Growing peppers in the north! Hydro all day everyday.

Hi all pepper enthusiasts. 
 
I live in Scandinavian, or more precisely in Denmark, where unfortunately the weather can be pretty brutal. Ironic we currently have the hottest sommer I can remember. However, I can't rely on the weather all year round, especially because I don't have a garden. 
 
So I decided to upgrade my old windowsill garden, to a better hydro setup. This way I can grow year round . 
My setup consist of: 
Grow tent: Homebox Vista medium.
Light: Quantum board 260W LED. 
Drip irrigation system with drain to waste. 
Air intake: Black Orchide Ø 150mm
Air circulation: Secret Garden Monkey Fan 30W
Water pump: Micro-Jet MC 450 Oxy Pump
Medium: Rockwool 
The brain of the system is my Sonoff 4channel Pro with this I control everything by my phone, both light timers, water and circulation timers. 
 
Plants as of 12th July: 
Lemon Drop
Tabasco 
Thunder mountain Longhorn
7pot Primo (seeds from Troy).
Peachgum V3
Numex Vaquero (Jalapeno). 
 
Then I have a tomato plant and just started some strawberry seeds. 
In the next days im going to start a different tomato plant (Yellow pear) and plant seeds for Bahamian Goat(to replace the Longhorn)!
 
Now, to the exiting part, pictures! 
 
First picture is my whole setup. Grow tent, plants and water bucket. 

 
Next we have a closer look to the plants. 

 
Here we have the left part of the tent, with the lemon drop, tomato plant and Vaquero, you can also see the circulation fan.

 
Right side of the tent. With Thunder Mountain longhorn, Tabasco, Peachgum, Primo 

 
Closeup of the Lemon drop, I just harvested her today. Love this pepper. 

 
Here is the Scoville King in the tent, the Primo 

 
My Jalapeño (Numex Vaquero) I hope he produces more later, this is his first set of fruits. 

 
Thunder Mountain Longhorn. Easily the best producer in the tent (contested by the lemon drop) but most fruits ripen up to be soft with black seeds :/ To be replaced by the Bahamian Goat in the future. 

 
And my tabasco 

 
This is my "tools"

 
Some fitting decoration of the grow room 

 
And lastly the system all works because of this little box. 

 
 
My plan for this Glog is to hopefully grow peppers all year and I have some crossing ideas (Hello mr. Bahamian Goat) im planning to do here as well. Maybe some can assist with future hydro problems as well, as this is my very first time trying to grow this way . 
Here is the first few peppers from today going in the dryer! Along with some Gengish Kahns brain from the freezer. 

 

[PaulG]

Good luck with your crosses, Rasmus!
 
All your plants look really healthy, and have nice,
meaty pods on them. Great to see some color on them.

 

[Mildfruit]

Good luck with your crosses, Rasmus!
 
All your plants look really healthy, and have nice,
meaty pods on them. Great to see some color on them.

 
Thanks Paul, always great to read your posts! 

 

[Mildfruit]

Today my sugar rush peach had a ripe one (finally), and the first thing I noticed when cutting it up was the smell. Very sweet, not like a sweet pepper normally is, but almost a deep musky sweet (hard to describe smells). Now I have grown c. baccatums before, and some had that awful soapy smell, this is nowhere to be found here.
The pepper is very crisp in texture, and the taste is incredible. I took a bite, and the taste was very sweet at first, then I noticed how much water was contained in that crispy pepper, now filling my mouth. 1-2 seconds after the heat came, but not in an unpleasant way like c. Chinense often do. Medium heat, which I believe most people would tolerate on/in food.
This will be my go-to pepper. I don't even know what to cross it with, because its perfect.
 

​(The pepper on top, is the remains of my Numex lemon spice) 

 

[PaulG]

Glad you posted this, I'm going to try to grow both
Sugar Rush Peach and sugar Rush Cream. Now I'm
really looking forward to them, and only 7 or 8 months
to wait 
 
How did you like the Lemon Spice Jalapeño?

 

[Mildfruit]

You have my greatest recommendations 
I find it interesting that the cream version is so different pod wise, but I've only heard good things!
At least time fly by quick! By that time I'll hopefully have my first hybrid plants  
 
Not much tbh. It was a smaller than normal pod, nearly heatless. I think it was a special pod, and I'll wait to give a proper review until I've tasted a bigger pod. So fingers crossed

 

[CaneDog]

Glad the SRP turned out so well for you, MF.  Bodes well for me as I'll be growing it this coming season for the first time too.

 

[Mildfruit]

Glad the SRP turned out so well for you, MF.  Bodes well for me as I'll be growing it this coming season for the first time too.

 
 
You won't be disappointed if the seeds are good im sure! Which remind me about our seed deal, I'll send you a pm asap 

 

[Inoks]

Whaddapaut that tent I asked about?

 

[Mildfruit]

Update and taste review! 
 

Top to bottom: Sugar rush peach, Numex lemon spice, Pimentos de padron, Numex lemon spice

Made for some awesome rings on pizza. Im reviewing the Numex Lemon Spice. First of all great plant, and the smell and taste are very good. Like a normal jalapeño but somehow less sharp in taste, and more round if that makes any sense. My grow-out have been troubled with near zero heat tho. At first I thought I had made a mistake, but I contacted Semilias and they could confirm similar results in their grow-outs. They do have some heat, just not very much. However these "unlucky genetics" have made them very popular for my GF, she loves them, just the right amount of heat for her. So I'll guess im keeping them  
 

Picture from today of the tent.
 

Still not a single ripe pod on the Aji Fantasy. But their proliferation is to be admired, hope I can get that trait when crossing. 
 

Same "problem" with the sugar rush peach, I have been using string to bind the plant, to prevent breakage. 
 

Hard to show all the pods, but similar to the Aji Fantasy, still not a ripe pod. This is the Peruvian Giallo Arancio
 

First cross to take, hopefully I'll get better, and make a few more. Most attempts results in flower drop. Practice! 

 

[Mildfruit]

Whaddapaut that tent I asked about?

 
 
You can see most of my setup on the first page. The tent is called Homebox Vista Medium. 

 

[PaulG]

Your results with the Grodan blocks are amazing,
Rasmus. The pods look great, especially those Aji
Fantasy! Good work on your crossing project.
Practice will make perfect!

 

[Mildfruit]

Merry Christmas everyone, hope you all had a wonderful time in the holidays. 
 
The last peppers have ripened up in my tent, and I've started eating away. I have to hold back a bit if I want to collect enough to start a ferment 
 

Not much light gets through the bottom anymore. I love when the tent looks like this
 

Mature Serrano. 
 

Picture from a few days ago, when I caught them mid ripening. 
 

Heres a small harvest from yesterday, the two peppers to the right are the above Peruvian Giallo Arancio fully ripened. 
They tasted very similar to the aji Amarillo. When dried they should have a coffee aroma, looking forward to that. 
 

Small side project. Simpel Basil 
 

My Amaryllis white jewel, opened two of its flowers today, very pretty 
 
My GF dropped some very subtle hints this Christmas about her wanting me to grow some tomatoes. So I got some seeds as a present, so my next project next year will be to figure out how to grow them indoor aswell

 

[Mildfruit]

Your results with the Grodan blocks are amazing,
Rasmus. The pods look great, especially those Aji
Fantasy! Good work on your crossing project.
Practice will make perfect!

 
Thanks Paul!
Been having a few failures with crossing my SRP x Peruvian Giallo Arancio, but I keep trying til at least one pod succeed! 

 

[PaulG]

Looks like you had a successful season, my friend!
 
Enjoy the rest of the holiday season, and Happy
New Year    !

 

[Mr.joe]

Everything looks good. If you can grow peppers indoors I think you can grow tomatoes. I think the trick is to get tomato seeds that won't grow 12 feet tall. I had a similar plan, I ordered a little pack of seeds and then I lost them. I have lots of tomato seeds, but all if them are indeterminate varieties.

 

[Mildfruit]

Everything looks good. If you can grow peppers indoors I think you can grow tomatoes. I think the trick is to get tomato seeds that won't grow 12 feet tall. I had a similar plan, I ordered a little pack of seeds and then I lost them. I have lots of tomato seeds, but all if them are indeterminate varieties.

 
 
I've been doing tomatoes before, but my tent are 120cm tall (47.2 inch) so indeterminate varieties are going to be trimmed a lot! However, I plan to do one kind of determinate in my window, and two indeterminate varieties in a new homemade grow tent. Or at least that's my plans for now, they could change as much as Pauls seed plans for 2020 does    
But when I get closer to the end of January I hopefully have some solid plans.

 

[PaulG]

 
 
I've been doing tomatoes before, but my tent are 120cm tall (47.2 inch) so indeterminate varieties are going to be trimmed a lot! However, I plan to do one kind of determinate in my window, and two indeterminate varieties in a new homemade grow tent. Or at least that's my plans for now, they could change as much as Pauls seed plans for 2020 does    
But when I get closer to the end of January I hopefully have some solid plans.

 
Haha, buddy. I plead guilty  

 

[Mr.joe]

Sounds like u have a plan

 

[Mildfruit]

Last review of the year, and conveniently the last pepper in my tent! And closing thoughts of this year. 
 

The glorious Peruvian Giallo Arancio, or as I tend to call it, the mini aji Amarillo. While I never tried aji Amarillo fresh, I've had it in much food in dried form and also in paste, and no wonder its so popular its a great medium pepper! I've never had success growing aji Amarillo indoor, but this year I tried the Peruvian as it was advertised as a faster ripening and smaller version of the Amarillo. Now, faster doesn't mean fast, in fact I've never had a pepper ripen so slowly before, of all my peppers this took nearly 2.5 months AFTER all my other peppers had a ripen pepper. The plant did grow quickly and also set pods rather quick. 
 
As a fresh pepper its wonderful to bite into, the heat is not too much about a medium pepper, a bit milder than the SRP. Now, as previously mentioned im pretty sensitive to the soapy taste in some baccatums. This pepper don't have that, its pretty juicy and have a fruity and solid pepper taste. It was advertised that this in dried form (see next picture) would have a coffee aroma to it, which I cant recognize. It is however really great in fish dishes! 
 
This pepper ranks very high on my personal list, in fact I've used it pretty much daily since the first pepper ripened. I cant wait to try and make a aji Amarillo style paste out of it! 
 

Heres some of my powder production from yesterday. My plant cant keep up with my demand, poor plant. 
 

Heres my dinner from yesterday with Peruvian powder sprinkled over. Doctor recommended 
 
Closing thoughts: 
So this year had a lot of peppers, I had two sets of different peppers in my tent this year and the nice surprises this year was: Fire Flame, biquinho, Sugar rush peach and Peruvian Giallo Arancio. I plan on keeping the Peruvian and SRP going forward, solid peppers indeed. That leaves 4 pepper plants I have to decide on. To make it even harder I'll receive seeds from the EU seed exchange, and an envelope from CaneDog with awesome varieties!   Luckily I have a month to make a decision. 
 
Next year will include some tomatoes, either in a new homemade or bought tent. A new grow light for them as well. I've been reading into DWC setups, but ultimately decided not to try it. My grow room is next to my living room, and having a bubbling sound from the air pump 24/7 would aggro the GF too much  So the tried and proved grodan block will properly continue. 
 
I wish you all a happy new year, and look forward to the next season! 

 

[PaulG]

Everything looks great, pods to powders! 
 
Someone had posted an I.d. question about a
pepper that looks exactly like the Aji Giallo Arancio.
His description of the plant was right on as well. 
 
happy New Year, Rasmus! Have fun deciding
what else to put in your tent!