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
 
 

 

[ThePickler]

I wanted to get a quick update done this weekend, so here it is:
 
Peppers:
 
The peppers are looking pretty good now.  The canopy's of the superhots are pretty torched/beat up but there's a lot of new foliage coming out of the stems.  Luckily, it seems like they've not dropped all their flowers and a few Reaper pods have set.  Some look like they have a magnesium deficiency (yellow leaves, green veins, please correct me if this sounds like something else.) but that is hopefully going to correct itself shortly.  Thai's have a load of peppers already, the jalapenos are doing well (one plant has 25 or so on it with more blossoms opening up), Trinidad beans are blossoming (one looks very different from the others, see attached photo.  It almost looks like a ghost pepper plant), and habaneros are playing catch up.  If in the photos you see deficiency/problems, please suggest solutions.  The garden has a real whitefly issue.
 
I hit the plants with a 6-4-4 (fertilizer, diluted), and cal-mag (also diluted) to 2-3 tsp/gal, once a week.  Is there any benefit in using higher P-K fertilizers to encourage the plants to set pods?  I still have a lot of flower drop.
 
The rest of the garden:
 
Hubbard plants are getting large, well ahead of the other squash plants.  I was worried at first they wouldn't take, but they have.  Tomatoes are looking very sad, which sucks.  There may have been herbicide carryover in the composted manure...That's a bummer.  Some of the plants are OK, others have massively curled leaves (not cupped, think Dr. Seuss type stuff).  I'm not sure if they're worth keeping in, but we'll see. 
 
 
It looks like summer is finally here.  High 70's-80's, lows in the mid 50's in the evenings.  All the best.
 
 

 

[CaneDog]

Your peppers are looking good!  I don't see any sign of deficiency from those shots and I think the nute's you're using should be fine as is.  Maybe even a bit more CalMag than needed (perhaps double), but that can't hurt anything except maybe your wallet.  Too bad about the drop. Your temperatures seem fine for production. Seems like plenty are setting too though.

 

[ThePickler]

Greetings!
 
The heat has finally arrived!  We've had temps in the upper 80's, mostly sunny with some thunderstorms here and there.  Big, fat rain drops and some golf-ball sized hail just an hour ago.  I'll need to see if anything got thrashed a little later.
 
All of the leaves in the super-hot's canopy's have greened up, I'm hoping that they set pods as they have a lot of flowers on them.  I'm picking peppers off the Thai's (very prolific, one plant is sending out a second wave of flowers right now), jalapenos are nearly ready to go, and the bean/cherry/mystery ghost plants are setting more pods.  They looked pretty sickly for a while, but the sun and heat seem to have gotten the plants back in better shape.
 
Tomatoes are a lost cause.  That sucks. 
 
The Hubbard plants are HUGE and looking healthy.  There were some flowers starting to open up on them; hopefully they can make some giants before the season is over. 
 
Indoor peppers are looking great and almost ready to transplant to larger pots.  I've got about 6 of each, but can only really pick the best one or two of each type.  
 
Realistically, there's about 2.5 months left before the average first frost date.  Let's hope the plants kick it into overdrive.  I'll post pictures later.
 
Have a great day.
 
 
 
 

 

[PaulG]

Glad to hear that Summer might have
actually arrived at your place, Pierce!

 

[ThePickler]

August is here!  Summer is in full swing, 90F+ days here, with a little rain every now and then.  Hopefully the wildfire season isn't too bad.
 
The superhots are starting to put out a few pods, still lots of flowers but not a lot setting yet.  The Thai's are going off and the bean/ghost plants are putting on a lot of pods.  (Mix of semi-dried and fresh pods on the plate.  All from this year.)  It's pretty amazing how sun and heat makes the plants grow. 
 
Question:  I've googled Trinidad Bean/Trinidad Cherry and a few of my plants from a bags of seeds are putting out peppers that look like ghosts.  Any thoughts?  You'll see them on the photo of the plate/pepper pile.  I should note that some of the plants ARE producing pods that look like Trinidad Beans.  I may just be way off base too.
 
Hubbard plants have a bunch of squash growing.  Some are almost as big as basketballs, lots more are growing.  Zucc's and squash are going off, and lots of basil and misc herbs are doing well too.  Tomatoes are a lost cause, sadly.
 
Edit:  Indoor peppers are in new pots; Umorok Red, Skunk Red, Reapers, Scotch Bonnet (Boyd), WHP006, and a Scorpion Cross are all doing well as far as I can tell.  These will be kept inside.  I put two in each pot (2 gallon), I don't plan on them getting too large, but big enough to maybe put out a few pods over the winter.  (I think strong T5's have enough 'gas' to get peppers to fruit.)
 
All the best, have a good weekend.
 
 

 

[Mr.joe]

Just seen this glog for the first time. Everything looks good. I like tube community garden, wish we had once around here.

 

[Mr.joe]

Double post

 

[ThePickler]

Here's a quick update on the indoor stuff:
 
The plants are getting pretty big, even though they are leggy.  They drop a lot of leaves but also are growing lots of new ones.  I've had a few waves of dropped flowers, but hoping that they start setting pods soon.  I've been low dose feeding with some Foxfarms nutrients (Grow Big, now the Tiger Bloom for the past month or so.)  These plants are about 5-6 months old and the branches are up to my eyes (I'm a little over 6').  Making hot sauce from the garden peppers still.  I'll be cutting back my gardening this summer so I can focus more on hunting this year.  I'd really like to get a deer or an elk.
 
Happy growing.

 

[PaulG]

Pretty amazing growth, Pickler!  I'm guessing those
will go outside as soon as weather permits. They
should turn into monsters!

 

[ThePickler]

Thanks Paul, I sure hope so.  I saw a photo of a 6-8 foot habanero 'tree' and think it would be cool to have some plants that were similar (this would take a long time, a few years).  I am a little bummed about not having a lot of plants started for this year, but between scouting and work, I won't have a ton of time for other stuff.  My girlfriend will be doing herbs/tomatoes/squash again, but it's looking like we're going to get crushed with hours with all the stuff going on. (50-60/week most of the summer into the fall.)