HabaneroHead Grow Log

Hi Everyone,

I've been reading this forum since 3 months, and all I can say is: guys, You are amazing!!!
I saw AJ's unbelievable harvests, and all the crazy setups you were made, and they inspired me to start my own growing season.
So let me thank you all the knowledge you put together in this forum, and the patience of my girlfriend, who lets me play with these evil plants in our 34 square meters flat.
I always was a chili fan, but this is the very first year I am trying to grow them.
It started with a pack of Red Habanero, in February, which I purchased in a local store in Budapest, which is selling exotic (!) foods.
Yes...exotic, but I have to add, that I am living in Hungary, and these kind of staff is quite rare here.
It was love at first bite.
Then I decided to try to germinate them with the wet paper towel method, and 25 pieces out of 36 have succesfully germinated. (69.4%)
Let me share you some pics about my setup, and the different stages of my little babies

I started to germinate the seeds on the 14th of February 2011 (Valentines Day, I told you it was love ), with chamomile tea.
Then on the 22nd of February, they were alive! I did not use any heating mat, (as it is not available in Hungary...), I just put them on the radiator.

On the same dey I put them into soil, and on the 28th of February I could see the little hooks on the top of the soil.

I was surfing on the Internet to find a setup which would hold the lamp I bought, but they were only available on eBay, and with postage it could cost more than 100 bucks...
Therefore I got some beer, and went to my friend to make one on our own.

Here is what we made, the lamp is a T8, 18W one with a special, Osram Fluora 6500K bulb:

As you can see it was spreading the light everywhere around it, and the low heat of the lamp was also lost, so I put it in a paper box, and I covered the inside with aluminum foil. I also made one to the top of it, so it could hold the light and heat inside it, and made a nice temperature of 25-26 Celsius.

As you can see I put 2-3 seedlings into one cup just to save some space.

10th of March

It meant I had to separate them... I tried to be as gentle as I could, and I put them into 9 cm diameter small pots.

16th of March, before separation:

After the repotting they were just growing and growing... Which is always a great news!!!

28th of March

I started to give them some Epsom-salt as foliar spray, and they became green like this:

I've seen on this forum, that bottom watering could be beneficial for the plants, so I used this method in the watering, which happened once a week, and only, when they started wilting. As the roots started to come out the drainage holes of the pots, I re-potted them into bigger ones. 5 of them went to 3.8 liter pots (around 1 gallon if I am right), 6 of them went to around to 1-1.5 liter pots (used Coke-bottles, cut in half, with some holes on the bottom). The soil: 20% perlit, 80% planting (seedling) soil. I have 19 plants, out of which now I have 11 in bigger pots. I traveled home to my parents to this weekend, and got 5 another 1.5 liter wide bottles, so I can repot another 5... I will give two of them to one of my friend, so I will only have 1 left, which is the weakest one... Huh.

8th of April:

I left my babies alone for this weekend, but I am traveling back soon, so within a few hours it will turn out whether they survived this 3-days adventure. They will surely need at least 10 hours dose of artificial light during the night, as we had a cloudy weekend.



Logging off, I have to catch my train.
Hopefully you will like my log, and if you are interested, I will post more pictures about my plants.

 

[mmcdermott1]

Very nice start HH. Very addicting habit all of us have..and now you have Good luck with the rest of your season.

Happy growing!

 

[Wolfhound]

Good looking plants you got there! Good luck with everything!

 

[Justaguy]

Very nice. We love

 

[AlabamaJack]

welcome to the forum HH...

and the harvests I have had over the past couple of seasons...I got the good folks here at THP to thank for that...the knowledge and experience of the growers on here is amazing...to me it is almost limitless....and what's even better is...they are willing to share it with you...

 

[HabaneroHead]

Hello Everyone!

It has been a while since I made my first post on THP. I would like to thank you all the good words you wrote, and I upload some more pics about my pepper progress.

19th of April

22nd of April, the card is 11 cm tall

02nd of May, flowers are forming in the crown, together with forks

03rd of May, overall picture about my pepper forest

As you can see, one week ago they just exploded, within one week, they grew from 15-16cm to 21-23cm, and started to form flowers, which is amazing.
I am planning to pinch out the flowers from the crown and from the first two nodes, to encourage growth. This method worked for several years in case of other chillies. (according to my parents experiences)

But I have a problem...
Two of my plants show some symptoms of disease.
I had one leaf which had a light, paper-like big spot on it (I removed the leaf), and its newest leafes have distortion with some browning. The effected (or infected?) leafes started to turn yellow, which I beleive is not a good sign. I have to tips: over-fertilizing or sunburn. I would not like to think of fungus or bacteria :-)


I am watering them every week, to be honest, I watered them 12 days ago, and the soil feels like moist (I am bottom watering them), so I do not think it can be overwatering. However I gave them some fertilizers (NPK), but with a very very weak solution.
I am giving them Epsom salt and Calcium-nitrate as foliar feed every week.
Do you maybe know what can be the reason? All of the peppers are treated in the same way, only these two seems to be suffering from something.
I will appreciate any advice.

Spot on leafe:

Distorted leafe

I am also planning to repot them soon into 20 liter pots (appox 5 gallon), as the roots are coming out the drainage holes.

 

[SRBII]

to the obsession

Looks like you have done your homework and are reaping the rewards. Nice looking start you got going
Best of luck on your grow.

 

[CoreySteel]

Very inspiring thread!
Good luck with your chillies.

Too bad for those spots, no idea from my part.

 

[HabaneroHead]

Hi Everyone!

I disappeared for another 3 month, again, but I am back to update you, and to show you the progress I achieved in growing Habaneros.

6th of May Status
My light setup became small compared to the size and the number of my plants.
So I made a hard decision: to keep only 3 of them, and to transport the rest to my parents.

So I made a hard decision: I kept only 3 of them, and transported the rest to my parents.

The ones staying were in 1 gallon pots, so I decided to repot them to approx 3 gal ones. Do you see the rootball?
11th of May

Then picked the buds from them as IMO they were undersized.
Now I know that if the plant does not feel to have the ideal growing conditions, it won't make fruits, and won't stop growing.

20th of May

My parents kept 8 plants, out of which two went to 5 gal pots, 2 was potted to used buckets (3 gal), and the rest was put to their garden. two out of the 4 in the garden had a really hard time after planting out, they got sunburn, and almost died, but by August, they have been recovered.

 

[HabaneroHead]

Then I decided to repot the ones in my flat to 5 gal pots.
1st of June

In the beginning I had at least 20 plants, out of which only 11 was kept by me and my parents, so imagine what: the rest was given to friends
Of course I cannot show you pics about the progress they done, but let me show some more pics about my Habanero Babies

1 month later, on the 9th of July, the plants in the big pots at my parents look like this:

It is an unique plant: all of my plants had two forks coming from the crown, but this has 3 of them :-) More branches, more pods.
Overall I can tell you that the progress of my flat-plants did not went so well, as the plants were getting bigger, we had smaller and smaller space in the flat, so I had to move them outside.
Unfortunately we have a large tree in front of our flat, which gives shade to the whole building, so no direct sunlight reached my plants.
I still do not know how I could oversee it...

And one more rule seems to be true: the less grower attention, the happier plants.
Seriously, my Mum was watering them twice a week, very small amount of fertilizer was applied (as I was not at home), and they had bigger, happier plants, which started to make pods on the 9th of July...

Look at those beauties:
24th of July

What is more interesting is that the ones in the garden did go very well, though they did not grow big, they became to be bushy, and setting pods:

The ones which went to the broken buckets did well, but they sayed tiny, with no side-branches.
Look at the evil-looking chicken looking at my plant:

7th of August
Plant doing great in the bucket. I counted 55 pods altogether on the two bucket-plants

Some kind of illness on the bucket-plant-pod. Maybe blossom-end-rot? Lack of calcium?

Habanero bush in the garden. See my foot for size reference. It is 60 cm wide, and 40 cm tall. And has at least 50 pods, just like its sister.

 

[HabaneroHead]

Second ripening pod.

Another pic

Pods on the terrace-plants are getting real big

And the plant also, I counted 84 pods on this single plant, and 64 on her sister, together with the 55 on the bucket ones, and the 100 in the garden, I will hopefully end up with a nice harvest :-)

I was reading about the heat waves in the U.S. and seen the discussions about the superhot flower drops.
I experienced the same.
Two weeks ago when I was home, we had 35 Celsius degrees for a couple of days. The flowers were falling down to the ground like snow. The plants were setting buds, flowers, then nothing, but the flower drop happened. There were only a couple of pods on them.
Then I left them alone for 2 weeks, the weather has cooled down to 20 Celsius degrees, and surprisingly when I was at home this weekend, I found there were many pods forming. I guess it was due to the mild weather.

Another thing is that Hungary is having the rainiest summer of the last 100 years, which means, that I cannot mention a single day, when we did not have rain... It obviously does not effect the plants on the terrace, but only the ones in the garden.
They are not showing any effect on their leaves, but the first ripe pod I harvested held black seeds in it, which is I guess due to the continious rains.