• Blog your pepper progress. The first image in your first post will be used to represent your Glog.

JJJ 2013 Glog- C'est fini. -awmost.

So,I may as well grow them, eh?

I started back gardening last year, but I left it to my co-gardener mostly to come up with pepper plants. We had some Bells, and Cayenne, a Carrot pepper, a black Jap, Hungarian sweet, maybe a Bullnose, Then I bought a 4 pack each of Anaheims and Jimmy Nardellos. I set out a little Shoshito start in July and it had a lot of fruit considering. Nothing here to write home about. The Jimmy's did ok. 2 of the Anaheims weren't true (and a cow at half of one of them), one did ok. The last one I planted in a new asparagus bed and the first week some sucky bug drilled it right in forehead and wilted the top. I started to pull it out, but thought, "no harm to leave it to see what would happen". I pinched the wilt off. That pepper forked an by frost it had held its own with the asparagus which hit about 6 foot. I pulled the whole plant day before frost, and it had about 50 nice peppers on it. I blistered and smoked them all.
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But this year I'm gonna be pepper pro-active. Thanks to Durham Bull, I have a treasure house of Capscium genes -Bhuts, Scorpions, and the likes -none of which I'd ever heard of a year ago. The generosity of this community seems to only be matched by it passion for peppers. I dig it. Plus I was in at another site with an online seed blind swap and ended up with some mildly hot goodies.

Well I've never grown a pepper from seed. Never. So yet another new door. Bought a heat mat, I've got onions about to come off it now. After Spicy Chicken's glog, I liked his grow station and thought I'd buy some shelves and put overhead fluorescent on them. I had a domestic conversation about where to put the shelves and lost amicably. So I guess I'll have to finally clean out my toolshed after only 4 years to make room.

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It has a skylight about, 30" x 96", but no heat, no electricity. But I think I can get by with an extension cord, and will have to pick up a little propane heater to knock the chill off. Peppers aren't safe outside here until mid-May.

Yesterday, I got my shelves assembled with one light installed - a 4x4' T8 fixture w/ 6500ks.

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Plan is to wire them on to a gang of light switches, maybe a timer, cover it with Reflectrix movable curtains, some small fans.

I'd appreciate any advice, especially since I'm in the early build phase.

I'm shooting for about 100-150 plants if there's room -some to wind up in rows, some in beds, some into containers, some to share

A friend is sending me some more seeds today I believe, so I'll be closer to a final grow list when I see what that brings.

Thanks for reading and for any words of wisdom you can share.
 
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I want to do the same thing, greenhouse with aquaponics. Unfortunately I don't own any land, so you're about 5 steps ahead of me. Make sure you take pictures and update us along the way.
 
Carson, you're definitely in a good zone for tropical fish tending.



The Michael Tray
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The Gabriel Tray

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The Snack Tray
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Smoked pork and quinoa, a pickled sweet pepper, greens, and my Electric Carrot Habenero sauce on a store bought wrap.


The Key
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I'm seeing nice root growth, 2-3 times the plant height usually. I gave them a bottom soaking when I finished a tray.

I mixed my own soil -coir and perilite mainly, reinforced with leaf compost, some of the bottom layer from my worm factory, and some wood ashes.



Next on the potting table.

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Thanks for the read,
JJJ
 
Two more trays finished plus 3 pots at large = 131

The Raphael Tray

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The Uriel Tray

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The Key

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All the transplants looked good this morning with only 3 showing faint signs of stress.
I've got all 4 trays 2" +/- from the lights.

I left their light off last night just to be safe.

I'm not going to be away this weekend after all. I was going to help my daughter up in northern VA get a garden started but it's wet we're putting it off a week.

Thanks for reading
JJJ
 
Love your trays!!! Especially the "Snack Tray!" :rofl:

I lived in Northern VA for a while...actually graduated HS there. Stafford...still have friends up there.

Can't wait to see them take off in their custom JJJ soil!
 
Carl your plants are looking great, seedlings seem to be growing faster than mine and wow that foodie looks awesome. Great job mon :)

I noticed how in some pics you’re barefoot with sandals and others your wearing socks with sandals; I do the same when it’s cold, lol. I prefer to run with Birkenstocks over shoes any day of da week ... mi thinks you have a Caribbean soul ^_^
 
:) Maybe WalkGood, I could eat Caribbean food 'till the cows came home'. We paddled and camped Exuma in 2004 for a few days -saw some incredible shades of blue and green I still can't get over.
Had some akee salt fish a year or two ago around here, and can only imagine how good it would be on the islands.

Just checked the chiluns, got a pop on Aji Dulce, Fatalli, Cherezo, Jonah, and a Chiltepin over night. Hot and sweet!

I've had two chiltepin sprouts to pass on me. Third times a charm , eh?

But my tray of parsley decided to pop last night and it maybe too cold to set outside, so it's a little crowded in there.


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I'll at least wait until the little dust of snow we had overnight melts.


NOVA has it points, Shane. These days wineries and breweries are getting thick as hops up there.
I may retire to a garden cottage on my daughter's patch if the buzzards down here don't get me first. I might could be bribed with some grandbabies. She's actually closer to the Appalachian Trail than I am -go figure.

Thanks for reading
JJJ
 
Just went through your glog Jesse. Very nice!! Love the setup. You have thought this out very well looks like. I had to jump in and say my wife and I discovered quinoa about a year ago and we eat it all the time now! It's actually quite good for you.

I'm pretty jealous of your setup. GL and keep on truckin!

Oh almost forgot.... Durham Bull is the man!! Sy sent me a huge list of seeds as well which I currently have in a 72 pod tray. This community really is awesome!
 
JJJessee said:
Maybe WalkGood, I could eat Caribbean food 'till the cows came home'. We paddled and camped Exuma in 2004 for a few days -saw some incredible shades of blue and green I still can't get over.
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I bet you had an awesome time, I loved camping around the Caribbean as a youth ... great memories & times for sure mon! Also agreed on the sea "look," I’ve always described the Caribbean Sea as being akin to a blue diamond with shades of green, but even more beautiful than any diamond I've ever seen. I’ll never forget my first encounter, just breath taking, even as a child. I could go on but why drive ourselves nuts … Cherish dem memories and we’ll be back down there for sure :)

JJJessee said:
Had some akee salt fish a year or two ago around here, and can only imagine how good it would be on the islands.
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Very cool and I’m sure it’s as good or better than what you get in da Caribbean, minus the view, lol. I never saw Ackee & Saltfish in the Exumas, but if there’s a Jamaican living there, they’ve probably figured out how to sell it to the Bahamians as I’m sure you can grow Ackee trees there. As you may know, Ackee & Saltfish is the Jamaican national dish and what lots of folks don’t know is that all the fish used in Saltfish is imported. How strange is that, an insult for Jamaican national dish IMHO. Saltfish is made from cod which is caught in the North Atlantic region and then imported into various Caribbean Islands.

In the Bahamas they protect the fish well and AFAIK their fishing is still great, been years since I’ve gone but did loads during my childhood, teen and young adult years. While the offshore fishing is great in JA, you need to get around 2 miles off shore to catch Tuna, Dolphin (Mahi Mahi), Marlin, Spear Fish, and I could go on with the great selections. Unfortunately close to the island there’s nada because of the millions of illegal fish traps around the island with very small mesh and no enforcement. The locals keep fish as small as 2” for fish soup and that’s thrown the reproduction of reef fish out of whack. BTW we have Ackee trees two doors over from me but I rarely eat the fruit. You do know that the seeds and the arils have high levels of toxicity that kills to the untrained chef :o ... Everything looks great and congrats on the continued popping :)
 
Yeah, Ramon, after I'd tried the ackee, I found out the fruit goes through a poison phase. So you gotta know what you're doing.

You're right Spicy_e, Durham is Da Man! Yeah, we've just about quit eating rice(grain) in favor of quinoa(seed). I take it backpacking as a staple because it's so easy to cook.

There's snow on the mountain today.
And it turned cold as the day progressed.
I even let the onions back inside early this afternoon.

I potted-up all the new sprouts except for a few sever helmet heads.
I've gotten fairly good at it wiggling off helmets if they aren't too bad -only one casualtiy so far.
But I wonder if it may be like they say about the butterflies exiting the cocoon. If you free them prematurely, without the stress their wing veining doesn't pump up their wings and they remain deformed non-flyers.

I potted up 13.

Here is the Michael Tray 2/27 on the left and 3/2 on the right.

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The top half the tray is big sweet annums. They look particularly lusty. I can't imagine they won't need another pot-up before early May.

My only concern is the shading on the first true leaves tends to be pretty yellow -good form; healthy looking; just yellow. As the leaves grow they seem to green up. Too much nitrogen maybe?

I'll try to get a close up tomorrow.
Thanks for the read,
jjj
 
Pia, It's based on a recipe on a thread here about soil, (I'm having trouble re-locating it at the moment), but I used coir instead of peat and fine pine bark and I think I have less wood ash -it just didn't look right with 5-10%, or maybe I got heavy handed with the ash. So I ended up adjusting it with more coir and perilite until it looked and felt right. I have a few twigs in it from the leaf pile, but I think the mix could stand to be a little chunkier. I was afraid of that wood ash, I hope I haven't scalded 'em.

On ratios, I'm thinking 5% wood ash or less, 10-15% composted oak leaves some particals but almost peaty texture, 5-10% worm factory bedding not pure casting I guess, 25% perilite, and 45% coir.
 
Thanks JJJ. I went with the FF Ocean Forest and for some reason I dont like those big chunks of wood in the soil. Are they necessary. They look like pieces of bark or wood. I just want straight dirt no twigs or solid pieces of anything.
 
I can see the need for some chunks for aeration and water regulation, but I think the chunk size should kind of match the plant size. Little plant -tiny chunk, big plant -bigger chunks. But I may be over thinking it.
 
The only constant is change.

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Shuffled shelves to get every one where they need to be.

The pepper popping has slowed dramatically. Yesterday, I soaked some insurance seeds from the varieties that I had none of or only one specimen. Today, I dropped 6-10 seeds each of those varieties, or as many as I had, into 2.5" pots.

Each shelf has a basement now for germination space. Dealing with the stragglers is somewhat of a nuisance and learning to accommodate that fact of life will make the process some much easier and manages space efficiently.

I've dropped a six pack of eggplant seeds and 2/3 of a 72 tray of rhubarb seeds.
My celery plant is starting to look tastier too :D

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Several of the trays were getting a little light-weight with a little drooping in the large leaves, so I bottom water them with aerated water.

Thanks for reading,
JJJ
 
Great stuff Jessee, those shelves sure to fill up quick! I have 4 sets, but was only allotted one by the Secretary of War and Finance...she claimed the other three. Didn't take long for me to outgrow that shelf and now the floor is almost full in my growroom...Tic-toc, plant out is right around the corner! Can't wait to see what your grow looks like under the big florescent in the sky!
 
Her and her fam are from right down the road from you in NC...so no telling??? She keeps me on a pretty tight leash, but usually gives in to my crazy ideas when we can afford it. Would love to retire into a pepper-growing supplemental income soon...Have the land for it, but its in a tough part of the country for farming. NE Texas where when (and if) it rains it pours. 5 lakes on the property, so I think I could work some irrigation most years...we shall see. Keep them green buddy!
Shane
 
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