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. 

 

[CDNmatt]

I let this sit long enough I think.....Uppity ups
 
Those trays you have are they just the regular10x20s or the thicker ones you can get teh same size?

 

[Zippy]

I hope the plants go on and make produce too Matt. The trays are just the flimsy ones. They have covers. 

 

[Zippy]

This marks 4 weeks since planted. The habaneros are leading everything else. Should I go one or two more weeks before trimming to encourage side growth?

 

[CDNmatt]

I assume you ment topping Zips?? Its kinda a new thing for me as well.....Some are growing so nicely I wont bother, but the ones I did top I waited till I had a few sets of leaves. So maybe a tad more growth wouldn't hurt but it might be best if someone else really made the call and could chime in to help.

 

[Zippy]

Pepper update. Final seeding of annuums finished last week. I had to trim some of the habaneros to fit under the light. One new variety is already flowering. Managing different heights of plants is a pain but so far I am keeping up with it.

 

[Zippy]

It ain't much but it is something. I'm working with about 17x4ft. approx. I will be monitoring the night temperatures in this thing as we are hanging around -3c. Once I can regulate the afternoon temps as this thing just bakes on south facing I will start the hardening process. It should have fairly good wind protection right here. It is just that I am using the garden area as a transit point for the time being.
 
The point of this structure is that it can be disassembled, stored in my shed and then used once again in September. Yes I have more than enough space to fit 10, 10 gallon pots. I have a sneaking suspicion my Mother is going to fill it with her stuff! Pics of that to come once I get to out door hardening of the plants. I'm not sure how well this will work at  the end of the season as the bhuts get way too tall for the roof of this thing. I'll figure it out....

 

[Zippy]

Update. Peppers are growing nicely. They did however take a long time to overcome the yellowing which occurred when I acclimatized them under the tarp. I suspect a combination of nights over 10 degrees combined with extra fertilizing helped. Furthest ahead are the SRP. The plant put lots of flower buds. Most growth was put on by the chocolate habs. My plants are somewhat smaller than posted but I've had to deal with much cooler nights than most here have had for much longer. 
 
I will take photos but I do not want to draw down my file buffer too much. Does everyone just clear it every now and again? I noticed it goes down with every attached pic. 

 

[PaulG]

Sounds like good progress there, Collin.

We are just starting to green up here with a little sunny
weather, so I know the feeling of looking at yellow plants.

Good luck going forward!

 

[Zippy]

The SRP are putting on a fairly heavy load of peppers. I tried one at the beginning of July and it was all heat and no sweetness. Then yesterday I noticed a darker colour emerging. My suspicion is the taste will be more true to type at the end of August. So far the Hungarian varieties are in the lead (no surprise) followed by Jamaican mushrooms and then the SRP. Everything else has is flowering but no fruit. And if I didn't know any better, I suspect I had some cross pollination on the Huns. I'm getting black hungarian varieties that are popping out cherry bomb phenotypes and are growing at cherry bomb rates but the pepper is black. Will post at a later date as the drupes ripen. 

 

 

 

[Zippy]

Hey everyone, it seems last night I suffered a bit of vandalism. The peppers were exclusively targeted. Whoever it was stripped all the peppers and took the biggest. Whomever it was was not big as the tracks were about a size 6. I doubt they were over 150 pounds as I had watered that day and still left deeper prints when I walked in the next morning. They left all the smaller stuff on the ground so it won't size up or ripen. I also lost significant flowers. My guess is they just grabbed the plant from the bottom and cupped it on the way up. Combine with a poor season where I only had 30% production compared to last year I won't have much to display. They good news is there are enough blossoms on the annums and SRP I should get something. Everything else is a crapshoot. The only other good news is they missed some scorpions which were hiding deep in the foliage. I'll probably have a few hungarians and cherry bombs grow between now and the end of season but it won't be spectacular. 
 
I am a pretty disappointed at the moment but I guess this happens. 

 

[Zippy]

New pepper this year. Leutshaur Paprika. Taste is sweeter than the hot hungarian wax peppers. However it is a larger plant and larger pepper so it will take until the last week of August to mature. Heat is advertised around 3000 scovilles so about the range of a jalapeno. The heat is mostly concentrated at the top by the stem. This will become my default fresh eating pepper next year and possibly paprika powder as it advertised as a powder pepper.
 

 

 

 

 

 

[Zippy]

In addition to the paprika pepper above I tried my first fish pepper yesterday. It was recommended by one of the moderators. I would have never considered this pepper otherwise. The first pod ripened today so I tried both green and red versions. The red is considerably sweeter. The pods themselves are undersized but this has been a challenging year for peppers in general. I wish to convey my thanks for a great recommendation. My concerns are we have 3 degree night temps and a heavy fruit load on this pepper. Usually heavy fruiting varieties don't ripen all that well. At least that is what past experience says. I hope I am wrong. If the plants can make it to next week the temps will come back up. Next week is supposed to be warmer so when temps rise above 10 again I'll take some shots of the plant. It is beautiful plant with stripes like a hosta. 
 
The big success for this year isn't a paprika or the fish pepper. I had the first pod of the mustard scorpion today. I can say it brings more heat than my w. bhuts and I suspect my pod was not 100% ripe. I grew both in pots and in the ground. The plants in the ground were healthier and produced larger pods. I will observe which plants can ripen first as the pots should have an advantage here.. However this is a year where nothing is going according to plan so who knows?
 
I bring you the first Mustard scorpion grown outdoors in a protected location. At 50 deg. latitude all other scorpions needed supplemental greenhouse heat at the farmer's market. No additional assistance other than some in house worm castings and a bit of fish emulsion used in July. 
 

 

 
Trust me there is a reason it is in a bag. Just ask my finger! lol
 
 

 

[Zippy]

This the state of the reaper after some very cool nights. Yellowing leaves and undersized pods are turning early. At least there are pods! 
 

 

 
The paper lanterns are fairing somewhat better. The plants look bleak but the fruit load is ripening more fully every day. 

 

[Zippy]

****Starting the 2020 grow list.**** Yeah I am too lazy to start a new thread... lol
 
Thanks to White Hot Peppers for starting the seed deliveries. Nine days shipping from Illinois to the center of Canada isn't bad. You can bad mouth the post but hey it still works! The extra varieties were generous. Thank you Sir! Hopefully one of these varieties makes it to ripeness. If I can get one of the hotter varieties to mature up here I will be happy. If I were a betting guy, I'd say the Beth Boyd may mature first...
 
Still have to get my butt in gear and get the rest of the garden seeds ordered. 
 

 

[Zippy]

Just wanted to say that I got the last of my pepper seeds in yesterday. I made the decision to not start too early because the late spring last year forced me to work with larger plants that needed to be trimmed down. The ghosts were started at the beginning of the month and most of the intermediate heat habanero stuff will be started in a week's time. 
 
However I wanted to say that despite all the negative news about what is happening in America the US postal system is still superior to Canada's. You do not get the arrival and departure time logs the same way in the Canadian system. Plus the Canadian tracker is separate and not integrated with the American system. Once your parcel departs to "foreign or international country" it enters a black void. If you are lucky add 7 days. If you are unlucky and have the package shipped via UPS it can disappear into a black hole for close to 4 weeks. Note Brown does not work up here the way it does in America. 
 
So despite all the negative things you hear on the news cherish your mail service. Every aspect of your mail service is superior to ours. I would annex our whole system and integrate Canada's jurisdiction as just one northern territory to be administered not by our federal government. 

 

[Bou]

However I wanted to say that despite all the negative news about what is happening in America the US postal system is still superior to Canada's. You do not get the arrival and departure time logs the same way in the Canadian system. Plus the Canadian tracker is separate and not integrated with the American system. Once your parcel departs to "foreign or international country" it enters a black void. If you are lucky add 7 days. If you are unlucky and have the package shipped via UPS it can disappear into a black hole for close to 4 weeks. Note Brown does not work up here the way it does in America. 
 
So despite all the negative things you hear on the news cherish your mail service. Every aspect of your mail service is superior to ours. I would annex our whole system and integrate Canada's jurisdiction as just one northern territory to be administered not by our federal government. 

 
I totally agree and I can share your frustration about Canada Post. How many times have I seen my order crossing all the states coast-to-coast in less than a week and as soon at it cross the border it takes like forever to get to my home, with no tracking available. I figured out USPS must use F1 for fast delivery compare to CP wich handle things differently and "delivers" mail the Terry Fox way; by foot on a single leg!! 

 

[Zippy]

News update. Most of my varieties are growing well. I ran into two problems in the last month because of the silly virus.
 
The first I could not order any pots. So I had to make do with milk cartons. The cartons were already being saved for other plants like squash but since peppers start earlier they went to the peppers. The second problem is that I've never had a calcium deficiency before. The JPGS and Yellow Moruga Scorpion are demanding more nutrient than any of my previous varieties. Usually worm castings with a general slow release fertilizer were enough. 
 
The only place I could find in town that carried some Cal-Mag fertilizer went down for a couple of weeks because of the virus thing. So I either had to pay extra to get the fertilizer shipped or wait for the local guy to open back up. I'm a frugal fellow. However I am concerned that I waited too long and the plants suffered too much. I may prune out the the twisted leaves. Pics to come. 

 

[CaneDog]

Definitely post pics.  Will be cool to see your plants and I'm also curious about the calcium issue. 
 
I'd say lack of calcium would be pretty uncommon, especially with your amendments, but maybe.
 
If so, Calcium Acetate is easy to make at home.

 

[Zippy]

Plants are taking up more space now. I waited a few days to observe any changes after picking up some Cal-Mag. The changes are a fairly significant. The plants put on new nodes above the damaged ones. 

 

 

 

[PaulG]

News update. Most of my varieties are growing well. I ran into two problems in the last month because of the silly virus.
 
The first I could not order any pots. So I had to make do with milk cartons. The cartons were already being saved for other plants like squash but since peppers start earlier they went to the peppers. The second problem is that I've never had a calcium deficiency before. The JPGS and Yellow Moruga Scorpion are demanding more nutrient than any of my previous varieties. Usually worm castings with a general slow release fertilizer were enough. 
 
The only place I could find in town that carried some Cal-Mag fertilizer went down for a couple of weeks because of the virus thing. So I either had to pay extra to get the fertilizer shipped or wait for the local guy to open back up. I'm a frugal fellow. However I am concerned that I waited too long and the plants suffered too much. I may prune out the the twisted leaves. Pics to come. 

 
Just for future reference, sometimes what looks
like calcium deficiency can be mitigated with an
application of Epsom Salts. The Pepper Joe web
site has information about how to use it. Cheap
and available at the grocery store.