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Growing Bhut Jolokia... HELP

Don't ditch the idea. Start out small, with just one plant each. You can top (cut the tops off) the plants to keep them no taller than three feet or even 30". You'll get your feet wet, so to speak and you can always go bigger the next time.

One thing my grandpa taught me: you ain't gonna learn how to do this any younger.

Mike

Mike
 
I may see what LEE did and run three plants. Do I need to pollinate these myself or will a small fan inside the grow box do that just fine?
 
Txclosetgrower said:
Here's a pic of a tomato growing in a 3 gallon pot in like june i believe. It had covered the entire balcony railing in both directions by august :)

2986480687_11c1e3f3be.jpg
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Those are some really small tomatoes on that plant, what variety is that?
 
BrianS said:
Those are some really small tomatoes on that plant, what variety is that?
Click to expand...


Supersweet 100

Amazing yield, i was pulling off a quart of tomatoes every 3 days during the peak of the growing season. I really wish i had a picture of how big it got before I finally cut it down.

Fruit was delicious too, finally got me to start eating raw tomatoes.

I'd grow it again, I just don't have the room. It took over the entire balcony railing in both directions.
 
Interesting! The reason I dont grow many of the small tomato varieties is due to low yield. Sounds like that variety cranks them out!

I find it hard to believe that you didnt like raw tomatoes before this LOL. I am very guilty of going out to the garden armed with a salt shaker :D
 
MOEB,

Forgive me but from all your posts, it seems you are trying to learn everything there is know about peppers or growing plants before you have even started. Nothing wrong with this approach, except there is no such thing as one size fits all.

If I can suggest something: start a few plants, get them growing strong and healthy, and then take the next step.

Seriously, a person wanting to learn how to ride a bike might like to know how to do a flip in the air after ramping a 15' structure, but until he/she learns to ride the bike, the advice will not mean anything.

Trust me, a major part of the fun of growing plants is experiencing every stage of their development, savoring it and moving forward. Don't worry about things like topping them or how much lighting you will need to produce ripe pods until the plants get to that stage.

But I love your enthusiasm!

Mike
 
I just like to get my feet wet with all of the ideas/ways to do things and then go from there. I dont want to build this and that and then find out, its something that I dont want to do. Ya know?
 
Txclosetgrower said:

Supersweet 100

Amazing yield, i was pulling off a quart of tomatoes every 3 days during the peak of the growing season.
Click to expand...

TX,

I had a volunteer that came close to that and might have exceeded it a couple of times. Though I will say it didn't get near as tall as yours.

But if you have just now discovered the delicious taste of tomatoes from your garden, wait until you bite into a real tomato such as a Delicious, Red Zebra, Beefsteak, Marglobe or any of a dozen other types. Or preserve some juice and use it in soup or chili. Those things they sell in supermarkets ought to carry a label: not the real thing. This fruit will taste like cardboard compared to one from the garden!

Something I knew and forgot until Johnny Carson mentioned it one night: tomatoes are meant to be eaten from the garden, warm, not after being refrigerated or ripened via chemicals.

Mike
 
wordwiz said:
TX,

I had a volunteer that came close to that and might have exceeded it a couple of times. Though I will say it didn't get near as tall as yours.

But if you have just now discovered the delicious taste of tomatoes from your garden, wait until you bite into a real tomato such as a Delicious, Red Zebra, Beefsteak, Marglobe or any of a dozen other types. Or preserve some juice and use it in soup or chili. Those things they sell in supermarkets ought to carry a label: not the real thing. This fruit will taste like cardboard compared to one from the garden!

Something I knew and forgot until Johnny Carson mentioned it one night: tomatoes are meant to be eaten from the garden, warm, not after being refrigerated or ripened via chemicals.

Mike
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Forgot to mention that it would take 100-150 tomatoes to fill that quart bag lol. Supersweet 100 puts off racemes that look like bunches of red grapes.

I'm going to try and grow a few determinate toms this year, no room for the indeterminates on a balcony. I'm putting too much effort into starting peppers this year, so any tomatoes will come from local nurseries in springtime.
 
TX,

Allow me to suggest a couple of determinate toms that you should love and be able to grow on a balcony (do ya get the impression I love toms?)

First is a green sausage. A very small plant that only gets 18" tall. A heavy producer that is perfect to mix with some jalapenos, cilantro, cumin and bit of onions to make a wonderful salsa. I grew them in the garden but you could probably use a 3-gallon or smaller container and still have plenty of room. They produced for me from early August all the way through the middle of October when I had to pull them up.

The second one is a red tom, a Siletz. Haven't tried it yet, but it has excellent specs. Fruit size is 10 to 12 ounces and is an early bloomer (55 days or so), meaning you can have ripe toms by Independence Day - probably earlier given your location. It also has very few seeds, making it great to can as a whole tomato for use in soups or chili.

I'll have some seeds I can mail you in a couple of weeks or you can buy them from www.rareseeds.com now.

Both are determinate. I plan on growing about 10 sausages (my family loves salsa) and eight Siletz.

Last year, I tried close to 15 different types of toms and found only a couple (Red Zebra and Green Sausage) that were worth their garden space. I love the Zebra's, and they don't take up much real estate and are very heavy producers.

The Red Zebra is not a determinate, but it isn't a big plant either. Extremely productive, you should get as much as two gallons a week from it. Toms are cue ball to baseball size, a bit on the sweet side.

Did I mention I like toms better than peppers?

Did I mention I like growing tomatoes more than I do peppers?

Mike
 
BrianS said:
Interesting! The reason I dont grow many of the small tomato varieties is due to low yield. Sounds like that variety cranks them out!
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Really, I've grown many tomato varieties and almost all the cherry types are huge producers, even in poor weather. I recommend sungold or its OP versions, and for determinate types I like redrobin and tinytim
 
AlabamaJack said:
moyboy...WARNING...you can overwater your container plants easily...the bottoms of the container can be nearly mud and the top of the soil bone dry...how do I know this?...I got root rot from overwatering last year and lost 50-60 plants....I highly recommend getting a moisture meter and measure the moisture about 4" down...if it is dry, water them, if it is moist, let them be...most of the chinense I grew this past season wilted very badly every day before dark in the heat of summer but recovered overnight...I was watering sometimes twice a day which turned out to be way too much...once I got the moisture meter, I dropped back to every other day...

every chinense needs a little stress in its life...

25mm...that is about an inch...why are you using such thick wood for the grow box?...I don't think my grow box would have been big enough for more than one of my big chinense this past season...
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I rememeber when you had that 'little problem' :P

I grew a few plants in pots last season so I cut my teeth on them. Some didn't last very long....:lol:

I'm going 25mm because I have a few sheets of it just sitting at my parents place.....No other reason..

wordwiz said:
Don't waste your money on those emergency blankets, even though they are cheap. They come folded - many times and are very, very thin. They help a bit but I suspect no more than white paint.

Mike
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So should Polystyrene be good enough as a finished surface in the grow box.....I would have thought a reflective surface would have been better (as you said - white paint). The poly is a open cell material and as such will absorb the light more than reflect it?
 
I don't know about Polystyrene, but flat white paint is about 80% reflective and will absorb heat instead of reflecting it(this could be good or bad)
 
Good news. I have one of my Bhut jolokias sprouted and about 6-7 Habaneras... Kinda weird its only been 6 days since Germination started. Maybe lucky? But I did not have time to get Coir and what not, so I'm going to just run Cactus potting soil and perlite. prolly 50-50 mix?

I need all the help possible, since tomorrow I'll be going out and buying the supplies. Thanks guys!
 
MrOneEyedBoh said:
Good news. I have one of my Bhut jolokias sprouted and about 6-7 Habaneras... Kinda weird its only been 6 days since Germination started. Maybe lucky? But I did not have time to get Coir and what not, so I'm going to just run Cactus potting soil and perlite. prolly 50-50 mix?

I need all the help possible, since tomorrow I'll be going out and buying the supplies. Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

50/50 is too much perlite, cactus soil is very sandy so it already drains well. If you can find it get pro-mix instead of cactus soil, but if you do get cactus soil DO NOT GET supersoil. It blew ass. I bought some a few years ago and it would grow f'ing mushrooms when i watered it. :shocked:
 
Is using straight coco mix ok to put the plant, and then using the coco fertilizers, or should I really mix something in with it?

I can get coco mix at my local Hydro shop....
 
Yeah my problem is that my peppers popped out WAYYY too fast. I was going to order tomorrow. But I need to transplant them NOW!

What I'm going to get is whatever is at the local store, lowes or home depot.

So I'm going to need to get some MG bullshit prolly.

I'm thinking 40 MG organic compost, 40 MG cactus soil and 20 perlite? Or shuld I just go with MG cactus soil and perlite.. say 80/20?
 
moyboy said:
Is using straight coco mix ok to put the plant, and then using the coco fertilizers, or should I really mix something in with it?

I can get coco mix at my local Hydro shop....
Click to expand...

Yeah, straight coco works. Coco mixed say 80/20 with perlite works a bit better. You can get that stuff cheap too. Right now I have seeds germinating in straight coco, i'm doing the perlite thing when i transplant.
 
MrOneEyedBoh said:
Yeah my problem is that my peppers popped out WAYYY too fast. I was going to order tomorrow. But I need to transplant them NOW!

What I'm going to get is whatever is at the local store, lowes or home depot.

So I'm going to need to get some MG bullshit prolly.

I'm thinking 40 MG organic compost, 40 MG cactus soil and 20 perlite? Or shuld I just go with MG cactus soil and perlite.. say 80/20?
Click to expand...

Don't tell anyone i told you this, but i actually had decent success this year with miracle gro moisture control potting mix. :shocked:

I also tried the miracle gro organic and had HORRIBLE results.
 
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