maxcap 2015! Supers full of pods...

romy6 · Apr 29, 2015

Looking good Adam . Glad to see you doing what you love

Runescape · Apr 29, 2015

Nice list... are you growing any tomatoes this year?

SL3 · Apr 29, 2015

Looks good. You'll have a jungle in those beds before you know it.

OCD Chilehead · Apr 29, 2015

Welcome aboard! Glad to see you again this year. Looking better then last year. If I remember right you got....ummm Never mind I don't want to jinx you. Your grow last year was phenomenal. Can't wait for this year's beds. Can't wait for the kitchen projects too. LOL.

Good luck brother

Chuck

tctenten · Apr 29, 2015

Great to see your blog back again Adam. Looks like everything is going well for you so far.

MeatHead1313 · Apr 29, 2015

Plants are looking happy and healthy! Good to see you back at it again Adam! After reading about yours and others love for goats weed last year and again this year, I really need to try some for myself soon. Best of luck for the season, and on getting closer to becoming Dr maxcap!

maximumcapsicum · Apr 30, 2015

romy6 said:
Looking good Adam . Glad to see you doing what you love

Thanks Jamie. Glad I took the time to seed a couple of supers this winter. They're happy in their beds now.

Runescape said:
Nice list... are you growing any tomatoes this year?

I am! Just two plants, a brandywine and a black cherry. Both are from Johnny Seeds last year. Didn't care for the roma I grew last year... it may have needed more calcium in the soil. Experimenting with some pruning techniques; I've trained the cherry up the railing of my porch. No trellis needed.

SL3 said:
Looks good. You'll have a jungle in those beds before you know it.

That's the goal man! A slightly thinner jungle than last year, but I am wondering if I got the plants close enough to one another for support but far enough for maximum nute/yield. We'll see...

OCD Chilehead said:
Welcome aboard! Glad to see you again this year. Looking better then last year. If I remember right you got....ummm Never mind I don't want to jinx you. Your grow last year was phenomenal. Can't wait for this year's beds. Can't wait for the kitchen projects too. LOL.

Good luck brother

Chuck

Thanks Chuck! Last year I got buried. Almost literally. Thousands of pods... several hundred still in the freezer. Powders eat up a ton of 'em, but sauce is definitely my favorite way to go. Pretty much growing the reds for sauce this year, the lemons for fresh/flavor, and the goat's weed for flakes. Also doing some pepper demos for the community garden.

tctenten said:
Great to see your blog back again Adam. Looks like everything is going well for you so far.

I think so! Just got to keep things on rails for now.

MeatHead1313 said:
Plants are looking happy and healthy! Good to see you back at it again Adam! After reading about yours and others love for goats weed last year and again this year, I really need to try some for myself soon. Best of luck for the season, and on getting closer to becoming Dr maxcap!

Hey Chris! Thanks for the note. I saved some seeds from your pods too... got them in storage for when I get a little more time and space. This year I am really intrigued by the rocottos. I hope they go well. Do you have praying mantis down there? I found three mantis pods last year while cleaning up the beds. Overwintered them and now I have hundreds of mantids in the beds. They're chomping down on the baby grasshoppers. Hoping to keep that up... grasshoppers and leaf-footed bugs were my worst pests last year.

MeatHead1313 · Apr 30, 2015

maximumcapsicum said:
Hey Chris! Thanks for the note. I saved some seeds from your pods too... got them in storage for when I get a little more time and space. This year I am really intrigued by the rocottos. I hope they go well. Do you have praying mantis down there? I found three mantis pods last year while cleaning up the beds. Overwintered them and now I have hundreds of mantids in the beds. They're chomping down on the baby grasshoppers. Hoping to keep that up... grasshoppers and leaf-footed bugs were my worst pests last year.

Yeah we have praying mantis down here. I can get egg cases from my local nursery too. Found a baby on one of my plants a few days ago so hoping more turn up and hang around. Grasshoppers and leaf footed bugs are bad here too.

Jeff H · May 6, 2015

Found your Glog Adam. Plants are looking good.

How much longer on your Ph D?

maximumcapsicum · May 7, 2015

Thanks Jeff! I should be able to make an update in a few. Plants are looking good, especially the reaperxbb7 crosses. I wish I gotten those carbons in the ground again. They were probably my second or third favorite super. Kind of depends on the mood/dish. Ran out of time and space tho.

I am preparing for a defense in June. It's a process, and you can't really rush it. Thanks for asking... I will know more soon. I am also teaching this summer so I am preparing that as well.

maximumcapsicum · May 11, 2015

Temperatures are over 60° at night these days, and the plants are enjoying it. The two garden plots are growing quickly... plants are nearly a foot taller than they were around this time last year. I've planted basil, cilantro, marigolds, and nasturtiums among the peppers as companions. I planted a much lower density this year to try to let the soil rebound a bit, and in the first bed I planted non-pepper varieties.

I've added eggshell and epsom salts to my fertilizer rotation (tomato-tone, fish emulsion), and I'm also giving a sample of real grower recharge a shot. It's basically add-water compost tea, and the plants don't dislike it at least. Here are some pictures of the plots:

Aji lemons have set pods...

Beans in last year's pepper bed.

A Large Orange Thai that I haven't pruned.

The growdown thai that I've messed with a great deal.

Goat's Weed. One of the best annuums I know. I hope it grows true!

Reaper has set. The plants look a little rough but they're flowering and setting pods.

Sunburnt reaper X bb7 cross.

The queen of the garden so far this year. A reaper X bb7 cross.

On my balcony I have two rocoto's in pots and two tomato plants that I am training to grow all over the front of my apartment building. The balcony only gets about 6 hours of partial morning sun, so it's not idea, but I figured I'd see what I could do.

These guys are gorgeous. I can see why people love the pubenscenses so much. If they taste as good as they look I am in for a treat. One pod has set, about a dozen flowers have dropped. The plants are almost 3' high.

You may not be able to see it well, but this is a cherry tomato growing along the railing. It is taking to the training very well, and adhering to the outside of the building too. This will give it plenty of space to creep around the outside of my apartment. I am doing the same thing with a brandywine... will report with the results.

Got some indoor projects going as well, most notably a single jolokia in coco, following Blister's advice.

Thanks for reading!

Essegi · May 13, 2015

Nice to see u'r glog! Good work!

maximumcapsicum · May 20, 2015

The summer is coming. The plants are large, starting to form nice canopies, and pretty healthy for the most part. One baccatum is having some support issues. Its pods are weighing down its branches. And one of my reaper plants has some tiny brown flecks and yellow on its lower leaves. I am guessing its a nutrient deficiency but I don't want to hit it with too much nitrogen. Going to wait it out.

Here is what my chinenses looked like last year at this time:

Here are my reapers and bubblegums now:

Twice the height and many times as many pods. And we are still early. I had a couple of chinenses in a similar boat last year (the yellow bhut grew like a weed), but the overall performance is improved. I made a couple of changes this year. I didn't prune anything (no time), didn't denude, started two weeks later, and gave them more space to grow indoors. They also had a longer hardening period thanks to the balcony in my new apartment.

I used a sample of Real Grower's Recharge... looks like some kelp, molasses, and microbe inoculate on the plants this year. It looked like compost tea. Plants didn't dislike it. I may try to make some tea next month.

I have also mixed up the grow a bit with companions:

Marigolds, basil, cilantro, and nasturtium. Basil and marigolds seem to act as strong repellents... haven't seen a hopper anywhere near 'em, though the marigolds do appear to be drawing cabbage moths that then eat the nasturtiums. Strange thing, that.

When the cilantro bolts I am going to replace them with onions I have started indoors. If I leave them in the ground till November I should get a yield, and the allium smell well help with earwigs and some other pests. Worst case scenario is I get tiny onions.

Finally:

These are some very cool pods bred by GA_Growhead. Its a BB7 Reaper cross. Notice the huge callyx and elongated reaper shape. Looks to be growing very nicely. I am going to isolate seeds.

Thanks for reading!

OCD Chilehead · May 20, 2015

Very nice looking plots you've got. That soil looks great. Looks like your getting a thumbs up from the plants as well. BB7 x Reaper. Interesting cross. I'm curious to see how they turn out. The Goatsweed is a awesome looking plant. I'm growing one plant this year, thanks to Beerbreath's enormous generosity.

Good luck and thanks for sharing. Hope school is going well.

Chuck

Blister · May 20, 2015

One of the best features of chili plants is that you don't have to really do much with them and they still grow great. I tend to mess them up when I meddle too much!

Neil

maximumcapsicum · May 21, 2015

OCD Chilehead said:
Very nice looking plots you've got. That soil looks great. Looks like your getting a thumbs up from the plants as well. BB7 x Reaper. Interesting cross. I'm curious to see how they turn out. The Goatsweed is a awesome looking plant. I'm growing one plant this year, thanks to Beerbreath's enormous generosity.

Good luck and thanks for sharing. Hope school is going well.

Chuck

Thanks Chuck! Goats Weed is probably my favorite annuum for drying-Italian dishes. I go through a ton of it on pizza. Sadly my yields last year were smaller than I'd like because one of the plants didn't grow true. Don't think I'll have that problem this time around.

Giving the plants more space really brought out their phenotype. Magnificent, paintbrush shaped plants. Will grab a good pic next time around.

Thanks for the well wishes! Also your glog is fantastic.

Blister said:
One of the best features of chili plants is that you don't have to really do much with them and they still grow great. I tend to mess them up when I meddle too much!

Neil

I definitely think a soft touch works better with them, at least in my climate. Though it's nice to know that they will bounce back from a ton of meddling so long as you have a little momentum going. Also peppers are very tasty.

maximumcapsicum · Jun 18, 2015

Over the past couple weeks I have had the pleasure of pulling fresh pods off the supers. Most of the first pods came from the first split of the plant or from the second. Saving most of them up for sauces, which I hope to start putting together next week.

Here is my superhot pepper patch. Covered some flowers for isolates, though I am trying some hand pollination techniques as well. Learning is fun.

Had a little time for an update and thought would share my supers. Picking three from the dozens of chinense cultivars I grew last year was tough. My current favorites are 7pod Bubblegum. I have two going now from the same source. The plants are fairly stable, though there is a strange elongated pod on this one:

These early pods are a little off but the calyx is perfect and the color is spot on. I am keeping an eye on that spot... hopefully there isn't any mosaic virus kicking around the beds.

I planted two carolina reaper plants using the remainder of my seeds from last year. Both are vigorous. One has darker branches and leaves, and the mature pods look perfect.

The other is a little off. Its leaves are pale and thinner to the touch, and the pods have a lime green color and are smoother.

I grew out two plants from a reaper/bb7 cross that GA_Growhead made last year. As expected, the plants are very different from one another. I wish I had space to grow a dozen or so of these to gauge the full variability.

One of the plants is perfect. I am isolating the one I like and I am going to try to do some back-breeding to strengthen the traits I like. I'll report on my progress.

I'll post some pictures as they mature.

In a closing, basil and marigolds are perfect companion plants. There have been almost zero pests in the pepper bed this year as compared to last year. And they seem to be supporting each other.

Thanks for reading!

GA Growhead · Jun 18, 2015

Whoa! Those reaper x bbg7 F2s are crazy. I have 46 in the backyard. 1st one is throwing out bbg7 calyxes.
Garden is looking killer. Leaps and bounds over last season!
I drove by ya a weekend or two ago. We need to hook up. & You gotta come see my garden!

maximumcapsicum · Jun 19, 2015

GA Growhead said:
Whoa! Those reaper x bbg7 F2s are crazy. I have 46 in the backyard. 1st one is throwing out bbg7 calyxes.
Garden is looking killer. Leaps and bounds over last season!
I drove by ya a weekend or two ago. We need to hook up. & You gotta come see my garden!

Jason! Long time no see bud.

We should indeed meet up, and I would love to see your garden! Did you get a lot of cool variation in those F2's? The two I grew are very different from one another, as would be expected. One is perfect, big calyx and cool pod shape. We got to compare!

I learned a lot last year and tried to apply everything. So far smooth sailing, though there have been some nasty winds and storms this year.