My first "real" indoor grow, unknowns and purple cayenne

Hello.
 
I live in a rather small apartment in the city and have previously had plants by a window in summer. They've all started flowering and the flowers have always dropped and no fruits have ever developed.
 
This glog will be about the couple of unknown plants I initiated in soil, by the window sometime during the middle of this summer. Seeing they'd have no chance to develop properly before fall and 6 hrs of dim daylight per day I started researching how to go about growing them under artificial lighting in a space efficient manner indoors. Also wanted to pick a couple of seeds that were attractive myself, so the glog will also be about those later starters. Finally I was intrigued by this hydro method: https://gabeshydroponics.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/tomatoes-and-chillis-grown-in-hempy-buckets/ and decided it seemed space-effective and not too complicated for a wannabe gardener.
 
2017-10-05, sunshine & soil

 
 
 

 

[chelicerae]

2018-03-24:
 
New experiences
 
 
Having embarked on this journey without much prior experience I feel I've learnt quite a bit, both from reading here and by doing the work.
 
Was glad for the above little harvest and yesterday I tried the first one-tenth of one of the Jolokias on a pizza. It had been frozen, they're quite easy to cut up and handle then and it isn't as if I need them to stay shapely in a salad or something, as a colleague pointed out : )
Perhaps seven small little bits and they had bite but nothing overwhelming. What struck me the hardest was how much they tasted and "smelled". It wasn't quite like, 'picking up this pizza slice, putting it to my mouth, nose picking up red onions, cheese, the One Ring, bits of tomato' but something in that direction. By comparison the purple cayenne doesn't smell much at all in a similar situation. It tastes less too, but pleasantly fruity.
 
The Bhut Jolokia Chocolate plant is enjoying life and making new pods whereas the 7 pot brain strain or whatever it is has not produced any new pods now for maybe a month. Bucket-overflow-wise there are signs that perhaps I should water them (The 10 l hydro transplants) twice a week.
 
The Purple Cayenne is producing on most every flower, the Royal Blacks are also podding well, see images.
 
---
 
I like this setup but it does cost a fair bit so I've been considering options for summer and next fall. Maybe one or two 75W leds and then a 20W heat mat underneath two buckets, or running between them in the fall, and maybe try a simple plastic-with-metal-skeleton-greenhouse on the balcony even if it only receives about an hour or two of direct sunlight in summer. It still receives quite a lot of indirect light. Would need to open it some days for insect pollination and just remember to close it before letting the cats out. That is if the swishy-washy mini greenhouse proves catsafe. What do you think?
 
---Photos:
 

 

[Essegi]

I noticed your glog just now, all indoor is quite a challenge. But i see nice pods, way to go!

 

[chelicerae]

Thanks for your comment.
 
2018-04-03:
 
Same same, RB x 2 and PC are producing pods very well. The Bhut Jolokia is also producing new pods though not at the same flower rate as the annuums. The 7 pot brain strain is producing flowers seemingly lacking pollen and dropping all of them, no new pods, maybe in summer, I think maybe the large humidifier kept the rh high enough for that plant.
 
Being a bit of a novice I ate half a fresh PC fruit and it was certainly hot enough. It also tasted like the Bhut Jolokia on pizza smelled, i.e "one ring", it is rather chili pepper typical I think and I'm not so keen on the taste it appears : / Ate a whole RB fruit and it was just the right amount of hot and I liked it better because it had less of that chili fruit taste. With this in mind:
 
For a possible next year I had planned on jwala and rocoto but if those taste like the cayenne and jolokia would I be better of with Aji Limon, Pineapple, Mango? (First being more or less the same as Lemon Drop I've read here I think).
 
No photos today as nothing really new to show.

 

[chelicerae]

2018-04-14: "Admit your defeat, Corak!" "-I do; initiate self-destruct, code 0, 0, 1.:" "What? No...Nooooooo!"
 
What I thought was lots of pollen covering the Royal Black in soil were in fact hordes of aphids. The aphids are on the other plants too but nowhere near as numerously as on mentioned RB. (The RB has just vacated the premises)
 
-Can this be caused by too high humidity?
 
-Would a spray made on soft soap and vegetable oil work, if I sprayed every spotted occurence every night? (Will need to prune quite severely for this to be realistic)
 
 
Another thing..how do you pick the fruits from the plant? If I pull on the fruit body they tend to lose their "head" and if I pull on the stem to the head sometimes half a branch follows.
 
 
 

 

[AndyW]

2018-04-14: "Admit your defeat, Corak!" "-I do; initiate self-destruct, code 0, 0, 1.:" "What? No...Nooooooo!"
 
What I thought was lots of pollen covering the Royal Black in soil were in fact hordes of aphids. The aphids are on the other plants too but nowhere near as numerously as on mentioned RB. (The RB has just vacated the premises)
 
-Can this be caused by too high humidity?
 
-Would a spray made on soft soap and vegetable oil work, if I sprayed every spotted occurence every night? (Will need to prune quite severely for this to be realistic)
 
 
Another thing..how do you pick the fruits from the plant? If I pull on the fruit body they tend to lose their "head" and if I pull on the stem to the head sometimes half a branch follows.
 
 
 

I've only had the problem of the branch coming off with the fruit with my Black Prince. If you're worried about it you could try cutting close to the plant to harvest. Mine was so bushy that I ended up dealing with the losses.

 

[chelicerae]

Thanks for the suggestion Andy, I'll do that with the troublesome ones.
 
"2018-04-15: Supplemental: Not all who wander are lost"
 
The aphid infestation doesn't appear to have taken over every leaf just yet which is just as well because I will never be able to remove the two transplants from the tent in order to hose / shower them.
Made the U.S Agricultural dept version http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/getting-rid-of-aphids-on-pepper-plants/ and sprayed the infested leaves I could find. (For clarity: I threw away the heavily infested RB) -  I'm glad I don't have mites. Once I had a mite outbreak from an old pack of cat dry food and the mites took over the kitchen. Funny how nothing - including bleach - will stop them. They make lanes across the kitchen which includes into the freezer and right inside of it their dead pile up. Weird experience.
 
Made an effort and got the other RB out in order to pollinate by hand...it seems shaking it doesn't quite cut it as it had more flowers and less fruit than the one in soil that I could reach (which I got rid of).  Quite a beautiful plant.  Will try to put one of the smaller plants in the balcony greenhouse..but not just yet because this spring is the slowest that I can remember (five years, before that I lived in Ireland) and night time temps are around 2-3C
 
As for spice levels half a fresh cayenne is my limit so far. First there's that rather horrible "venomous vegetable" taste, then the heat hits..it's a nice experience though and I'll work on the level of resistance.
 
Next grow will likely be aji pineapple, aji lemon (if I receive the letter from the U.S place I bought it from, the Swedish postal system is experiencing issues) and rocoto yellow.
 
 
 

 

[chelicerae]

2018-04-20:
 
Same old story
 
-'It's a Bhut world'..the superhots are enjoying summer temps outside (higher rh and temps inside)
 
-Electric bill is up around 130% from baseline over the two years prior to the HPS but that can't be helped. The sun cannot be counted upon and my cats do not tolerate approachable plants and LEDs according
to report don't have the same sort of penetration in a jungle, which is what will be in an 80*80cm tent
 
-Aphids are perhaps not so fun to read about?
 
-If you pull on the ripe fruit body it will come loose from its cap. I don't know whether they keep for a short amount of time in the fridge like that but I freeze them.
-It seems that fruit bodies that have been ripe for over a week, at least cayennes, go a bit more soft and hollow. The superhots seem to keep in shape for longer on the branch after starting to show ripe colors
-My aphid spray is like a lacquer and it kills any targeted aphids dead..it appears clear that the best I can hope for is a stale mate though, for this jungle grow at least.
 
P.S I tried setting an avatar but jpg at different compression levels, png,  b&w, smallest recommended size in pixels..I got to 60bkyte before the image turned to smush. Can't seem to make it to 50kb with any meaningful info intact. Will search for another tool.
 
 
Edit. Spelling
 
 
 
 

 

[chelicerae]

2018-04-22:
 
"Something different"
 
I trust my Sunmaster HPS more than the sun but we'll see what comes from this. Preliminary results show a certain cat-resistance

 

[chelicerae]

As a way to wrap this log up (transplants are enjoying summer from the inside of their tent, the RB on the balcony is hanging in there) I present what happens after around 20hrs in a dehumidifier (OBH Nordica Tasty) at full speed:
 
the cayennes appear to have dried (and become slightly translucent) while all of the bhut jolokia fruits are still slightly soft and mushy, even those smaller than the cayennes. Next time I shall split the jolokia fruits in two before attempting to dry and I think these might still dry, eventually.