Growing in the white stuff

Hello all. I figured I start a grow log. It will be mostly for notational purposes. I will need much advice for growing on the Canadian prairie. Today marks the arrival of my final seed order. I have my lights all set up but still need a bit of soil mix.
 
The goal here is to produce peppers that are started indoors but will hit maturity outside. 
 
Last year I started using pots and achieved moderate success. This year I will expand the collection of pots and start in on constructing hoop housing in April with the hopes of getting the plants outside earlier to take advantage of the long days near the solstice. Last year I was able to get the white jolokia to mature but not anything more pigment. 
 
I'd like to get into making powders this year. I would like to branch out from making pickles and jelly's. Depending on my successes or lack thereof I may try something more exotic in my 85 day growing window like a Viper. On paper I think it could work...
 
The list so far:
 
White Bhut Jolokia
B's Bullet (Chinense Ghost Cross)
Jamaican Yellow Mushroom
Orange Ghost (hybrid from Atlantic Pepper Seeds) 
Mustard Trinidad Scorpion
Sugar Rush Peach
Leutshaur Paprika
Urfa Biber (no relation to Justin Bieber)
Yellow Hun replacement known as the brown Freddy's Fryer an annum variety.
Locally climatized variety of orange scotch bonnet (re:not very hot) 
Paper lantern habenero. Still considering this one. 
Bulgarian Carrot
Cherry Bomb
 
Most of the list is new to me outside the w.jolokia, cherry bomb, and orange s.b. Advice as always is welcome. 
I am not trying to grow the hottest pepper. I am trying to grow the best peppers for my cooking which involves pickling, salsas, and a custom rub blend for ribs. Something to add a little zip. I have a couple of spots one of which is behind a 40ft boxelder which suffers for sun exposure and the other which has sun but suffers from plow winds. Will be prone to dessication and snapping limbs. At least the tomatoes were despite being staked and tied. 
 
I will apologize in advance for mixing the pepper content with the non pepper related content. I tend to garden in smaller spaces so it all gets scruntched together. For reference last year's pots, last year's gardens and yes I was even dumb enough to try an early variety of corn. Oh the  joys of being ignorant! All done in drought with vermicompost and a bit of boundless optimism. 

 

[PaulG]

Yeah they certainly move alot slower then most things I have grown so I would agree with you on that part Zips. They are coming along though bud which is awesome to see.
 
As Paul touched on you can prolly start giving them some food to help them along abit more, when I hit mine for the first timeI noticed a huge difference after a couple days. My only question is how often do I actually feed them?? So far its been every 10 days give or take, if anyone reading this could chime in would probably help the both of us.
 
Keep it up Zips and looking forward to your next update!!

I weigh my cups to see when they need water.
With 4 ounces of water, they weigh 350 grams,
so I water when they weigh 250 grams. And I
feed every watering with the AK Fish Fertilizer.
 
   Thanks, Matty!

 

[Zippy]

I have been spacing out the waterings as the roots have grown deeper in the cup. I let them get fairly dried out today and there was still no leaf droop. Tomorrow will be the first fertilizer. I am still on the lookout for fish fertilizer because our green houses do not open until April. I may have to get some off of Amazon unless I can find some at Crappy Tire. I have had good luck with the Myke products last year. I have plenty of Myke fert. left over from last year to carry at least a little while. 
 
Note, I normally keep the house at 68f. I learned last year that I had better results when the plants were small by upping to 70. With the hots lagging and I wondered if these tropicals would respond to more heat. I've been heating to 72 which hasn't been the most comfortable as I am used to 68 but the plants are responding. The scorpion peppers have almost caught up to the habaneros in size. The ghost is lagging but even it is showing signs of improvement. I am not looking forward to the heating bill as the nights are still hovering around -30f so I am not sure they are ready for the outdoors just yet
 
I am looking forward to seedy Saturday this week. I'm going to get some cool stuff at the fair!

 

[CDNmatt]

I found that Home Hardware had a better assortment of ferts and such at this time of year then the crappy did in our town, mind you our crappy is like a shoe box so anything off season goes away to railroad containers outside......They wont even go out and grab bags of soil that are left out in the garden center under the snow all winter the bastages.
 
And on the topic of Home Hardware they have a pretty good selection on line for the pay and pick up ....Crappy tends to have alot of the more mainstream stuff you normally find like Mriacle gro/pro mix ect
 
We been back into cooler nights this past week ...-35 nights but the days are not too bad getting up to the -20 range which is not terrible, hard to read some of the glogs which are a couple weeks at most away from plant out and we are sitting at 10 weeks minimum most likely still, my hoop house may be the saving grace this year but only time will tell in that regard.

 

[deolater]

What all white peppers are out there? I've never had a white pod.

I'm growing white fatalii this year. I've never had it before though.

 

[PaulG]

"...hard to read some of the glogs which are a
couple weeks at most away from plant out
and we are sitting at 10 weeks minimum
most likely still"
 
I hear, ya, bud. Our plant out here, even at
45˚ N latitude isn't until mid-May at earliest.  
Last couple of seasons, it has been into June.
May weather has been good, then June turns
to cold and rainy. Our 10%  Spring frost date is
May 19th.
 
Get that hoop house heated up, my friend!

 

[CDNmatt]

"...hard to read some of the glogs which are a
couple weeks at most away from plant out
and we are sitting at 10 weeks minimum
most likely still"
 
I hear, ya, bud. Our plant out here, even at
45˚ N latitude isn't until mid-May at earliest.  
Last couple of seasons, it has been into June.
May weather has been good, then June turns
to cold and rainy. Our 10%  Spring frost date is
May 19th.
 
Get that hoop house heated up, my friend!

 

Last year April was just disgustingly terrible as far as temps went...I wasn't able to get anything into my smaller greenhouse until the last few days, and we basically went from minus temps to low-mid 20s in a matter of days ....so basically winter straight to summer it was so weird. I am counting on a normal April this year hopefully which would really help get these plants outside.
 
Normally I shoot for the May long weekend which is May 20ish, last year was the 19th I put most of my stuff in the ground

 

[PaulG]

That's my target, too, but I have been disappointed
a few times when a cold June produces plant stall-out.
So, I hold them in the garage and greenhouse until it's
just about unbearable to handle all of them, and then
plant out into hopefully good weather. Last year I didn't
plant-out until end of June!

 

[CDNmatt]

That's my target, too, but I have been disappointed
a few times when a cold June produces plant stall-out.
So, I hold them in the garage and greenhouse until it's
just about unbearable to handle all of them, and then
plant out into hopefully good weather. Last year I didn't
plant-out until end of June!

 

Its getting even harder with climate change, the weather is so unpredictable now cant really count on historical temp data anymore.

 

[PaulG]

I'm down with that, Matty. It's getting to where indoor/
greenhouse is a necessity for any kind of long-season
grow. The first two seasons (2012 and 2013) I grew
peppers we had great weather all Spring. The pro-
duction showed it. Hasn't been that good since 
 
But I'll take what good weather we get    

 

[stettoman]

Update. These hot peppers are so slow. The growth my other peppers do in a day takes these ones 4 to 5 days. I hope they are worth it. I think I am going to have to cull a bit, I got some with the seed head on. This will also make room for the faster stuff known as annums or "batch two".

 
My experience with the Chinense types is that they loll around the garden until about halfway through July, then get in a hurry. I had a pair of blank Moruga Scorpions that grew to about 45 cm and looked to become dormant, then in midsummer they exploded with growth and pod production. I wound up with plants a meter tall or more loaded down with fruit. The problem was getting all that fruit to turn ripe.
 
Then I found I didn't have a lot of use for peppers that hot, but I learned some important stuff from those plants...

 

[Zippy]

I found that Home Hardware had a better assortment of ferts and such at this time of year then the crappy did in our town, mind you our crappy is like a shoe box so anything off season goes away to railroad containers outside......They wont even go out and grab bags of soil that are left out in the garden center under the snow all winter the bastages.
 
And on the topic of Home Hardware they have a pretty good selection on line for the pay and pick up ....Crappy tends to have alot of the more mainstream stuff you normally find like Mriacle gro/pro mix ect
 
We been back into cooler nights this past week ...-35 nights but the days are not too bad getting up to the -20 range which is not terrible, hard to read some of the glogs which are a couple weeks at most away from plant out and we are sitting at 10 weeks minimum most likely still, my hoop house may be the saving grace this year but only time will tell in that regard.

 
I hope to find something at the old Peavey Mart. They always start up early before anyone else. They are farm oriented so it usually just behind the cattle waterers. If not, I'll check out Home Hardware. 

 

[CDNmatt]

 
I hope to find something at the old Peavey Mart. They always start up early before anyone else. They are farm oriented so it usually just behind the cattle waterers. If not, I'll check out Home Hardware. 

 

For sure..and even check their online selection for pay and pick up as well..will likely have alot more selection then just the in store stuff and no shipping fees

 

[Zippy]

 
My experience with the Chinense types is that they loll around the garden until about halfway through July, then get in a hurry. I had a pair of blank Moruga Scorpions that grew to about 45 cm and looked to become dormant, then in midsummer they exploded with growth and pod production. I wound up with plants a meter tall or more loaded down with fruit. The problem was getting all that fruit to turn ripe.
 
Then I found I didn't have a lot of use for peppers that hot, but I learned some important stuff from those plants...

 
Yeah I noticed some late summer explosiveness. That is also why I started six weeks earlier this year. Still later than many on here though. There will be a lot of experimentation with recipes this year. Depending on how things shake out I may cut back as well. 

 

[Zippy]

Arrg. I just got some cool varieties in the mail. A naga cross and a habanero cross. Very interesting phenotypes on these suckers. I honestly didn't think I'd get them as they were a trade. They are a little too late to start now with those heat levels and my short season which means they will get left over till 2020 season. Drats. 

 

[stettoman]

My Moruga Scorpions were started in November. It changed nothing. It's not age, though a head start might not hurt. I believe length of day, angle of sun, moisture content and other factors SEASON RELATED triggered this growth. I hope yours do well, but bear nature in mind when gardening outside.

 

[Zippy]

 
Last year April was just disgustingly terrible as far as temps went...I wasn't able to get anything into my smaller greenhouse until the last few days, and we basically went from minus temps to low-mid 20s in a matter of days ....so basically winter straight to summer it was so weird. I am counting on a normal April this year hopefully which would really help get these plants outside.
 
Normally I shoot for the May long weekend which is May 20ish, last year was the 19th I put most of my stuff in the ground

 
Same here. However we had a dry winter. And only 8mm of water until August. Second straight year of devastating drought. Watering the gardens was a major time consuming chore. And it was expensive. I have never seen the ground shrivel up like last year. 

 

[Zippy]

My Moruga Scorpions were started in November. It changed nothing. It's not age, though a head start might not hurt. I believe length of day, angle of sun, moisture content and other factors SEASON RELATED triggered this growth. I hope yours do well, but bear nature in mind when gardening outside.

 
Noted. Though our seasons change on a dime. Sometimes 20 or more degrees in a day or two. The plants just shut down. There is no shoulder season here usually but I will take pictures of the results. 

 

[Zippy]

Update. Moving to 22C is helping the superhots though they are by no means in a hurry to grow. (2nd pic)
 

 

[PaulG]

Those look good. Healthy leaves and good color 
 
Don't worry, the c. chinense take a while to get
going, but stand back once they get a head of
steam!

 

[CDNmatt]

I think that looks like solid progress for 12 days or so Zips....Getting some nice big fat daddy leaves on those bad boys, I think you will be more then ok come plant out imo.