glog Harmonic_Heat's 2025 Impulsive High Altitude Scrubland Grow Attempt (near the foothills of Denver, Colorado)...what could go wrong?!

(that's what my brain told me one fateful May day so here I am! )

Harmonic_Heat's 2025 Grow Log

I like to ramble; bear with me! "Quick" background on my gardening/pepper growing experience and what led to this impulsive grow attempt. I haven't grown peppers since 2009 and only the one season, but, being in south Louisiana at the time that ran late. I've grown basil and other herbs here and there since moving to the Denver area but after buying this house my neighbors made my life a living hell (and still is ten years later) I mostly gave up on using my yard for anything but growing thistle and weeds while I stay indoors to avoid them. This summer I decided to torture myself and grow a couple of pepper plants after finding some red and chocolate "habaneros" (plenty of misshapen, odd pods, not sure what they were but had some heat, esp the chocolates) at a local Asian market back in early May.

I picked out 12 plants online, marinated on my decision for the evening to make sure they were what I wanted after paring my list down to stay reasonable...and then at 1130 pm the site's prices all went half off for Memorial Day and I wound up ordering 30 (mostly pairs) And then I bought 4 more at a nursery around the corner that I didn't expect to have anything but orange habs and jalapenos.

So this is the grow list (purchased online from chileplants.com unless otherwise noted):

1x Aurora
1x Black Pearl (local purchase)
1x Carolina Reaper (local purchase)
1x Centennial Rainbox
1x Scotch Bonnet (local purchase)
1x Trinidad Scorpion (local purchase)

2x Aribibi Gusano
2x Bequinho "yellow" (sent as mild substitutions for a similar pod-shaped hot variety, Chupetinho, I had chosen)
2x Candlelight Mutant
2x Dreamcatcher x Thunder Mountain
2x 7 Pot Bubblegum
2x Bahamian
2x Chocolate Brain Strain
2x Dragon's Breath
2x Fatalii
2x Mayan Habanero
2x Primofatalii
2x Sugar Rush Stripey
2x White Habanero #2
2x Wiri Wiri

Shipping went a bit sideways, or at least not according to their shipping terms, after some emails I was refunded part of my shipping cost and they said they would update their shipping terms to be more clear. I will say their customer service was/is top notch and I will likely order from them again next time I grow peppers. In short I paid for 3-day shipping but wound up getting 5 day shipping because they packed them Saturday figuring I'd get them Wednesday (UPS isn't that competent for my destination, they often add a day to original delivery dates) but they didn't show up until Thursday afternoon/near evening. I don't have a long grow season here so any setbacks can be costly if not "fatal" depending on which strain. They showed up looking fairly yellow/faded (some worse than others) and in exceptionally watered condition, 5 days like that in the dark, arrived in the condition I figured. Received June 5th.

Examples:




Versus locally bought (solo cups)...sorry for the varying white balance, cell phone camera. The most worrisome are the Wiri Wiri, Fatalii, Primofatalii, and Dragon's Breath.


I lucked out in a way in that the weather here was not too hot and was overcast a fair amount in the afternoons evenings for initial hardening off. Transplanting took a about a week due to other things going on and juggling time/energy. Started with the most root bound and yellow ones first. Bought buckets from Ace, not the cheapest but I prefer to support locally owned business over big box anything and a 1" hole saw.



Promix BK (not BX, not HP), bark based medium with mychorizzae and lime



Transplanting

Green tarp because I figured they might not like the light colored paint under the leaves and for easier clean-up later.

Eventually planning to move them to my yard where I've put down some cardboard and black plastic to cover the thistle and other weeds and give me an easy area to walk around. It's also the spot in my back yard that will receive the most sunlight from now until fall. Although, with the recent heat wave, kinda wondering if I should be more cautious heh. Plus the wind. 30-50+ MPH gusts aren't uncommon here. Also planning to put down some landscape matting or something so it's not too slippery (on a bit of a slope, on a hill). Not too enthused about it being black due to heat, but, I can worry about that later.


After getting everyone transplanted I finished mucking with the flowers and herbs I bought and have just been working on getting the peppers hardened off. Slowly moving them away from the house a bit each day. There was some minor sun scalding early on but overall they've done well all things considered. Have been fertilizing them with Botanicare Grow Pro 3-2-4 and their Cal-Mag offering. New growth looks greener but because they spent 5 days in waterlogged conditions, and then I decided to water them all deeply on one particular Tuesday even though the forecast called for ~40-50% chances of rain for the next 4-5 days and strong storms (never really rains at my house, can be about to get wrecked by massive storm clouds aaaaand...nothing, maybe a sprinkle), and then Mother Nature decided to actually rain at my house every single afternoon when she normally either goes to the south or north of my house no matter how promising. So they sat in extra wet conditions for another 5-6 days until that passed. And then we went from low-mid 80's to 4 days of ~100F temps a few days after that. I mulched them with straw this past Monday to help retain moisture and watered them well on Friday on day 2 of the heat wave. I've had to move some of the straw today after realizing how good of a job it was doing to help let the medium (can't call it soil really) try and dry out a bit. I expected the hot, dry weather to dry them out much quicker.

Today


Using my food thermometer (instant read) to check soil temps. Will be up-potting most of what's in the clay pots to buckets and other larger containers. Their medium temps are ~95-100F+ whereas the buckets are reading about 95 on the very edge but only 85 towards the center and the big, black containers have an even higher temperature delta from exterior to interior as expected. Have also been considering reflective coatings/materials to help reduce root temps.


I've been going out at night between midnight and 4AM and hunting for aphids and other pests. So far just a few aphids here and there, easily taken care of by hand, for now. Plenty of hover flies and wasps around, saw a green lacewing today, and a nice, large Phiddipus (jumping spider, she was very gravid...spiders are another passion of mine, used to keep and breed tarantulas and scorpions and sell to dealers, now I just keep a few, 17 or 18, down from 130 plus babies/egg sacs).

Anyway, that's enough for now I suppose. Wanted to get this log going and detail out the very basics. I have no idea if the super hots will produce much, if anything, given their current sizes and needed maturation time but I'm trying to be optimistic. I titled this "What could go wrong?" because we get such extreme temperature swings here as well as changing weather conditions (I've seen it numerous times where it's 80 one day and snowing the next, not so much in the summer, but fall and spring anything can happen), the sun here is exceptionally harsh because of the altitude (I'm around 5600' ASL I believe, just over a mile up) and "full sun" plants here sometimes aren't actually capable of handling it, plenty of pests around from Japanese beetles to aphids, and our growing season is relatively short since we often get late freezes up to Mother's Day if not a bit beyond making it hard to put stuff out even when it's nice in the spring and we might or might not get an early frost in the fall.

Thanks for reading if you're still with me! I'll post some more individual plant pics another time but you can see in some of the photos that the new growth is looking better, although, there are signs of being overwatered (bubbly/misshapen leaves). Hopefully that's behind me now though

 

[Harmonic_Heat]

Beautiful! You're very lucky to be able to admire hummingbirds. I only have hummingbirdsinsects here (I'll post a photo later), they look like little hummingbirds

I know! There's a greenbelt that I live in so I'm pretty lucky to have them where I'm at Had one female fly over about 45 cm from my face to check me out while I stood there yesterday watching her and moving real slow, kinda talking to her. They don't seem to care if I'm there so long as I don't move too fast. The sound of their wings is so cool!

the names of the varieties should probably be reversed

Thanks, you are correct! I meant to change them last night when I realized it after a few beers but I passed out on the couch until 5AM instead. I have been mixing these up in my head since day one, not sure why lol

The heat all last week and again yesterday through tomorrow (and again for a couple days later next week) has not been kind to some of my plants. Dropping flowers and one of my Mayans even started dropping pods Ate the two smaller ones, way too young, but didn't want 'em to go to waste, meant to eat the big one with my spaghetti last night but forgot to even eat dinner until 1130 and was downhill from there ha.


Also discovered that the white habanero in the middle of a bunch of other plants (other one is on the end) had two broken branches. One was still somewhat attached and providing water/nutes to the branch so I tied it up and will hope it works. The other had to be removed. I cut the scarred over end off to allow it to pull in water and stuck it in a jar of water. I doubt it'll work long term and may lose the pods but worth a shot. Partially for experimentation.

 

[Harmonic_Heat]

I ate the three Mayan pods that fell off early (they were still on but detached when I touched 'em, yellow stems), smaller ones didn't have any heat and the usual way unripe vegetal flavor, the third tasted the same but did have a bit of heat. Maybe jalapeno level.

I didn't post the DxTML that died that I mentioned a few posts ago. Not in my glog anyway. Pulled it out, some of the longest roots got torn, they look fine but I expected there to be more of them after two months. Main stem seemed fine, no damage, I put it back in the dirt after harvesting but it's been 4 days and I think I should just scrap it. Just wish I knew if the container was contaminated. Are there any diseases/infections that are bleach resistant?


38 peppers, one had a hint of turning orange so maybe they weren't too far from ripening, I ate 3 of the larger ones before thinking to weigh them. 1.1-1.3 grams each. 68 grams (doesn't include the small ones, I didn't want to throw them away as they'll be ok to snack on or sprinkle on a salad) or so if I hadn't eaten any. Not terrible. Flavor was relatively sweet and I swear I tasted a hint of orange in one of them. Slightly citrusy. Now I'm really looking forward to trying the ripened pods from the other plant (so far it's doing great).


Update on the Aurora's progression with the one pod ripening.


Nothing else has really changed other than growth but this morning I harvested the first ripe peppers that aren't ornamentals Bradley's Bahamian (L) and Thai Dragon (R). Both just finished ripening today, left one of the BBs to try in a few days to compare, but noticed they started changing color on Thursday so pretty fast shift. Plenty of Thais darkening towards the back of the plant and I expect the rest of the BBs to ripen in the next two weeks.



I ate a very small breakfast, 5-6 spoons of Grape Nuts in almond milk, then proceeded to try the BB as I've been really curious what they're like. They pack a wallop for their size! Ate half lengthwise to glance at the seeds, there was a fraction of a second where I tasted a surprisingly sweet and tangy flavor and started to think "Oh maaan that's delicious!" and then a quarter second later the heat hit full force all at once There is no build and it lasts for a minute or so then slowly fades.

Admittedly I am not used to eating raw peppers, I usually throw them in my cooking or use sauces, but I've had some (japs, serranos, Thais, orange habs, red habs, chocolate habs, lemon drop, some mean looking peach colored pepper with heat to match heh, and a few others I forget) and these were absolutely attention getters! Made me lightly cough once or twice, wasn't expecting that much heat, and my entire scalp was wet with sweat. Just wish I had been able to taste the flavor a bit longer lol, looking forward to trying a few more of them and making a fermented paste. They're gonna be amazing

I hesitate to guess at a Scoville rating with my limited experience so as not to muddy the waters if anyone pulls this post via Google but the vendor I got them from rates them as Hot (Sweet, Mild, Medium, Hot, Very Hot, Super Hot, Extremely Hot) and rates their Tabasco peppers as Very Hot and their cayennes as Hot like these. I can safely say these are at least cayenne heat. Hotter than the DxTML I tried above. Not as hot as the red habs I bought a couple months ago. Quite a gap I'll edit this post later today after I try the Thai Dragon and can compare them.

EDIT: Ate the Thai Dragon. A third at first for flavor, tasted like a Thai chile *shrugs*, a bit smaller and seemed to have a fairly high amount of seeds even for this kind of chile. Normally I don't mind seeds but spit a few out just out of annoyance ha! Took two more bites and finished the rest, feeling kinda disappointed due to no heat at first but that slowly built up to a decent level, wound up being not disappointed lol.

I would say that the Bradley's was noticeably hotter even taking the immediate heat out of the equation. Interesting.