My first time growing peppers! Grow with me please!

T

tehhotpepper

This is my first time growing peppers! I dont know what information to include in this thread! Can you please ask me some questions and I will answer!
 
 
My main question at the moment:
What should I do with these pepper plants. I would like to get a lot of hot peppers to eat and make into spices and cook with and to share with friends and family. My current plan is to grow them inside until late spring and then put them outside. I want to know what I should do in order to maximize yield. I have a 5x3 foot space inside with some grow lights and 30 plants. They need to stay inside until it gets warm out again, I'm guessing I will need to get rid of some in order to keep them in the same space?
 
 
the facts
 
 
They are 8 weeks old right now.
 
I water from the bottom 2-3 times per week and use areogarden plant food
 
I have a fan on them for around 12 hours a day
 
I have 2 hydro farm grow lights on them also about 12 hours a day. Here is a link to my exact lights. http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-JSV2-2-Foot-Start-System/dp/B0006856EQ
 
There are 7-9 different varieties of peppers here, all ordered on amazon from various sellers. Types ordered listed below:
 
- Cayenne Red Long Pepper
- Hot Pepper Jalapeno El Jefe
- Hot Pepper Serrano del Sol
- Peruvian White Lightning Habanero
- Devil's Tongue 
- Jamaican Hot Chocolate Habanero
- Bhut Jolokia White Pepper
- Bhut Jolokia Ghost Chili
- Bhut Jolokia-Ghost Chili
 
 
EsmQjiz.jpg

 
 
C6QOoE0.jpg
 
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Welcome! They are all looking good! What varieties? Hopefully they grow true. Amazon and eBay are notorious for scamming people with seeds.
 
Uuuhhh, welcome, but what are your plans?  In Boston you won't be able to set those outside (i.e. in the sun) until May at the earliest.  By then, if you can keep good light on them, they will be 8 feet tall.
 
Okay, not that tall.  But are you planning for an indoor grow?  It's way too late / early for an outdoor grow.  I don't start my slow growers until January, and I'm in Texas where the heat comes early.
 
Thanks for the welcomes. What does it mean to grow true? 
 
The varieties are supposedly:
 
- Cayenne Red Long Pepper
- Hot Pepper Jalapeno El Jefe
- Hot Pepper Serrano del Sol
- Peruvian White Lightning Habanero
- Devil's Tongue 
- Jamaican Hot Chocolate Habanero
- Bhut Jolokia White Pepper
- Bhut Jolokia Ghost Chili
- Bhut Jolokia-Ghost Chili
 
 
 
DMF said:
Uuuhhh, welcome, but what are your plans?  In Boston you won't be able to set those outside (i.e. in the sun) until May at the earliest.  By then, if you can keep good light on them, they will be 8 feet tall.
 
Okay, not that tall.  But are you planning for an indoor grow?  It's way too late / early for an outdoor grow.  I don't start my slow growers until January, and I'm in Texas where the heat comes early.
Click to expand...
 
Click to expand...
 
 
 
That was going to be my main question! I want to put these outdoors in the summer. Pepper plants can live indefinitely right? I would like to give a majority away, until I have about 18. I think right now there are 30. When I have 18, which is like 2 of each variety, I will put them in a little bigger pots and see how they grow in that same space you see in the pictures.
 
When I feel they have outgrown those pots, I will try to pair down to 9 plants in put them in even bigger pots.
 
I really don't know, it looks like they are already shooting out baby pepper flower things, something I did not expect to happen until waaay later. I didn't think they would start to make flowers with my lights the way they were. I want to prolong flowering until summer... is that possible or reasonable? 
 
My reasoning is that they will be big if they continue to vegetatively grow until summer, and then give me lots and lots of peppers. 
 
 
 
TL;DR
 
I don't know what my plan is. My original plan was to prolong flowering until summertime if possible and then put them outside. Now I am open to suggestions. I just want to get lots of peppers but don't really have a lot of space indoors. Maybe a 5x3 foot space at MOST
 
you better get some serious lights if you plan to grow 20+ plants indoors until spring as they will get huge (if you give them enough light) and if you don't give them enough light then you won't have very good plants for next season as they probably be weak and thin stems...
 
my advice is cut back on the amount of plants unless you have 1,000+ watts of light, preferably, HID light.. also peppers don't live indefinitely. typically if they are well cared for they can last several years (2-3 average) after that they probably won't fruit much..
 
you can always grow a few plants indoors until mature and then a couple months before spring start cloning them from cuttings to create more plants which will get you a head start for next season.
 
another thing is there is no such thing as "vegetative" growth in peppers.. they begin to fruit and flower very early.  typically in less than month after sprouting.. only thing i suggest if you want to grow so many plants indoors is to continuously prune them until next year so they don't get so large (if you have proper lighting for them).
 
Wow, there's clearly a lot to this. I intend to get rid of most of these plants. Ideally I'll have around 10 that I will attempt to take through winter. Maybe I will buy another light too.
Can you give me any pruning advise? I wouldn't know where to begin.
 
To "grow true" means to produce what you expected them to produce.  There is a LOT of commerce nowadays in crosses/hybrids and odd colors.  People get something unusual and send or sell seeds.  But to stabilize a new variety takes a minimum of eight generations.  Few people do it.  So the incidence of "yellow scorpions" that actually grow red jalapeno-like pods is no longer unusual. 
 
BTW, ebay and amazon is the worst place to get seeds or plants.  Because it takes so long to prove what you actually got, the incidence of fraud is huge, especially with the more exotic varieties such as bhut jolokia.  Now that you've found this forum, you have tapped into the swap culture where you should be able to get interesting seeds for free.  Or if you would rather buy plants (not a bad idea) ask for recommandations.  CCN is a good vendor.
 
Now as to your grow.  Yes, peppers are perennial unless they freeze.  You can grow them indoors.  The techniques of majiuana cultivation apply almost identically since both are high energy plants, demanding full sun to be fully productive.  Indoor cultivation takes space and eats money.  Pot producers recoup the cost but pepper producers don't.  Fortunately there many good products developed to support pot farming that you can take advantage of.  You actually have a good start with the grow lights (I think; be more specific, please).  One difference is that peppers can be larger than pot unless you prune regularly.  (It's too early to prune these guys so you have time to get a book.  But pruning is as much art as science so you'll also need to practice.)
 
AFAIK, there is no good way to regulate flowering in peppers.  Give them enough sun to grow foliage and at some point they will want to flower.  If someone knows more about this I'd like to learn.
 
Your grow list is a good starter list, assuming that you got what you think you got. But other than the "white bhut" (if it's a good one - there are several) and devil's tongue, there is nothing exotic there.  Rather than invest your hopes in this crop as the basis for a long-term grow, use it as a learning experience.  Then re-think your crop composition.  For instance, you will probably find that there is no point to growing cayenne and seranno as there are more interesting peppers, and that jalapeno is so inexpensive at the store that you're wasting money on growing them indoors.  Likewise you have a nice wide range of heat and may learn that you really like your heat at a certain level.
 
So grow these for a while and learn how they develop.  But plan on replacing them.
 
BTW, are you restricted to an indoor grow, or do you have a good outdoor location for the summer?
 
Thank you for your reply DMF. I will update my original post with the exact lights I have.

I have no idea about what the peppers will actually be. I wanted to pick a wide range of heat to see what I like and to hopefully build my tolerance up. Also I LOVE ceyenne powder, that's why I'm growing some ceyenne plants. My hope is to get SOME powder.

I just moved so I'm not sure if my outdoor location will be any good. I live in Boston Massachusetts and am planning to use my back yard for when I put them outside, and ideally I will just put them in 5 gal buckets and not directly in the ground.


Do you have any recommendations for feeding the plants?
Also, should I get a third hydro farm grow light? And how big should I let the plants get before transplanting to bigger pots? When transplanting would foxfarm organic potting soil be the best bet?
 
Before you get to more light, you will need to resolve the size of your grow area.  If you think you can stay in a 5x3' space, you're fooling yourself.  That area will support two mature plants, maybe three.  A few more if you keep them small by pruning.
 
You're using T5HO *single tube* fixtures.  Provided you can put them close and still get full coverage, they are okay for germinating and even short term maintenance - NOT for production.  So no, don't buy another until you do some research.  If you need to stay with fluorescents, start thinking in terms of 4, 8, or 12 tube 4' or longer fixtures.  From the point of view of the plants, try to cover the entire sky with lights.  For a 5x3' area, I'd say the minimum you want is a 4 tube 4' fixture.  More tubes would be better.
 
But if you really want to replace the sun, you will need something like metal halide (MH) or high pressure sodium (HPS) lamps, or LEDs, with supporting fixtures and electrics.  These are going to be expensive, but will cover a much larger area.  Given how many fluorescents are needed for a large area, the difference won't be all that much.  There is a market in used gear, so check with the local hydro store to see what is available.  Get a Hydrofarm catalog while you're there and peruse it before buying more lights.
 
Don't worry much about light spectrum.  Pot farmers (and thus lamp suppliers) fixate on it, but it's not worth worrying about for peppers.  They have very different growth patterns than cannabis.  And don't pay extra for "grow tubes", as if there is a magic spectrum.  Standard "cool" temperature such as 5500K is fine (I mix 6500K and 4700K.).
 
Also consider a way to cool the room.  LEDs and ceramic MH (both quite expensive) are cool (I hear), but anything else that puts out enough light for production over a large area will heat up the room more than you want.
 
Feeding: Probably not yet.  Most potting mixes already have some ferts and the plants won't use them up for a while. 
 
Medium: I normally use Miracle-Gro Moisture Control Potting Mix (not Soil).  This year I tried Fox Farms Ocean Forest and I really like it.  It's about twice as expensive as MGMC but until you start getting up to those big pots that can take an entire bag to fill, the difference isn't that great.  I've heard good things about their Happy Frog, too.
 
Transplanting:  Depends on what you are trying to do - go for maximum, or even regular, growth, or slow them down until there is a real sun.  Provided you regulate the pH and nutrients, you can leave the plants in small pots for quite a while and that will tend to keep them small.  When you go up to 6" pots you will surely overgrow your 5x3' area.
 
BTW, 12 hours of light is low for max growth.  Especially with your low light level, you can easily go to 16 hours, but if you're trying to retard growth the shorter light period is fine.  Leave the fan on 24/7 and move it around so the breeze comes from different directions. 
 
I'd say you have some decisions to make.
 
+100 about the lighting. If you plan to get pods or your plants are over 8"-10" you need at a minimum a T5HO 4' 8 tube. I've taken 6 plants max kept pruned to around 15" tall 12" wide under a 4' 8 tube to fruiting with mylar around 3 sides of the plants. A 2' one tube fixture is only enough to get seedlings going.

You are also going to need fans for air circulation and possibly a way to keep your grow area cool depending on where your grow location is, T5HOs put out alot of heat especially the big units, my bulbs get over 125 degrees, you dont even wanna know how hot my HPS get lol.

Have fun with it, full time indoor growing has a big learning curve but is very rewarding once you get it down. Ive gone from one 4' 4 tube unit to thousands of watts T5HOs, HPS, chillers, portable ac units, humidifiers, venting....uuuugggghhhh it gets addicting and costs a ton in the equipment and the electric bill lolol. But I also grow many orchids and other plants, it's refreshing walking into a grow room in the middle of winter and seeing all the lush green and still being able to garden :-).

It's alot of work though when you have a full time job, all the watering, checking for bugs, fertilizing, pruning, filling humidifiers etc everyday.

If I were you I would keep 6 plants and get a 4' 8 tube T5HO and go from there. The Quantum badboy is $199 and a great light, don't waste your money on a couple small lights.

Have fun and keep us posted, if you haven't tried any fresh super hots shoot me a PM and I could most likely get you out a small sample box of some fire :-)
 
  • Like
Reactions: DMF
 
But I also grow many orchids
Click to expand...
 
Ooo.  I love orchids.  I really got into them when I lived in Florida.  But for some reason I never "grokked" them.  A pepper plant I can look at and get the idea of what's going on in its life.  The life of an orchid is just opaque to me.  I tried growing some and did okay, but I never understood why they thrived or died.  You're a better gardener than I am (or at least was), sir.
 
I wish it was easier for non members to post pictures.

I will tomorrow. My plants are all starting to look very different! Many have baby things that look like they could be the start of pods. Can I use the same fixture I have just with a different bulb?

I read this thread too late and have already ordered a third 4ft fixture and some Mylar. I'm down to 12 plants. (Gave the rest of my babies away)

If I don't upgrade their lighting situation, what will happen? Will the baby pepper pods not continue to grow? I'll take some pictures of them tomorrow.


I just want to keep these plants healthy and strong so that come summertime I will have lots of peppers!!!
I wish it was easier for non members to post pictures.

I will tomorrow. My plants are all starting to look very different! Many have baby things that look like they could be the start of pods. Can I use the same fixture I have just with a different bulb?

I read this thread too late and have already ordered a third 4ft fixture and some Mylar. I'm down to 12 plants. (Gave the rest of my babies away)

If I don't upgrade their lighting situation, what will happen? Will the baby pepper pods not continue to grow? I'll take some pictures of them tomorrow.


I just want to keep these plants healthy and strong so that come summertime I will have lots of peppers!!!
 
Just get a photobucket Acct. You upload a pic to photobucket then get a img link to post directly here. Well then be able to see the pic right in the post and you wont have to be an extreme member. That being said if i wasnt as poor as i am i would become an extreme member myself. Community is just awesome and the amount of advice, tips, and 24/hr plant care techniiques it basically pays for itself.

You can grow them without pods inside fairly easy, but if you want pods in the winter time youll need a lot of light. The more the better. I grew 6 habenero plants with a cfl in a lamp last year with no problem, then transplanted them outside when the weather got better, and had more pods than i could ever eat (I live in IL so the growing season is short. 
 
I started them in solo cups with fox farm and gave them each a tiny tiny bit of plant food.

Now they are in 6-7 inch pots with some lesser quality potting soil that supposedly has some fertilizer in it. I stopped feeding them when some of the leafs turned wrinkly because I am worried I over fed them. Now they just get water.

image_1.jpg
[/URL]


image.jpg
[/URL]


IMG]http://i1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii596/timelessprestige/Mobile%20Uploads/image_2.jpg[/IMG][/URL]They started in solo cups of fox farm, super super lightly fed with plant


image_3.jpg
[/URL]
 
I also just ordered this.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015JYJG42?redirect=true&ref_=ya_st_dp_summary

So I will have a total of 4 4 foot cfl tubes over the 2 foot width that the plants take up.

I will also put Mylar on either side and on the top and bottom of the plant area.


I will need more light if I want to get pods this winter huh? Will this setup suffice to just keep healthy, growing, leafy plants happy until the summer? Is there a chance I could get a few pods? If I get a few pods this winter , will that stop the plant from flowering again in the summer? Or do pepper plants continually flower with enough light?

Most of my plants Are starting to shoot out flowers. Some of them have up to 15 baby flowers on them.
 
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top