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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?
 
Siv said:
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.
 
 
 
 
I filled my raised beds with mushroom compost. worked like a charm. I ordered a double truckload every year: https://charlesdowding.co.uk/start-no-dig-soil-types-weeds-composts-to-use/
 
 
 
 
 
 
Mushroom compost, used for growing mushrooms in undercover benches, has more nutrients than green waste compost and again may be delivered “unripe”, though it can be used at this stage. I prefer to leave it 3-4 months to finish curing. Ingredients are mostly straw and some horse manure. There used to be chalk as well but some mushroom compost does not have this now, my last batch was pH 6.8. Ask your supplier if worried, but I suggest not to worry about the pH because I have never found it to cause problems, even when I used mushroom compost of pH 9.5 on soil of pH 7.8. Don’t believe everything you read about “pH has to be ‘correct’ for different crops”.
 
And we're done with the fill! The dirt they brought looked reasonable, some organic material in there but I had them mix in some peat moss, perlite, blood and bone meal and any random bags of compost I had hanging around. The roto-tiller thing did a great job at mixing it all up. They filled the bottom half with just dirt and the top with the mix. I'll be busy planting out on the weekend!
 
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It took an afternoon to set up the new irrigation for two beds. I don't think this is an optimal setup but it works OKish for now. I think I'm going to have to split into zones and water each bed separately as there isn't enough pressure to get both new beds and the two existing ones spraying with gusto. I'll probably have to do three zones, two with a pair of new medium sized beds and one with the old beds and the new large one. Currently the two medium and one large in the middle have no irrigation as I ran out of bits!
 
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Given that I've planted out almost all my starts and I have three more beds empty, I decided to see what would happen if I started some seeds now.
 
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Some of these are old so I'm going with the baggie method. I just pulled out my rockwool starting setup and was dismayed to see that in total less than half of the blocks germinated and all blocks had at least 2 seeds in them. I got at least one of each variety except for the Dorset Naga - not a single one made it. Of my growdown seeds, only one germinated.
 
I also have 8 wilds and 2 biquinos that are in the indoor hydro trying to catch-up. They're doing great so far.
 
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The hydro rack is working well, Siv!
What are the wilds in it?
 
Just some thoughts from my own experience...
For your irrigation set up, for beds that size, I just
run one supply tubing down the side and attach
all the emitter tubing to that. Just makes for less
stuff to have to work around. I find the with a 24psi
system, I can run 12-15 emitters pretty easily. The
1/4" tubing can be up to 5' long with no problem. 
 
Have fun getting it dialed in. I tinker with my system
a lot.
 
PaulG said:
The hydro rack is working well, Siv!
What are the wilds in it?
 
Just some thoughts from my own experience...
For your irrigation set up, for beds that size, I just
run one supply tubing down the side and attach
all the emitter tubing to that. Just makes for less
stuff to have to work around. I find the with a 24psi
system, I can run 12-15 emitters pretty easily. The
1/4" tubing can be up to 5' long with no problem. 
 
Have fun getting it dialed in. I tinker with my system
a lot.
 
Thanks Paul. The wilds are wiri wiri and yellow jellybean that you sent.
 
Each bed has 18 emitters - this is probably why I'm having problems! I had a whole bunch of 1/2" tube and not much 1/4" left which is why I went the way I did. I've actually been looking at the store and they sell emitters that sit right on the 1/2" tube so I may go that way for the others.
 
A little update on the scaled back hydro this year. All the plants are doing very well and are still on their initial fill - I have yet to open up the valve to the main reservoir. We've had a few hot days so I was expecting the bucket levels to drop but it seems the plants aren't as thirsty as I expected. Perhaps the shade is slowing their growth so the uptake isn't as vigorous as past years.
 
L-R: Buena Mulata, White Thai, Bangalore Whippet's Tail, Tiger Jalapeno, Mammoth Jalapeno, Buena Mulata and Bangalore Whippet's Tail
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All have pods on the go and are flowering too. I picked the largest plants when I put them out so I have doubles of a few. I guess the Buena Mulata will look nice - I hope they taste good also.
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The Bangalore Whippet's Tail are certainly living up to their name! Will be picking one green to cook with soon.
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I'm a tiny bit sad that I didn't do more. I have some seeds on the go now so may well add a few buckets... we'll see.
 
Siv said:
I'm a tiny bit sad that I didn't do more. I have some seeds on the go now so may well add a few buckets... we'll see. I can predict how this will go  :lol:
:rofl:  I don't mean to laugh, but I could have
told you so! This is the perennial problem, 'If only
I could squeeze in a few more...', then 'Egads,
what will I do with all these plants?'
 
Your bucket plants look very healthy and robust.
And the long skinny pods are very interesting.
Have fun taste-testing those.
 
We have some pods!
 
First up is Sadabahar. These are nice looking chillis and I may try one green - should be perfect for asian cooking.
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White Thai - a couple of the pods look mutant though. Another that I should pick and try.
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This was also labeled white thai but looks completely different!
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Buena Mulata - not nearly as dark as the ones in hydro
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Big Jim living up to it's name
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And finally, Tiger Jalps looking very dark and interesting. Smaller than I expected
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Things appear to be rockin' in Tejas, Siv!
 
You have some great plants going and
producing for you. Looks like a banner
season in the offing!
 
Looking great Siv! Good to see plants already established outside and putting out pods.
 
That Sadabahar definitely caught my attention, since it looks really, really similar to the Mystery Pepper I am growing this year. Same pod shape, same clustering habit, same leaf shape. Peter Stanley has a tasting video with some very similar peppers, but his are named "Thai Dragon".... I really see no difference between his, yours and mine, haha - wondering if they are all the same.
 
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