LS Especial - 2015

Grass Snake · Nov 4, 2014

Soil less media? What are you using?

tctenten · Nov 4, 2014

Nice start Doc. I look forward to watching your plants progress.

LS929 · Nov 5, 2014

Grass Snake said:
Soil less media? What are you using?

Yes Sir! Soil less all the way. I have a very diverse mix. As I found things here and there I added to what I had already. The overall mixture is about 35% perlite and the remaining 65% is composed of mulch/media, Cotton burr compost, cow manure compost, humus, earthworm castings, and a little hint of sunshine grow mix that I had left over. Overall, a variety of things. I've added Azomite and Mycorrhizae to the root area and media of each plant. Hopefully that does them well.

tctenten said:
Nice start Doc. I look forward to watching your plants progress.

Thank you Terry!!

Grass Snake · Nov 5, 2014

Ok, when I think of soilless I think of something that cannot hold nutrients. Seems like your mix is pretty good without having to dose so heavy. Maybe thats why some are struggling. And I thought I seen mold or salt build up in your video. Make sure you got good air circulation and remember your plants aren't so demanding at the early stages of their life.

LS929 · Nov 8, 2014

Hey THP!

I'm posting a short little update. Hope y'all enjoy!!

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDbwzcLX9xE[/media]

This time to focus on a few things I'm popping a few pics along with it.

So I watered them a few days ago with a solid mix of ferts and let the majority of the water sit in the bottom of the trays. It seems the plants like to take their sweet time absorbing water when it has a little supply of it. It also keeps them growing at a more consistent rate I think.

BUT!!! I noticed there is a bit of salt built up meaning I've given them plenty of ferts for now.

The plants are taking care of themselves but as you can see in the video I added two fans to the side to help get a little more direct airflow for them. I also have another fan and air purifier focused on the taller plants.

Although they haven't had the best air circulation, that isn't stopping them from flowering up all the way.

Now the following flowering pictures are off Mini Chocolate bellpeppers, most of the taller plants on the left of the video. The buds come from just a few plants I have, I have 10ish plants putting them off.

If the images are too big, I can re-adjust them to view them easier.

Now, I'm wondering if these ones that are struggling so much are worth keeping right now. The top three are chipotle jalapeno plants and the one in the second row is a Bishops Hat plant. I'm not too worried about keeping the Bishops Hat because I have several other plants that are much bigger and stronger.

Now I arranged them to better situate the light at an angle for the plants. I didn't pay attention to them for a few days and the taller plants grew into the light while the shorter plants elongated some. So I have all the shorter plants to the right and the taller plants to the left so they sit a lot better under the light. Check it...

Pic of the right side

Pic of the left side

So guys, that's all I have for today!! I'll be taking it easy on the ferts and giving them fresh water on a better schedule.

Turns out, the tap water here in fort worth comes out at a solid pH near 7, and only a couple hundred ppm, one of my readings was around 150-ish somewhere near that.

I've already decided that I'm going to get at least two more light ballast to grow experimentally indoors once I move all these young-ins outside. I'm thinking of trying a few different varieties I have in a kratky and floating hydroponic setup. Using the simplest methods with plenty of light and air to see how they do. I haven't seen too much talk about those methods on here and I've done a little searching for them. I've seen some people use the kratky method to success on peppers plants but not the float method.

I'll see how it turns out when I get it going for me!!

Much love y'all!!!

Grass Snake · Nov 9, 2014

Looks like your off to a great start! Not sure why some of the senior members haven't chimed in yet. I'm far from an expert but I would suggest not letting the cups sit in the waste to soak water back up and to let the soil dry up a bit. Seems like your treating it like a hydroponic set up which is not ideal because your medium has the ability to hold moisture and nutrients. Hopefully somebody with expertise will jump in here soon.

PaulS · Nov 9, 2014

Grass Snake said:
Looks like your off to a great start! Not sure why some of the senior members haven't chimed in yet. I'm far from an expert but I would suggest not letting the cups sit in the waste to soak water back up and to let the soil dry up a bit. Seems like your treating it like a hydroponic set up which is not ideal because your medium has the ability to hold moisture and nutrients. Hopefully somebody with expertise will jump in here soon.

Yeah I agree, they shouldnt be sat in water, maybe let them dry out a little before next watering.
They are looking great though

tctenten · Nov 9, 2014

Most of your plants perked up after the shot of fertilizer. What ferts did you use?

LS929 · Nov 10, 2014

Grass Snake said:
Looks like your off to a great start! Not sure why some of the senior members haven't chimed in yet. I'm far from an expert but I would suggest not letting the cups sit in the waste to soak water back up and to let the soil dry up a bit. Seems like your treating it like a hydroponic set up which is not ideal because your medium has the ability to hold moisture and nutrients. Hopefully somebody with expertise will jump in here soon.

No worries about the senior members! I've gotten them a little better, I put the water in the bottom of the tray because they roots are towards the bottom of the cups now. Also a lot of the plants have too many fragile leaves on top to top water. So I let the water get absorbed through the bottom of the cups. The plants love it because they don't have to worry about water sitting on the top of them. I'm letting them sit in only a little water. I might change it back to top watering if I notice anything happening. Any reason why it's better to not let them absorb the water from the bottom?

tctenten said:
Most of your plants perked up after the shot of fertilizer. What ferts did you use?

Oh yeah, they shot up a lot. I used a combo of two of three mixes depending on the tray. On each tray I used a mix of water with vinegar, to drop pH, CalMag+, and Superthrive for vitamins and nutrients.

On the two trays with the biggest plants in them, I put a weak solution of 6-12-6 plant fertilizer, mixed around 1/4th full strength with a shot of 15.5-0-0 to raise the Nitrogen levels. So it was a weak solution overall but it was enough to give the plants what they needed.

On the other two trays, since they have so many plants struggling and a larger number of slower growing superhots, I put them in a 1-1-1 solution just to keep them going.

I'll probably give them another shot of Iron this up coming weekend and just let them sit there for a few weeks. They should have more then enough Ferts/nutrients to live on for a good while.

Thanks guys!

Much love Y'all!!

Grass Snake · Nov 10, 2014

Because as much as roots need water they need air. Its like keeping their head under water and not letting them up for a breath. In hydroponics the roots stay submerged their whole life but that is beacuse the water is well aerated and medium allows plenty oxygen to the roots. That is part of the reason those plants grow so fast. Think about how much bigger things used to be on earth when oxygen levels were higher. Just something to think about.

LS929 · Nov 15, 2014

WEELLL got a little update!! I did a little maneuvering around and I got some new goodies so I decided to show what's new!

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cveBuK7Hl2s[/media]

So I must correct myself. In the video I meant to say that I was gifted two pairs of Apollo adjustable light hangers. They are pretty sweet and will be quieter then the chains I was using.

Also, I'll end up going to the store tomorrow and getting something to stake the little limp bubblegum.

Oh, I put the plants on some insulating styrofoam board so the heat mats will work better in keeping the soil and roots warm. The heat mats were struggling to keep the plants warm.

Ok some pics!!

The pod that formed so far is on a mini chocolate bellpepper.

So it's going well, excited to see my first pod but it also means that I'll end up potting up to the one gallon containers this weekend or early next week. I don't want these things to keep struggling. I'd like to keep them in the solo cups for another two or three weeks because once I put them in the gallon containers they are going to stay there until I spring hits maybe around april-ish of next year!! A long time from now. At anyrate, I know that once they are in their on gallon containers they'll blow up with growth.

So about these tall plants, especially this one, my tallest bishops hat, I'm thinking I'll top the biggest ones to help them be a little bushy-er.

So if I top this bad boy or try something like FIMing it I'll see how it goes. There might be a few others that I do it to as well.

Also! I don't know what I've done but these plants have had some interesting growth to them. For instance, my Cherio Roxia plants are very odd shaped and odd shapes of purple.

They come from the same seeds but just weird. The difference in leaf color and size makes me wonder.

Although some of these plants have some excellent growth patters to them!! I have quite a few super hots that are growing low and bushy. check it:

A simple primo that is growing with 3 to 5 main branches and it's only a couple inches tall. It's a bit on the wide side though.

this is a hybrid f3 soon to be f4! It's doing the same thing, staying low and branching out. It's not just these plants either. I have reapers doing it and a few others. Very odd because I didn't tie them down or anything to make them do that.

Any way I just had a short one today. Showing what's been happening. I'm going to take an inventory of all the different strains I have growing because I started with about 18ish germinating but a couple didn't germ and a few died out as seedlings... Ah well that's life for ya.

Much love y'all and God bless.

Grass Snake · Nov 15, 2014

Things are looking great! Already looking like a jungle in your house. Keep up the good work.

LS929 · Nov 16, 2014

Quick note, I watered the boys and girls tonight. They are all happy now, I used hotter water. Like 90 95ish degrees. Hopefully that will warm them up a little and help with the nutrient uptake. I used warm water last time and they went with it. I'd like to see how this goes.

Anyway, main point is to say what I have growing right now. I've lost quite a few plants now and that means a few varieties have dropped as well. Here's what's left:

Type - # of plants

7 Pot Bubblegum - 3
7 Pot Primo x Trinidad Scorpion Butch T F3 - 3
Bishops Hat - 12
Carolina Reaper - 5
Cheiro Roxa - 5
Chipotle Jalapeno - 1 (1 lost it's leaves, I'll give it a few days to recover before I pitch it.)
Chocolate Scorpion - 2
Fatalii Gourmet Jigsaw - 2
Jay's Peach Ghost Scorpion - 3
Mini Chocolate Bell - 4
Naga Viger - 2 (last years grow)
Primo - 4
Random - 1
Sweet Apple - 4
Trinidad Scorpion - 2 (last years grow)
Trinidad Scorpion Sunrise x Trinidad Scorpion Butch T F2 - 5
Yellow Brainstrain - 1

Now, I lost about 3 strains that didn't germ or didn't survive past being a seedling. I have a nice little seed bank stored up and I might start some more in a few months from now. I'll definately start some to try out the kratky and floating methods out.

Much love y'all

LS929 · Dec 27, 2014

Ok Guys, so it's been a little while since I've updated the glog but I'm posting this now just a few days shy of when I originally intended too. This is just a little info nugget of an update. So here we go boys!!!

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joVCmA11lgg[/media]

So as you can see I'm down to 22 plants now and that was intentional, I said I wouldn't of been able to keep a lot of them in the first place but hey, we get some natural selection/screw ups type of stuff going.

I gave away 11 of my plants to some of the guys on here and I hope they are all doing well. Shout out to those two guys! Let me know how they are doing!!

So obviously I didn't have too much break down of the plants but here is the list I still have:

7 Pot Bubblegum - 1
7 Pot Primo x Trinidad Scorpion Butch T F3 - 3
Bishops Hat - 6
Carolina Reaper - 2
Cheiro Roxa - 3
Fatalii Gourmet Jigsaw - 2
Primo - 1
Random - 1
Sweet Apple - 1
Trinidad Scorpion Sunrise x Trinidad Scorpion Butch T F2 - 2

So a nice little variety that will go outdoors, I kinda wish I hadn't of started so incredibly early. I have learned a lot though. Here are some little things I've used to grow my stuff out.

This is my insecticide spray that I've used to kill off aphids that attacked my plants. Once I started using this bad boy they started dropping like the bugs they are!!!!

Mix is as follows:

4 tbsp of mineral oil
2 - 4 tbsp of garlic
2 - 4 tsp of soap

Mix to your desired strength and then let it sit for 24 or so hours to really react.
The soap can be added after you let the oil and garlic mix.
This is enough to dilute in one gallon of water.
I suggest straining the garlic out with cheese cloth to not mess up any sprayer you have.

And my Rigged up solar shower!!!

It's an easy to use water container!!! I've got the plants indoors with no easy access to water so I've used this bad boy for a few months now and it's been a life saver!!! It holds a solid 4 gallons of water with extra room to mix in fertilizers and nutrients.

The solar shower came from academy in the camping equipment for $7ish.
The little fixtures came from lowes (I'm just name dropping like crazy!!) for around $8ish for all the little parts and it has been totally worth it!!

The solar shower has a built in nozzle to control the water flow and is made of durable thick plastic so It was SO worth the investment!!

Ok guys, I think that's it for today! I'll have to give an update a little sooner next time. The plants are growing out in their new pads and loving it. Once the roots expand out some then they'll start throwing some major growth out there.

Much love everyone!

LS929 · Feb 10, 2015

Well guys, as all good things must come to an end. I too had to shut down the grow op. The plants got over run with aphids. I had done pretty well at fighting them off and growing the plants out, however I had an aphid explosion occur at the beginning of the month that got so out of hand. So I had to chunk the plants. soo many aphids...

Anyway guys, I'll try and get a few plants growing outside in a week or two because I'm just going to sow a handful of seeds. Months of hard work all gone.... sad day

Grass Snake · Mar 5, 2015

LS929 said:
Well guys, as all good things must come to an end. I too had to shut down the grow op. The plants got over run with aphids. I had done pretty well at fighting them off and growing the plants out, however I had an aphid explosion occur at the beginning of the month that got so out of hand. So I had to chunk the plants. soo many aphids...

Anyway guys, I'll try and get a few plants growing outside in a week or two because I'm just going to sow a handful of seeds. Months of hard work all gone.... sad day

Hate to hear that news, I know you put alot of time and effort. The plants you gave me are doing good but I been fighting aphids as well. I think I can keep them in check until they go outside. Hopefully you can get something going soon. Keep us updated...