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Sarge's 2013 - Sydney, Some extreme variations!

Alright to kickstart off on this forum, I might as well write up a glog where I can show you guys what I have started, what I have and where I hope to be.
 
I never used to be a fan of chilli. Couldn't tolerate the hate and the day after. After time went on I started getting an itch for it and started to like it more and more to the point I eat hot things just to experience the burn. Well I consider my self to have always had a green thumb. Ive grown many plants in the past, mainly fruitful like tomato's strawberries and other types of berries. I then tried Bonsai but with uni and other things in the way it was far too hard to maintain and after a year trying to grow plants from seedlings, it only took one bad day to wipe out an entire batch I worked so hard on; a scorching 43C summer day.
 
Now I'm starting my run with chilli's, namely the super hots. So what did I do? I headed over to eBay and bought some bhuts in reds and chocolate, some trinidad scorpions, morugas, naga x 7 pot just to get me started.
 
I started my seedlings as I did previous plants Ive grown, moist paper towel in a plastic bag behind the fridge or somewhere warm. The bhuts were the first batch I tried and I hit a 100% germination rate after 10 days. These were then sewn into the Scotts seed raising mix which I bought from Bunnings. They were planted in trays in those little mini greenhouse things and I kept an eye on them every day until they broke through the surface. I obtained a heat mat, a reptile grow lamp and built a box in my cupboard to house them in which is lined with aluminium foil to keep light and heat in. After the bhuts cracked the surface I tried a batch of 10 of each of the other seeds. The seeds were from different sellers on eBay. I had 70% with the naga x 7 pot, 70% with another batch and two other batches I had had completely failed on me. I'm not sure what happened, I didn't take pictures but the seeds seemed to change colour, some went black while others stained the paper towel in a yellow colour run.
 
I threw those bad seeds out and named it to a bad harvest of seed. The bhuts I germinated looked extremely better quality than the other seeds which failed. Most of the seeds had little cracks in them, some werent whole, and they looked overly dried out.
 
After the plants got their first true set of leaves I started feeding them, and this is where I request input. Ive been using seasol at half strength every other week and the other weeks between I have been using power feed. I have also got a bottle of Chilli focus but have not tried this out. I feed straight to the soil. I think as of late though I have been over watering slightly. The soil looks too moist for my liking so I have backed off the watering(please reference the attached pictures).
 
I have a couple of questions of things I have seen along the way and things I need cleared.
 
Firstly my plants are grown in my room up stairs in a cupboard, isolated from any other plants. I have noticed a flying insects in there which I have squashed whenever Ive seen them. They are smaller than a fruit fly and when I lift the cover off the seedlings the bugs either fly out or run and hide in the soil. Ive seen about 4 now and killed all of them. There is no point getting a picture, no camera I have would be capable of getting a clear image, these things are tiny as. Are these of concern? How the hell did they get there? The only time the cover is off is when I water.
 
Secondly, should I remove the cover off the seedlings now? A chap suggested I remove it while another suggested to keep it to retain humidity. Checking all the photos I see online, no one keeps their seedlings enclosed. Refer to the pix to see the housing.
 
Third off, and I have a pic for this one, two of the seedlings have strange patches on their new set of leaves, they look like dark spots but they aren't theyre actually thinner spots and the illusion of darkness comes from the fact its the soil being semi visible through the leave. There are no bugs or insects other than the flying ones that I have seen. Nothing leeching off the plant. The leaves otherwise are a nice green colour.
 
For now no more writing, here are the pictures. In two days these will be about 3.5 weeks old.
 
I will post pix and updates as necessary.
 
Hope you guys enjoy!
 
P.S if anyone here is in Australia and has some fresh seed to sell(or even in the US), please PM me. I'm trying to find some pure 7 pot varieties and depending if I can get my red bhuts to germ maybe some fresh red bhuts. The ones which have grown so far are chocolate bhuts.
 
These are the strange looking leaves. Its only the two plants at the front bottom corner of the tray. Any ideas?

 
I found this little bastard growing in one of the cells.

 
Bigger picture of the damaged leaves

 
This is my current setup

 
Soil moisture


 
Soil temp

 
Close up of soil moisture. Looks too wet.

 
 
 
Click to expand...
Just a little picture of the seedlings and have a question; is it normal for the plant to already be budding up between the leaves and stalk? The seedlings are still tiny, about 1.5month old and a few of them have new shoots coming between the leaves and stalks. Its hard to see in this picture I know but its the best I could do with my phone.
 
t1u5.jpg
 
That's normal mate, especially if it's a chinense variety. They will eventually put on some stalk height, but put out sprouts everywhere first.
 
Some of the leaves are thinner than others and they appear brown under light and look dry. The second last image its very clear around the edge of the leaf.
 
2mzo.jpg

 
That's where my seedlings are at now! About 1.5 months old. They started off pretty slow but have really picked up. The previous photo was two weeks earlier, they've more than doubled in size. I've since backed off the feeding and now water from the bottom by dunking them in water and letting them absorb water and then holding them up and letting the excess drip out. Works much better and the surface is always dry. Still doesn't deter the fungus gnats, I think those f**kers don't care about the top of the soil since I see them crawling in the drainage holes at the bottom of the pots!
 
These are my bigger seedlings outside which are coming along nicely. Is it fine that they get there sunlight filtered through that 70% UV sun shade stuff? Anymore than that and they wilt and carry on while my smaller seedlings just sizzle away.
 
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Heres my seedlings in their state-of-the-art grow room at night and on those :hot:stinky 38c spring days... Its pretty bad since the day time temps are so hot yet night time temps drop into low double digits, 10 - 13c. The fluctuations in temps surely must take their toll on the plants.
 
admy.jpg

 
Also for fellow aussies, try steer clear of scotts products, two separate bags both had fungus gnats flying out of the bags when I opened them. I got a bag of Debco premium veg and herb potting mix yesterday, this stuff looks and feels much better and no bugs came flying out of the bags. I spoke to the rep, they said its rare to see stuff come out of the bags after the sterilization process but hell 2 out of 2 isn't a good hit rate.
 
the plants are looking great mate! The shade cloth is doing the job in the ridiculous heat you are copping.
 
I used the debco premium mix last year, it is pretty good! I have just recycled it this year and added some dynamic lifter pellets.
 
Looking good Sarge. You are getting things going now, and if you keep up the attention you'll be in the pods in no time.
 
Mitch_from_OZ said:
the plants are looking great mate! The shade cloth is doing the job in the ridiculous heat you are copping.
 
I used the debco premium mix last year, it is pretty good! I have just recycled it this year and added some dynamic lifter pellets.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah I'm gonna stick with Debco this time round I think, this soil really looks much better after watering too.
 
Dynamic lifter. Man I had to stock shelves at work with the Reduced odor stuff, ITS FAR FROM REDUCED ODOR! I think I'll stick with blood and bone for now and move to dynamic lifter when the plants are outside, full time haha.
 
Cartz said:
Looking good Sarge. You are getting things going now, and if you keep up the attention you'll be in the pods in no time.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah it does feel like things are starting to kick off! I had a really deformed seedlings which just wasn't growing at all. When it finally decided to push out its next set of leaves, they were about the size of a babies finger nail. It then pushed out another set of leaves, but it was only one leaf and it was really oddly shaped(I'll grab a pic soon). I was gonna dump the plant but decided first to examine the roots to see if there was a problem and I believe there was. Some of my seedlings were affected by fungus gnats but most came through and are seemingly growing fine. Their roots looked good. The roots on this plant just looked like your standard root system except there weren't very many roots and all the roots were missing the little hairs which grow off them, which tells me something had a good go at it. Well I potted it in the garden a few days ago and expected it just to wither and die, but its still kicking and its definitely grown a little more. Maybe because I haven't kept a hawks eye on it, or maybe its the quality of the soil which was from my dads old batch he used for tomato and corn. I'll keep an eye on it. Hell it even survived 37c of mid day sun!
 
My other plant which dropped a flower, gained two more flowers and these look brilliant compared to the first flower. I gave it a light finger bang and the pollon was there in a good quantity. Pretty little purple flower.
 
gdyz.jpg

 
I also grabbed another range of seeds from Junglerain, more bhut crosses. Really like the bhuts! Just planted 6 of those, two of each variety, trying jiffy pots. I'm not gonna plant anymore for the year since summer is ramping up pretty damn quickly. The rest will go into storage for next years run.
 
I had a plant which when it germinated, it looked like it was struggling so I decided to double pot those when I did the potting up. Since then its come a fair way to the point where its now bending for light.
 
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You guys think I should separate the plants or can I leave them like this. Chances are this one is gonna end up in the dirt and not a potted plant.
 
nice plant. Were you going to put the big one in the dirt? If so I think you could probably separate them without doing too much damage, if any, to the root ball.
 
Might be wishful thinking, but if it got through a dodgey germination it might be a strong plant, and possibly a good producer???
 
Mitch_from_OZ said:
nice plant. Were you going to put the big one in the dirt? If so I think you could probably separate them without doing too much damage, if any, to the root ball.
 
Might be wishful thinking, but if it got through a dodgey germination it might be a strong plant, and possibly a good producer???
Click to expand...
 
I was gonna pot the two of them in dirt when they grew a little bigger and leave them together just to see how they grow side by side. If the bigger one wasn't as big as it was and they grew at the same speed, I recon they would have grown well together. Right now they get outdoor light to get maximum light penetration from the sun and also have them facing so the little one gets direct light. Ive got another 6 of these seedlings going so I think I'll gamble them and leave them together and see how they do! There's lots of ground, surely they won't fight over soil that much lol.
 
An update for all the fellow chilli heads!
 
Got a couple pix here of some of my potted plants which are putting on pods and my aji lemon which is growing like a beast. Such huge changes in little time and the plant is growing in awesome symmetry.
 


 
Now my seedlings have been doing quite well. My initial plans were just to put a couple plants in the dirt and the rest in pots. After realizing I need 20+ pots and a crap load of space, its almost not an option to pot up so many plants, so into the dirt they went! The soil was brought up to par, added some blood bone, tomato food, composted manure and soil improving mix. Turned it over, watered it, turned it over some more and gave it a day or two to settle in. Yesterday afternoon I transferred 3 of my plants into the dirt, as a test, to see how they cope with the drastic temperature changes(12c at night, 32 day). Today, mid day, about 29 - 32c outside, the plants look just fine! No wilting at all, like I was expecting. I believe 80% of the wilting in my plants wasn't due to sun directly, but the temperature of the pot. The ground is much cooler and the plants look very alive.
 
Slugs and snails are notorious in these parts so I had to lay some snail pellets around the perimeter to keep the pests at bay. I may have planted the current plants in there a little too close but there's no bottom to the grow bed so the roots should be fine and if the top gets messy, I'll trim if necessary. Another 10 - 14 plants to hit the dirt this afternoon!
 
Good looking rootball:
 
ge35.jpg

 
Just hit the dirt:
 
nf9m.jpg

 
Their new play pen with the sun shade over it, 30% block. This pic was taken a few minutes ago, you can see compared to above that the plants are taking to the soil quite well. They're standing strong under the mid day sun!
 
frvo.jpg

 
 
I update my imageshack account with pictures I take almost daily, check it out. I post most stuff here but for whats not posted here, this is the link:
 
http://imageshack.com/user/sarger33
 
Cheers guys!
 
Just planted the rest out.
 
Spaced these out further, hopefully they go well!
 
dvbh.jpg

 
Ive kept about 6 seedlings which I might plant along the back fence and ill keep 2 - 4 for pots. Where they're planted they will lose light at about 4 - 5pm. Hopefully they get enough light. I know the heat will be right!
 
Trust me they will love the shade house idea. You will love it too not having to water as often. I will probably shade my plants as a rule from now on, mine thrived this year in the spot I built.
 
They could have done better if I gave them some nutes and stuff, but I never got around to it before they flowered and by then I was worried about the nitrogen making them drop flowers.
 
Well done.
 
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