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seanw first glog (2013) - Racing the End of the Season...

Hello and greetings :) My first post here, and I'm prepping for my first major season growing. I've done a few small pepper plants here or there, and two summers ago I tried for some variety of ghost chili or other (the pop top cans you can get from thinkgeek), which turned out to look like ghost chilis, but were super mild (may have also been the fact that they were getting almost no sun in the apartment we lived in at the time, and by the time we got the house, they got outdoors just in time for the frost to hit).

I've got a heat mat and a 50 hole rapid rooter en route, and I'll be grabbing some cheapo work lights to give me some light. I also need to rig some sort of container to keep in the heat, they'll be going in my insulated-but-unheated garage until I move them into the garden, thinking either a styrofoam cooler or just putting that silver bubblewrap insulation stuff on a box.

In addition to some herbs and other garden veggies, here's my pepper list for the year:

HP22B
Yatsufusa
Tabasco
Paprika
Firecracker
Early Jalapeno
Moruga Trinidad Scorpion
NuMex Suave Orange Habanero
Chiltepin
Orange Hab
Bhut Jolokia
Red Savina Hab
Hot Cherry Pepper
Butch T Trinidad
Scotch Bonnet

I may have gone a bit gonzo on ordering. We haven't built our garden yet. This will be the second garden, the first is dedicated to berries, and got mauled by rabbits and chipmunks, even with fencing. The vegetable garden is going to be 6'x30', in three sections. Gonna stick peppers and some tomatos in one of the 10x6 section, the other two will be for the other veggies. I'm gonna have to break out some pots for the rest of the peppers. We'll see what happens once we get the garden together, though :) My current plan is to build a frame around the garden and cover it with 1" or 2" fencing, big enough for the bugs, too small for the critters.

Here's hoping all goes well!
 
Question for the experts out there - if I have multiple varieties in proximity and they cross, with the pods show different? I'm mostly concerned about the bells I'm planning on growing crossing with some of the chinense or similar and firebombing my wife. I don't really plan on saving seeds, so I'm not concerned about the next generation.
 
That's what I've been reading. Isn't science wonderful?

That'll make my pepper jungle much more manageable :)


Joyner - weird that you got a hot bell, if that's the case
 
Apparently I'm a dope and can't read. What I thought was Reapers was the Butch T's, so my Reapers are the ones lagging behind. Fortunately, I see a hook...

Little seedlings are going strong, hoping for some real leaves soon. My second tray should arrive soon...and I just placed an order with Peppergal for anaheim, white hab, and an ornamental (chilly chili). Trying to buy some things from Judy @ pepperlover, but her site registration is busted. She's going to set me up with an account. I wanted another baccatum, and had a hankering for a primo...and, while I was at it, trying to buy another pasilla and peter peppers ;)

Also, little concerned about the power situation right now. 55mph winds. It's warm, so we should be fine, but if we lose power, my seeds might get cold when it drops into the 20's tonight...
 
I grew both Pasilla Bajio and Holy Mole Hybrid last year, and for this area, I'd say the hybrid turned out better. I was getting rot on the ends of the Pasilla Bajio, the only chile to do so in fact, but not the hybrid.
 
I grew both Pasilla Bajio and Holy Mole Hybrid last year, and for this area, I'd say the hybrid turned out better. I was getting rot on the ends of the Pasilla Bajio, the only chile to do so in fact, but not the hybrid.

Going for Pasilla de Oaxaca, guess we'll see. I'm not sure if I'm going to grow the Bajio this year, or not. I need to look at my Annuum tray when I start those in a bit (probably as soon as the second chinense/pube tray is uppotted).
 
The overnight soak really helps out...It would be the next gen that you'd be concerned about. You won't pick up any extra heat from a hot annuum this season. Bees get attracted to the larger brighter flower on the "Bell" . If your planting in groups the chance is minut. You can save the seed stock by isolation using nylon, fine grade burlap or tulle fabric..........I use a nylon stocking for branch isolation. Those seeds get stored separately so I can keep track with dates and germination percentages.

Greg
 
The overnight soak really helps out...It would be the next gen that you'd be concerned about. You won't pick up any extra heat from a hot annuum this season. Bees get attracted to the larger brighter flower on the "Bell" . If your planting in groups the chance is minut. You can save the seed stock by isolation using nylon, fine grade burlap or tulle fabric..........I use a nylon stocking for branch isolation. Those seeds get stored separately so I can keep track with dates and germination percentages.

Greg

Maybe I'll stocking up anything that is going gonzo, thanks for the tip.

Next wave of seeds are in the rooters. Red Rocoto, Cheiro Recife, Aji Limon, Douglah, Yellow Bhut. I doubled up each rooter with the rocoto, accuracy by volume ,right?

Waiting for some seed packs for wave 4, particularly White Hab, primo and dedo de moca, along with some annuums. 50 spot trays, with 25 currently full. After I get the growdown seeds and these in, that will leave me with one row of 5 left. I might leave that for stragglers when I up-pot tray 1, particularly if I have anything with poor germ rates.

In other news...true leaves forming on an orange hab!
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Meant to snap a picture this morning, but I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep after the super bowl :)

Having lots of helmet heads popping up in the rooters, guess I need to make sure the seeds are seated deeper. Also, in investigating some of the seeds that never germinated, I found empty pockets. Apparently when I was watering, they washed out. There are still a pile of seeds that haven't germinated, but I see little root tails on a few of them, sow we're still cooking. I may move some of the germinating seeds over to the second tray, so that I can start up-potting, but we'll see what happens, I don't necessarily want to lose that space, yet.
 
Looking great thus far! It's funny about the pot farmer thing, whenever I'm talking lighting, seeds or anything about gardening in public, I imagine anyone within earshot thinks I'm growing weed. Good luck with your grow!
 
Looking great thus far! It's funny about the pot farmer thing, whenever I'm talking lighting, seeds or anything about gardening in public, I imagine anyone within earshot thinks I'm growing weed. Good luck with your grow!

It's kind of annoying, every time I do a search for anything growing related, it's all weed/420/etc forums I find answers on. Not to bad at home, irritating when I'm doing web searches at work.


Seedlings going strong:
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My second tray is already rolling!

8452227985_f8ae91c9e0_c.jpg


My Aji Limon has a tiny seedling.

I'm kind of disappointed that the reapers in the other tray are showing almost no activity. I was expecting the Bhut Jolokia to be a pain, but it's up and going strong and I've only got one teeny little hook that probably isn't going to survive in the reaper section.


I need to get a count up of planted vs successful seeds - maybe tonight, we'll see. It's a bit tricky because I have to pull the tray out and look into the rooters, as I lost a few seeds at sea and it's not immediately obvious which ones are still there. Depending on the activity in the still-stubborn seeds, I'll put them into the new tray soon - getting to be up-potting time.
 
Got the last of my seeds to day. Orders from Peppergal and Pepperlover. Judy was super generous and gave me 4 free packs for the 4 packs I ordered, and all of them were loaded. New choices...

White Bhuts, White Habs and Primos are now soaking for planting tomorrow.
 
Nice, those plugs stay nice and moist compared to the Jiffy pellets.

The trays do evaporate a ton of water though, which is a bit of a struggle. The plugs do seem to stay moist, but you have to watch it. I keep a couple cups full of water, and add some periodally (usually in the morning, when I get home from work, and when I go to bed). Other than the large number of helmet heads, they seem to be working out pretty well. I just throw a piece of cellophane over any helmets to help keep them soft, which has worked all but one time so far (and...then I 'helped' and ripped it's head off, it was looking like it wasn't doing so hot, anyway, so...)

New seeds are in the plugs, ready to grow. Also, I noticed that two of my cheiro seeds were starting to hook. I guess the temp problems I was having really slowed down that first tray, this second one is off to a great start.
 
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