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SadisticPepper's (aka Elcap1999's) 2013/2014/2015 Oceanside glog update

Unfortunately, about half of the trays I had set up got shriveled up on account of a nasty wind storm drying them out. Oddly enough all the plants I had potted up already made it through without a problem, so I've spent the last couple of days redoing the ones I had seeds for, and the ones I didn't I just swapped them out with ones I recently got from PepperLover. Here's a couple pics:
 
Here's the trays I set out yesterday and today
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On the left (going top to bottom, I have Red Brain strains, Red Morugas and Yellow Morugas. The middle group is Chocolate Morugas, Red Bhuts and White Bhuts, and on the right is Purple Bhuts on one half, and orange bhuts on the other half of the first tray, and Red Butch T's on the 2nd tray
 
Here's a little color coded legend I put together to keep them all straight. The color for the chocolate moruga didn't quite come out too well in the printer.
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Click to expand...
Oh hell yeah! I already had a couple orders for it, and just the act of spooning it into a bag made my eyes water and nose run something fierce.
 
First new post of the year, and I have some sad news. Apparently, between the time I checked yesterday afternoon and this morning, someone or something swiped all the ripe pods (and some unripened ones as well) from my plants. I'm understandably angry and upset, not the least of which is because I've promised to send some pods to a fellow THP'er as soon as I got better, but I feel like my space was violated. I would have picked them earlier, but since Christmas, I was under the weather with laryngitis, and the last thing I wanted to do was spread my germs to people.
 
Per Sicman's suggestion, I'll be getting a trail camera or the like for my area the first chance I get, and set it up. I'll be very happy if the only things I catch on it are the neighborhood Gopher Tortoise, the white ibises that come and have their fill of the ground bugs, and myself picking the peppers and weeding the garden (which I admit has become overgrown with weeds in my negligence/illness).
 
I am pleased to report though, that after that first cold front/wind storm had stripped the leaves, flowers and pods off my Yellow Morugas, they have bounced back marvelously, and am already seeing flowers well into the triple digits on them. Some have even shot out roots from their containers into the lawn, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'll also be starting some seed trays in the next week or two to fill out my backyard garden and also to finally get around to adding Primo's and Reapers to the mix, since none of the Reaper seedlings I had pop in the last round took :(
 
Have a happy and sadistically hot New Year all!
 
Thanks! As mad as I am this happened, I was always thinking in the back of my mind that it was an eventuality. And I'm also hoping this was just a one-off incident, and if it was just some neighborhood kids, that they learn their lesson upon biting into the peppers :)
 
OK, I admit, I've let my glog go for a bit, not to mention let my garden go a bit with weeds.
 
And on account of the repeated cold snaps we've been getting here since the beginning of the year (they've been hitting my area every 7-10 days with temps going into the 40's for one to two nights each time), my plants right now don't look nearly as good as they could. As a result, my plants have been dropping their flowers like mad, and I haven't had even close to enough for a single SFRB in weeks. I'd get one or two pods here and there, but of course, I'd have to pick them before they rotted on the plant, so I dehydrated the peppers each time. Even my Yellow Morugas, after the first cold snap (which came with a hella wind storm) had all their leaves & flowers stripped from them after they produced a fairly good crop last April/May, then from September - November, and just haven't really bounced back fully after that. The subsequent cold snaps I had afterwards forced the flowers to fall off each time they got a good number of them going...
 
I'm giving very serious thought to starting with all new seedlings and replacing the existing plants I have with the new seedlings. The ones I've had in the ground for the last 3 months now look stunted, which again was partially my fault for letting the weeds get out of control, but the cold snaps and the hornworm caterpillar infestation I had sure didn't help either.
 
Curse these cold snaps...
 
My plants keep getting progressively worse, and the one we're getting tonight and tomorrow is supposed to be the worst of them all, with lows/wind chills in the 20's and 30's, so the ones that are iffy (which is most of my plants now) may not survive too much longer. Thank goodness that I at least have seeds for the ones I want to replace.
 
I just caught a couple of teenagers red-handed in my backyard near my plants, a boy and girl. One of them had a shopping cart from the local grocery store down the street, and while the cart was obviously empty, I think I scared them more than they startled me by banging on the window. Too dark and rainy to tell if they took anything just yet, but it looks like they didn't get away with any of my plants or pods by the fact of the empty cart (I had the front lights on and could see the lack of peppers/plants in the cart) and their hands were empty. A part of me thinks they were here to try and score some weed or something, but they kept claiming as they were running away that they got the wrong house...
 
I spent the weekend weeding my backyard garden. I should say, weeding the other half of it. I did the first half a few weeks ago, and stopped because of just how many weeds I had to pull from two rows.
 
This time was no different. In 90 feet of space, it took me over two hours, and the weeds were so think, I accidentally pulled out two small ghost plants which were smothered by the weeds. Admittedly, it was my own fault for letting the weeds overgrow the plants like that, and the cold certainly didn't help either, since most of the ghost plants looked downright pitiful, whereas the 7Pot plants looked somewhat better, and even had small handful of peppers on them in the midst of ripening. It does seem though, that the fertilizer I got off Amazon (link) really seemed to do the trick with the plants already free of weeds, since the existing leaves turned the shade of green they were supposed to from pale yellow, and saw a near explosion of new leaf growth and flower buds, which is definitely a good thing. I'm also going to start seeds in the next week or so to fill out the area, since the lone Butch T plant could use some companions in its row, as well as filling out the Morugas and Bhuts...
 
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That, and both my arms, as well as a good chunk of my torso and abs, are still sore from pulling all those weeds yesterday. Good thing I did it though, since I have them on a 3x a week watering/feeding schedule now (Monday, Wednesday, Friday for 3 hours each day, using 0.5 gallon drippers per plant) with the new fertilizer at a 1% solution. I'll go back as the week goes on and take out all the small weeds that pop up.
 
Plus, I need to go to Home Depot to get the Jiffy starter pellets... Need quite a few of those 36-pellet boxes, since I forgot to mention that in addition to filling out my existing rows, I want to add Reapers and Primos as well on the other side of my backyard.
 
Wow, good thing I checked my drip irrigation system when I did yesterday. I noticed that all the original fertilizer I had put in a few weeks ago (normally only check once a month or so) was still in there, indicating a big issue. I checked everything, and finally discovered the in-line particulate filter wasn't allowing water to pass through. Removed it and turned on the water, and voila! It all worked. I set the timer to do a 3-hour off-schedule watering, which is great, since it seems like the plants have managed to survive on just the rain water that remained in the soil. Now they should really begin exploding with growth with the combo of the fish/seaweed emulsion and the granular fert (the 27-11-40 with calcium nitrate and epsom salt) finally going through.
 
A lot has happened in the intervening month. The fertilizer I mentioned in my post from last month has begun working absolute wonders. Many of my plants simply exploded with growth, covering themselves with a lot of new leaves and flowers, a lot of which ended up getting pollenated. I even picked the first box today for a customer who had pre-ordered from me three weeks ago and waited VERY patiently. I have one more pre-order to fill, then I'll be able to sell more on here. Pleasantly surprising were my Bhuts, in that I'm seeing quite a few large bhuts developing and ripening on them right now.
 
All in all, I can say I'm extremely happy with this new fertilizer I got, and have enough to last me until the middle of summer, which isn't bad considering I only plunked down $150 for it all told.
 
Another quick update to the glog...
 
Looks like I am officially switching to this fertilizer permanently. I picked two full boxes' worth of peppers, a good mix of Red, Yellow, and Chocolate Morugas, Moruga/Bhut F1 crosses, and even a few Butch T's. Both boxes are going to a good home, and It looks like I'll have a lot more coming and ripening in the near future, especially Bhuts, since I have several Bhut plants loaded up with pods, none of which have ripened just yet...
 
Here's some pics of today's haul
 
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Really nice pull. Those pods are gorgeous!
 
Was just reading back through and saw the post about your intruders. A freaking shopping cart? I can't imagine what I'd do if I saw someone around my plants with intent to help themselves. Hope they haven't been back.
 
Thanks! I'm very pleased with how my plants are doing this season. I really like the hook on the one chocolate moruga pictures
 
And thankfully, those kids never came back to my backyard. I think the fact I caught them in the act was enough :)
 
I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised by the interest in my peppers so far this season. Just from the interest generated on Facebook alone (I posted the pics above on several pepper groups), I've already got a waiting list several people long, as well as a couple more customers who emailed me asking for more peppers, and that doesn't even cover any further interest from people in THP :) So after I drop off mein's order, I'll need my plants to step on it :)
 
Thanks, Portuge :) I'm hopeful that the 8 lb harvest I picked yesterday is a harbinger of things to come :)
 
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