Pickler's Grow Log

Greetings Everybody,
 
I've been growing more interested in hot peppers and gardening over the last two years and have decided to get a little more serious about growing this year.  I wanted to get a jump start on the season, but didn't quite know how to start.  (Especially with lighting.)  I asked for some guidance from the forum and received a lot of good input.  Fast forwarding a few days, I ordered a 4 bulb T5 fixture and purchased a rack setup from Home Depot.  I also have a little Jiffy seedling starter setup and a cheapo heat mat from Amazon. 
 
We had 3 garden plots this past year at our community garden, each about 9x14ft.  One bed was for tomatoes, another for peppers/tomatillos, and another for herbs.  We'll probably do that again this year and hopefully add one more plot.  In short, we really love to grow food in the garden.  Last year's pepper plot contained the following: Thai Chilis, jalapenos, serranos, orange ghosts (seemed maybe as hot as a HOT habanero.  Hybrid likely?), and an overwintered Scorpion.  Sadly, we had a LATE frost and it hit the peppers pretty hard.  The Scorpion never recovered, ghosts were slowed way down, but the others seemed to recover.  (Everything got covered but it got cold.)
 
So to prepare for the coming year, I ordered some seeds from AJDrew.  I purchased the following: Reapers, Butch T Scorpions, Red Savina Habaneros, and 7 Pot Douglahs (Chocolate).  I'm debating growing the Thais again, if space allows.  He did include some extras, so thanks AJDrew, I appreciate it.  I soaked my seeds for 12 hours in lukewarm water and then planted them after they all sank to the bottoms of their containers.  In total, I dropped about 80 seeds.  It seems like a lot, but I have no idea how many will come up.  This was on 2/2/2019.
 
Today is 2/7/2019, and the seeds are starting to come up.  There are a few from each variety popping out, with the Reapers having the most so far (6-8 if I remember correctly.)
 
I'll keep this updated as things progress.  Enjoy the pictures from my potato-phone.  We'll be putting up the rest of the shelf as we do more seedlings.
 
Cheers
 
 

 

[PaulG]

Looks good, Pierce! I'd say your starts are right on.
My rule of thumb is a new set of true leaves each
week. If your 3-week old starts have started or grown  
their third set of leaves, you are probably good to go.

 

[ThePickler]

Greetings everybody,
 
The sun has been out more often the past week, which has been nice.  Things seem to be coming along pretty well with the seedlings.  I believe they are about a month old since coming up.  Here's the updates:
 

• We picked up an extra light, I need to adjust the hanging wire (it's not quite level).  This will be used for my girlfriend's herbs/tomatoes.  https://www.rareseeds.com/brad-s-atomic-grape-tomato/
• I've been continuing my feeding of diluted bat guano tea, once a week. (Really starting to get RIPE.)  I'd like to add a little Cal-Mag to this as well.  I've got some photos that make me think I have a deficiency, please see those and weigh in if you can.
• I've raised my light UP, 12" above the tallest seedling. 
• Lighting is 16 ON, 8 OFF.
• Temps below the lights are 70F-80F.
• I have a fan (probably too strong to be honest, even on the lowest setting) that I have blowing on the plants while the lights are on.  I water 1-2x a week as needed till I get a few small dribbles of water out the bottom of my cups.

 
Here's what I've noticed so far, given my setup. (4 Lamp, 6500K, T5HO, 54W per)  The seedlings at the periphery of where my light shines were doing the best.  Their growth was on par with everything else, but they looked the healthiest.  Seedlings at the CENTER of the lighting footprint seemed to be a little unhappy (yellow leaves, some other weird stuff) so I raised the light.  I don't have a way to measure how intense the light at the sides was, so I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. 
 
I've also been seeing some weird things on the leaves.  Leaves are looking a bit crinkled (calcium?), and some plants have yellowing/weird patchy areas in the leaves (between the veins).  I'm not sure if this would be bleaching by the lights, calcium/mag/IRON deficiency.  I picked up a CalMag solution at a hydroponics shop, but it does not include iron.  Instead it has Sulfur.  I'm thinking of bringing it back and getting the one with Iron instead of sulfur.  Any thoughts?  Let me know what you think.  I've used starting mixes that had no added fertilizers in them, so from what I've heard they will need things added to them. 
 
Thai Ornamental's are looking great, Reapers/Douglahs are looking pretty strong (thick stems!), I have a 8-10 orange habaneros that are up and one that's REALLY LEGGY.  They are under the light now.  I think that's about everything.  Please weigh in on what you think might be the problem with some of these plants.  It's pretty minor and might just be having the light too close.
 
All the best!
 
 

 

[ThePickler]

More pics - probably sideways....is there a pixel height at which the boards automatically turn the photos?

 

[PaulG]

Honestly, I think your plants look pretty good.
Not sure I see anything concerning there.

No idea why your pics are sideways.

 

[skullbiker]

Plants are looking good. I think the sideways photos are generally when using the native photo app on ios. I use a third party app to take photos with my iphone and do not have the problem. When using the native app I edit the photos(usually just crop the ends a little). It seems once edited the pics will post in the correct orientation.

 

[ThePickler]

It's been a little over a week since my last post.  Things are still going pretty good.  I had some fast and unexpected yellowing of my tomato seedlings, which surprised me.  I was trying not to overwater anything, so that may have been the issue.  (Let them dry out like peppers, when I know they prefer to have moist soil most of the time.)  So, I'm watering those more often.  I'm afraid some may have been stunted from separating them while moving them to their own cups. 
 
The peppers seem to be doing pretty well.  I also had some yellowing there in a few of my Thai chili's.  I'm chalking it up to 'too little' nitrogen.  I've been waiting for them to get pretty dry/borderline wilted before I water them, so I don't think it's from overwatering.  Also, some of the plants look to develop "goosebumps" on their leaves.  Anyone ever see this?  I've tried to get a photo of it.
 
Thanks
 
 

 

[PaulG]

The bumps might be a little edema. Is it on
the bottom of the leaves, as well?

Plants still looking good overall.

 

[ThePickler]

The bumps might be a little edema. Is it on
the bottom of the leaves, as well?

Plants still looking good overall.

 
Hi Paul,
 
I looked up photos of edema on google and that looks like the stuff.  I read up on the causes and will be changing the way my fan blows on the plants and maybe cutting my diluted compost tea additions.    Thanks for the reply, any other tips on getting rid of it?  It said it was mostly cosmetic but indicative of growing condition problems.
 
Cheers
 

 

[PaulG]

 
Hi Paul,
 
I looked up photos of edema on google and that looks like the stuff.  I read up on the causes and will be changing the way my fan blows on the plants and maybe cutting my diluted compost tea additions.    Thanks for the reply, any other tips on getting rid of it?  It said it was mostly cosmetic but indicative of growing condition problems.
 
Cheers
 

Edema is a tough one. I just suffer through it
until plant-out since I don't have an easy way
to use a fan on them. I don't like it, but by the
time plant-out rolls around, they pretty much
leave it behind.

 

[internationalfish]

I had a case of mass edema and it ended up originating from poor airflow. Now I have a small fan giving everything a good breeze and haven't had nearly as many problems like that.

 

[ThePickler]

Well, I'm up early today, (weird how that works on weekends...) so I've got a bit of time to update the grow log.
 
Things are going pretty well with the peppers.  Everything is still nice and green (a little yellow here and there on some of the bottom leaves) but lots of new growth all around.  Most of the pepper's leaves are really getting big.  The Butch T Scorpion has really bounced back after its slow start and all of the Reapers and 7 Pots are looking good.  Habaneros are playing catch up, the same with the Trinidad Bean and Cherries.
 
Tomatoes:  I'm learning again that they are a lot more sensitive to watering than the peppers.  I'll probably take some of them out that didn't take their transplants well.
 
So here's a few questions:  It's still, AT A MINIMUM, a month and a half before being able to plant out.  I was wondering if I should move the peppers to larger pots or if the solo cups would still be ok.  I'm not sure how adding larger pots to our growing area would work out for us.  Will it stunt their growth or just slow them down?  Root binding?  I also looked at topping the plants.  Is it true that it reduces the amount of time to fruiting?  Does it reduce the average number of peppers produced?  We'll be planted out by the end of May, but probably have frost by October. 
 
Thanks!
 
Pictures are:  Misc herbs, Reaper, Reaper, grow rack.
 

 

[Wermland]

Those reapers are looking great! What kind of lights are you using?

Skickat från min SM-N910F via Tapatalk

 

[ThePickler]

Those reapers are looking great! What kind of lights are you using?

Skickat från min SM-N910F via Tapatalk

 

Hi Wermland,
 
The lights are made by Vivosun, they are 4ft 4bulb T5HO's.  The top one needs a new set screw/bolt on its wire hanger to level out the light, but that's not too hard to fix.  We've been happy with them so far.  To be honest, I'm not sure if we needed a 4 bulb light to get a bunch of seedlings started, but it looks like they might carry plants through to flower.  Lots of the Thai's are trying to flower right now.  I hope to bring in some (2-4 plants) peppers for the winter, so these might be ideal. 
 
The one problem I see is that it you can't turn on/off sets of lights within the fixture.  For example, if you only want to use 2 of the 4 bulbs, you have to physically remove 2 of the 4 bulbs.  
 
Great lights though.

 

[ThePickler]

Hi Everybody,
 
Here's an update on how things are growing.  Things look to be going well.  Some of the Thai Ornamental's are getting a few yellow leaves here and there (mostly old leaves) that are dropping off.  I'm not too concerned though as there is a lot of new growth along the stems of the plants.  I've removed a bulb from the grow light that is over the peppers/tomatoes as the tomatoes seemed to not be liking the intensity.  They were struggling but now are growing quickly and greening back up.  Prior to this they looked a bit bleached out and slow growing.
 
So, here's the photos.  We are roughly 5 weeks out from emergence of the first seedlings if I remember correctly.
 
Grow shelf:

 
Thai and stem growth:

 
7Pot/Reaper, forgot to look which was which.  Note the "reaching" leaves.  Any idea what causes this?  Crowding?  Nutrients? I shouldn't be overwatering.

 
Tomatoes:

 
Any input on when to move up to bigger containers?  I've got about 6 weeks before we can think of putting things in the ground.  Some of the tomatoes look like they could use a new home but I've also seen some HUGE tomatoes in small pots from nurseries before that did well in the garden.  I was thinking of hanging the lights from the cieling and putting all the plants on the floor.  We lose the use of the "study" but that's the price we pay! hehe.
 
The weather has turned, winter is losing its hold it seems.  There's some snow in the mountains which is good, but it's almost all gone down low.  I'll be in the garden soon, pulling some things that I didn't get around to before the weather went bad.
 
Thanks
 
 

 

[ThePickler]

Hi again everyone,
 
Spring is finally here, kind of.  We had a snow storm, but thankfully nothing stuck in the valleys.  Temps have been in the 40's and most days have been sunny, outside of all the rain.  We've started to help prep the garden plots and helped plant 500ish onions with the other gardeners. 
 
I've repotted a bunch of plants and will probably do some more this weekend.  I've got a few more left to do, the Thai's seem hungry for space.  The superhots are starting to throw out a few flowers but those are getting pinched off as they emerge.  The Thai's put out a TON of flowers, pinching as many as I can.
 
These plants are all about 2 months old (8 weeks) if I remember correctly.  I have one question that I could use help with if you would like to chime in, else I'll just google/search. 
 
1)  What causes the leaves to twist? This seems mostly confined to my Carolina Reapers. 
 
Here's the pics, potato version, advanced uploader won't work:
 
Grow shelf:

 

 
Reaper, note the twisting leaves:

 
7Pot Douglah (These peppers have all been looking great):

 
Thai Ornamental:

 

 
Have a great day everyone, we have a good 4-6 weeks to planting outside.  We were also OK'd for an extra plot this year.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[ThePickler]

Good Afternoon everybody,
 
It's been a little while, but the plants had been moved to larger pots and moved into the greenhouse for hardening off.  I moved a few of the smaller seedlings out that had been lagging behind as well.  They seem to be perking up and greening up too.
 
Reapers seem to be the most temperamental, 7 Pots take whatever they are given, and the Butch T Scorpion seems to be the best looking plant. 
 
All I've fed them is diluted bat guano tea (10-3-1 I think it was.) once a week, watering twice a week or as needed. (Make the tea, then dilute 3:1 water to tea.)  It is freaking great to have these out of the house, watering is SO MUCH EASIER.  I've also ordered some of the following seeds to experiment with inside growing :  Reapers (regular), Scotch Bonnet, Brain Strain Scorpion, and a weird hybrid.  All from WHP. 
 
In regards to what else we got going on, we have the following:

• Tomatoes:  Black Krim, Roma, Atomic Grape (Roma type), Wisconsin 55
• Squash:  Summer, Blue Hubbard (they'll be taking over)
• Strawberries from last year
• Peppers:  Butch T Scorpion, 7 Pot Douglah, Triage'd Carolina Reapers, Habaneros (Orange), Trinidad Bean and Cherry, Jalapeno, a few bells
• Herbs:  Basil, Sage, Oregano, Stevia, Rosemary, a few others I think
• Greens:  Kale (Red, White, Curly), Rainbow/White Chard, Spinach (40 day, can't remember the name.)

I'm pumped about the Hubbards in particular because I can give some away and maybe (if they can) share with the parents when they come to visit.  Taking on the extra plot will be good, but I'm also putting in a lot of time weeding.  It's getting there.  It's a very lazy Saturday; we've been doing 60hr weeks at work the past month and we've gotten a surprise, long weekend.  I was weeding a good 3 hours yesterday but between being under the weather and the rain, I'm not getting a lot done.
 
 
Thanks.
 
Waiting on plant out (I need to do some weeding, but I'm sick at the moment.)

 
Reaper:

 
7Pot Douglah:

 
Cant Remember:

 
Thai Ornamental:  (Some folks don't like the flavor, but I just use them for some heat in spice ketchup.  It's the bee's knees.)

 
Happy growing.
 
 
 

 

[PaulG]

Hey, Pic. The twisting leaves seem to just be
something that happens. I had a plant or two
do that this season as well, but nobody seems
to have a good reason for it. Basically, all those
leaves will be gone from the plant when Summer
gets its heat on, so I just didn't worry about it. It
doesn't seem to affect leaf function much.

 

[ThePickler]

Hi everybody,
 
Here's an update on what's been happening:
 
The garden plots are all planted, the plants are in!  The peppers and other vegetables are doing OK, even though they've had the s**t kicked out of them by some weather we've had. (Lots of wind, low 40's in the evenings.)  They've yellowed a little bit but I see some deep green coming back after hitting them with some nutrients.  Lots of flowers (the Thai's are already spitting out peppers) on the superhots, I'm hoping that some take and turn to pods. 
 
We've got squash seeds coming up out of the ground, the Hubbards were planted last and seem to be adjusting OK.  Tomatoes are starting to green up, new growth is looking healthy even if the bottoms of the plants are struggling.  (I'm currently concerned about Flea Beetles and some sort of scale/fungus problem.)  To be honest, I think soil temps were a bit cool but the temps are coming back up after this weird cool spell.
 
Here's the pictures, happy growing.
 
Adding some compost:

 
Tilled and prepped:

 
Out of the greenhouse, had to make 5-6 trips:

 
Pepper Bed:

 
New seeds getting rolling, WHP:

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[luvmesump3pp3rz]

very nice grow you have there! nice beds too. 

 

[PaulG]

Good to see your plants in the ground!

More seeds