glog GyO = 2025 = BACK IN BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL PLANTS MATTER

growyourown · Feb 25, 2025

welcome back, folks, and thanks for watching!

the big batch of seeds hit the cells on the night of the 16th (and some are already up now, since i slacked so long on completing and posting this - i really need to get better at glogging).

here is what was sown:

as you see, i was forced to choose a few extra non-dark varieties because although i mathematically had room to fit 7x each of my dark ones, keeping each type to a "six-pack" in the grid is much easier to look at and keep track of.

here is the layout of the trays:

and here's what we have so far for life on the earlier starts:
(rear tray is rocotos, front tray tazzies and choc bhutlah)

6/9 tas black, 2/3 giant yellow (third was up but died due to helmet), 3/3 epfh, 2/3 choc bhutlah, 0/3 rio hualaga, 0/3 scotch brains yellow. with the casualty it's 13/24 overall. really pissed off about the brains, and glad i dropped another three on the second sowing. i will have to check my records as to whether i even had any germ on those last year...

i will also have to get the pots ready to up-cup these tazzies.

now for the new ones up as of today:
(eye test: how many can you spot?)

there are 11 (but 2 are helmets thus more camouflaged). the other 40-cell only has one up and it's a helmet too. and the 24 cells of black and assorted types also nothing up yet. going to go and rotate them on the mats now, something i forgot/was too lazy to ever do in the last ten days.

and an updated pic of the tazzies with many first leaves formed (and a big EPFH in the back tray):
GAME ON, GROWDOWNERS!

wishing all of you the best with your grows. today is that day for me where the first bunch of seeds pop all at once and it is uplifting to see your efforts reward you so wonderfully.

smell ya later,
-GyO

growyourown · Feb 25, 2025

since this post has likes and the issue it was referencing has been fixed, i'll put a dad joke here - my favourite so far from the page-a-day calendar i got this year.

Don't start a pillow fight with Death, unless you're willing to deal with the reaper cushions.

and i guess you could omit the pillow stuff for a pepper joke like:

Don't eat the hottest of hot peppers unless you can handle the reaper-cussions.

growyourown · Feb 26, 2025

quick update as well with a number of additional hooks showing today:

totals:

just mspaint-ing screenshots is the way to go for now, since i'm recording it all anyway and the copy/paste of cells did not work, but maybe i need to emulate the thp background colour in the white space though so it's not as offensive to your eyes.

but i, of course, use dark mode...

growyourown · Mar 26, 2025

welp what else is new? took a month to make an update, sorry to keep you hanging off a cliff-edge:
(it's actually quite boring, although mostly all positive)

no news is good news? things are chugging along here. we've had a few early ones not make it, and we've had a few bonus late arrivals. diagrams and stats to follow, following the rest of the words and pics.

3/24 table overview:

we did not have a third round of sowing, as the number of plants and ratio of blackness i've already achieved is acceptable for my needs (see below), and i didn't have any heat mat space without up-potting a bunch of them off the table to the tent-structure, which had yet to have been assembled.

but many of them badly need to come out of their cells, as you see (along with the blackness):

but instead of doing that right now, i'm here posting instead. now that the tent-structure has been erected, and i've gotten my up-pot pots washed (weekend was fraught with distractions, by that i mean i was lazy af), i plan to move all the largest specimens from their cell into the pots as many as i can each night until all with any leaves are transplanted. there are a few quite fresh ones who could stay a bit in the small cells, because quite frankly with the action this last week i feel like some may still be yet to come and not to flush all the starter cells.

the tent, waiting:

(needs a new reflective foil blanket wrapped 'round it)

the older kids (the rocotos and tasmanian black, one of whom will be my champion for the growdown):

so who have we got here, now:
2nd sow chart:

(some of the "Not-black" group are just young ones that popped this week, and likely some/most will go black. anyways, of the black types that germed i am close to 75% showing black, so the only complaint is that "NERO" (NEyde x Reaper Orange) is 33% confirmed green and possibly only 16% black)

totals including first sow:

real bummer about nothing sprouting from the two gifts that came in my #growdown2025 package from @Bou, as i was touched that he chose to contribute to my black grow theme with some favourites from his own collection. because they were all placed in the same 12-cell tray, and not one thing ever came up, i wonder if it was something i did such as the tray being contaminated or i watered it too much or something; it is definitely mouldy inside now...

nonetheless, i'll soldier on and just try them again next year. thanks again @Bou and to @Downriver as well for hooking me up with @PaulG Purple Thunder which did grow 4 of 6 seeds i planted. you guys really made me feel like a part of the community by offering your generosity. PPATB!

THAT'S ALL ON THE PEPPER FRONT...
but for those of you who read my glog last year, you may remember our family welcomed a baby in 2024 and it so happens to have been on this date. :bday:

my son Malcolm is 1 today, well done kiddo! :bday:

Bou · Mar 27, 2025

You're on a roll @growyourown! Sorry to hear about the BJS and CGN not sprouting

I haven't grown BJS in a while, so it could be a viability issue. On the other hand, I sowed a lot of CGN this year and had a very good germination rate, although they took longer than most to emerge.(>3 weeks).

Your Tasmanian Black are looking great by the way!

Downriver · Mar 27, 2025

Things are shaping up, GYO. Plants are looking good and healthy. :bday:

to Malcolm!

growyourown · Mar 27, 2025

thanks fellas! i have the day off tomorrow, but i'll looking after the boy; hopefully when he naps i can get a start on the transplanting.

growyourown · Apr 12, 2025

UPDATE: 11 APRIL
as i wait for my video game to install... ...cyberpunk 2077, is it any good btw?
everyone has been up-potted and all seem to be doing well.

lol i called the tasmanian black plants "aboriginals" in my chart totals, because they are australians who are not "black" but also not "not-black".

the volunteer showed up after i did the up-potting from the first round and used the contents from the ungerminated cells of those trays to top up soil levels in the pots following the transplanting. it's fuzzy, so it's all but guaranteed to be a rio hualaga, as it's the only unaccounted-for pubescens seed.

and now for some current, though cursory, pics:
since getting all the potting done, the tent won't hold all the plants. each of the two shelves can only hold a max (like MAX, it's very precarious the way i have it) of 33 plants in a 7-6-7-6-7 configuration. so the largest plants (from the early sow) that can't fit are out on the table, so they get no humidity or heat retention, but they are under the newest and brightest light:

upper shelf, with next best light but/and the built-in fan exhaust makes it super hot and humid in here:

lower shelf, with cheap-but-still-meant-for-plants led light strips (expendable, should ever water from upper shelf escape and ruin them)

i plan to rotate the plants from the upper to the lower shelf every few days, to try to balance their growth and give them each some reprieve from the intense heat/humidity on the top shelf, and i ought to install the little fan i have to cut down on some of that.

gone and done it, once again...
2024: "i grow/keep too many plants. had 79 this year and my beds were too crowded. really need to try to cut to a max of 60 next season"
2025: "75 is fewer than 79, so i mean..."

Downriver · Apr 12, 2025

Plants are looking good, GYO. Looks like you're gonna be popping at the seams. Those aren't @Bou-babies on the top shelf, are they? :shock:

growyourown · Apr 12, 2025

first plant pic is of the table outside the tent, i had those tazzies in the tent for a few days before the rest of the stragglers got potted up...

...but they're too tall now

MarcV · Apr 12, 2025

Those plants look great!

growyourown · Wednesday at 11:05 PM

i'm a terrible host; no update for almost 2 months.

but i don't see myself as someone who has fans, so i don't owe anyone anything lol. but i do like keeping a glog, it just hasn't been a priority for me and especially when you are in that time where there's nothing to show because your plants are not growing much because they're maxed in their pots and need a transplant, but you don't because it's only 2-3 weeks until outside time, but then it takes four weeks for consistently acceptable temperatures to arrive.

but we are in the dirt and the elements now!

plant-out to the backyard raised beds took place june 1st, despite a low for that night forecast to be 2c, i would not have time to do it on a weekday evening, so sunday it must be, and all night temps now are looking like 8-9c at worst. everyone survived, but some coworkers of mine said they had frost on their grass/windshields monday morning, so i had been a bit worried all day at work.

but we're looking good; here are some crappy pics i just took at 8:30pm so my apologies that they are poorly lit:

some of my planter beds are going to be done after this year, though. last year i used metal shipping banding to wrap and tighten the oldest ones in background row of last pic, but they are bowing out again and the bottoms are rotting, and the equally old small square one at left (which came pre-banded when i got it) and the one in middle row rightmost (one year newer than the oldest) are rotting badly too.

i think i should probably be able to acquire more wooden crates from work again, but witnessing a 4-5 year lifespan on them almost makes me want to look elsewhere. however, with the dream goals of doing a massive renovation/extension on the house, a new deck with built-in weatherproof beds is a distant possibility, where it might make sense to just keep using "disposable" crates for the next few years, versus buying pre-fab corrugated galvanized beds.

here's the map/legend of what plants are where in the beds:
(i'll figure out which plants are "really black" and note so on this grid on a future post)

and i tried to use the boxes strategically
as you see the notes above each one, i informally noted location-based performance.

the boxes marked "deck shade" receive (nicolas cage sarcastic surprise face) shade from the deck, and they feature room behind the box for heavy branches to sprawl, so ipso facto they are my de facto rocoto locations.

the "overshadowed" boxes tend to do worse as the plants in the adjacent "grows big" boxes get bigger and obscure the sunshine getting to the former, and thusly i put the taller specimens and less important ones into the "overshadowed" boxes, and divided types with 4-6 members to have half in each box designation to keep the varieties geographically close for ease of identification.

those in the "too much sun" box have generally underperformed as a result, from my determination, of getting too much sun. it seems to dry out quicker and the plants are always a little rougher than the other beds, and for this reason i didn't put any black-showing plants in here.

"newest box" isn't all that special and i make it support 12 plants, but it did well in its first year last year. "small square" has 5/6 of my tasmanian black growdown plants, but i'm still yet to choose which will compete. and it's probably a mistake to grow them all in one box together versus individual bags, but in all honesty, i know my chance is gone to win it.

hope you liked my update and that you're all having a good year/season with your own grows. this may not be my personal best, but it's all good in the hood so far (and black asf, homie).

i'll take some better and closer pics "soon" (in the next month at my current rate)

salutations,

- GyO