Parrot+ Pepper Glog 2023

This will be my first big foray in to pepper growing because of these two. Jasper (left) and Tin Tin (right) are my official taste testers. I myself have a fairly poor spice tolerance, tabasco is spicy for me but frank's red hot isn't so I'm working on it! The rest of my family have tolerance and my partner also appreciates spice so all is not lost, however.

So far the lineup is:

Annuum:

• Espelette (sourced from a chef friend, the lines go back to the French Laundry chef's gardens in California and prior to that were smuggled out of France - I have 200 of these I'm willing to share while keeping my own stock too!)
• Chile de Comida
• Ancho
• Bola
• Hawk's Claw
• El Incendo
• Fish
• Grandpa's Siberian Home
• Mystery Hot (hot is relative, 1000-5000 SHU)
• Mystery Sweet (up to 500 SHU)
• Florida Bird

Chinense:

• Alligator Tongue (anyone know anything about this pepper?)
• Peach Habanero

Baccatum

• Piri Piri
• Aji Omnicolor
• Aji Fantasy White

I also have a pack of entirely mystery seeds that I'll be germinating this week. Hopefully the Annuums in this mix don't get too big before planting out but you never know! Lots of overlap between my list and growyourown's so it'll be interesting to see the differences and similarities from our grows esp because our overlap is sourced from the same place.

If I grow any superhots out of the true mystery pack I'll give them to a friend who's a true spice fiend, I have another friend who is taking a few seedlings and the rest I'll try and figure out. For this reason I'm going to double cup hydroponic the true mystery pack, hoping they fruit fast and I can figure out what I'm dealing with (is this a good idea? Can you tell from the leaves sometimes which sub variety they are, instead of waiting for flower?) The mystery sweets and hots I'm planning on growing in 1 gallons (I want to try everything and if I really like a variety I'll save seeds for a bigger container next year).

The birds plants are Bola, Florida Bird, Piri Piri, Alligator Tongue and El Incendo. I haven't decided on a final pot size for these yet because they can only eat so much in a day, fresh or dried, but I have a few other parrot owners who would take a bumper crop if I have any. I might not start Grandpa's Siberian Home until fall as they apparently fruit in winter even with the low light. The rest are for your typical uses, I've yet to decide if I want to grow the Hawk's Claw or give them away because I'm up to my ears as a balcony grower already but I also might be moving at some point during the growing season so no matter what I'm all containers.

In any case I'm excited to see what the year holds. Now to figure out how many of each of my known varieties I'm starting!

 

[Simcows]

Under 40c it should be fine, if they didn't dry out.

they didn't, thankfully!

 

[Simcows]

Peach Habaneros won the race!!

 

[Simcows]

First Espelette hook

First Mystery seed to emerge!

First alligator tongue. Dome was on this part of the tray when it came up yesterday (not even a hook in the morning when I checked, incredible speed) so we’re a little yellow but the dome is off the whole tray now! Making moves out here.

 

[Ratatouille]

Mystery seeds are the best seeds!

 

[Simcows]

Espelette cotyledon almost fully upright, three more mystery hooks, one Florida bird, one more gator tongue and this strange habanero situation - I can’t tell if it’s a true leaf or a 3rd coty leaf but it sure is cute!

 

[Simcows]

Wait I just teased off one of my helmet head habaneros and it also has three leaves out of the seed? This is getting more and more interesting.

 

[Ratatouille]

Ah, a three leaf mutation. Very intriguing.

 

[Simcows]

One of the mystery seeds has sprouted purple! I wonder what I could be...

 

[Ratatouille]

How did you end up with the mysterious seeds? Was it a happy little accident (the ones I seem to have when throwing around my seed 'suitcase') or something else?

 

[Simcows]

Hoe did you end up with the mysterious seeds? Was it a happy little accident (the ones I seem to have when throwing around my seed 'suitcase') or something else?

The place I bought from has a pack of mystery floor seeds that they sell for cheaper! Literally seeds from the floor from their sorting and bagging process.

Cheap Floor Pepper Seeds

Cheap Floor Pepper Seeds A mix of over 1000 Varieties from Capsicum Annuum to Capsicum Pubescens

pepperseeds.ca

 

[Ratatouille]

Hahaha, I love it! It's quite smart, selling these like this for a small discount.

 

[Simcows]

Hahaha, I love it! It's quite smart, selling these like this for a small discount.

It’s funny because it says 14+ seeds and I got 35 in my pack. 2 of them were attached to other seeds so I knew they were from the same plant so I planted 33. What I’m going to do with 33 potential pepper plants I do not know but the mystery was too good to resist!

 

[Tinkerbelle]

I love mystery seeds - always a guessing game until they fruit and even then, it's still a guessing game

 

[Simcows]

started soaking the Baccatums Wednesday night and they went in the dirt yesterday. The length of the soak was unintentional - I was aiming for 2 days but got busy.

Lost one of the the habaneros after being out of the house for 18 hrs - I thought I had pre watered enough but that plant was already weak so it’s not a great loss.

Sprouted (including the dead one) I now have 5/6 Espelette, 5/6 peach habs, 5/6 gator tongue, 3/6 Florida birds and 8/33 mysteries. Two of the habaneros now have baby true leaves. I hope my whole season keeps up like this but it’s early yet!

 

[Simcows]

Transplanted and thinned first crop in to slightly larger cells, and repotted my Baccatum and remaining mystery seeds after accidentally soaking all of them to the point of mud and the cells wouldn’t dry out. Yes, I actually went and picked through all 32 cells to find each seed and re plant it

Seedlings are doing well, aside from the unfortunate ones that either struggled from the start or had their coty leaves rot off on their helmets. One already grew true leaves after being just a stem and one of the remaining two looks healthy enough so I’ll see if it pulls through! Keeping the weak ones is just me testing my plant nursing skills, I don’t expect much from them.

My mystery purple is also getting more and more interesting looking and I can’t wait for it to flower so I can start to narrow down and ID

 

[Simcows]

2 piri piris are making their debut as well as a second fantasy, nothing yet from the aji omnicolors or the rest of the mysteries. Some of the mysteries when I repotted had questionable seeds so I know not all of them will come but some were nice and fat so I'm waiting with baited breath to see what finally pokes through!!

 

[Ratatouille]

I'm on the edge of my seat.

 

[Simcows]

Somehow my mothers supremely trimmed back banana pepper is fruiting????

She trimmed it back almost all the way and brought it in hoping it would dry out and she could pull the plant and use the pot again but it decided to put up a fight so she started to water it again. It lives next to a floor to ceiling window by the baseboard heater so the soil is nice and warm. Plant stress is weird

 

[PaulG]

Nature finds a way!

 

[Simcows]

Planted all my annuums late last night as well as a re sew of omnicolor and fantasies - I let them dry out a bit too much and nothing else popped so I just added a second seed to their cells and we'll see what happens. I didn't soak any of the seeds because I'm lazy so I'll see what happens!