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Siv's third time's a charm

My first year: http://thehotpepper.com/topic/70997-sivs-2019-first-time-glog/
My second year: http://thehotpepper.com/topic/73302-sivs-second-time-lucky-2020-glog/page-10
 
Planning is currently underway for year 3. I'll probably start seeds in February with a view to putting them out in March. My wife complained several times this year that I didn't grow enough peppers that she could use for cooking so this year I'm going to remedy that. I didn't grow any annuums last year so will be going for several this year. I'm not going to bother with pubes as they can't seem to take the Texas heat. I'm also not going to bother with baccatums this year either. I'm going to aim for 15-20 varieties allowing for 2-3 plants of each. I have way too many seeds so will try and avoid buying more!
 
The current plan:
Dorset Naga - only had one successful plant last year and I like the look so want to grow more
Bahamian Goat - my current all time favourite pepper
Orange Ribbon - a surprise favourite for 2020 and great raw
Leviathan Gnarly Scorpion - hot and great for sauces, hopefully this time they are leviathan as last year they were smaller
White Ghost - a favourite from 2019 and a failure in 2020; hopefully redeemed in 2021
Fatalii - I didn't get as many as I wanted in 2020 and I do like these
Antem Aci Dolma - new for 2021
Sadabahar - new for 2021
Buena Mulata - new for 2021
Bangalore Whippets Tail - new for 2021
White Thai - new for 2021
African Bird Orange - new for 2021 and another attempt at a piri piri type
Yellow Biquinho - new for 2021; haven't tried this style before
Clavo White F1 - new for 2021 and an experiment
 
For the hydro, I'm going to cut down on the number of buckets and move them back a little and separate them into three lots of seven buckets. This will give me a bit better control and will also allow me to add support between the pillars to cope with these plants as they grow pretty large.
 
For soil, I'm toying with the idea of replacing most of the grow bags with raised beds made from steel stock tanks. I put the bags on a tarp and while this keeps the grass down There are some spots where water collects and this led to a bunch of mosquitos. The pools of water also makes it annoying to walk between the rows. I'll have to think about this as it's a bit of an investment. I may do the tanks in the spots where the water is the worst and cut down the tarp coverage. I have a while though to think about this.
 
My wife wants me to grow jalapenos but I'm loathed to grow something I can easily buy whenever I want at the grocery store for little money. And we don't use them that often anyway. Perhaps an odd variety - I have Tiger Jalapeno seeds.
 
Any thoughts/suggestions from the community?
 
Click to expand...
Texas, WTF!
 
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skullbiker said:
That's just depressing! I got spotty frost just recently but I moved here so I would never have contact with that white stuff again.
Click to expand...
 
Tell me about it. My wife was all excited to have snow and I was grumpy as hell. She quickly changed her tune when the pipes froze and she had to flush the toiled by lugging a bucket of water from the pool.
 
At least we kept power, a lot of people in the Houston area are not so lucky.
 
PaulG said:
I hope you had no burst pipes.
Click to expand...
 
Lowes is sold out of PVC glue. A lot of people have burst pipes!
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ahayastani said:
I hope your curry plants are safe  :shocked:
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We lost power so the heater wouldn't have been on. We're expected to go to -6C tonight  but after that no more freezing days. I'll only take a look on Saturday. Fingers crossed!
 
We hit 10C inside the house when the power was off. My 2021 starts seem to have survived a day without heat or light so that's one lucky thing!
 
My heart goes out to all the folks dealing with the
effects of the winter storm down there.  I suppose
the houses down there aren't as insulated as those
in colder climates?
 
Hoping you can get out from under the mess soon,
and that Saturday's check isn't too bad.
 
PaulG said:
My heart goes out to all the folks dealing with the
effects of the winter storm down there.  I suppose
the houses down there aren't as insulated as those
in colder climates?
 
Hoping you can get out from under the mess soon,
and that Saturday's check isn't too bad.
Click to expand...
 
We normally don't get freezing temps for more than a few hours. I've only seen snow once before in my 15 years living in/around Houston and that lasted 4 hours. The only pipes that are insulated are the hot water ones - but even then, it's sporadic. I've been up and down the attic multiple times checking! I managed to find a local plumbing store that had PVC pipe glue so fixed up the broken pipe and we now have water (couldn't get a plumber for love nor money). I'll wait a few months to get the ceiling fixed - it needs to dry out anyway and it's in the spare room so no one sees it.
 
So far I'd say we got off lucky. Many people have had much worse experiences.
 
Glad to hear all that, and that you were
able to fix your pipe. Hang in there, Siv.
 
In better news:
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Looks like most of the starts are doing well and have survived the day with no light and cold temps so I'll have enough to plant out when the Texas weather starts cooperating. Surprisingly the Biquinos were fast out the gate but seem to have stalled. These are the only ones I'm concerned about but won't be too sad if they don't make it - more an experiment than anything else.
 
That is good news, Siv. The starts look
pretty good from here. Glad they made it,
now for better times ahead!
 
Time for a little update. The starts are going OK - germination has not been as good as in past years which saw far more seeds pop using the same method. You can see from the pic below that the empty cells have germinated but at least half are still there. The wilds from Paul have finally popped (on the far left) so these will be separated and babied.
 
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The ones that have germinated are doing well. You can see that those in the middle directly under the light have grown quite a bit.
 
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So I've taken the big boys out and put them outside. I'll be keeping an eagle eye on the weather forecast!
 
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So now to thoughts of planting out. Although the growbags have served me well over the last couple of years, the tarp I put down collects water and then mosquitos. Now that this is looking to be a more serious endeavour, I thought it would be good to make a more permanent setup and also make it look a bit decent. So here's the plan - I have bought 4 of these 15" raised beds:
 
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The plan will be to lay them out in a grid with plenty of walking space between them. Once I have them laid out, I'll see how it looks and perhaps add another couple of smaller beds to fill in the gaps - I'd also like to grown more vegetables. I'm thinking 8 pepper plants in each bed would be a good start perhaps with some onions/garlic around them.
 
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I'm then gonna put some edging around the periphery of the grow area and put down a layer of gravel between the beds to neaten things up and stop water from pooling. This is going to be a big project!
 
ahayastani said:
I had this type of arrangement in Europe but used wood chips instead of gravel for the paths. Looked better, cheaper, also less permanent, accumulates less heat.
Click to expand...
Also helps to feed the soil better than gravel will
 
I have used lots of gravel for my yard's pathways
and edge areas. I put about 3" on top of weed block
fabric, and it has worked very well. Nice and dry even
in the wettest weather, so I can walk all around the yard
without walking in wet dirt or mud!
 
Time for a small update before the big work begins!
 
Some of my starts are getting far too big for their boots so I've set up the hydro for 7 plants. Only one trash can as feed this time so it's easier to manage.
 
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I've moved the buckets back so that they're shaded under the roof. This may not be fully optimal as it keeps them out of direct sun other than a couple hours in the morning but they grew so much last year, hopefully this will temper their growth so they don't get giant and unwieldy.
 
Most of the remaining starts are in buckets with some needing transplant soon.
 
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I also put the indoor waterfall hydro back into service to attempt some more salad. This time I've added some lights to help them out as they didn't grow that well last year.
 
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The wilds that Paul sent are very slow out the box but there are 4x Wiri wiri and 4x Jelly Bean that I've put in the same thing since I had the slots free and they needed some more time to grow.
 
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Now the major work is to get the raised beds filled. I started by buying 16 bags of compost and 8 bags of peat moss (2 trips and back breaking) but they barely filled half of one of the beds! I'm in the process of emptying out all the grow bags I had into that bed and hopefully by the weekend I'll have one grow bed going. Oh and I bought another raised bed to try - this one is larger than the others! My lawn guy has said he can supply dirt so I may have to bite the bullet and spend $500 on having him pick up some for me since I don't see any other way to get these filled in decent time.
 
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Wow, things look great in every way, Siv.
 
I am glad the Wiri-wiri and Yellow Jellybean
came up for you. They were both productive,
bushy (because I had to top them) plants. Both 
are c. chinense.
 
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