HeatMiser's 2021 Glog

PaulG · Apr 22, 2021

HeatMiser said:
I'm wondering if I should get rid of the plant altogether to prevent it from spreading to the other ones. Would hate to do this, but if that's what it takes, then so be it.

I would just keep cutting off the affected leaves, HM.
Black spot is intractable, iso trying to cure it is futile. I
had a bad bac spot infection some seasons back, and
had to let the affected containers lie fallow for a year so
the bacteria would die out. Seems to have worked;
problems have been sporadic since then. Quick removal
of affected leaves is important.

Other than that, your grow looks great. I'm afraid our
week of Summer is about over for awhile. Dang, I was
just getting used to the decent weather!

HeatMiser · Apr 24, 2021

PaulG said:
I would just keep cutting off the affected leaves, HM.
Black spot is intractable, iso trying to cure it is futile. I
had a bad bac spot infection some seasons back, and
had to let the affected containers lie fallow for a year so
the bacteria would die out. Seems to have worked;
problems have been sporadic since then. Quick removal
of affected leaves is important.

Other than that, your grow looks great. I'm afraid our
week of Summer is about over for awhile. Dang, I was
just getting used to the decent weather!

Thanks Paul, that's precisely what I'm doing at the moment. I decided for a wait-and-see approach. The good thing is that the grow room is also the office, so I use some of those boring, unproductive meetings at work to take a look at the plant and go after the affected leaves. The plant looks a little bare at the moment, but it should bounce back in a couple of weeks.

HeatMiser · Apr 24, 2021

Here's where things stand at the moment.

The 5 gal plants continue to get bushier, with the exception of the Paquime, which I've been trimming pretty aggressively. Right now, I have pods on the Zapotec, Paquime and Yum-Yum. I haven't noticed any pods on the Antep Aci Dolma yet, but they could be hiding in there. The chinenses haven't set pods yet, but that's kind of expected. Hopefully I don't get the same case of flower drop that I had with last year's Moruga Scorpion. We'll see.

Here's the wall of green, getting there. It's going to get interesting in here in a couple of months

A couple of weeks ago I attempted a cross between the Zapotec and the Mystery Pepper. None of them took because I wasn't the most dexterous that day and broke off the stigma on both flowers. Here's a second attempt. It should work this time:

We also had some great weather last week - the coco plants went to their final pots and are here getting some vitamin D:

I must be doing something right with these plants, since a KS Lemon Starrburst has set already:

Finally, another harvest of Mystery Pepper (top) and Numex Twilight (bottom):

These two Numex Twilight pods contain F1 seeds of the Twilight x Mystery pepper. Twilights definitely fill up the pod with seeds. Maybe that's why they are not considered good for eating, as you're getting a mouthful of seeds. Flesh tastes OK though:

PaulG · Apr 24, 2021

Eleven bells and all is well, HM.

Your plants look terrific, and pulling
pods has to be a great feeling!

HeatMiser · Apr 24, 2021

PaulG said:
Eleven bells and all is well, HM.

Your plants look terrific, and pulling
pods has to be a great feeling!

Thanks Paul! It's definitely a good thing to be able to harvest pods all year long from these indoor plants, the fun never stops!

HeatMiser · Apr 25, 2021

Well, I think I cracked the puzzle of the Mystery Pepper. Seems awfully similar to a Thai Dragon. The pod shape, clustering habit and description all fit what I have.

Peter Stanley has a taste test:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s59JbFTImQ

PaulG · Apr 25, 2021

Is the Thai Dragon an annuum or a frutescens?
Not really familiar with those.

Demented · Apr 25, 2021

PaulG said:
Is the Thai Dragon an annuum or a frutescens?
Not really familiar with those.

Annum

HeatMiser said:
Well, I think I cracked the puzzle of the Mystery Pepper. Seems awfully similar to a Thai Dragon. The pod shape, clustering habit and description all fit what I have.

Peter Stanley has a taste test:

I'm not entirely sure what peter had was a Thai Dragon. They've been one of my favourite peppers since I was a child and at max they get 1" long, typically in the 1/2" range. Still very clustery and productive, but I'd put my money on those being a Thai Long/Thai Denchai or Thai Gong bBao. From every native Thai I've spoken to, the Thai Dragon's are also called rat dropping chillies, as they resemble the size of rat turds, and dragon name in them referrign to them being small and red like dragon's eyes. I've purchased some Thai Gong Baos from local farmers markets labelled as Thai Dragon. Burpee does have a hybrid of the Thai Dragon and something else that produce a longer pod that I grew out one year, but they seemed more like a Thai Burapa ands were better dried. Lacked the orange/lemon/cherry flavours of the Dragon's.

Dragon's will go green, almost purple, then red. Do yours have gradual color change, possibly with some orange in there?

HeatMiser · Apr 25, 2021

Demented said:
Annum

I'm not entirely sure what peter had was a Thai Dragon. They've been one of my favourite peppers since I was a child and at max they get 1" long, typically in the 1/2" range. Still very clustery and productive, but I'd put my money on those being a Thai Long/Thai Denchai or Thai Gong bBao. From every native Thai I've spoken to, the Thai Dragon's are also called rat dropping chillies, as they resemble the size of rat turds, and dragon name in them referrign to them being small and red like dragon's eyes. I've purchased some Thai Gong Baos from local farmers markets labelled as Thai Dragon. Burpee does have a hybrid of the Thai Dragon and something else that produce a longer pod that I grew out one year, but they seemed more like a Thai Burapa ands were better dried. Lacked the orange/lemon/cherry flavours of the Dragon's.

Dragon's will go green, almost purple, then red. Do yours have gradual color change, possibly with some orange in there?

Thanks D,

There's no gradual color change on these, they go from green to red. There's a picture on post #87 here http://thehotpepper.com/topic/74526-heatmisers-2021-glog/?p=1713391, where you can see a pod starting to turn. The change in color is pretty fast once it starts.

Now, I searched for the other varieties you mentioned, and it's really hard to tell, because the same picture is shown for multiple varieties, haha. I wish there wasn't that much confusion about varieties, but I guess that's also part of the fun about growing peppers.

The only thing I know now is that I have what Peter Stanley was showing in that video. :metal:

Demented · Apr 26, 2021

Well I stand corrected. Spoke with an old Vietnamese/Thai friend, started to question my own plant labelling.

She said in Thailand they refer to most peppers as dragon, mostly because "fire" and "hot" are associated. Showed her a picture. She said if they're hot, they're Prik Janda. If they're a little warm but mostly mild, Prik Chee Fah. Though they commonly swap names on everything because they all have similar flavours, but pick them at different times (green or red) for various things, such as making red curry paste, green curry paste, and Prik Nam Pla sauce (though she recommends the tiny Prik Khi Nu's for that because more spicy and we all eat like old Thai women apparently. lol)

I have my own Prik Khi Nu's and these swapped with their labels.

HeatMiser · Apr 28, 2021

Demented said:
Well I stand corrected. Spoke with an old Vietnamese/Thai friend, started to question my own plant labelling.

She said in Thailand they refer to most peppers as dragon, mostly because "fire" and "hot" are associated. Showed her a picture. She said if they're hot, they're Prik Janda. If they're a little warm but mostly mild, Prik Chee Fah. Though they commonly swap names on everything because they all have similar flavours, but pick them at different times (green or red) for various things, such as making red curry paste, green curry paste, and Prik Nam Pla sauce (though she recommends the tiny Prik Khi Nu's for that because more spicy and we all eat like old Thai women apparently. lol)

I have my own Prik Khi Nu's and these swapped with their labels.

Sounds about right, common names tend to get confused. One that comes to mind is "chiltepin" vs "pequin" peppers, which are often used interchangeably. Still, I'm glad to finally have an ID for this one - I've had the seeds for about 6-7 years and was finally able to see them produce.

HeatMiser · May 1, 2021

Time for another weekly update...

Another harvest of my 1 gal plants - Mystery Pepper and Twilight. The Mystery Pepper has been a great producer - I have picked about 40 pods already from this plant, and there are more coming. I thought Twilights were supposed to be good producers, being ornamental and all, but the Mystery Pepper is putting it to shame in terms of number of pods. These are going in the freezer and eventually will be turned to hot sauce.

I haven't posted about the Chiltepin in a while. Here it is - I culled one plant from the cube. Also, another seedling sprouted this week, approximately 120 days after being planted. Damn!

The Variegated Jalapeno is super bushy and cool looking, but not doing much. It's also not drinking a lot, so it only gets a nutrient change approximately every 2 weeks (or longer if I forget). The other plants I have in 1 gal kratkys get their nutrients changed every 5 days. I think I'm going to move this plant to a smaller container and move the Chiltepin into the 1 gal bucket.

Here's the 5 gal Kratkys. I think the wall of green is coming along quite well:

Front view - Left to right - Paquime, Antep Aci Dolma, Zapotec, Yum-Yum, Fatalii, Reaper:

An update on the Paquime - it's recovering from the heavy de-leafing I did a couple of weeks ago. I haven't noticed more leaf spots, so maybe it was not BLS? Who knows - the plant is loaded with pods, and some are already pushing the 4-inch mark

On the Zapotec, both of my crosses with the Mystery Pepper took. This is one of them - hopefully we'll be able to see a clustering Jalapeno in a few years:

I'm really digging the Fatalii - it's growing quite bushy, but it's been accelerating its growth in the past couple of weeks:

Finally, the Reaper is turning into a monster. It's almost caught up to the Annuums in terms of height. I really hope this will be a good producer:

PaulG · May 1, 2021

The kratky crowd is looking good, HM! Nice
dark green foliage tells me they are eating well.!

Tybo · May 1, 2021

Nice healthy looking plants HM. I've got a reaper in kratky also and it is a monster. Not as big as yours yet but coming along. It looks so good Im contemplating just leaving it inside.
Are you still using CNS17 Grow? Your plants have an awesome dark green color!

CaneDog · May 1, 2021

Good stuff, HM. Your wall o' green is looking beastly.

HeatMiser · May 1, 2021

PaulG said:
The kratky crowd is looking good, HM! Nice
dark green foliage tells me they are eating well.!

Thanks Paul! They seem to like the environment so far, and they better be! Now if I can just get the chinenses to set some pods...

Tybo said:
Nice healthy looking plants HM. I've got a reaper in kratky also and it is a monster. Not as big as yours yet but coming along. It looks so good Im contemplating just leaving it inside.
Are you still using CNS17 Grow? Your plants have an awesome dark green color!

Thanks Tybo! In my experience Chinenses respond quite well to a hydroponic environment. You should leave yours inside - it's nice to have plants indoors. And yup, I'm still using CNS17 - I just can't beat the convenience of a 1 part nutrient solution.

CaneDog said:
Good stuff, HM. Your wall o' green is looking beastly.

Thanks CD, the Zapotec is putting quite a few pods already - I can't wait to try them out in a few weeks.

HeatMiser · May 8, 2021

Not much has changed since last week - the most important update is that I moved the Tepin to its own 1 gal Kratky container. Otherwise, with the exception of the Fatalii and Reaper, all other plants have been putting out pods.

Here's a picture of the Variegated Jalapeno and Tepin under T5 lights. The Variegated Jalapeno doesn't seem to require that much in terms of nutrients, so it got moved to a smaller container. The 1 gal bucket it was previously in got assigned to the Tx Tepin.

I haven't posted much in terms of pods, so here's how things are looking at the moment.

This is the biggest pod on the Paquime Jalapeno. I'm definitely looking forward to trying them because there are loads of pods at the moment. I'm glad I didn't get rid of the plant, since I haven't seen any more spots on the leaves of this plant. I'm knocking on wood hoping that was it:

My Antep Aci Dolma has finally set some pods after a period of flower drop. They seem on-pheno. I counted around 9 pods on the plant, hopefully many more to come:

Another AAD pod:

Zapotec Jalapeno. This is the biggest pod on the plant. I really have high hopes for this one:

Finally, unrelated to my grow - we finally finished all those Jalafuegos we pickled back in January. I caved and bought 3 lbs at the grocery store - meant for pickling and poppers:

I must say these are the most bland tasting pickled Jalapenos we've had in a long while, even when using the same recipe as before. We've been spoiled by the Jalafuegos we grew last year and now these are just bleh. The poppers were also just ok. At least my wife agrees that we must grow our own :party:

CaneDog · May 8, 2021

I like the switch of the v jalap and tx tepin, HM. I think with good light and warm conditions the tepin could turn into a big pepper bush.

It's hard to tell scale on the zapotec, but the pod seems pretty good sized. And those AAD's, even just 9 might be a lot of produce!

HeatMiser · May 8, 2021

CaneDog said:
I like the switch of the v jalap and tx tepin, HM. I think with good light and warm conditions the tepin could turn into a big pepper bush.

It's hard to tell scale on the zapotec, but the pod seems pretty good sized. And those AAD's, even just 9 might be a lot of produce!

Thanks CD. Yes, the V. Jalap hasn't been doing much, and judging by its size it doesn't seem like it will get much bigger, so I decided to trade places with the Tepin, since the bigger container is put to better use on a plant I know will get much bigger. I can guarantee the Tepin will be twice the size of that V Jalap in about a month

The Zapotec in the picture is about an inch and a half. The plant is putting out plenty of pods that I hope will get to that same size, but the older, stubbier pods don't seem to be growing any more. Is this what you experienced as well? Perhaps I can pick one of those and finally get to try these out!

The AAD is becoming quite the producer. I was a bit nervous because the plant dropped quite a few flowers, but now that some pods have set I'm just looking forward to trying them out.

CaneDog · May 9, 2021

It's great to see how well things are doing and especially that the Paquime was not lost. With the Zap I would sure consider removing the stubby pods and letting the plant put it's energy into these later bigger ones. I do think they're best red though, so depending on your taste you may not see them at their finest until then.