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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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Today, I spent the better part of 4 hours tilling the backyard area I'll be using for my peppers, and while tilling, I came to an epiphany. The soil that was being tilled up looked rather good, and had plenty of earthworms and other beneficial underground friendlies in there, that it occurred to me it may well be better to just put the seedlings directly into the ground.
 
As I thought about it, and noticed the beneficial guys in there, it dawned on me that putting them directly in the soil would be better since a) any nutes and ferts I apply would remain longer in the root zone without a major risk of washing away, like they would be if I had originally gone with containers (even the 5-gallon ones) and b) the rootball would be free to expand out as much as it wanted to and not be restricted by the container. I could also group the plants closer together and use less tubing for the drippers to get to the plants as well.
 
I managed to get the majority of the area done before an impending rainstorm and my stomach reminding me that maybe I should eat something today. I took some pictures just after the storm passed. The soil in the pictures is actually a little darker than it looks since the sun is on full blast, which kinda bleached out the pictures...
 
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As I mentioned, the soil is darker than it looks in this picture, since the sun was out full blast...
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Oh yeah, and I got some more peppers and flowers forming on some of my existing Moruga Plants...
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I'll re-till it a 2nd time to further aerate the soil, and to also try to get any parts of the grass I may have missed, then flatten it all with a roller, since I'd rather not have the grass re-grow in the area and steal nutrients from the peppers when I put them in ground.
 
cypresshill1973 said:
Good job. Following his post
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Thanks! Sicman, a fellow Florida grower, recommended I build a shade house for the area, which after due consideration actually would be a good idea, considering how intense the South Florida sun tends to get...
 
Runescape said:
Wow, nice pepper bushes, dude...
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Thank you, Rune :)
 
OCD Chilehead said:
Looks good. Your going to have a massive garden. With your temps you could probably OW them all.
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Thank you, OCD! Actually with the temperatures I have, they'll likely be producing year round, seeing as in the winter, the temps rarely go below the low 70's/upper 60's at night, on account of the seabreeze I get being 300 yards from the ocean. Even with this past winter being as bad as it was up north, I only had maybe 3 days where the temperatures dipped into the 40's, and even then, they weren't in a row, and the temps bounced right back into the 70's, so the existing plants I had, survived it without TOO much trouble. Oh yeah, and frost? I've only ever seen one, maybe two instances of frost first thing in the morning when I woke up since moving to this area in '94, so I'm not overly worried. The only downside to keeping them in the ground would be with the occasional hurricane. That being said though, my area tends to only be affected by such a storm once every 12-15 years on average, with the '04/'05 seasons being a fluke, and we've barely been touched since...
 
OCD Chilehead said:
That's great sounds like San Diego weather without the humidity.
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Oh it does get extremely humid, especially during the summer months, but that tends to only last 4-5 months at most, and happens in the middle of the day, which is why working outside during such times is to be avoided without a ready supply of hydration. However, from around late September to early-mid April, the humidity is quite pleasant To put it in perspective, with the heat & humidity out there now, in working a total of ~7 hours outside this weekend, I lost over 7 pounds in sweat alone, and that includes drinking plenty of water, and eating a couple meals.
 
At any rate, the area of my backyard is completely tilled, and I'll let it sit for a couple days, then rake the area to level it out and rid the area of excess grass that was ripped up during the tilling. After that, it's a simple matter of laying down the fabric and drip irrigation main lines, which I'll do next weekend :) I'll also post pictures then :)
 
Hrm, putting them straight in the ground may be a better idea than I originally thought. I did some digging (no pun intended), into the oolite ridge my house sits on has some extra goodies in terms of trace minerals. Besides the calcium carbonate the oolite is mainly composed of, there's some decent trace levels of dolomite, chert and naturally occurring phosphate & hematite on the ridge. And it's scarcely 18 inches to 2 feet down below the topsoil I have in my backyard, well within reach of the roots.
 
elcap1999 said:
Hrm, putting them straight in the ground may be a better idea than I originally thought. I did some digging (no pun intended), into the oolite ridge my house sits on has some extra goodies in terms of trace minerals. Besides the calcium carbonate the oolite is mainly composed of, there's some decent trace levels of dolomite, chert and naturally occurring phosphate & hematite on the ridge. And it's scarcely 18 inches to 2 feet down below the topsoil I have in my backyard, well within reach of the roots.
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Not sure what a few of those words mean, but I cant wait to see what happens to your plants...
 
Me either :) I'm very positive about this, and hoping to get the ball rolling very soon on all of this
 
And just like that, the most difficult & labor intensive part of the backyard is done. This time went significantly faster. I raked the dead grass from the soil, retilled the area a 2nd time (took barely 30 minutes this go 'round), and then levelled it with a soil rake. Here's pictures:
 
This is after I did several passes with the rake. You can already see the difference
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As you can see some grass shoots were already coming up
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Here it is complete raked the first pass
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I re-tilled it, which went MUUUUUUCH faster! The tiller only got clogged once this time :)
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Good soil if I do say so myself!
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Some white ibises doing pest control :)
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And, I'm done :)
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This is only part of the dead grass I had to rake out. The rest, I had to toss over the fence :)
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OCD Chilehead said:
Awesome Paul. Looks good. Let the planting begin. Looks like a nice day down there.
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Yeah, it's a great day. I posted these pics up on Facebook, and one of my friends told me I should plant native Florida plants instead. Um.... I didn't just spend two weekends' worth of time, as well as get laid out by a back spasm, just to plant something OTHER than what I originally wanted in there. Even after I told him I was planting peppers there, he still didn't get the hint... He really needs to lay off the  :high:
 
And seeing as I didn't have enough seedlings for several varieties, I figured I would soak some seeds overnight in mason jars on a heating pad, then put them in Jiffy Pellets tomorrow after laying down the fabric and drip irrigation lines...
 
I think your friend is on to something. How about some native palms.LOL. Pace yourself. Don't want your back going out before harvest. Good luck with the irrigation.
 
OCD Chilehead said:
I think your friend is on to something. How about some native palms.LOL. Pace yourself. Don't want your back going out before harvest. Good luck with the irrigation.
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Eh, I'll pass, especially since I already have enough of those in my front yard alone... Plus, this area is all I'll be using for now in my backyard...
 
Elcap
Nice job,  Heck it made my back hurt just to look at the pictures, so I can only imagine how you felt.  But it sure does look good, and will only get better going forward.
 
Once you get the fabric back on, this will really look clean.
 
By the way, your pest patrol look nice as well.  Beats the heck out of starlings!
 
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