Scratch's Outdoor 2013 - planted out finally.

Alright, the season is officially over in Vermont, so it's time to fire up the lights and grow some peppers indoors. This is always my favorite part about winter. I love being able to come home after work and still have some sunshine to play in. Considering it gets dark around 4:30 in the deepest parts of winter, I'll take any sunlight I can get!

I'm giving hydroponics a go this winter, so this will be a huge learning experience for me. But, if we didn't learn something new each time, it would get pretty boring, wouldn't you say?

Alright, peppers!

Plants are currently under 3 2' 4100k T8 lights, 17w each for a total of 51w of light.
DWC buckets with GH Flora series nutrients

This is my Carolina Reaper(hp22-b) seeding. She's about 7 weeks old. She's obviously stunted, considering her age, but I'm not in any rush to have a monster plant. Besides, I've already learned something from her, rockwool sucks. I am definitely not buying anymore after I use up what i have on hand. From what I've seen, rapid rooters are the way to go.

This is my Scotch Bonnet seedling. 11 weeks old, and finally coming into the growth spurt stage. She grows a half inch or more every day!

As you can see, she's starting to flower.
Can anyone identify the browning on the lower leaves? I think I may have spilled some of the soup on them when changing out the reservoir, but maybe it's something else.

This is a Bhut Jolokia that I've been growing since November of last year. I've nearly killed it 3 times now, and everytime it drops all it's leaves from stress, they bounce right back. So I figure, what the hell. Let's see how many lives this cat has.

And last but not least, my mango. 6 months old.

Once i get the space cleared out, these will all be moved into a 2'x3' tent with a 250w HPS lamp. Until then, I don't mind keeping them small and slow growing.

That's all for now, thanks for stopping in.

Scratch

 

[lock203]

That is a good question, I would guess the veg nutes would help more.

 

[scratchzilla]

Update. In the aftermath of the aphid disaster(see last update), I decided to germinate some fresh seeds. I also decided to experiment with germination techniques, in an attempt to find a better way to start plants for hydroponics. Rockwool just wasn't working for me, as I was having trouble with encouraging to roots to grow out of the cube.

Here is a shot of the fridge, where I propagate.

Here is. My Fatali seedling. She's still taking her time shooting roots, and I'm nervous about adding nutes until I see white coming from the net pot. Any advice?

These two cup are the first half of my germination experiment. The seeds came from a yellow hot pepper I grew this summer, I don't know the variety, it was an unlabeled nursery find.

The pot on the left is filled with coco coir, the pot on the right has hydroton in the bottom half, and coco in the top half

The others two cups. Left cup has a layer of coco sandwiched between two layers of hydroton, and the coupon the right has only hydroton.

So far, the cup with the middle coco layer is winning. It's difficult to see, but there's a tiny white hair on the right side of the bottom.

These are Mulato Isleno seeds from pods I grew this summer. They're in a shallow pan with coco.

There's no sugar coating it, the hp22b is dead.

But every silver lining....is that how it goes?

It's hard to get a decent shot under the hps, but the Scotch Bonnet is putting out leaves. I'll be sanitizing the tent this weekend, and hopefully with nowhere to hide at the moment, those aphids won't stand a chance.

Well, that's that, for now. Thanks for stopping in.

Zack

 

[stickman]

Hi Scratch
Bummer about the dead plant, but it's an excuse to start new seeds like you did. Most excellent that you got good news along with the bad, and the SB OW is starting to come back. Cheers!

 

[PaulG]

Glad to see the SB beginning veg out for you. The leaves looked
like they went belly up overnight. That seems pretty fast for aphid
damage, or even messed up nutes. Is it possible the little stint outside
did them in?

Anyway, new growth is good!

 

[scratchzilla]

Oh it was totally the stint outside that did them in. I guess it was just too cold outside for the plant. I'm glad it managed to survive, but now I gotta figure out how to keep it going and still have room for my seedlings. It'll take some creativity, but I'm sure I'figure something out.

 

[scratchzilla]

Ok, quick update.

Today after I got home from work, I noticed that all 3 cups with hydroton incorporated had significant signs of root development, so I decided to whip up a small unit to start these off.

Fatalli

Mystery Yellow

Mulato

Here's a pic of the pod the mystery yellows came from. I found it at a nursery nearby, it was supposed to be a Sweet pepper, Mohawk is I remember right. But it turned out to be a hot instead. I'd put it in the jalapeño or Serrano level of heat.

Thanks for looking!

Zack

 

[scratchzilla]

After 24 hours of being in the tote with 2/3 strength seedling nutes, the only cup that hasn't shown any difference is the all coco cup. All others have shown visible increase in root mass, but still, the only cup to have roots poke out of the cup itself is the sandwiched coco.

As the results stand so far, I am very impressed with my germination rates as well as the speed of root growth. Since making my switch to hydroponics and using 1" rockwool cubes for seed starting, I have had many hurdles to climb. Some seeds, most actually, seems to take well over a month after sprouting to push roots throughout into the hydroton. This batch so far has given me three out of four techniques tried better results in 7 days than rockwool has in a month. The only cup to not impress me is the all coco cup, as I had expected.

The only drawback I can see to these techniques so far is the importance of going into the buckets as soon as possible. With most of these cups being hydroton based, there is not much of a moisture buffer to protect the roots, so basically as soon as they appear, they need to go into a suitable environment.

Ok. I'm rambling. Sorry, just making notes for myself later on.

Thanks for looking, now tell me what I'm doing wrong!

Zack

 

[PaulG]

Good work, Scratch! You hydro guys are pretty impressive!

 

[scratchzilla]

Oh I'm still learning the ropes of hydro, so I wouldn't call anything I do impressive yet. I've got lots to learn still(don't we all?). But thanks for the compliment. I'm having a Lott of fun with it.

 

[scratchzilla]

Spampam!

I know, I post here a lot. Just keeping notes.

48 hours in the bubbler and the results so far are interesting.

The cup with coco sandwiched between hydroton was the first to show significant root growth. Here it is after 48 hours.

Now here is where it gets interesting. The all coc cup, which I expected to be the slowest is actually pulling ahead.

The Fatalli has also shot out some roots finally.

And finally, some kiddie porn!(seedlings)

Thanks for reading

Zack

 

[scratchzilla]

Hello again everybody! Just another friendly update.

First on the agenda: The Scotch Bonnet that wouldn't die.

So after two weeks the plant looks like it's on it's way to a complete recovery. I've seen a few aphids here and there, but with such little foliage to hide in, I've been able to keep up with them rather well. Between manually smashing them, and jets of cold water, I've kept them in check so far. Fingers crossed.

The Mulato seedlings, after a week of growth. My plant is to let them grow a set or two of true leaves before transplanting into a bubbler system. Out of 8 seeds planted, 7 germinated. I can't complain about those rates.

The mystery yellows, and the Fatalli seedling(front left corner), after a week in the bubbler. I've been running them on 2/3 strength nutrients and they have reacted well enough that I may bump up to full strength later this weekend. What do you think, too soon?

I wanted to pull off the lid so you can see what's going on underneath, but it was too hard to focus the camera one handed, so I shot a short video to show you instead.

Thanks for popping in.

Zack.

 

[sudostahp]

The roots on that scotch bonnet are really intense!

Maybe next year I'll give DWC a shot.

 

[scratchzilla]

Thanks! They are pretty nuts. They take up at least a third of the bucket. I love changing out my buckets because I get to look at them.

 

[DocNrock]

Just got caught up with your glog, Scratchzilla. Man, talk about some highs and lows. Aphids suck! Looks like you're getting a handle on them, though. Good on ya for doing the hydro thing. I would be lost. Looks like there is a significant learning curve but your patience will get you over it. The SB root mass is insane. The healthy root system is probably why it won't die...which is good!

 

[scratchzilla]

Doc, thanks for stopping in buddy! You're right, the learning curve is crazy with hydro, but just as much fun. The aphids aren't completely gone just yet, but I'm keeping up on them. Those roots on the SB are even more impressive in real life, pics don't do it justice.

Zack

 

[trinidadPepper]

Can't wait for my pepper plant to have roots like your SB!

 

[PIC 1]

Nice recovery with your SB and the healthy seedlings...

 

[scratchzilla]

Update time!

The mystery yellows are doing great. Growth has been explosive over the last week. I think it may be time to start culling out the weaker members of the herd.

The poblanos are ready to transplant into bubble buckets, so I may do that on my next day off.

That's about it for now. Thanks for sot oping by,

Zack

 

[stc3248]

Nice comeback story Zack...can't beat the lessons learned the hard way. Hope you have the pests licked! Keep 'em green buddy!

 

[scratchzilla]

The pests are quite resilient, but I've been having no trouble keeping on top them since there is such little foliage to hide in. Daily showers with soapy water has been keeping the adults under control, so now it's just a matter of breaking the reproductive cycle. I might have to pick up a bottle of safer later this week just for good measure.

I actually did some work on the tote right after my update. I took out the center cup,with the smallest seedlings, replaced it with a larger net cup and transplanted one of my poblanos into it. We'll see how it likes the new home after a couple days.

Zack