HeatMiser's 2021 Glog

Happy New Year!
 
With the new year comes a new Glog, hoping that 2021 is much better than 2020 (low bar, I know). I'm already pumped to get things going.
 
Here's what I'll be growing this year
 
5 Gal Kratkys
 
Fatalii - Always wanted to grow these. I've had germination issues in the past. Hopefully I'll get to finally grow one this year.
Antep Aci Dolma - I've read amazing things about this pepper. Looking forward to using it in the kitchen.
Carolina Reaper - The one and only. The king of sting. I just had to grow one of these.
Paquime Hybrid - These Jalapenos are gigantic. I see some Poppers in the future.
Yum-Yum Hybrid - Growing these for my wife. She wanted to try a different sweet pepper.
Habanero - A classic. I'm growing this one to fully use the space I have available for my 5 gal buckets. This might get axed if a more interesting variety shows up.
 
 
1 Gal Kratkys
 
Chiltepin - I didn't get to see this one set pods last year due to a broad mite attack. I'm trying again this year.
Numex Twilight - Carrying this one over from my current 2020 grow.
Mystery Pepper - Carrying this one over from my current 2020 grow.
 
3 Gal Fabric Pots
 
Piri-Piri - I follow Chillichump on YouTube and he's all over this one. Figured I should try it and see what I think.
Bahamian Goat - I also follow Khang Starr and he mentions this one all the time. 
Sugar Rush Striped - These look soo cool, like bacon in pepper form. 
Death Spiral - Cool name, don't know what to expect.
Khang Starr Lemon Starrburst - This must be one of the most hyped-up peppers recently. Let's see what the fuzz is about.
BJh-1 Purple Thunder - Got my hands on some seeds from the A-Train. Thanks for adding these PaulG! The pods are really gorgeous. Hopefully I can get them to grow successfully.
 
This grow is going to be a challenge for me in a good way. This is the most plants I'll have ever taken care of, and also I'll be branching out a little and try to grow the 3 Gal Fabric Pots outdoors. I hope I can keep those plants to a manageable size until they move outside.
 
Seeds were already put in their rockwool cubes earlier today:

 
Just waiting for germination. Let's see how this year (and grow) turns out!
 
Hope you guys are having a good start to 2021...
 

 

[HeatMiser]

These are all Variegated Goliath Jalapeño from the community grow project.

 
That's awesome Paul, my all-white plant did not produce a single flower. It looked great though, but then perished during the heat wave. If I get the opportunity to grow another white plant, I'll play around with grafting it to another Jalapeno plant.

 

[PaulG]

 
That's awesome Paul, my all-white plant did not produce a single flower. It looked great though, but then perished during the heat wave. If I get the opportunity to grow another white plant, I'll play around with grafting it to another Jalapeno plant.

After watching the stunted growth rate of the white foliage
I’m not sure if a totally white plant will be viable. I think our
best hope is a green plant with lots of white foliage yielding
a mix of plain and variegated pods. Even the white/ivory foliage
is slow growing and not prolific with regard to flowering. Every
variegated pod is a victory!

 

[HeatMiser]

The site is back!

It's been a while, I'm glad things are working again. I kept coming back and the update was still in progress. I also got really busy the past few weeks. So now it's time for an update.

My outdoor plants are definitely doing better than I expected at the start of the season. This was originally meant to be an experiment with my main grow being the Kratky buckets, but I think I'm going to switch that around next year. Here's how things are looking at the moment:

Here's a closer view at the Sugar Rush Stripey - I still don't know if this will be on-pheno or not, but it is currently loaded with pods:

The Piri-Piri had been pretty much sitting there all season long, then in the past few weeks it went into pod-producing mode, and now there are quite a few of them. I think this one is on-pheno as well.

The chinenses outdoors are totally outproducing my indoor plants, so unless I figure out how to get them to set pods, I will be growing chinenses outdoors from now on. At least there's that option now.

Finally, the only 3 reapers from my 5 gal kratky plant. These are currently sitting in the dehydrator and are eventually going to turn into powder

 

[CaneDog]

Hey HM. Welcome back! The outdoor plants look like they're doing great. Reapers may be few, but they're gnarly.

Hope the Stripey comes across for you.

 

[HeatMiser]

Hey HM. Welcome back! The outdoor plants look like they're doing great. Reapers may be few, but they're gnarly.

Hope the Stripey comes across for you.

Thanks CD,

Yes, the outdoor plants have been doing great so far. There are a few things I'll tweak next season, but I'll definitely be growing more plants outdoors. They required a lot less maintenance than the indoor kratky, and they still produced a fair bit even if the plants were not as big. So overall, it's been a pretty positive experience.

Looking forward to seeing how the plot is doing! Already saw some pics and it seems you're gearing up for a good harvest.

 

[HeatMiser]

Well it's been a while...

Let's just say life got really, really busy during the last part of the summer. I still have A LOT going on, but I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

The plants are doing fine too. I have downsized my indoor grow to 4 plants, and the plants outdoors are full of pods, which hopefully will ripen soon. Here are a few pics I've taken recently:

Indoor plants - left to right: we have the cutting I took from the original AAD when it got the droopies. Next is another AAD I started from seed just in case none of the cuttings would make it. Then I had to trim down the Fatalii which is now bouncing back, and finally the Reaper.

A harvest of chinenses. Top to bottom: Bahamian Goat (off pheno), Khang Starr Lemon Starrburst (off-pheno), Habanero. Chinenses did great outdoors, so that's where the next crop of chinenses will be grown next year.

Sugar Rush Stripeys - these ones are the right pheno and fortunately I was able to isolate these two pods to grow again in the future. The not-so-good thing about these is that they seem prone to BER.

 

[PaulG]

Alright, @HeatMiser, some pods coming your way,
good to see. I hope our few days of rainy weather
aren’t cramping your style too much this week.

 

[talas]

Some great looking pods harvested from your garden Heatmiser funny you saying about BER my daughter has had the same issue on stripeys on one plant but the other is fine.
Glad to see your going outside more with your plants as well.

 

[HeatMiser]

Alright, @HeatMiser, some pods coming your way,
good to see. I hope our few days of rainy weather
aren’t cramping your style too much this week.

Thanks Paul - the peppers seemed to have responded well to the rain. I can see some Purple Thunder are starting to ripen. Weather is going to start turning really soon now, so I hope the rest start ripening up as well!

 

[HeatMiser]

Some great looking pods harvested from your garden Heatmiser funny you saying about BER my daughter has had the same issue on stripeys on one plant but the other is fine.
Glad to see your going outside more with your plants as well.

Yeah, this is my first time dealing with BER. It really isn't fun and it was the only plant to be affected by it. I hope at some point I get a plant with a bit more resistance to it and get seeds from it.

 

[HeatMiser]

Well, I just wanted to close this one out with an update...

We moved to a bigger place, so things have been really busy the past few months. The good thing is that I will be able to grow more plants next year. As for this year's plants, I harvested the last peppers of the season last week. Here's a few pics that I took over the past couple of months:

I managed to finally get a ripe pod of the Antep Aci Dolma cutting I took this summer. These are winners in our book, and they have the perfect heat to make stuffed peppers with:

Here's one of the many harvests I got from the Purple Thunder, Habanero and Bahamian Goat. All those plants were super productive. I'll take the hint and now I'll only grow chinenses outdoors:

Awesome coloration on the Purple Thunders. This is an awesome peppers - good job with this cross @PaulG !

I turned the Purple Thunder peppers into powder, and I'll distribute them to family and friends so they stay warm during the winter:

My last harvest consisted of Piri-Piri (African Devil) and Death Spiral. Both of these took FOREVER to ripen and were picked in early Dec. Here's the Piri-Piri - let me know if these are on-pheno:

This is the last harvest of Death Spirals. They look super gnarly:

And these are the nastiest-looking of the bunch:

Overall, this was a very successful year for me despite some ups and downs and things getting super busy towards the end. For the next and final post, I will write a summary of each variety I grew and some notes on things I will change next season.

 

[PaulG]

Some awesome results, my friend. Quite an extended
season for us in the PNW this year, eh? Our yard has not
seen frost, yet, this year.

Glad to see the Purple Thunder did so well for you this season.
You pulled some great looking pods! If you get a minute and don't
mind, would you post a pic to the PT Community thread?

 

[CaneDog]

Some great looking pods there, HM - and congrat's on the new growing space. Those A.D. Piri Piri look dead on to me, though when they ripen during the heat of the season they can be a brilliant red versus the more orange leaning red that tends to show when they ripen in cooler weather.

 

[Downriver]

Nice harvest HM!

Good looking Antep Aci Dolma, and those tails on the Death Spirals are impressive. The DS I grew had no tails to speak of, but damn hot just the same lol.

 

[HeatMiser]

Some awesome results, my friend. Quite an extended
season for us in the PNW this year, eh? Our yard has not
seen frost, yet, this year.

Glad to see the Purple Thunder did so well for you this season.
You pulled some great looking pods! If you get a minute and don't
mind, would you post a pic to the PT Community thread?

Thanks @PaulG, this was a good season for me, finally having some success outdoors. I hope to replicate that next year - hopefully we'll get a productive season as well.

 

[HeatMiser]

Some great looking pods there, HM - and congrat's on the new growing space. Those A.D. Piri Piri look dead on to me, though when they ripen during the heat of the season they can be a brilliant red versus the more orange leaning red that tends to show when they ripen in cooler weather.

Thanks CD! Having more space is nice, especially with 2 kids. I was expecting the Piri Piri to get to that brilliant red stage, but had to settle for the orange-ish since they took forever to ripen. I'm glad they are on-pheno, since I always try to isolate seeds to keep my strains pure.

 

[HeatMiser]

Nice harvest HM!

Good looking Antep Aci Dolma, and those tails on the Death Spirals are impressive. The DS I grew had no tails to speak of, but damn hot just the same lol.

Thanks DR! I was impressed by the Death Spirals too - unfortunately I didn't have success in isolating some flowers since those tails sure look mean!

The AAD is definitely a must-grow. They take a while to ripen, but they are definitely great tasting peppers. I gave a plant to my MIL, and we all tried them at her place. They were super sweet, but she didn't think they were spicy. When I realized that she had cut away the placenta/ribs I asked her to try another piece - we got a completely different reaction from her!

 

[Siv]

Great harvest and lovely looking pods! I'm especially impressed with the AAD as I tried this year and had no success.

 

[ahayastani]

Thanks CD! Having more space is nice, especially with 2 kids. I was expecting the Piri Piri to get to that brilliant red stage, but had to settle for the orange-ish since they took forever to ripen. I'm glad they are on-pheno, since I always try to isolate seeds to keep my strains pure.

I concur with CD about the colour. In my case (tropical climate), the peppers are a bit larger and some show purple pigmentation when they are unripe. A fantastic pepper IMO.

 

[HeatMiser]

Just some final thoughts on this season - some things I learned the hard way this year and some good surprises:

No more than 4 plants growing in 5 gal Kratkys. I started the season with 6 plants growing in 5 gal buckets. Everything is fine and dandy until you have to support them and periodically change the nutrients. It requires a lot of maintenance and gets old quickly. 4 Kratky plants seems to be the sweet spot for me.

It's worth doing DWC instead of simple Kratky. My AAD got the dreaded droopies. Fortunately I was able to save a cutting and got that to fruit. From that point forward I decided to add an air stone to my 5 gal buckets and never looked back. I got to sleep better at night knowing that the roots got all the oxygen they need.

Not all varieties produce the same in Hydro. This is something I'd like to get to the bottom of. I grew a total of 9 plants in hydro, but got mixed results. Chinenses did the worst - I got 0 Fatalii pods and only 3 decent Reapers. The plants were beautiful, but they kept dropping all the flowers. Annuums were not an exception either - We got about 3 Yum-Yum pods, and only 1 Chiltepin (1!). The rest of the plants produced a lot of pods.

Got great results with the plants I grew outside. This was a very pleasant surprise since I totally got a taste of what a proper grow outdoors can produce. It was mostly hands-off and the plants grew surprisingly well for being in a mostly-shaded, north-facing backyard. It was a bit of work at first, with taking the plants outside in the morning and inside at night while night temps were adjusting, but it definitely paid off.

So, I'll just finish with the last picture - Another AAD pod has ripened and I just picked it this morning. That's definitely one good thing about hydro - you can enjoy this all year long: