SKULLBIKER 2023, LESS FOR ME

I thought about not doing a GLOG this year but have decided to "just do it". My grow will be much less this year with no super hots planted(although there are a few previous plants still going). Most new plants will be Jalapenos and various pheno's of PeppaPeach as those are the ones that I consume massive amounts of.
This old pick of days gone by will be my lead pic for this years GLOG. I have several new ones taken since Jan 1, and I will be posting them as I get time until I am caught up.

OK now, everyone get out there and produce some peppers.

 

[skullbiker]

Picked a few again(just to get the northern growers excited). Top left is Brainstrain, then a few jalapenos, and what do we have under the Brainstrains but DARK PeppaPeach, I started getting some of these last year and here we go again. I'm going to "unofficially" name these "PeppaORANGE". And on the bottom right, one 7 Pot Bubblegum and one Borg 9.

Some pic of the new plants.
Cherry Bomb.

Jalapeno

And here's one of the Ecuadorian Sweet Rocoto plants that was tiny not that long ago.
Side shot

Top shot

And after I gave it the "cage" treatment.

 

[ahayastani]

I love the dry season

I agree, but my plants don't

 

[skullbiker]

I'm starting to see a few pods on the Ecuadorian Sweet Rocoto plants.

 

[DWB]

Sorry for the delayed response. For my seed starting the past 2 seasons i use a 50/50 mix of the Burpee Seed Starting Mix(a small block of coir that seems to be a finer texture than regular coir) and Jiffy Seed Starting Mix. Since I started using this I rarely get a helmet head and get good germination(assuming the seed is viable).

I use these seed starter cells.

I over fill these with the mix and then strike off the excess with a ruler. Then I use a pill bottle(of which I have many) and compress the mix in each cell down about 5/8" below the top of the cell dividers. Now i place my seeds in each cell. Next I spoon in mix level with the top of the cell dividers and then compress that just slightly so it is about 1/8" to 3/16" below the top of the cell dividers.
Next I put these in a 1020 tray and pour in filtered water about 1/2 to 2/3 the depth of the tray, let it sit a few hours to soak the cells. Now take the cells out and place them in a dry tray, put on a humidity dome, and put it on a heat mat. I use a thermostatic controller set at 85°f and the probe in one of the middle cells. I do this with NO seed presoak as the first couple of days the media is fairly wet, it loses moisture as it drains and some moisture begins to evaporate.
It should look like this when you're done. Here are the jalapenos I sowed on 3/8/23, the first one is up this morning and a few are pushing up the mix. That's it, I have tried many, many methods over the past 40 years but so far this is easiest and seems to work good.

Most of the time, a few days to a week after germination, I just take a large spoon and scoop out the complete cell to transplant. I have another procedure for that!

Hi Mr Skullbiker,

I used similar cell trays this year for the first time. Similar but smaller and much more inconvenient cell trays with 36 holes each. I also used the same Jiffy starter. All worked well for me. Anyways, I headed over to amazon to track down what you're using and found this as well. Not quite as many in the parcel but look at the price difference on 300 vs. 360.

https://www.amazon.com/Starter-Trays-Extra-Large-Cells/dp/B00KVPRUIY/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=american+tile+seed+starter+trays+360+deep&qid=1684783124&sr=8-3

 

[DWB]

Well, the price was a lot better a half hour ago but since then the 17% discount went away. Not a big deal. Some other day it will be even better.

 

[skullbiker]

Well, the price was a lot better a half hour ago but since then the 17% discount went away. Not a big deal. Some other day it will be even better.

The big retailers really like to play with the numbers these days. I'm going on the third year of use for some of my starter cells. Once the seedlings are out I just rinse them and then dip them in bleach water and let them dry, they're good to go again.

 

[DWB]

Amazon prices can be really schizo. I find it fascinating at times. Like now. Why does a set of 50 Trays of 6 cells cost less than half as much as 60 Trays of of 6 cells? Even at full retail? Same product, same brand, shipped by Amazon.

​

 

[skullbiker]

Well, we had one of our small cell super storms last evening, 2.25 inch of rain in 40 minutes. This one was different as it came with 1/2 inch hail and extremely strong wind. The tomato plants were all blown over and the leaves on the pepper plants took a good beating. The pepper plants would have been protected from the hail by the shade structure, BUT unfortunately that blew away well into the back yard.

Non pepper related, there were 25 mangos on the ground up to 50 feet away from the tree.
The pepper plants will come back but this will cause a bit of delay in pod production.

 

[DWB]

That's awful. Sorry that happened. It seems like that's just the way it is anymore. The nice, friendly rainstorms from low-flying stratus clouds where it slowly rains for days rarely happens around here. Now it's pure violence from massive thunderheads that gives us inches of rain in minutes.

 

[skullbiker]

Cleaning up the storm damage to my plants and getting the shade structure back in place today. Here are some that got knocked/blown off the plants.

Here are pods I clipped off because they had holes in them from the hail stones.

Here is my one new 7 Pot Bubblegum plant that has one lone pod on it.
The hail zeroed in on that pod!

And just to prove that life isn't 100% shit, here are the "good" pods that I picked today.

I have to go out now and close up the garage as it looks like rain is about ready to hit, lots of thunder. We've had 5.25 inches of rain in the last three days.

 

[skullbiker]

Had a little rain again last night. Definately no watering today!

 

[DWB]

Nice rain gauge.

 

[skullbiker]

Nice rain gauge.

It’s built for old man eyes, and I can read it from my window. There are more fancy accurate ones but this is good enough for me.

 

[Bou]

Had a little rain again last night. Definately no watering today!

Send some rain my way please!! We are in a drought here (probably one of the earliest ever) and wildfires are going crazy, fueled by strong winds...

 

[OCD Chilehead]

Hail NO!!!

Sorry about the damage. Glad you’re getting some good rain and some nice pods.

 

[ahayastani]

Had a little rain again last night. Definately no watering today!

I first thought you're injecting water in your lawn

 

[skullbiker]

A peach of a pod....................PeppaPeach(stripey) that is. I wonder if some of my pods should be called bi-color instead of stripey.

 

[ahayastani]

A peach of a pod....................PeppaPeach(stripey) that is. I wonder if some of my pods should be called bi-color instead of stripey.

50 Shades of Peach.

 

[Grass Snake]

Peppa peach two-face

 

[skullbiker]

I still have pods showing up that were pounded with the hail.

Now, on the positive side, I have one of these getting ripe.

And a couple of Sugar Rush Orange.

And the first of the Orange Jalapenos, now F3 or F4 and going to a strange shape.