Welcome, my esteemed peers, to my 2nd annual glog. This will be my best attempt by far. No way it could be worse than my pitiful entry from last year, not even going to include a link to that stinky p.o.s.
#1 – WIN BEFORE YOU BEGIN: i did what i said i was gonna do, which is get my own setup to grow from seeds. Flexing my new LED light, heat mats, and seed trays. Also awesome is that they are sitting on a card table that was just passed down to us at Christmas (just a cheap metal folding-leg table with vinyl-covered sponge top, but it belonged to my wife’s grandmother, and my mother-in-law had been using it up until now to grow out her own seeds on every year, so it is a very lovely gift from a sentimental standpoint).
#2 – MAKE IT YOUR OWN: now that i have all the means to fully and truly grow my own, i wanted to amp things up this year. So i bought 9 types of superhot seeds, one of those was no charge as promo for spending $40, plus got two bonus packets included as free gifts.
Definitive grow list:
SEEDS BOUGHT FROM ATLANTIC PEPPER SEEDS, 2022:
(planted 6x each variety on 10 Jan)
SHU: TYPE:
2-2.4M -c22 “moruga pheno”
2-2.4M -7pot oracle
1.8-2M -7pot dragons breath x brain strain
1.7-2M -carolina reaper red
1.5-2M -carolina reaper purple [free gift]
1.5-1.8M -apocalypse chocolate scorpion
1.5M -7pot lava choc x bubblegum gp*
1.4M -7pot borg 9 yellow
1.2M -jay’s peach ghost x bhut jolokia white
1.2M -bombay morich orange**
*ambiguous as to what “gp” means, methinks either “gnarly pheno” or “ghost pepper”. On the one hand, pictures of the pods on the website had bumpy skin and had the word “gnarly” included at the end of the variety name superimposed on the images. But since the pods shown look longer and more ghost-like than the usual rounded or squat-pointy shape i imagine when i hear “7-pot”, plus the text description mentions “lack of bleeding calyx that bbg is well-known for”, suggests to my mind that “bubblegum gp” may be a 7bbg+ghost hybrid where the ghost genes were dominant. Anyone know anything on this?
**not familiar with this variety, but the website touted it as one of their fastest, earliest, most prolific producers; so much so that they said all these things explicitly in the write-up, where most of their blurbs state always the same cliches “grows to 2 metres, yields lots of great hot pods, excellent for powder.” Is this a name any of you guys know/grow? See more below.
Potential grow list:
SEEDLINGS, WHICH I WILL INEVITABLY BUY FROM LOCAL GREENHOUSE IN SPRING:
(won’t be able to resist, and each year they seem to have something different)
???k -depends what they offer
SEEDS, SAVED FROM LAST YEAR’S PEPPERS:
(the goats and hjhc yielded the best out of these)
1.4M -chocolate bhutlah
700k-1M -fatalii peach
500-750k -bahamian goat
300k -habanero jamaican hot choc
SEEDS, SAVED FROM LAST & PREVIOUS YEARS’ PEPPERS:
100-450k -habanero (generic/unknown type, possibly some caribbean red, seeds mixed together)
3-8k -jalapeno (generic/unknown type)
SEEDS (FREE GIFT) FROM ATLANTIC PEPPER SEEDS, 2021:
50-100k -dwarf chili tepin
Whether i start any of these seeds will depend upon how many of the already-started super ones i get, and whether i get the wherewithal to figure out how to house and keep 50+ juvenile plants in a small, poorly-insulated room, or decide do i just buy 30 seedlings again of habs, jalapeno, and whatever other exciting thing they have at the greenhouses nearby?
#3 – NOT INFALLIBLE: as it is my first time starting seeds, i was bound to make some mistakes and have done so already. Call them clerical errors. So i soaked my seeds (4:1 water/peroxide) in an ice cube tray prior to planting, and i stirred them occasionally to see if they’d sink as i heard some say this indicates viability/readiness (none of my seeds ever sank at all after 2 days). At some point i either stirred too vigorously or i bumped the table; at any rate, a couple seeds jumped into the next cell over, so my reaper red and d.b. x b.s. are mysteries which went in which cell of their tray. Then when planting, i may have not planted one (and therefore two) in the right place on the jpg x bjw and bombay morich tray, as it was getting late into the night. More on that later; now on to the grow! (after this legend of my seed layout in the trays)
#4 – QUANTITATIVELY PLEASED: after planting the 60 seeds on January 10, i was quite pleased to see two plants were sprouting after only three days: an apoc-choc-scorp, and a red reaper sporting a helmet-head. Next day i gingerly removed the seed casing with no apparent damage. A few more have emerged each day, and as of the 22nd i now have 31/60 up overall. Following the cell formula in the legend above, these are which cells have plants:
6/6* -carolina reaper red
1/6* -7pot dragons breath x brain strain
4/6 -c22 “moruga pheno”
5/6 -carolina reaper purple
1/6 -7pot borg 9 yellow
4/6 -7pot oracle
5/6 -apocalypse chocolate scorpion
5/6 -7pot lava choc x bubblegum gp
0/6 -jay’s peach ghost x bhut jolokia white
0/6 -bombay morich orange
Less than ideal results, however, with six varieties a great success, two singletons, and two complete no-shows. It sucks that my only two ghost-types are both nowhere to be seen, and after they called the bombay their greatest producer, I’m a little disappointed none have arrived for me. I would much rather have seen 3/6 of every type come up, versus the lopsided results experienced to date.
#5 – THE WAY FORWARD: Debating on dropping a couple more seeds of the weak- and zero-performers just into the same cells i already planted in, and considering trying the paper-towel germination process. Has anyone tried using the Instant Pot method?
Just in case all of those 4 types continue to flop, probably also going to do up a tray with 3 seeds each saved from my pods from last year of the chocolate bhutlah, fatalii peach, bahamian goat, and habanero jamaican hot choc, for some more variety. I enjoyed all of these last year, and starting out this much earlier gives me a better chance of getting decent yields of ripened pods this time around.
Most importantly, I’m having a lot of fun with this hobby. Now that i invested some money into equipment, I feel like I’m really having a proper go at it. Here’s hoping i can wind up with a massive surplus this season and use it as a way to get more into sauce making.
Here are pics of the first two to pop, current wide shot of the girls (nasty empty tray in the middle), and one of the same one from the first one, but today (now, with leaves!):
Thanks for your interest, let's see if i actually follow through on doing regular updates!
#1 – WIN BEFORE YOU BEGIN: i did what i said i was gonna do, which is get my own setup to grow from seeds. Flexing my new LED light, heat mats, and seed trays. Also awesome is that they are sitting on a card table that was just passed down to us at Christmas (just a cheap metal folding-leg table with vinyl-covered sponge top, but it belonged to my wife’s grandmother, and my mother-in-law had been using it up until now to grow out her own seeds on every year, so it is a very lovely gift from a sentimental standpoint).
#2 – MAKE IT YOUR OWN: now that i have all the means to fully and truly grow my own, i wanted to amp things up this year. So i bought 9 types of superhot seeds, one of those was no charge as promo for spending $40, plus got two bonus packets included as free gifts.
Definitive grow list:
SEEDS BOUGHT FROM ATLANTIC PEPPER SEEDS, 2022:
(planted 6x each variety on 10 Jan)
SHU: TYPE:
2-2.4M -c22 “moruga pheno”
2-2.4M -7pot oracle
1.8-2M -7pot dragons breath x brain strain
1.7-2M -carolina reaper red
1.5-2M -carolina reaper purple [free gift]
1.5-1.8M -apocalypse chocolate scorpion
1.5M -7pot lava choc x bubblegum gp*
1.4M -7pot borg 9 yellow
1.2M -jay’s peach ghost x bhut jolokia white
1.2M -bombay morich orange**
*ambiguous as to what “gp” means, methinks either “gnarly pheno” or “ghost pepper”. On the one hand, pictures of the pods on the website had bumpy skin and had the word “gnarly” included at the end of the variety name superimposed on the images. But since the pods shown look longer and more ghost-like than the usual rounded or squat-pointy shape i imagine when i hear “7-pot”, plus the text description mentions “lack of bleeding calyx that bbg is well-known for”, suggests to my mind that “bubblegum gp” may be a 7bbg+ghost hybrid where the ghost genes were dominant. Anyone know anything on this?
**not familiar with this variety, but the website touted it as one of their fastest, earliest, most prolific producers; so much so that they said all these things explicitly in the write-up, where most of their blurbs state always the same cliches “grows to 2 metres, yields lots of great hot pods, excellent for powder.” Is this a name any of you guys know/grow? See more below.
Potential grow list:
SEEDLINGS, WHICH I WILL INEVITABLY BUY FROM LOCAL GREENHOUSE IN SPRING:
(won’t be able to resist, and each year they seem to have something different)
???k -depends what they offer
SEEDS, SAVED FROM LAST YEAR’S PEPPERS:
(the goats and hjhc yielded the best out of these)
1.4M -chocolate bhutlah
700k-1M -fatalii peach
500-750k -bahamian goat
300k -habanero jamaican hot choc
SEEDS, SAVED FROM LAST & PREVIOUS YEARS’ PEPPERS:
100-450k -habanero (generic/unknown type, possibly some caribbean red, seeds mixed together)
3-8k -jalapeno (generic/unknown type)
SEEDS (FREE GIFT) FROM ATLANTIC PEPPER SEEDS, 2021:
50-100k -dwarf chili tepin
Whether i start any of these seeds will depend upon how many of the already-started super ones i get, and whether i get the wherewithal to figure out how to house and keep 50+ juvenile plants in a small, poorly-insulated room, or decide do i just buy 30 seedlings again of habs, jalapeno, and whatever other exciting thing they have at the greenhouses nearby?
#3 – NOT INFALLIBLE: as it is my first time starting seeds, i was bound to make some mistakes and have done so already. Call them clerical errors. So i soaked my seeds (4:1 water/peroxide) in an ice cube tray prior to planting, and i stirred them occasionally to see if they’d sink as i heard some say this indicates viability/readiness (none of my seeds ever sank at all after 2 days). At some point i either stirred too vigorously or i bumped the table; at any rate, a couple seeds jumped into the next cell over, so my reaper red and d.b. x b.s. are mysteries which went in which cell of their tray. Then when planting, i may have not planted one (and therefore two) in the right place on the jpg x bjw and bombay morich tray, as it was getting late into the night. More on that later; now on to the grow! (after this legend of my seed layout in the trays)
#4 – QUANTITATIVELY PLEASED: after planting the 60 seeds on January 10, i was quite pleased to see two plants were sprouting after only three days: an apoc-choc-scorp, and a red reaper sporting a helmet-head. Next day i gingerly removed the seed casing with no apparent damage. A few more have emerged each day, and as of the 22nd i now have 31/60 up overall. Following the cell formula in the legend above, these are which cells have plants:
6/6* -carolina reaper red
1/6* -7pot dragons breath x brain strain
4/6 -c22 “moruga pheno”
5/6 -carolina reaper purple
1/6 -7pot borg 9 yellow
4/6 -7pot oracle
5/6 -apocalypse chocolate scorpion
5/6 -7pot lava choc x bubblegum gp
0/6 -jay’s peach ghost x bhut jolokia white
0/6 -bombay morich orange
Less than ideal results, however, with six varieties a great success, two singletons, and two complete no-shows. It sucks that my only two ghost-types are both nowhere to be seen, and after they called the bombay their greatest producer, I’m a little disappointed none have arrived for me. I would much rather have seen 3/6 of every type come up, versus the lopsided results experienced to date.
#5 – THE WAY FORWARD: Debating on dropping a couple more seeds of the weak- and zero-performers just into the same cells i already planted in, and considering trying the paper-towel germination process. Has anyone tried using the Instant Pot method?
Just in case all of those 4 types continue to flop, probably also going to do up a tray with 3 seeds each saved from my pods from last year of the chocolate bhutlah, fatalii peach, bahamian goat, and habanero jamaican hot choc, for some more variety. I enjoyed all of these last year, and starting out this much earlier gives me a better chance of getting decent yields of ripened pods this time around.
Most importantly, I’m having a lot of fun with this hobby. Now that i invested some money into equipment, I feel like I’m really having a proper go at it. Here’s hoping i can wind up with a massive surplus this season and use it as a way to get more into sauce making.
Here are pics of the first two to pop, current wide shot of the girls (nasty empty tray in the middle), and one of the same one from the first one, but today (now, with leaves!):
Thanks for your interest, let's see if i actually follow through on doing regular updates!
Good luck this season.
