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Growing Chiles in HEL - 2019

Today I took 27 pellets off the heat mats and transplanted them into their first small pots. Then I moved them into my temporary grow room (sauna) under the lights where they will spend the next 60 days or so until it's warm enough to move outside for the summer.
 
I've still got another 75 pellets on the heat mats and will move them to the lamps as they pop.
 
On the tray in the photo, there are two separate LED lamp rigs.
 
The lamp specs: 
 
Strip Length: 61 cm
Watts: 15 watts per strip (45 watts per rig)
Kelvin: 6400K
Lumens: 1500 per strip
PPFD (at 100mm distance): 399 µmol/s/m2 per strip
 
tarha.jpg
 
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One more update regarding the Rocoto Montufar rescue project I started from some adopted seedlings that have been growing since christmas 2018. When I got them a few weeks ago, they were micro-sized, totally yellow and looked like they would never go anywhere. Wrong was I, rocotos are some tough buggers. It took two weeks of being in a new pot, getting sufficient light and nutrients but it happened: they are turning green and showing signs of growth!
 
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The pubes have been pretty happy outside and the weather is pretty much perfect for them. Nighttime temps have been low of 5c and daytime have been high of 11-14c. It rained for a few days and now the sun is coming in and out of the clouds every few minutes and the humidity is high. I moved my Montufar outside also to be with the rest of the Manzano Rojos, but it still isn't potted up yet. Today, I think I will pot it up as well as a Rocoto Pico Mucho that I almost forgot about.
 
Still too cold during the nights for any of the other peppers to go outside yet and I am running out of space in my growing room even though I sold about half of my peppers (I started way too many because I did not anticipate that the lamps would work so well). So far I hauled in about 100 euros from plant sales, which is not bad at all even if it was not my intention.
 
Still 3-4 weeks before the rest of the stuff can go outside, so right now my backyard is "pube country" :-) People keep asking me that aren't I scared the pubes will die due to the cold nights and I answer that you don't understand pubes, this is their natural habitat.
 
The Night Pubes. Still getting down to 5 celcius (41 fahrenheit) every night but my ladies don't seem to mind at all; they are tough. There they sit, unprotected, humble and proud in the middle of the night. They've been hanging on for six days now since transplant and now it's time to start feeding them again.
 
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Very impressed by your approach to the
nutrients, Mika! I can see  you are all in!
 
I have found the same things with the Rocoto
peppers here:
 
Cool is good.
 
Hot is bad.
 
Shade helps a lot.
 
They are worth all the trouble!
 
 
skullbiker said:
Do you mean like small pods or small plant?
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I meant like smallish plant. Jukka (Fatalii) describes them as a semi-compact rocoto plant and also says that they are even suitable for growing in hanging pots (which are generally only 5-6 litres in size).
 
How big is yours now? I can pot mine up if needed but starting to run out of large pots and so are the stores.
 
PaulG said:
Very impressed by your approach to the
nutrients, Mika! I can see  you are all in!
 
I have found the same things with the Rocoto
peppers here:
 
Cool is good.
 
Hot is bad.
 
Shade helps a lot.
 
They are worth all the trouble!
 
Click to expand...
 
 
I don't have a whole lot of experience growing rocotos, only having grown one plant last year. That was also from this same line of Manzano Rojo that I have six of now and I had it in parked in a full-on sunny spot while we had the second warmest summer in the history of weather recording in Finland (it was downright hot for several months in a row). It was growing in a 20 litre airpot with POBGS and became fully rootbound, so it could have used a larger pot. Still, it grew quite large and managed to produce about 30 pods weighing between 50-80 grams each. Even with the hot summer, nighttime temps were still dropping low during the end of June and that's when it flushed with flowers and set fruit. I cut most of the fruits off during end of September when the nights were starting to get really cold again and they ripened up in a basket next to a window.
 
When I bought that last year's Rojo from the nursery, I thought it was just another chile that doesn't like cold weather so I hauled it in and out of the house until nighttime temps were 10 celcius or higher. During this winter I have spent some time studying the pubes (because I like the taste so much). I learned that while they might not actually grow too fast when they are out in the cold, it sure doesn't bother them either. Maybe freezing rain is their limit, though - I don't think they could take that without some cover.
 
These Rojos are not likely to have too much shade this year as I have early last summer removed everything that obstructs the sunlight from my backyard! Let's see how they do, though - I might have to build a pergola or something similar.
 
podz said:
 
 
I meant like smallish plant. Jukka (Fatalii) describes them as a semi-compact rocoto plant and also says that they are even suitable for growing in hanging pots (which are generally only 5-6 litres in size).
 
How big is yours now? I can pot mine up if needed but starting to run out of large pots and so are the stores.
Click to expand...
My Montufar germinated on the 10th of January. I have long bamboo stakes to train the growth up rather than out(as that takes up too much area). It is currently approx. 4 1/2 feet from the top of the container to top tips of the plant and I counted about 35 pods in various stages of developement. It is residing in a 2 gal. pot and being fed heavily with my custom FSST root/growth booster. It is currently in the greenhouse where it experiences 50f every night and 80-95f days depending on sunlight/cloud cover. I will try to post a couple of pic on my glog today or tomorrow.
Also if the sun is out, it get full sun from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm.
 
Inspired by PaulG's Three Gallon Grow Glog http://thehotpepper.com/topic/71460-paulg-2019-three-gallon-grow/
 
OK, I had bought 20 Three Gallon Pots because that is the largest size for which there are matching cloches available. Also bought 20 cloches.
 
A large part of this year's grow will happen in TGPs because 1) I have them available, and 2) as soon as the snow melted people flooded the garden centers and bought all the pots. It's hard to find pots of any size now.
 
So far only the only pepper that has been potted up at all is a Montufar in a TGP. Also used TGPs for 2 x Mint, 2 x Sunflowers and 2 x Marigolds. My 6 Manzano Rojos are in 7.5 Gallon Pots and they will stay that way.
 
That leaves me with 13 available TGPs to be used for potting up. I also have 1 x 5 gallon and 4 x 7.5 gallon pots still available.
 
Below is what is left to be potted up, separated into target container size groups. I will be using Pimiento de Padron (a fairly large plant) as my control, growing 5 of them in TGPs and 1 of them in a FGP (Five Gallon pot). Given equal conditions and treatment, we shall see how that Padron performs in the larger pot compared to those in the smaller pots. I was thinking to do the test with the bell pepper, but where is the fun in that when there is no heat?
 
 
13 x 3 gallon pots
-----------------------------------
4 x Bell Pepper (California Wonder)
5 x Pimiento de Padron
1 x Star Flame
1 x Medina
1 x Orange Flame
1 x Cayenne
 
 
1 x 5 gallon pots
-----------------------------------
1 x Pimiento de Padron
 
 
4 x 7.5 gallon pots
-----------------------------------
1 x Bishops Hat
2 x Chocolate Scotch Bonnet x Carolina Reaper (wife's crossing project)
1 x Carolina Reaper x Chocolate Scotch Bonnet (wife's crossing project)
 
 
OK, it's 20c outside and the nighttime lows are not expected to drop less than 10 celcius in the next 10 days which means that thermal summer has officially began.
 
Which is good because I ran out of space inside my grow room. Almost everything got moved outside today, under my 4 meter wide umbrella :-)
 
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Looking very good! Watching all of these glogs with their rather many gallon pots/containers I have to remind myself that everyone runs out of room indoors, eventually, and that many gallons belong outdoors : ) And also to perhaps pace myself when it comes to the number of plants. Maybe I should start a theme thread called "The Captives", and maybe there's already one?
 
Back to the topic at hand however your plants appear very healthy and I really like the sun-ray outdoors shots : )
 
Thanks, David. I'll be hoping that the wind speed will keep somewhere close to zero metres per second since a 4 metre wide umbrella is quite dangerous even with a light wind.
 
If I need to drop the umbrella, then I've got problems needing to either bring the plants inside or work from home. I'm gambling on fair weather for the forseeable future.
 
I started maybe 20-30 too many peppers but have sold most of them now. There seems to be quite a market for homegrown stuff vs store bought.
 
Yeah, we are living way up north here in HEL. Our climate is tempered by the Polar Ocean Currents. They bring the warm water from the equator to the north and vice-versa. Finland is sort of like Arakkis - God created it to train The Faithful.
 
I've never been much of a religious man, at least not officially - never enjoyed those who attempted to exert a power over others at the expense of Feeling. On the other hand, always been a very spiritual person in my own way. If you suffer, if you fail to dream, if you wake up in the middle of the night and wonder what it is all about - man, just put on the headphones and be patient, glory will come, your flowers will bloom and all that good stuff.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDuZfdf4hFQ
 
 
 
Deadheads adhere to a set of values similar to those of the 1960’s counterculture. Deadheads often speak of being attracted to deadhead culture because the community is peaceful, values camaraderie and shares resources which offers a refreshing escape from the dominant culture’s individualism, materialism and competition.
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Sort of reminds me of this place :-)
 
podz said:
Yeah, we are living way up north here in HEL. Our climate is tempered by the Polar Ocean Currents. They bring the warm water from the equator to the north and vice-versa. Finland is sort of like Arakkis - God created it to train The Faithful.
 
I've never been much of a religious man, at least not officially - never enjoyed those who attempted to exert a power over others at the expense of Feeling. On the other hand, always been a very spiritual person in my own way. If you suffer, if you fail to dream, if you wake up in the middle of the night and wonder what it is all about - man, just put on the headphones and be patient, glory will come, your flowers will bloom and all that good stuff.
Click to expand...
 
That is a great, calming song.
 
Haha...Arrakis...well, probably your fault, this..because it made me think "Fear is the mindkiller" and I chopped half a dried 7 pot unto a store bought pizza and paaaiiid for it...it was a pretty small 7 pot fruit too.
 
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