Lespaulde 2019 Season

PaulG · Feb 9, 2019

Plants and starts looking very good.

Don't know what to say about the Number Orange.
Wait and see, I guess. Maybe strip leaves?

lespaulde · Feb 10, 2019

Thanks Paul, indeed I now stripped all the leafs that had any signs of damage/brown dried out bits and will see what happens with the extra daylight we're now getting. If it makes it, awesome, otherwise I will grow the extra Biker Bill's (grow out 2 plants instead of just 1) as I'm hoping this one to be of similar heat/flavour as the Numex Orange. I'm hoping to be impressed by he resilience of the plant though, honestly...

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Devv · Feb 10, 2019

lespaulde said:
Wow, that was definitely one of my dream guitars, a Les Paul with Seth Lover's - that, and a Gibson SG in cherry red. I can't believe you actually managed to build it, very impressive! Just wish I still had time to play, as it's simply been too many years now. Hopefully in some years again, when the little one grows up a bit...

And thanks for the compliments, I really hope to enjoy a wide variety of peppers and grow methods this year, as I was a little disappointed in some of my plant choices last year (e.g. Jamaican bell (hardly any heat at all) and the Aji Benito could also have used a little more kick). I think I'm more safe in that area this year, and am really enjoying seeing them grow from seed...

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I built it from a kit: http://www.devtex.net/2015/201.jpg

Precisionguitars.com is where I got the kit. IMHO the best way to build the first one. I retire in less than a year, and have parts to build 2 from scratch. Try the SG before buying. I wasn't a fan of the heavy neck; but it sure did sound sweet

lespaulde · Feb 11, 2019

Devv said:
I built it from a kit: http://www.devtex.net/2015/201.jpg

Precisionguitars.com is where I got the kit. IMHO the best way to build the first one. I retire in less than a year, and have parts to build 2 from scratch. Try the SG before buying. I wasn't a fan of the heavy neck; but it sure did sound sweet

That is one fine *#& looking guitar, nicely done! And it sounds like you'll have much more time for it in a year from now, that's awesome! Haha yes, I'll be sure to try it when I start looking at intensifying that hobby again, as looks definitely aren't everything...

Thanks for the heads up!

Also time for the weekly update:

So the Foodorama SB finally decided to let 2 of the newly planted seeds pop, so I'm happy I decided to let my impatience get the better of me:

And while 1 of the Growdown plants is moving forward nicely, the late straggler is not looking so happy after having a helmet stuck on its head for a few days while trying to free itself. Not sure if it will survive, but I figured I'd let it try to nurse itself back on its feet with a bit of TLC from my side of course:

The Bhut Jolokia chocolates are progressing slowly but steadily, and I love that they have slightly different phenos as this way I get to see which one I might want to grow out in future seasons. Hoping the purple coty's will mean a purple plant overall, but not sure given the colour of the first true leafs:

Overall, plants seem happy and I plan to pot them up into Coco in 2 weeks as I'll be traveling after that and don't want to have someone needing to water them every other day due to the rockwool not holding more than 2 days worth of water. When I let them sit in water, the roots go nuts even in just 2 days as they think they're being Kratky'd... xD

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CaneDog · Feb 11, 2019

Looking like a healthy bunch and they seem to be picking up speed now! Good the Foodarama finally popped. Any word on the BOC Sweetbite? Do you have backup seeds on that if needed?

Devv, the LP looks great and I bet it sounds even better! Was looking for the "extra-likes" button to drop a few more on your post, but couldn't fine one. It's the body of the SG that threw me off with the thinness, rather than the neck. If I remember right, Les Paul refused to put his name on it because he didn't think it had the feel of quality and heft to it. Never owned one, but sure felt playable the few times I've picked one up.

lespaulde · Feb 18, 2019

CD, it sounds like I'm gonna have to give a spin at some point, as my fascination with it thus far is purely based on looks and sound, not feel...

Time for the weekly update, and boy oh boy are things picking up speed! :dance:

As you can see, the tent is getting busier and busier:

I've started my first ever Kratky experiments, and figured to start them small in some old yoghurt containers, and then scale them up to 5L buckets down the line. I also ordered an aquarium air pump to provide some Oxygen at that point, and convert to DWC. So far, Aji Mango and Aji Lemon are in, with one of the Chocolate Bhuts and eventually the just popped KS LS to follow as well. These will remain indoors and should provide some experience (hopefully more good than bad

) over the next months.

The jalapenos have been potted up now since last week:

And I had to increase my nute strength as I was starting to notice an early phosphorus deficiency on them:

Now I'm running at 500ppm, which probably was about time anyways, especially also for the Kratky plants.

Some other seedlings that were showing some nice root structure have also been potted up:

Amazing that the KS LB is amongst the first, given that it's the only Chinense that's keeping up with the Baccatums and Annuums. It's such a pretty plant, can't wait to watch it grow big:

The roots are really showing nicely, and figured the air pruning on these has been going on long enough:

So right now, only a few remain in the rockwool, until next week Monday where I'll have to pot them up due to traveling. Loving the chocolate Bhuts and their different phenos, and even the scotch bonnets are already building true leafs, so hopefully they'll also grow nice and big by plant out, hopefully in May.

The tent is running at 29-30C (84-86F), is this perhaps a little too warm, especially for the Kratky plants?

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karoo · Feb 18, 2019

Looking good.
It's all about root development at this stage.

DWB · Feb 18, 2019

DWB said:
Interesting. I'll have to check this part on my fertilizers when I mix. Our untreated, unfiltered <6.0 pH well water that I use for plants is 125 ppm.

The reverse osmosis water that we drink goes down to 6 ppm but the pH is 7.4 after the house water goes through the neutralizer..

I just remembered to check the ppm on my fertilizer water. The full strength MasterBlend (19.5-18-38) reads 730 ppm when mixed with my untreated well water. The pH doesn't change. It still reads 6.0 or less.

PaulG · Feb 18, 2019

How long has this seedling been in the cube?
What do you feed it with. I'm playing with letting
the seedlings develop roots in the plug, but so far
nothing like that.

Any pointers?

That looks really awesome!

CaneDog · Feb 18, 2019

Roots are definitely looking awesome LP! I need to start working more with the cubes and rapid rooters myself. Great work! Those should really take off on transplant.

lespaulde · Feb 19, 2019

karoo said:
Looking good.
It's all about root development at this stage.

Thanks Karoo, and couldn't agree more, without a solid root structure from the get go, these plants won't go very far. How long do you still have of outdoor season this year?

DWB said:
I just remembered to check the ppm on my fertilizer water. The full strength MasterBlend (19.5-18-38) reads 730 ppm when mixed with my untreated well water. The pH doesn't change. It still reads 6.0 or less.

I think 730ppm should work well and not be too hot, especially considering the size of your seedlings by now - plants are looking fantastic! Also perfect with your well water being at pH 6.0 - no need to fiddle around with pH levels. :dance:

I'm guessing most of the nute companies now include pH control in their formulas, as my distilled water is around pH 7 to start with, but then goes down to ~pH5.3 after adding nutrients at only half strength (resulting in the 500ppm levels I'm at now). Will probably increase with 100ppm each week from now on to try and keep up with plants' requirements.

PaulG said:
How long has this seedling been in the cube?
What do you feed it with. I'm playing with letting
the seedlings develop roots in the plug, but so far
nothing like that.

Any pointers?

That looks really awesome!

Thanks Paul! The bulgarian carrot sprouted in the cube on Jan 30th, ie. just under 3 weeks ago. I think having the cubes on a raised platform, where the bottom of the cube is exposed to air is key, as it forces the roots to spread out within the cube. I have been feeding them a very weak hydro solution (Plagron A&B at <50% strength) by simply drenching the cube from the top every 3 days or so. The plastic side covers were still in place, so it was only the top and bottom of the cube that were exposed. Interestingly, it was only 2 of the sides where the roots were coming out, as if they had a certain preference which side to pop out from. This pic was taken just after removing the cover. My tent is also quite high humidity (~70%) and at high temperature while the lights are on, so not sure this is helping too... I liked reading the info on just4growers.com, very informative!

CaneDog said:
Roots are definitely looking awesome LP! I need to start working more with the cubes and rapid rooters myself. Great work! Those should really take off on transplant.

Thanks CD! I can't compare the rockwool to anything else as I haven't tried other methods yet, but it seems nice and fail safe as I haven't @#$%! anything up yet at least. Definitely very pleased and let's see what happens over the next week now that they've been transplanted! :pray:

Unfortunately still no movement in the BOC Sweetbite seeds. Now I have 5 seeds that have been sitting for more than 2 weeks with no signs of life. I guess this is a prime example of Annuums not crossing with Chinenses which I should have guessed, but can't help but be a little disappointed. I will keep the seeds going for up to 40 days and then call it quits. Maybe I'll try crossing it with some other plants this year, but let's see.

PaulG · Feb 19, 2019

Thanks for the great response, Erv. I think I will let my
Sri Lanka Chili sprouts go in the RockWool for awhile
and see how they progress. My ferts aren't fancy but
are 10-15-10. That should be good for rooting, right?

lespaulde · Feb 20, 2019

PaulG said:
Thanks for the great response, Erv. I think I will let my
Sri Lanka Chili sprouts go in the RockWool for awhile
and see how they progress. My ferts aren't fancy but
are 10-15-10. That should be good for rooting, right?

My pleasure Paul, not sure it helped but I found these cubes to do most of the work for me.

Curious to see how your growdown plant will do - mine will be transplanted next Monday so hoping the roots have reached epic proportions by then, and I'm hoping yours will too after a bit of patience. Your ferts should be totally fine with that NPK ratio, and as long as they have all the micros needed for an inert media, I guess they should thrive. From what I've seen in your glog, there's not a single doubt on my mind that you know what you're doing, and the size of your seedlings (if one can even still call them that!) speak for themselves!

I think we will have plant out around the same time given our climates, so I'm curious to see how things are at that point

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lespaulde · Feb 23, 2019

It's been a good week in the tent so far, and actually managed to pot a few plants up ahead of schedule:

The Growdown plant and Sugar Rush Peach, now in their 1L pot:

Both had good root structure showing in the cubes:

The jalapenos are growing so fast, that I figured I could do a little experiment with them (they're even throwing buds already, <1 month after seeding). Also considering I'm growing 2 plants each, started at the same time and pretty much exactly the same size now. So this year I wanted to go with FIMing instead of topping, and the Biker Bill's and Early Jalapeño both had one done each.

Before:

After:

Kratky is ticking along nicely too, look at those roots after only 4 days:

My overwintered B.O.C. is throwing flowers like mad, but of course nothing is setting as there is no pollen. If only I had some Annuum flowers to help, but just gotta be patient I suppose. But it definitely seems to be liking the early spring season we have here in Denmark this year:

And the flowers:

And lastly, the overview pic of the whole tent:

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PaulG · Feb 24, 2019

Is that a pod on the plant next to the OW BOC?

Trident chilli · Feb 24, 2019

Excellent start your tent is certainly enhancing your grow ... Kratky working well for you great early roots

lespaulde · Feb 24, 2019

quote name="PaulG" post="1615629" timestamp="1550995854"]Is that a pod on the plant next to the OW BOC?[/quote]

Unfortunately not, it's one of the few remaining leaves.

But it is looking like it will throw out some new side shoots which I'm hoping will happen as I'd love me some good numbers of Numex Orange Spice this season that an OW plant will hopefully give...

Trident chilli said:
Excellent start your tent is certainly enhancing your grow ... Kratky working well for you great early roots

Thanks TC, appreciate the kind words. I don't think I mentioned before that I'm using a Secret Jardin DP90 in case anyone is wondering. I found one other thread on this forum using it and it definitely helped me pull the trigger. It's probably too short for a full season's grow, but for starting seeds it's awesome as it's not humongous and therefore not too out of place in my office. One day I might convince the missus to have it at home...

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lespaulde · Mar 6, 2019

Time for the weekly update, albeit a little late as I was traveling...

First an overview picture just as I opened the tent (the excitement of doing so after a week away is shockingly good!

):

A lot has happened since last, some good, some less good. Let's start with the less good, as I'm wondering what's going on with the new growth on some of these seedlings:

Does anybody know why these leaves may be curling as they are? It's only a few (as can be seen in pic 2), and it's only the annuums. They've all been in the same Coco substrate and fed with the same nutrients, so I'm a little confused... I did raise the light a little bit, in case they were burning the top canopy. These LED strips are intense, so still figuring out exactly how to use them best.

Nevertheless, 2 of them have now been potted up, as roots were showing through the bottom already, and plants started budding (which were all promptly removed at this stage, of course):

In their new homes:

Kratky is taking off like crazy, with both the Aji Lemon and Mango seemingly loving the setup:

Considering pruning these now as well, as there is so much growth at the bottom, waiting to just grow out:

Soon I will transplant these to 5L buckets with an air stone, and then I'm curious to see how they will do in their final homes.

So all in all good progress, but strange with a few of those annuums that I would like to get back under control. The potted up plants have also gone out of the tent and onto a South facing window sill as they will otherwise become WAY to big before plant out in May.

Thanks for reading and any comments area as always, very welcome

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PaulG · Mar 6, 2019

Will be interesting to see if the potting
up and change of location straightens
out the curling leaves. Maybe just a
manifestation of being root bound and
a bit wet?

What kind of nutrients do you use in
your Kratky? Those root systems are
awesome!

Trident chilli · Mar 6, 2019

Amazing root growth on the juvenile Kratky ..... are you using any nutrients in these