Meatfreak 2013

saugapepper · Mar 25, 2013

Stefan, looks great buddy. Can't wait to follow your grow this year! How has the weather been? Spring is late here in Canada. We are still freezing here. My plants are doing okay but I might not be able to put them out until the last week in May.

On the upside, my Dutch team NAC Breda beat Willem II last weekend 4-0. I was jumping up and down while watching it on the web.

Conor

meatfreak · Apr 2, 2013

Some more photo's of seedlings for those that like them

Things are moving along and they grow up very quickly! It's pretty obvious the pots are way to small for the amount of plants... stupid of me. I shuffled some plants that were smaller to the middle so they get more light.

The Annuum corner.

The Chinense corner.

Some individual shots.

From stickman

From WindChicken

Not WindChicken

From PIC1

Already had to remove some buds at a few varieties like, Chimayo, Gochu and Elephant's Ear.

stickman · Apr 2, 2013

Looking good Stefan! When it gets warm enough to plant you'll be ready to rock!

Sanarda · Apr 2, 2013

They look beautiful Stefan. They are so healthy and green. Plant out is around the corner. Dont fret now!!!! :onfire:

wildseed57 · Apr 2, 2013

nice Grow you have and the photos are good also, I have plants waiting to be transplanted and some I need to get replacement seeds for, but I think I will wait till fall to see if I can get some. If it would just stay warm enough I could start hardening off my plants that would give me some much needed room. Anyway Glad to see you are doing so well.

meatfreak · Apr 3, 2013

stickman said:
Looking good Stefan! When it gets warm enough to plant you'll be ready to rock!

Thanks, Rick! By the looks of it, it won't be warm for a while. Temperature will rise the following weeks to a 8-9°C during the day, still frost at night. I finished transplanting my tomatoes also, they germinated so well I had more seedlings then I expected :lol:

Sanarda said:
They look beautiful Stefan. They are so healthy and green. Plant out is around the corner. Dont fret now!!!!

They sure are, Pia. Unlike last season, I didn't mess around to much with the soil and it's paying off so far. Hopefully I can start hardening them off by the end of the month.

wildseed57 said:
nice Grow you have and the photos are good also, I have plants waiting to be transplanted and some I need to get replacement seeds for, but I think I will wait till fall to see if I can get some. If it would just stay warm enough I could start hardening off my plants that would give me some much needed room. Anyway Glad to see you are doing so well.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Temps are staying low everywhere around the world, luckily mine aren't that big yet but it shouldn't take much longer

Sawyer · Apr 3, 2013

I think tomato seeds germinate so much more readily than pepper seeds because the plants themselves are so much more susceptible to disease. I know peppers have their diseases, too, but I don't think I've ever lost a mature pepper plant to disease. Tomatoes on the other hand, seem to jump at the chance to die of something.

It'll get warm one of these days, surely.

windchicken · Apr 3, 2013

Very pretty plants, Stefan! I'm ready for some warm weather in Holland, too, so we can see your babies reaching for the sun!

I'm with you on the tomato diseases, Sawyer...It seems like something always ends up getting to them. I'm going to keep trying, tho...

romy6 · Apr 3, 2013

Babies are looking reaaly nice Stefan. Glad to see you got some chinese mixed in with all those Jal's

meatfreak · Apr 3, 2013

romy6 said:
Babies are looking reaaly nice Stefan. Glad to see you got some chinese mixed in with all those Jal's

Yeah, I had even more Chinense lined up but the list was already to big so had to make cuts :lol:

I love Chinense, their growth and the looks of the pods is just incredible! Looking forward to every variety I'm growing this season

I expect the harvest of the Jal's to be massive if everything works out. Will try and sell some at the local farmers market or let them all ripe of to make Chipotle

We'll see, first the weather has got to turn a whole lot better.

windchicken said:
Very pretty plants, Stefan! I'm ready for some warm weather in Holland, too, so we can see your babies reaching for the sun!

I'm with you on the tomato diseases, Sawyer...It seems like something always ends up getting to them. I'm going to keep trying, tho...

I'm ready for it as well, Gary. Everyone is suffering because of this cold weather

Sawyer said:
I think tomato seeds germinate so much more readily than pepper seeds because the plants themselves are so much more susceptible to disease. I know peppers have their diseases, too, but I don't think I've ever lost a mature pepper plant to disease. Tomatoes on the other hand, seem to jump at the chance to die of something.

It'll get warm one of these days, surely.

That's a very plausible reason, Sawyer. Last season I had over 40 tomato plants, all outside in ground and I lost all of them. Once it started to rain and rain, diseases got the better hand and it didn't take long before they were all sick. I hope to prevent this disaster this season by putting them inside my poly tunnel, I know it spreads through air (spores) but that has to make it a whole lot harder. I don't like using toxics to spray on my plants, but I'm really thinking about it. Just don't wanna loose them again this season. All the effort for nothing

Sawyer · Apr 3, 2013

The only problem I see with a poly tunnel is that, around here, it would keep the humidity too high. I started some plants once in those wall-of-water things. They did help with late cold snaps, but the humidity was so high, every single plant died. They just created a near-perfect environment for the disease to propagate.

Around here, the most common deadly disease spores are in the soil. When it rains, or you do a vigorous watering, dirt splashes up on the leaves and that's the beginning of the end. Mulching deep enough to prevent that dirt splash goes a long way toward keeping the plants healthy. Around here, anyway. Every gardener has their own local pathogens to deal with.

meatfreak · Apr 4, 2013

Sawyer said:
The only problem I see with a poly tunnel is that, around here, it would keep the humidity too high. I started some plants once in those wall-of-water things. They did help with late cold snaps, but the humidity was so high, every single plant died. They just created a near-perfect environment for the disease to propagate.

Around here, the most common deadly disease spores are in the soil. When it rains, or you do a vigorous watering, dirt splashes up on the leaves and that's the beginning of the end. Mulching deep enough to prevent that dirt splash goes a long way toward keeping the plants healthy. Around here, anyway. Every gardener has their own local pathogens to deal with.

I know what you mean about the humidity. I experienced it last season also, but then I only had peppers in the tunnel and 1 door. This time I won't be stubborn and have 2 doors so that I have an air circulation to lower the humidity. The pro for growing in the tunnel is that you can regulate the water supply. So if you water you don't water a lot and of course around the plant while avoiding dirt splashes on the stem and leaves. That's the idea, I'll have to wait and experience it myself this summer how things work out but I will keep an close eye on it

You also wanna have enough space between the plants, otherwise your gonna raise the humidity by not getting enough air flow around the plants. I'm gonna keep about 2 feet distance. I know that's a lot but I got enough space and there's always next season to experiment with closer distance again. This year I wanna have some tomatoes

Sawyer · Apr 4, 2013

Sounds like a plan. I'm going to try to refine/improve my use of shade cloth this year. Well, actually, row cover doing duty as shade cloth, or anything else I can use to make filtered shade.

meatfreak · Apr 15, 2013

Not much happening except for the weather finally turning around, temps are rising and it's starting to feel like spring :dance:

Overview

Chinense

Annuum

I like these Pubescens

romy6 · Apr 15, 2013

My oh my your plants are looking Stellar my friend. :fireball:

windchicken · Apr 15, 2013

Yeah Dude! Nice!

stickman · Apr 15, 2013

Yesss!! Here's to Spring! Babies are looking great Stefan... when will you be planting out do you think?

meatfreak · Apr 16, 2013

romy6 said:
My oh my your plants are looking Stellar my friend.

Thanks J, I'm very pleased as well with the growth so far. Compared to last season things are finally going smooth this season

I have been nipping buds out of most of the Annuum's for 2 weeks.

stickman said:
Yesss!! Here's to Spring! Babies are looking great Stefan... when will you be planting out do you think?

Hey Rick! Although the weather have been better since last week the days doesn't have enough hours in them

I still need to do a lot of work in my garden so I can put up my new and bigger tunnel. The temps during the day are around 60F now but sometimes drop to 35F at night. It doesn't matter that much for the peppers, that way I can keep them a bit longer under the lights so they grow a bit bigger before the plant out

Which will be around the third week of May.

Now I had this OW Aji Pineapple bonchi going here but the base stem is showing some dead tissue. Anyone knows how I can avoid it to go any further down and what the cause of this could be? Would be a shame to loose it after all.

windchicken · Apr 16, 2013

That's normal, I believe, Stefan. Whenever I prune my plants I get that...The necrosis doesn't normally spread...

meatfreak · Apr 16, 2013

windchicken said:
That's normal, I believe, Stefan. Whenever I prune my plants I get that...The necrosis doesn't normally spread...

Thanks, Gary. I'm not sure if it spreads more since I didn't pay to much attention to it. Will keep an close eye on it now, it's making a lot of new foliage so looking forward to get a nice crown on it. Some people recommended to cut away the dead tissue.