salsalady's first grow log

This whole forum has inspired me to attempt to grow a few peppers. After receiving some seeds from another forum member, I decided to give it a go myself. The original plan was to have a local farmer grow them for me, but I'd feel real bad if they did a ton of work all season and they only produced a few pounds of peppers.

SO~ Here we go!

The seeds I received are-
Red Savina habanero
bhut jolokia
trinidad scorpion
7 pot- homegrown
7 pot- other

I printed out the growing instructions from Peppermania to have something to work with, bought a couple 72-cell starting trays, some germination mix, recruited SalsaNut0.5 to help, and set to work.

We set the seeds to soak in warm bleach water, filled the trays with dry germination mix and poured water over top of the mix and into the bottom tray. Rookie mistake! An hour later and the water was still pooled up on top of the mix, hadn't soaked up at all. So we dumped the mix out into a tray, added more water and mixed it up by hand. Back into the cells and after rinsing the seeds, we were finally ready to plant!

While we had the seeds soaking in little cups, 'Nut0.5 bumped one that was pretty full of water and splashed some of the 7 Pot seeds into the Trinidad Scorpion cup. OH WELL!

We ended up filling both 72 cell trays and putting 28 more seeds in a couple other plastic things I had laying around. OMG! 172 seeds! What Have I Gotten Myself Into?!?!? And the really scary thing is......I have some Aji Amarillo, orange Peter Peppers, Fatali and Peruvian white hab seeds on the way! YIKES!


Here's the temporary set up. It's under a SS table out in the salsa kitchen (hope the inspector doesn't pop in for a week or two until I can get the rest of the set up done). There's a space heater to keep thing warm, a blanket to hold the heat in, a thermometer in the tray, and we used colored toothpicks for ID-ing the different varieties.

all tucked in for the night-

I checked this morning and the temp in the tray is a nice cozy 80F.


And, in trying to find buckets to grow the plants in, I found these-

These are 4.5 gallon oil jugs from a restaurant, the kind that fryer oil or salad oil comes in. I picked up about 50 of them at the first place I went. We took the cardboard boxes off them already. I figure we can cut away the tops, but keep the handle, poke some holes in the bottom....what do you think? SCORE or BUST?

 

[Maligator]

Whew! Looking good Cant wait to see those plants all grown up and sprouting loads of pods for ya

 

[salsalady]

thanks, Maligator. Some of the Mystery plants already have pods, but they seem to be mild ones. Several of the others have flowers, gotta pollinate by hand if necessary~

 

[salsalady]

Time for an update-
the weather has finally started acting like summer so all the plants are outside and happy.
Here's a fatalii and a fatalii blossom-

We've been amazed at the different growth structures of the different varieties. The short bushy fatalii, bhuts and habs and then the tall viney aji amarillos like these-

And all the peter peppers have light green stems and leaves except this one in the middle-

 

[salsalady]

and the last one is "the little sprout that could". When we were all done transferring the sprouts out of the germination trays to their small pots, I dumped all the extra dirt into a bucket. 2 weeks later, the boy comes into the house holding a clump of dirt with a tiny little sprout. This one gets to stay in the house for a while longer.

 

[logchief]

Wow, that's impressive SL. Just went through your whole log, sure did put a lot of work into that project, looks like your goin to be quite successful

 

[salsalady]

Thanks, logchief. i just got in from doing more work on the pepper patch. I'll upload some pics in a few minutes.

I'm really excited to taste these fresh peppers, well, maybe not the douglah or bhuts, but the Peruvian whites and aji amarillos got me so excited.

Another chilehead neighbor stopped by this morning. He LOVES hot, but not too hot, chiles and foods. He didn't want any bhuts, but was very stoked about the habs. So I gave him, 2 Red Savinas, a Peruvian White, an aji amarillo (didn't want that one to go...sniff...I'm down to only 7 of those....sniff...), 2 peter peppers, and I made him take a bhut just for fun. I think that's the last of the give-aways.

final count- 166 plants
36 bhut
4 douglah
16 red savina
20 7-pod
14 fatalii
15 peruvian white
7 aji amarillo
13 peter pepper
31 trinidad scorpion/7 pod (remember the story about the mixed up seeds)
10 "mystery" peppers- one of which looks like it might be another aji amarillo :keeping fingers crossed:

pics on the way~

 

[salsalady]

I found some leftover landscape fabric a couple days ago, so I decided to use it for the peppers. They were getting too much grass growing up in between the bags and I even found an ant's nest in one of them. Here's what it looked like before, with Sevin on this plant for the ants-

And the "after" picture-

It's about 20x20, and is in a spot that gets full sun. I'm a little worried about the heat of August, but with a patch that size, I might be able to construct a shade cloth set up.

Gabby, the dog, checking things out-

Here's some nice red savinas, lots of buds and even a tiny pod-

And some not so nice looking 7 Pods.

A lot of the plants are dropping their big first leaves but they have tons of new growth all along the stems. I guess I won't worry too much as long as they are continuing to put out new growth. I think they'll really come around in the next couple weeks now that they are all in their bags with fertilizer and epsom salts, etc. I'll be able to do a lot better job of keeping them fertilized.

 

[salsalady]

Fertilizers today!

I've used Alaska Fish Fertilizer before, but I don't remember it being as gloopy as the gallon of stuff I have now. It was very thick and was a pita to mix with the water in a watering can. So, I decided to dilute it! Mixed it 1:1 with water in a spare gallon jug and then just doubled the measurement. That worked GREAT! The force of the water from the hose was enough to mix it up.

I also started out using the watering can, and quickly moved to mixing the fert with SuperThrive in a 5 gallon bucket and just used a pint tub to scoop the water onto the leaves and into the soil. Each plant got 1/2 gallon of juice. 166 plants x .5 gal / 4 gallons per batch = 20 buckets mixed and poured. SHEESH! It took me 1 1/2 hours to water the plants! Gonna have to re-visit that one!

Later this afternoon, I went to pick a couple peppers on the Mystery Plants to use in the throwdown and found that both peppers on this plant had a rotten spot on their lowest point. On both peppers, you can see a dark spot that looks like a shadow, but it's actually rot.

Here's a shot of the peppers on the plant and then one of the rotten spots.

It's almost like water was dripping down the pepper and settled on the lowest spot and rotted it, but it's been drying out the last week or so. Maybe there's enough dew in the mornings to do this without the rain?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[chileaddict]

I got some of that same Alaska fish emulsion on my hands yesterday when mixing and can still smell it today. The plants are loving it though...

 

[ABurningMouth]

Ewww Sorry about your mystery plant's pods. It looks like it might taste pretty good though whenever you get some new ones on.
This is really a good grow log SL. I've been reading it all lately and it's inspiring and amazing.
Can we see another pic of the darker plant that's supposed to be a Peter? I love dark plants and want to see what becomes of it.

 

[salsalady]

Thanks, ABurningMouth. I did taste a bit of the rotten pods and they were really mild.

Here's a picture of a regular, light green peter pepper

and several of the purple peter pepper-

And just for fun, here's a mystery pepper that's really fuzzy-

and last, It's a FATALII !!!!!!!!!!

 

[salsalady]

Just for fun, we bought one of those Topsy Turvy planters. We stuffed in a fatalii, a bhut, a red savina and something else.

3 died, but one is still clinging to life. I think when we planted them, the roots were way to big to stuff through the holes and they just got too damaged. They should have been planted much smaller. Live and Learn, as they say.

I'll post these in that recent upside down post also.

 

[salsalady]

this isn't really part of the GrowLog, but I wanted to link it here anyway-

eat a bhut~
http://www.thehotpepper.com/topic/16916-salsakid-salsalady-eat-a-bhut/page__pid__360866#entry360866

 

[top4874]

Just a shot in the dark on your fuzzy mystery pepper. It looks like the serrano that I have growing. It is the only one that I have that has that fuzzy look to it. Awesome log!

 

[salsalady]

thanks, top4874. I have no idea on the fuzzy pepper yet. It's not flowering but still looks healthy green. I'll keep your suggestion in mind when it...hopefully...sets some fruit. SL

 

[charlesNYC]

Is it from peppermania's mystery seeds?

If it's fuzzy like that, it's more than likely that it will be a Pubescens (Rocoto, Manzano or something like that if I'm not mistaken).

 

[salsalady]

Is it from peppermania's mystery seeds?

If it's fuzzy like that, it's more than likely that it will be a Pubescens (Rocoto, Manzano or something like that if I'm not mistaken).

Yes, from peppermania. Thanks, NYC. The pictures a couple posts above are recent. They're not too tall yet, but still look healthy.

I just gave everything a shot of epsom salts and some Jobe's Tomato fertilizer this morning with their drink of water. The heat is going to stay around for a few days, low 90'sF, I'll have to keep a real close eye on them because the soil in the bags is so sandy, it drains almost too well.

 

[charlesNYC]

Yes, from peppermania. Thanks, NYC. The pictures a couple posts above are recent. They're not too tall yet, but still look healthy.

I just gave everything a shot of epsom salts and some Jobe's Tomato fertilizer this morning with their drink of water. The heat is going to stay around for a few days, low 90'sF, I'll have to keep a real close eye on them because the soil in the bags is so sandy, it drains almost too well.

Here's Beth's little post about her mystery seeds: http://peppermaniatexas.blogspot.com/2010/01/peppermania-business-card-seeds.html

:-P

 

[Alphaeon]

Fertilizers today!

I've used Alaska Fish Fertilizer before, but I don't remember it being as gloopy as the gallon of stuff I have now. It was very thick and was a pita to mix with the water in a watering can. So, I decided to dilute it! Mixed it 1:1 with water in a spare gallon jug and then just doubled the measurement. That worked GREAT! The force of the water from the hose was enough to mix it up.

I also started out using the watering can, and quickly moved to mixing the fert with SuperThrive in a 5 gallon bucket and just used a pint tub to scoop the water onto the leaves and into the soil. Each plant got 1/2 gallon of juice. 166 plants x .5 gal / 4 gallons per batch = 20 buckets mixed and poured. SHEESH! It took me 1 1/2 hours to water the plants! Gonna have to re-visit that one!

Later this afternoon, I went to pick a couple peppers on the Mystery Plants to use in the throwdown and found that both peppers on this plant had a rotten spot on their lowest point. On both peppers, you can see a dark spot that looks like a shadow, but it's actually rot.

Here's a shot of the peppers on the plant and then one of the rotten spots.

It's almost like water was dripping down the pepper and settled on the lowest spot and rotted it, but it's been drying out the last week or so. Maybe there's enough dew in the mornings to do this without the rain?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Great log! I am using the Alaska fert too. Working out great for me. That and seaweed as a foliar fert.

Our Pablanos, about 20, all had the same spots on them. EVERY single one would turn out like that. Decided to pull the plants and put the space too better use.

Hahaa I like the pic with your Pepper gaurd dog

We had to build a cage and put our pots on milk crates because the Bullmastif and Chihauhau mix kept giving our plants hair cuts

 

[Silver_Surfer]

We had to build a cage and put our pots on milk crates because the Bullmastif and Chihauhau mix kept giving our plants hair cuts

How in the wide, wide world of sports did a Chihuahua manage that.

Nice Manzano Lady.