Pixel_Ninja's Grow - Season Starting to warm up!!

Hi Guys, 
 
So I ordered some Carolina Reapers after my brother claimed that he loved hot stuff and could chow anything. Incidentally, I met PeriPeri via his website and ordered 10 seeds. It was only when I was at my local nursery shopping for seed starting items that I realized that we are heading for winter I was quite keen to get started and decided to gamble with half of my seeds and attempt to start them (very early, or late - My success would prove the former, while failure the latter) as soon as I got home.
 
Created a simple seed starting mix of coir/peat moss/perlite/vermiculite. I'm not really one for measurements so I just whipped up a batch that felt right. Soaked it with tap water then carefully laid 1 seed per cell in my seed tray (which had been soaking in their ziplock container for 48 hours while sitting on my satellite decoder) Unfortunately I never took any pics of any of the above as at that stage I never knew grow logs were a thing! After a couple of days Once they had all popped, I started trawling the web researching all the things a beginner would usually ask, how often to water, damping off, when to fertilize, prune etc and tried to narrow it down to the superhots and that is when I stumbled across this awesome forum ('',) further research showed Periperi was one of the pioneers growing the Reaper, and a member of this board!
 
Here are what my reapers look like now (quite a large discrepancy in sizes but I decided against culling):

 

 

 

 

 

 
Unfortunately I never dated when they went into the ground however I suspect it was somewhere around mid April. The growth has been relatively slow as they only get 6-7 hours of sun a day, and I dont have all the high tech gizmos you good chaps have - The wife would kill me if she happened to see the electric bill had I bought some of them! Our parastatal electric company forgot to perform capacity planning and therefore power outages are the norm here in SA (atleast until they have completed the powerstations they've commissioned) - but I digress.
 
 
Here is where all of the magic happens:

 
 
( Since we were/are heading into winter I wanted a bit of insurance by getting a heating mat, well truth be told, I couldnt find one anywhere so it's really just a reptile heatpad which didn't look very water-resistant so I placed it on a strip of polystyrene with a sheet of glass on top which I happened to have lying around.)
 
As can be seen on my second shelf, well kinda:

 
I have subsequently started two further types of pepper:
 
Trinidad Moruga Scorpions:

These popped up really fast with near perfect germ rates.
 
Red Bhut Jolokia:

These have been a bit slower however they are only just starting to pop now and are harder to spot(eg: 3rd row, 3rd column)
 
I enjoy spicy food, and when presented with the option of lemon&herb, Mild, Hot, Extra Hot at a restaurant, I usually go for Hot, however I am beginning to think that I have started an army I cannot control-or assimilate on my own..
Which begs the question: What do you guys do with everything you guys grow, as I've seen your growlists are absolutely huge!?
 
Anyways, I have a CISA exam on Saturday so I need to get back to the grindstone 
 
I'll leave you guys with some bonus pics of other random plants I'm growing:
 
Couple of Thunbergia Alata (bought from a store in those packets so the germ rates were terrible, only got about 5/24):

 

 
Bought something called a Buddeja Davendii (butterfly bush) off of ebay seller based in Ukraine:

Phenomenal germ rates for such a tiny seed, considering they require Stratification for germination! I was seriously doubtful of any germinating. I have about 30 plants this size which is ridiculously over the top considering they grow into a large shrub, but I need to keep them all until they flower so I can get 1 of each colour they produce. The rest I'll prob give away.
 
Thanks for stopping by

 

[Peter S]

Which begs the question: What do you guys do with everything you guys grow, as I've seen your growlists are absolutely huge!?
 

Welcome to the forum, your plants look great. Please keep posting your progress. As far as what to do with them, I suggest preserving as much as you can anything you can't use before it goes bad. Last year I vacuum sealed/froze and dehydrated/vacuum sealed everything I didn't give away or put in recipes, eat raw, etc.... Months later I'm still finding uses for them, making powders, hot sauces, jellies, etc....
 
Good luck with your grow this year. There's a lot of good info and helpful people here.

 

[Pixel_Ninja]

Thanks for the kind words Peter. 
 
I recently topped the two of my biggest peppers, so I've seen a few more leaved start to form from the stem, but no growth just below the cut just yet. My current trouble I'm facing is that about 3/5 of my peppers are starting to yellow along the edges of the bottom leaves (I've seen 2 leaves being dropped as well) I'm not sure if its because I've been watering them too much or if it's because.... I put them out one morning, and unfortunately I think some of the (chlorinated) water from my swimming pool fountain blew onto the leaves. I don't think that it was too much but I did wipe it off with a kitchen paper towel. *Yes I'm an Idiot*
 
So now I'm not sure if the yellowing/curling of the bottom leaves is as a result of the overzealous watering or if it's from the chlorine exposure.. Your thoughts?
 

 

 
Hopefully they pull through. Also I'm worried that the black containers are getting too hot under the sun, is that a valid concern?

 

[Peter S]

I don't know what's causing that. Do you have good drainage, in the pot and soil mix? Also, are you giving any nutrients yet? Hopefully some of the more experienced folks can chime in. As far as black pots go, I have all my container plants in black nursery pots and they are doing fine. I do have to water them often because it's so hot, and the soil mix is pretty porous. 

 

[Pixel_Ninja]

Rootball:

Just put a few wood chips at the bottom, but the rest of it is a pretty good mix. 

 

[Peter S]

You might want to be careful mixing in wood chips. They can leach nitrogen from the soil mix. I made that mistake last year, and container plants were really stunted.

 

[Pixel_Ninja]

So after the slow growth of the Reapers I posted in the general section and learned from you guys that choir/peatmoss isnt really a good potting medium since it holds very little nutes. I potted the Morugas in a good compost/potting soil mix, and they have virtually caught up to the Reapers, though not quite
 
I think plants are very much like fish in a way, I say this because I think they both only grow to a certain size based on the size of the container they are kept in. I suppose that is the whole idea of Bonsai's right. Anyways, over the past two weekends I put up 2 very rudimentary raised beds.
 
One of them I've dedicated to peppers: 
 
 
 
The other one I am planning to use for various Fruit/Veg shrubs so I have had to close it up, since we have a troop of Vervet Monkeys in the conservancy across the road from us, and they will chow everything. They are not starving, they are simply like naughty children as they will simply take a bite and throw the fruit away and get another. So Hopefully the shade cloth is enough to keep em out, but they are a clever bunch with a lot of time on their hands (while I'm at work) so only time will tell.
 
Hopefully this will make for a better environment than the undersized choir pots they were in. Though I see that one of my peppers' leaves have been fed upon already by a biting insect, prob a grasshopper -.-'  . I'll keep an eye for him.. 
 
 
 
I also noticed what appear to be some flower/pods growing on the reapers:
 
EDIT: I'm having issues with my dropbox, just need to reinstall then I'll link the photos in a couple min

 

[Pixel_Ninja]

I Cant seem to edit my posts for some reason. Also THP has been down for a while, so I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it so here are the updated pics:
 

 

 

[Pixel_Ninja]

Ok, so its a month into spring for us and I've got a bit of growth to report back on.
 
Was hit by something that curled my Moruga's leaves quite badly about a month back:
 

 

 
 
 
but they have since recovered:
 

                                

 
One of my Reaper bushes have begun to set pods, though they look anything but:
 

 
Don't really know what they are, so I'll have to wait on a more learned fellow on here to assist with that. The fact that I purchased the seeds from a "reputable" THP member and is not as advertised has left me a tad disappointed if I'm honest. PeriPeri has promised that the others should come true, else he would be more than happy to refund me. So I can only hope that he is right regarding the others that are yet to fruit: 
 

 
I need to find some bamboo shoots and make a teepee ontop of each shrub, one branch from one of my Reapers actually snapped at the joint by the main stem, but has managed to reseal itself and keep on flowering. That's on my todo list today.
 
Cooker of a day today   Grow my little ones GROW!!!

 

[Pixel_Ninja]

so here's a bit of an update;
 

 
They Quite prolific when compared to the other two which seem to look more reaperlike:
 

 
Then a ebay special said to be Moruga:
 

 
What are the odds of this coming true?? Those symmetrical folds remind me a a bell pepper?? Have I been duped?
 
Thoughts?