This is an excellent idea for a THP topic...
b3rnd said:
Hey there! I thought it'd be a nice idea to share and read what we've learned from our mistakes this season. Ofcourse the season hasn't ended yet, but I've learned already enough to make a list.
- Use better lighting when starting indoors, otherwise it gives almost no benefit
I used sub-par lighting indoors, and the plants I started later that had more natural sunlight caught up pretty fast.
- Repot in final pot earlier
They grow faster and sturdier if they have more room earlier.
- Never plant more than 1 plant in 1 pot
Just overall looks nicer and they don't have to share water/nutes.
- Start to shape and trim every plant in the desired shape from the start
The early side shoots are not nice to look at for me, and a nice long tree-like stem makes it easier to water, check for bugs etc.
- Don't feel bad about discarding extra's
Last time a lot of my starts died due to mistakes. This year I didn't make those mistakes, but I did start extra's to be sure. In the end I had way too many plants for my space.
- Cut down on the amount of new varieties. Grow more of the ones I like, and just a few new ones to try.
I grew so many new varieties that it became a little cluttered. Next season I'm going to have 2 or 3 plants of varieties I love, and 1 or 2 plant of a few varieties I'd like to try out.
This is all I can think of right now. What do you guys think? I'd love to see some input of the more experienced growers. Do you pro's still learn anything each year?
I learned pretty much all of those lessons this year, by making all of the relevant mistakes... except the cutting to shape one. I been letting my plants grow natty, and so far, i like the results on the ones that have done well. The shittier ones, well... they need every leaf and branch they've got.
ako1974 said:
good stuff! I keep learning every year. I need to improve my pepper seed saving this year.
That's about the only thing I did right this first time. All the seeds that i saved from fresh pods last summer had the best germination rates, by far, with the exception of some org. Orange Hab seeds i got from Johnny's....
MarcV said:
Don't start too early in the new season. Before you know it, the plants become too large to keep inside while it's still too cold to put them outside!
Don't get me wrong; i can totally see how that could be a problem.... but i think that problem is preferable to what i did (start late) and how i'm doing (many plants aren't even setting pod yet, and it's July...)
dub_sauces said:
Dont start seeds in tiny pots and keep repotting them as they grow. Just start them in the 2nd to last size and do one repotting before moving outside.
I was thinking of going that route in 2018. Just starting in solo cups, one seed/cup or maybe 3 seeds/cup but executing the weaker seedlings to maximize room for the "alpha" in each cup. Then, going from the solos straight to 7gal bags or the ground.... less muss, less fuss, ad it might even prevent me from getting ahead of myself, in term of planting too many and running out of room....
DontPanic said:
I don't want to sound like a suck-up, but by far the most important thing I learned this year was that there's this place on the Internet called thehotpepper.com. I've learned more hanging around this place any other source I've run across.
Yep. +1
SavinaRed said:
I learned the hard way to NEVER try and speed up the hardening off process with peppers or tomatoes when growing them from seed under lights. I lost all of mine this season which were about 60 plants total.
I struggled with hardening off, and in part, i blame the rain, but mostly, i blame myself for starting late and procrastinating on re-potting so i ended up frikkin' trying to harden off kinda late, so the conditions were much harsher, in terms of heat. Next time, I hope to start earlier, re-pot earlier, harden off earlier and more gradually....
Guatemalan Insanity Pepper said:
prepare for failure and be happy when you succeed
Lighting: while T8 fluoros have worked for me for years for starting my seedlings, I am quite impressed at the growth i got indoors under the new T5 lighting fixture
(the light intensity was much better, more light penetration, less internodal stretching)
As far as cutting down on new varieties...
(you mean they aren't like Pokemon ? I don't gotta catch em all
)
No seriously, i have tried to cut back on the number of new varieties for years, but there is just so many awesome sounding peppers that i will probably never have the opportunity to try unless I grow them myself
Then there's all the peppers i know i like and just have to grow again
Don't get ambitious and plant out too early even if the weather is nice (especially when you know from experience the rain and hail will come
)
I intended to have around 150 plants this season
due to some errors on my part, and some unfortunate weather, I have 80
I think.
(I refused to give up on some that were tore up by hail and drown by rain, some bounced back and some are slowly dying )
Good advice re: low expectations. Haha.
I skimped on lighting at first; went to t5s and DANG.... that's bright. Might even be a bit too bright for tiny seedlings... but yeah, never again. Light isn't cheap to buy or to power, but it's worth every penny...
I didn't have hail problems, but I had plenty of rookie/d!ckhead problems, so some of my plants are struggling as a result. I decided not to give up on them, not so much out of optimism (I'm generally a defeatist kinda guy) but b/c I think there's plenty to be learned from struggling plants, both the good and the bad that happens as one tries to rehab them. It's given me the chances to try different strategies, and take notes on what works and what sucks... Bonus: some of the plants i thought were doomed, and that my wife asked if she could pull up, are growing a lot of new leaves and seem to be bouncing back nicely. It'll probably be too late for them to produce pods before it's cold, but i've gotten some valuable insight as to how chile plants "work," which will be worth many more pods in future seasons.
As for growing a ton of varieties vs just a few, i definitely spread myself thin this year, and tried a couple plants of a zillion varieties, only to have many of those plants damp out or just end up stunted, etc so some of the varieties aren't even gonna be represented come harvest time. I think, next year, I'm going to focus on a few favourite varieties and try to get a buncha plants out of just a few varieties. Then, i remember my most recent seed order, and realize just how unlikely that strategy is.... oops. (Then again, i do intend to try some indoor hydro stuff in the fall, so that might work nicely for me....shit, I just want to experiment with these things all the time. I was at the cafe yesterday, and i kicked the bag of Tien Tsin chiles while making bagels. Before I threw the bag out, i saved like 100 seeds, thinking "these probably can't germinate, but i might as well try, right?" So, there's like 20 seeds in paper towels on top of my fridge right now. What will I even do with them, if they DO sprout?)
One lesson i learned-- in theory, i already knew it but hadn't taken it into account-- is that it makes sense to stagger your varieties so you have early, mid, and late season producers. Most everything I planted, aside from Jalas, are late as eff. But, I learned that the Paper Lanterns and the Congo Trinidads are earlier than the rest of the
chinense i grew, and the Congoes are setting far more pods than anything else so far.
Overall, it's been a weird and tragic first season. Next year, I intend to get weirder but less tragic. Careful planning is a plus, and it's hard to plan at all when you're clueless. I've got something like an eighth of a clue now, thanks to THP and 2017's trials and errors.... My planning will be better next season, I'm sure.
)
j.k 
