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.

.

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.

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.

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.

 

[Sawyer]

Looking good. Your plants look about like mine (new pics this weekend). So, I have a question about this double digging. I understand the benefit when the top soil is a double spade depth. But when double digging takes you down into the clay hardpan, aren't you just making a subsurface pool that will collect rainwater and create a poorly-drained root environment?

 

[JJJessee]

Good point Sawyer, if we get some rain this weekend I'll check and see if there's any that stands in the pit. If there is, I'm still hopefully that the 15-18" of mostly organic matter will keep the water soaked up. But you're right, the "cup" could present a problem especially if the the rainfall continues to stay above average...

 

[stc3248]

They're looking great JJJ! You're dialed in now...just cruise control to plant out now. I am also curious about the clay holding water. Don't think it will present a problem unless you get repeated floods...Keep working it brother!

 

[Sawyer]

You could always dig a drainage ditch into the clay (assuming you have some slope) to the level of the bottom of your double digging, then back fill it with a more porous material.

 

[JJJessee]

Yeah, that could be a possiblity. I had to do that for an apple tree last year that had a wet weather spring pop up close to where it was planted.

 

[JJJessee]

Before I can pot up any more peppers, I need to get some more shelves lighted. I got the fixtures installed, just need to connect them.

While I was working, I set the peppers outside. It was a warm 60°, mixed sun and clouds, and when it started to drizzle, I couldn't resist letting them letting have a little drink.

The mostly chinenses tray is trying to get in gear.

I'm letting them dry off before they go back under the lights.

My second wave of seeds are doing much better than my first wave.

There are also some pot-ups, eggplants, and tomatoes in there. Methinks this tray will fill up the next shelf, leaving the last shelf for tomatoes.

I think vermiculite in this mix has helped keep the coir from drying out and the the slow germ-ers didn't care much for that.

Also, I'm wondering if "cluster" sowing benefits peppers. I heard some seeds, more especially tiny seeds though, need lots of wet neighbors to collectively build up a critical mass of "sprouting enzyme" before any of them will pop. Anybody ever hear anything about that? I was told that about wormwood seed back in the day.

Shane, as you told Annie, I'm going to try to pump up my next wave of chinenses with the heat mat for the roots. It make sense.

Thanks folks,
JJJ

 

[WalkGood]

Carl, am allowed no more "likes" today but wowzers! ...

I was in the same boat this morning and now I’m back with a bag full dishing dem out, probably be out by the time I'm done in Carl's glog

Carl, great update mon & very nice pics. Love the shot of the plants getting their first real drink from mama nature. Boy they sure look ready to be outside, here’s hoping it continues to warm up for you I like Sawyer’s idea about digging a drainage ditch into the clay, hope that works for you … keep up dat impressive grow mon!

 

[Sawyer]

Also, I'm wondering if "cluster" sowing benefits peppers. I heard some seeds, more especially tiny seeds though, need lots of wet neighbors to collectively build up a critical mass of "sprouting enzyme" before any of them will pop. Anybody ever hear anything about that? I was told that about wormwood seed back in the day.

This is the first I've heard of this, but it makes sense to me. In fact, I'm seeing the same thing in my most recent planting. Where seeds were sown individually and spread apart two, three, or four per cell, I'm getting mediocre germination. Where several were sown together in a single, central, hole, it seems like they all germinate (or none at all, but I think that's a different matter). In my case, the one's sown together were soaked and the ones sown separated were not, so that may be part of what I'm seeing. I should set up a controlled experiment... Hah, I can do this. I have one last batch of pepper seeds to plant.

 

[WalkGood]

... Also, I'm wondering if "cluster" sowing benefits peppers. I heard some seeds, more especially tiny seeds though, need lots of wet neighbors to collectively build up a critical mass of "sprouting enzyme" before any of them will pop. Anybody ever hear anything about that? I was told that about wormwood seed back in the day.

This is the first I've heard of this, but it makes sense to me. In fact, I'm seeing the same thing in my most recent planting. Where seeds were sown individually and spread apart two, three, or four per cell, I'm getting mediocre germination. Where several were sown together in a single, central, hole, it seems like they all germinate (or none at all, but I think that's a different matter). In my case, the one's sown together were soaked and the ones sown separated were not, so that may be part of what I'm seeing. I should set up a controlled experiment... Hah, I can do this. I have one last batch of pepper seeds to plant.

No it’s not called “cluster sowing,” I believe it’s called “Borg Sowing,” functioning as the collective to improve the germination rates

 

[Sawyer]

That could explain a lot. We've all been assimilated as propagators by the Borg pepper collective.

 

[WalkGood]

That could explain a lot. We've all been assimilated as propagators by the Borg pepper collective.

Even the insignia reminds me of a pepper :o

 

[JJJessee]

Germination phase winding down.
Here's all that's left to pop or be potted. It's been 16 days on the no-shows but there is still hope. The first Brain Strain made it's appearance this afternoon.

This morning I got all my first wave of tomatoes from their communal into individual pots

I'll be sowing the main wave next week, maybe Feast of the Annunciation. Or would that be sacrilegious?
My grandma always tried to plant taters on Good Friday if it was an early Easter.

Besides using communal sprouting pots, I stratified the mix, heaviest mix on the bottom, lightest on top. Most of the top had been shaken off in this clump for Chapeau De Frade. Bishop's Hat?.

Birgit's weren't the fastest annum.

But they made some of the bushiest roots
This one wasn't too happy about going back into the same size pot.

I wouldn't say Bhuts were my most persnickety sprouters the first go-round but these Chocolates are making up for it this time.

Thanks for the read, Pepper Nation.
jjj

 

[stc3248]

Those Birgits are a Baccatum....They're gonna grow like crazy!!! Bunch of Bhuts too...you're really kickin over there! You getting some of the crappy weather?

 

[JJJessee]

Thanks, those Birgit's make a pretty plant from the picture I saw.

Crappy weather?? Not unless you call 20° plus wind chill crappy.
Last night it snowed for 5 minutes, more snowballs than flakes really. Almost covered the deck. Then it stopped

 

[stc3248]

Not going to like that one JJJ...Spring is on the way though, just another month or so of global warming to deal with before it gets here!

 

[WalkGood]

Carl great looking germination pictures! I think this only goes to prove your Borg Sowing method works. I think there’s always hope on the no shows, last year I had a few starters pop up months later but I understand you’re on a grow out schedule.

 

[JJJessee]

Yeah, Shane the weather finally got so crappy I decided to go camping.

Before I left I had a breif window of dryness to till a strip of rye and vetch. Taters for most of the row, but this near end gets some afternoon shade so I may reserve it for some peppers.

Cold night but a nice sunrise on Terrapin Mt Saturday morning.

Back home Saturday night, it was 92 in the pepper shed- those chiluns were thirrrrsty. No wilt, or even droop, but their trays were light. So they got a good drink.

I gave them some wind and noticed in the germ tray that after 19 days, an Ecuador Lemon finally maded an appearance. Then another this morning.

I busted the clod of Chocolate Bhuts this morning and potted up 16.
A lot of hot chocolate.




Dorset Nagas -good pop rate, lot of bad hair days

Tomorrow is tomato seeding day.

Thanks for reading,
JJJ

 

[JJJessee]

It's not that my voodoo has let me down.
My plants are doing OK, for an almost green-horn
The more I look at those Shane peppers, the more curiouser and curiouser I become.
Those suckers are beautiful and got big fast!

So I bought a bag of mix such as his....

....to see what the Miracle was all about.

I could tell right away this mix didn't happen by chance. It felt like velvet with just a few small bits of bark in it and very little perilite which surprised me. The package ingredients....

Well, I normally wouldn't consider this as it uses chemical ferts as oppose to organic ferts. In this case time-released ferts which is one of the advantages of organics -a little bit slowly as the plant needs it. It prevents fert shock -or near sudden death if you really over do it. The NPK anaylsis on the bag roughly corresponds to their Osmocote time-release plant food.
No surprise, they found something that worked and riding that horse.

Since I still have a few pot ups to do, I thought I'd do a phase one test use some MG and one of my roll your own blends.

I'm not even going to get close on their NPK balance or time-release schemata, so I'll try to focus on substrate.
Sphagnum peat moss
Forest product compost
Coir
perilite

Sphagnum -I just so happened to have a partial, opened, water-logged, frozen-countless-times bag out behind my pepper shed.
Coir - I have been using in this grow for the first time and lovin' the feel of it.
Perilite - I use or as I'm startin to think "over-use" it regularly.
Forest product compost - I live in a forest. Which is partly why I haven't gardened much for the past 20 years. It's really a sub-division lot but I chose not to bulldoze it and cut out the minimal number of trees to get my house and septic system in.

I'd say the ground hasn't been disturbed for over a hundred years; oaks, locust, red cedar, black walnut, sassafras, popular, spice bush, iron wood, beech, elm, dogwood, pine, sycamore, red bud, chinquoapin, mulberry and maybe some others; all on less than an acre.
Just a few feet from this spot used to be our pet ginseng plant that my wife discovered (and I'm supposed to be the hillbilly of the outfit) beside our driveway a few years after we moved in. It has since been stolen. But the compost ground is good -where I could kept the equipment off of it.
Anyways, I ran some of this through a 1/4" mesh and the stuff looked a lot like the MG. It was just a little more dense but no clay at all that I could tell.

I tinkered just trying to match color and feel
1 -part equals a 2.5 x 2.5 x 3.5 pot

6 parts wet S.P. moss
4 parts wet coir
4 parts dry coir
2 parts screened forest compost product
2 parts perilte
1 part screened composted wood chips.
2 tablespoons of powdered wakame (time-release wakame )
1 tablespoon of azomite (powdered Utah)

Thanks for reading,
To be continued.
after supper maybe.
JJJ

 

[stc3248]

I tried to match it last year with Peat, my own worm castings, compost, topsoil, perlite and some bone and blood meal. Did really well, and grew some nice plants, but they MG outperformed it. I think if I would have substituted some time release ferts it would've done even better...but then I would be in the same non-organic boat. The only plants that did better were sitting in the bed I had been using to do my composting for the past couple years...but I think if I had grown the MG plants in 18 gallon totes...it would have been close to the ingrounds. I will find out this year. One of my "biggest plant contest" plants is going in an organic inground spot the other in a tote full of MG...we shall see.

 

[JJJessee]

At first, having a good idea (well an actual ingredient list) of what's in MG, I thought could match it -other than ferts. It turned out not to be so simple. Dry or wet, the MG had better "springiness" in the fist test. Maybe this is because they where using a fresh dry sphagnum (plus a wetting agent) verses my old water logged sphagnum. It seemed finer, yet still didn't compact easily. When I filled a pot with MG and pushed it down in a bucket of water without letting it spill over the top, it absorbed water a few seconds and then the medium would try to push up out over the top. My mix wouldn't do this. So,it appears, at least initially, the MG has a better air protecting capacity. I water-logged the two samples to see have they dry out and hold their structure. I don't know how of even it their wetting agent plays any role in wetting the soil a second, third time and so on.

So I potted up a pair of yellow scorpions and a single bhut in each of the mixes and bottom watered to about the same weight without the use of a scale.

For the heck of it, I put a bhut in my straight forest compost and one in 50/50 coir/forest compost. When I bottom watered my mixes I put a several drops of G.O. Black Diamond(humic acid 0-0-1) and their CaMg+ in a half gallon of water.

Which brings us to plant chow. I will need to and be feeding my mixes through watering with my GO Box. Having used this a little here in the last month, I think I may have shocked my plants at least once. There was no sever damage, its just that, even at weak solution, that has got to be a significant jolt to put a baby plant through. Ph-shock if nothing else. These plants are tough and resilient, but it could be slowing them down too. Maybe that toughness will come in handy out there in the big garden, I don't know.

I sat my Chinense on the top self to work on their sun through the skylight. Yeah, real sun.

They're growing

Plant-out is 5-7 weeks.

Next year I don't think I'll need to plant the annums until mid-March, instead of Mid-Feb. The supers may could stand a little earlier sowing, we'll see.

Cowhorn Cay. (topped)

Thia Chili (topped)

These and some Goat Weeds are actually big enough to go in the ground I think if it were mid-May.

The Dorset Nagas continue to have bad hair days.

Here are some Alma Paprikas, Jimmy Nardellos, and Aji Chilhuacle Amarillos from the March 4 sowing.

The bright yellow tops are either a feature of the Chilhuacles or they are way more sensitive to ferts than other varieties.
Or both.

Thanks for reading,
JJJ