Megamoo's 2012/2013 Glog

Sanarda · Oct 26, 2012

Terrific project. You have lots of room along that wall now. Another 33 plants maybe???????

Trippa · Oct 26, 2012

Looking awesome bro. Loving the mini garden on the retaining wall. Hope it doesn't get too hot up there in summer

megamoo · Oct 27, 2012

Jeff H said:
Very cool retaining wall garden. That should be enough plants to keep your mouth on fire all year long once they mature.

Thats the plan

PaulG said:
Great reclamation project, MM!

It worked out better than I hoped.

Sanarda said:
Terrific project. You have lots of room along that wall now. Another 33 plants maybe???????

Thanks

I counted wrong though, it was 33 chinenses and 2 annuums. There is definitely room for that many again, plus about another 20 to 30 in a single row behind the shed. So a total of about 100 just for the narrow retaining wall section. Then I've got the raised wide limestone area where I can cram maybe 30 to 40 into the ground too.
All this without needing pots is great because I haven't sourced any large ones yet. Then I can start populating the other garden where the aphid covered roses are in their final days.
Bottom line is my master plan of a Chilli Jungle is falling into place nicely. :cool:

Trippa said:
Looking awesome bro. Loving the mini garden on the retaining wall. Hope it doesn't get too hot up there in summer

Thanks dude. Yeah wouldn't you believe it, day after transplant it hits 33 for the first time this season. In their new position they get sun from crack of dawn to just before dusk, and they are exposed to winds but have only been sheltered up to now. I was misting them and watering them a lot today trying to keep them cool. A few got droopy but they seem alright. Going to be cooler rest of the week. Got to get some sillica to toughen them up a bit. Come the nasty nasty height of summer I'll be erecting some shadecloth so they don't fry.

Sanarda · Oct 29, 2012

Very nice Mega. I am excited to follow.... :dance:

Sownseeds · Oct 29, 2012

Hi Moo , the plants that you have in the ground look nice and healthy and the new blue fence will look awesome with a sea of green chillis growing in front of it..

Best of luck mate ..

megamoo · Oct 29, 2012

Sanarda said:
Very nice Mega. I am excited to follow....

Sownseeds said:
Hi Moo , the plants that you have in the ground look nice and healthy and the new blue fence will look awesome with a sea of green chillis growing in front of it..

Best of luck mate ..

Thanks.

Looked at them today and although there shouldn't be any difference this soon I swear that they have grown a bit. They definitely look healthy!

Jalapeno double pod craziness!

65 recently potted up seedlings.

Theres more to do as well.

Here are the newest sprouts.

DocNrock · Oct 30, 2012

Dude, you are going to have one huge grow! Great following along.

Trippa · Oct 30, 2012

Well they are looking better then last seasons mega thats for sure

megamoo · Oct 31, 2012

DocNrock said:
Dude, you are going to have one huge grow! Great following along.

I just hope I don't have too many to look after, trying to automate as much as possible. Haven't yet dared to think about if everything goes right... then what am I going to do with wheelbarrows full of pods!

Trippa said:
Well they are looking better then last seasons mega thats for sure

You got that right! Last season was textbook `what not to do!`

Finally potted up the last 33 ready plants from the 8-cell trays. Had to use slightly smaller and larger pots because I'm using almost everything I have.

I give these ones about 2-3 weeks probably more in these pots before they are ready for the garden bed or bigger pots. Noticed the garden bed ones not looking too happy today with the stronger wind and new growth a bit yellow. My instinct is they need some trace elements, epsom salts and some silica which I've run out of and have no idea where to find it.

megamoo · Nov 17, 2012

Been a while since my last update but no one wants to hear bad news

The oldest plants got sick and I realised despite all my research and past experiences I had gone and planted them into non-draining over fertilised soil. My blood sugar must have been low or something because my brain went on a holiday

Anyway I excavated around every single plant and filled in some much better soil mix and they are starting to look better.

Buried the retic and put an individual dripper for each plant, which is probably the hard way to do it but its done now.

Put in some tomatoes and they love the over fertilised conditions! Growing so fast.

The Jalapenos that have been in the ground for a long time are podding up like there's no tomorrow. Might be hard to see because pods are all still green but the plants are loaded and keep pumping out the flowers.

I ate one and it was hotter than expected. They must be growing "hard" with more heat and little water.

Bad news part 2: Found a hole in one of my first and biggest pods. Looked closer and found a whole bunch of bored out pods, all on the same plant, none of the others were affected. While I was searching the plant a green catepillar fell off it. I didn't realised they ate pods, I thought it was only leaves but this one must have developed a taste for the soft new baby pods. :mad:

I disposed of it as per my aphid truce agreement with the ants.

Must be working because despite the ants crawling all over my plants there are no aphids present, yet about 5 metres away over a wall there are rose bushes bursting with aphids. Not sure if I mentioned this in an earlier post but the aphid covered roses are now mostly covered with zombie aphids

There are plenty of hoverflies everywhere so mother nature is doing its thing well. Haven't had to use any chemcials this season, and don't want to.

gasificada · Nov 17, 2012

Going off, moo! :cool:

You planted the little buggers mighty close to each other though, didn't you?

One thing I have learned, no matter how hard you try to capture it, loaded plants never look as loaded as they really are on film.

@#$%! those caterpillars! They've been getting into my pods too this season. Had to do away with a handful of Nagas before after I discovered the little bastages got into 'em. :mad:

Wouldn't be so bad if they stuck to one pod either, but noooo... it looks like they have a little nibble, then jump onto the next. Hopefully my bagging against fruit fly will protect against the caterpillar too! I swear, if the little bastages start eating through the bags and messing things up....... watch out!

Awesome to hear the aphid predators have arrived too! :dance:

DocNrock · Nov 17, 2012

Sucks about the caterpillars but everything else is looking great! Love the "agreement" you have with the ants. Sounds like you decided to leave the roses in place to distract the aphids. Probably a wise call. Great following along.

megamoo · Nov 17, 2012

I had decided to leave the roses for a short while but now the ahpid predators are here I will rip them out and put in some fruit trees. Don't tell the fruit flies!

Some more pictures.

Naga Jolokia Purple. All leggy and small. I had hoped they would bush out some more but they seem more interested in making teeny tiny pods. Not sure how big the pods are supposed to be but because I grew them with the chinenses timetable they are all freaky.

I've learnt that one effect of a lot of strong sun is plants produce smaller leaves, whereas under lower intensity indoor lights they get big fat leaves. I hammered in some star pickets today which will hold up a shadecloth screen. It's preparation for the summer oven thats coming.

Latest seedlings are growing very well... actually too well cos they are going to start shading each other out. They have a week left inside max. Annuums going nuts!
This on 30/10

and this 17/11

I've seen glogs with faster growth rates but I'm more than happy with this.

I'm not happy with some of the seeds that failed to germinate. If you only count the ones that hooked at all the germination rate is 104 seeds from 116 sown, which I think is pretty good.

But there were varieties that just did nothing. I tried two different lots of Aji Panca and Pimenta Di Bico and together they came out as 0 from 24 seeds. I got 0 from 8 of Blondie which I didn't expect at all, really want to grow it. Habanero Big Sun and Nagabon were from last years stock and I got sprouts then, but now nothing.

I would question my method but for those that sprout, almost all of them sprout. So either some are just harder to germinate than others, or I got some bum lots of seed.

I'm not too concerned about it because I have plenty to be getting on with!

For the ready seedlings I have to reclaim some pots that are all currently filled with these -

I underfed them and they went yellow but fixed it so the new growth is green again.

- and also these:

They need to be moved because the changing angle of the sun means they no longer get any direct sunlight! Damn seasons. Got to move to Darwin.
I'm not sure they are ready for the next level but the queue is backing up. Feeling the pressure!

My plan to solve this involves a whole lot of shadecloth. I'll try to finish it tomorrow and post some pictures.

.... oh and I just sowed another lot of seeds. They'll need the hydro system in a week when they start to pop up,

pressure pressure pressure :scared:

gasificada · Nov 17, 2012

megamoo said:
I had decided to leave the roses for a short while but now the ahpid predators are here I will rip them out and put in some fruit trees. Don't tell the fruit flies!

But what happens next season when the aphids return and discover their home is gone? They'll be looking for another one, you know! Maybe a chilli one... :scared:

The aphid predators here disappear come winter, giving the aphid bastages time to repopulate. Of course, the predators return in spring, but in the meantime, the aphids will still cause a bit of damage. Better to distract them, no?

And YES, keep the fruit tree thing on the low! Although, fruit fly, at least QLD fruit fly, seem to love chilli just as much as any fruit. So if they're coming, they're still coming regardless of some fruit trees.

(Seriously though, I hope they don't!)

megamoo said:
Naga Jolokia Purple. All leggy and small. I had hoped they would bush out some more but they seem more interested in making teeny tiny pods. Not sure how big the pods are supposed to be but because I grew them with the chinenses timetable they are all freaky.

The ones I grew a couple years ago did the same. Small, leggy/spindly, and small pods. I think you will find that's normal of them.

megamoo said:

Looking good! :cool:

Trippa · Nov 17, 2012

Looking good mega. If I was you I would leave well enough alone and leave the ecosystem as it is for the time being. If you upset things now you still have a season ahead to weather . Best to leave any alterations to late autumn in my opinion. What's the old adage ... if it ain't broke don't fix it!!

megamoo · Nov 18, 2012

I hear what your saying about the aphids Gassy. Sadly its a real guessing game as to what they'll do and how to deal with them. I had a small aphid population on a basil plant several years ago so I used confidor on it once and never saw them again. (Of course I couldn't bring myself to eat it after that.) I've also used chemicals with no effect.

I'm going to dispose of the aphid rose nest and hope they don't come back in strength. At my house I have one neighbour very close on one side and large open spaces with no vegetation on three sides. That means few places for the evil sods to be hiding.

My reasoning is: If I can alien abduction their asses into oblivion they won't be able to recover for a while. If I leave them they will continue to breed and despite any predators will probably spill over into my chillies, plus I am going to have chillies in pots right where they are. If I bomb with chemicals then I'll kill the predators and most of the ahpids but if even a few slip through they'll get a free shot at everything, then I'll be doing nothing else but bombing chemicals all the time.

You're right Trippa, right now the ecosystem is balancing itself so I'm not going to rock the boat.

Shady photo time.

Walk through dome thing. Put the last of my tomatoes in the ground too you can probably see in the background.

These are going into the raised bed this week so I can reclaim some pots. They are probably not ready but I don't have the time to wait.

Moved these ones too.

It's not pretty but I used old bits and pieces of shadecloth, in fact I used only things I had so net cost = $0

Not too shady but hopefully it will take some sting out of the sun when the temps hits 40C.

DocNrock · Nov 20, 2012

Shade cloth looks great. The price is definitely right. Win.

megamoo · Nov 21, 2012

Thanks Doc. I actually think it looks terrible but I'm not trying to win any design awards, just after the effect.

The mature plants under the shadecloth have relaxed a bit, and I think the overfeeding / non drainage issue is resolved. They've all started to send out flower buds too. Maybe its a reaction to the lessened sun and the plants think that the season is going to get colder now so they'd better get on with it? Don't know if chillies are sensitive to that. I wanted them to be a bit bigger before they made pods but I'll take it. At least I'll get some pods before the summer heat shuts it all down.

DocNrock · Nov 21, 2012

megamoo said:
Thanks Doc. I actually think it looks terrible but I'm not trying to win any design awards, just after the effect.

The mature plants under the shadecloth have relaxed a bit, and I think the overfeeding / non drainage issue is resolved. They've all started to send out flower buds too. Maybe its a reaction to the lessened sun and the plants think that the season is going to get colder now so they'd better get on with it? Don't know if chillies are sensitive to that. I wanted them to be a bit bigger before they made pods but I'll take it. At least I'll get some pods before the summer heat shuts it all down.

I don't have a lot of experience, so maybe I'm all wet. But with the plants I have grown this year, I did not notice accelerated growth if I pinched off buds as they formed. In fact, I have an Anaheim right now that seemed to grow just fine while setting more and more pods. It almost seemed like after every pod or two it set, it then had a growth spurt. It has now stopped growing, but I think it is probably root bound in it's current container. The chinenses that I grew from seed are also probably maxxed out in their current containers also. I don't see them getting any larger unless I up-pot them, either.

Glad to hear the overfert condition seems to have dissipated. Do you have an idea as to which nutes were in excess? Only nitrogen, or NPK in general? I ask because when my plants started to flower, I gave them a bit of 5-50-30. I think that kept them growing while giving them the building blocks they needed to make buds/flowers/pods.

stickman · Nov 22, 2012

Hi Moo
I just popped in for a quick scan... I'm going to have to come back when I can spend more time and really dig in. This is a really information-rich glog. You've got so many plants started, you'll be rivalling Shane for output before you know it. Cheers!