwool cubes as a growing medium to keep the plants up and straight!
I'll put baccatums and annuums to same Ebb & Flow and Chinenses & and Frutescens to same, for the all require different kinds of nutritions solution.
Sadly the tap water in my area (Helsinki, Finland) is around 8 so I'll drop it down with GH's Ph down solution to around 6.5-7 which is most suitable for chilies!
I'll gladly post the details of my planned Ebb systems if someone interested and please, as I'm a beginnner correct me if I'm wrong about something.
1st Welcome from Oz to THP, great place with heaps of nice People.
