For my first time growing hot peppers, I decided to grow some jalapeños in the indoor grow area I set up a little less than a year ago. I have a few months free before I will need it again to grow on rooted cuttings (flowering shrubs mostly) prior to planting them outside, and peppers sounded like a good way to fill that downtime.
The grow area:
At the bottom right is a humidifier, to attempt to keep the humidity up while the heat is running this winter. I decided to humidify the whole room the grow area is in, to try to maintain both decent humidity in the enclosure and good air exchange with the surrounding room.
Missing is the small oscillating tower fan that usually sits in the front left corner; it is below at the moment, with the seedlings. The light is a 315 watt ceramic metal halide. I went with the 4200k bulb, as it better suits my growing purposes than the 3100k.
Ventilation and air flow was a bit tricky in this sort of semi-enclosed area. I ended up using two window fans, pointing up to draw air up and out of the enclosure (and deflected away with the help of the angled pieces attached above). The oscillating fan also serves as an active intake.
I built stadium-style risers to help even out the light distribution across the 3'x3' footprint. They don't completely mitigate the lower light intensities at the edges, but they help.
What I'm growing. The freebies were a very nice and unexpected bonus, so I decided to go ahead and grow some of them too.
The seedlings so far. All were planted on January 1. The BB's are all up (six total - 100% germination), and the Apache's are at 4/6 so far. They were slower to germinate, so I think I may still have the rest of those come up.
I have the seedlings on a heat mat (on styrofoam for insulation), controlled by a thermostat set to 87°. It's been keeping the soil temperature between 85° and 88°, which seems to be effective enough.
I am growing in what is essentially a nursery mix (heavily bark-based), and will be fertilizing with Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 weakly with every watering.
After the seedlings hit 4"-6", I plan to pot them up into the 5.5" pots that the stadium-style risers were designed for, and then grow them until they outgrow those pots. At that point, I will save the 2 most vigorous of each type and repot them into 5 gallon pots that should last them the rest of the winter. The extra plants I will probably try to give away.
The grow area:
At the bottom right is a humidifier, to attempt to keep the humidity up while the heat is running this winter. I decided to humidify the whole room the grow area is in, to try to maintain both decent humidity in the enclosure and good air exchange with the surrounding room.
Missing is the small oscillating tower fan that usually sits in the front left corner; it is below at the moment, with the seedlings. The light is a 315 watt ceramic metal halide. I went with the 4200k bulb, as it better suits my growing purposes than the 3100k.
Ventilation and air flow was a bit tricky in this sort of semi-enclosed area. I ended up using two window fans, pointing up to draw air up and out of the enclosure (and deflected away with the help of the angled pieces attached above). The oscillating fan also serves as an active intake.
I built stadium-style risers to help even out the light distribution across the 3'x3' footprint. They don't completely mitigate the lower light intensities at the edges, but they help.
What I'm growing. The freebies were a very nice and unexpected bonus, so I decided to go ahead and grow some of them too.
The seedlings so far. All were planted on January 1. The BB's are all up (six total - 100% germination), and the Apache's are at 4/6 so far. They were slower to germinate, so I think I may still have the rest of those come up.
I have the seedlings on a heat mat (on styrofoam for insulation), controlled by a thermostat set to 87°. It's been keeping the soil temperature between 85° and 88°, which seems to be effective enough.
I am growing in what is essentially a nursery mix (heavily bark-based), and will be fertilizing with Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 weakly with every watering.
After the seedlings hit 4"-6", I plan to pot them up into the 5.5" pots that the stadium-style risers were designed for, and then grow them until they outgrow those pots. At that point, I will save the 2 most vigorous of each type and repot them into 5 gallon pots that should last them the rest of the winter. The extra plants I will probably try to give away.
