Slug's 2017 Ghetto Grow Log.

Just wanted to post some pics and thank some people for helping me get back on my feet in the growing sense after a really bad year.  Someone mistakenly threw out almost my entire seed stock as they were trying to help around my place when I was in hospital last year.  RalphTheChilihead and kentishman did me a solid by sending several varieties my way even though I didn't have much left to trade with them.  Thanks to those two guys and a local friend, I've got a proper grow going this year in spite of everything.  AJ Drew and Wicked Mike supplemented my grocery store habs with proper superhots for a great price, which cheered me up considerably in the meantime.  Really appreciate you guys. 
 
Here's my grow tent.  It's where I start my plants and also what got me a warrant visit from local PD in December, because it lights up on FLIR like a beacon.  Police were highly confused to find there was a legitimate use for these things, especially in a neighborhood where they have bulldozed 3 drug houses in 2 years.
 

 
Here's the stuff out front on the sidewalk.  I grow more on the slab out back.  Those aren't bugs on the leaves, just grass/dirt from when they mowed.  White Fatalii in the front is all podded up, but taking forever to fully ripen and the leaves are suffering a bit.  Freakish Chocolate 7-Pot BBG and Yellow 7-Pot with near an inch thick trunk behind it are going ham, blocking view of others in the row.
 

 
Very first pods of the season came a month or two ago in form of a Yellow Primo and a Red Frutescens cross of some sort (that on initial assessment, completely owns).  The primo generated pretty large first pods so I have high hopes for that plant.  (This pepper was about 4.5 cm in length, to you civilized people.)
 

 
My Trinidad Perfume has foliage as dense as a jungle, but it's all crinkly in spite of plenty of calcium.  Perhaps it doesn't like full sun?  Just can't seem to keep it non-curled or non-wrinkled, but it is stupidly healthy in spite of that and has loaded up with over three dozen pods at the moment.  The whole plant is covered in wads like this.
 

 
Oh yeah, did I mention that the Chocolate BBG 7-Pot is an unholy beast of a plant whose first pods of the season are all utterly terrifying and average the size of golf balls?
 
 
 
Because...yeah...
 
 

 
Clearly predatory in nature...
 

 
Hide your kids, hide your wife...
 

 
I think I'm safe, for now.  It seems to feed on small mammals, mainly.
 

 
If you don't hear from me for a while, it probably figured out how to work the doorknob.  Tell my family I love them.
 
Here's my 2017 List, most of which I owe to a good local friend and two generous online folks:
 
7-Pot Yellow
7-Pot Yellow Primo
7-Pot BBG Chocolate
7-Pot BBG Yellow
Aji Amarillo (near 5 feet tall and podding in spite of late start)
Aji Pineapple
Brazilian Starfish
C. Frutescens cross of some sort (Red)
Fatalii Yellow
Fatalii White
Trinidad Perfume
Pink Tiger
Pink Tiger (White Mutation...hopefully)
Sad little Farmer's Jalapenos that seem to suffer in my climate.
 
(Yeah, you can grow a lot of peppers when nobody for several square blocks grows anything.  Neighbors are like "sure, put crap in front of my place...it looks pretty" and everybody likes watching the progression of pods.)

 

[RalphTheChilihead]

Awesome looks good brotha! Any way i can help! I love trading/helping out other pepper lovers!

 

[pedders91]

Looking good.

The white tube in the pot on second picture is that to help with watering? Like it.

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[Slug]

Looking good.

The white tube in the pot on second picture is that to help with watering? Like it.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 
Yep.  It's part of a self-watering double-bucket reservoir system I made out of 2-gallon frosting containers I got from local bakeries.  Similar to this:

By the time the plants are the size of mine, they have grown roots throughout the soil and also have a healthy root system down through the net pot into the reservoir itself.  You just dump water in the tube until the overflow runs, then you leave it be for a few days.  I had to offset the upper buckets with bolts to allow proper depth.  If you throw a wick into your top bucket, you can make the reservoir even deeper for less frequent watering.  If you go this route, I'd spraypaint the reservoir area of the bottom bucket black to prevent algae bloom.
 
When I fertilize, I actually wait for the reservoir to be mostly empty and then pour the mix over the dirt itself instead of using the pipe.  That gives good nutrient saturation throughout the soil instead of concentrating everything in the reservoir.  Dunno that it matters, but it seems to get good results.

 

[pedders91]

 
Yep.  It's part of a self-watering double-bucket reservoir system I made out of 2-gallon frosting containers I got from local bakeries.  Similar to this:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWkg5ttOm5I
 
By the time the plants are the size of mine, they have grown roots throughout the soil and also have a healthy root system down through the net pot into the reservoir itself.  You just dump water in the tube until the overflow runs, then you leave it be for a few days.  I had to offset the upper buckets with bolts to allow proper depth.  If you throw a wick into your top bucket, you can make the reservoir even deeper for less frequent watering.  If you go this route, I'd spraypaint the reservoir area of the bottom bucket black to prevent algae bloom.
 
When I fertilize, I actually wait for the reservoir to be mostly empty and then pour the mix over the dirt itself instead of using the pipe.  That gives good nutrient saturation throughout the soil instead of concentrating everything in the reservoir.  Dunno that it matters, but it seems to get good results.

Thanks for sharing. I might have to give this a try as I still have some 10 ltr buckets kicking around and would be good to see results vs normal planting.

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[Slug]

Depending on the height of the net pot and the design of the buckets, you may need some manner of offset in the lower bucket to create appropriate reservoir depth.  I had bolts sitting around, so I just threw four bolts into the bottom buckets on these for the top one to sit on.  I love these.  Not having to water every single day in summer is wonderful.

 

[The_NorthEast_ChileMan]

`
Make sure that Chocolate BBG 7-Pot makes it to Lets see your meanest, most gnarly pods!!! thread!

 

[kentishman]

Brian, just spotted this. Pleased to see what you're achieving, and thanks for the shoutout. Pleased that my seeds found a good home. Tom

 

[Slug]

`
Make sure that Chocolate BBG 7-Pot makes it to Lets see your meanest, most gnarly pods!!! thread!

 
Put a couple there.  Going to try to catch some of these as they're changing colors for that thread, to be sure.  I have another Chocolate BBG-7 from the same seed stock that I convinced a family member to stick in the full sun of their back yard.  Went over today and that thing is monstrous for something I simply chunked into a walmart bag full of dirt.  Just started to flower, too.  If it pods up with the same type of stuff as the one out front, I'm gonna be jazzed.  Pepper powder for days.

 

[pedders91]

So after seeing what you have done I thought I would give it a try, I going see the difference between this and standard planting with 2 of the same plants.

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[Slug]

Surgery went well, but I'm miserable and will be for a bit.  Here's a massive photo dump on my grow, starting with the pretty flowers on my Aji Amarillo:
 

 
The plant itself is loaded up.  All of these peppers are 4+ inches (10+ cm) long and awesome looking:
 

 
My Aji Pineapple has caught up well, considering it got wrecked in a storm early on:
 

 
I am proud to announce that I have grown a Brazilian Starfish the size of a dude's head:
 

 
That plant seems to have what I think is a MG deficiency going on.    Agree/Disagree?
 

 
My 7-Pot Yellow is loaded with pods slightly larger than golf balls:
 

 
Yellow Primos are looking good, too:
 

 
Whatever this Red C. Frutescens crossed with last year, it came out amazing.  The parent pod was shaped like a tabasco.  These obviously are not.  Super juicy and sweet, when ripe:
 

 
Trinidad Perfume remains absolutely loaded, and the ripe fruit remains delicious.  They're basically a heatless habanero and my crappy camera does not do the florescent yellow ripe color any justice at all:
 

 

 
Both of my 7-Pot BBG Chocolate plants continue to produce utterly horrifying pods:
 

 
Yeah...
 

 
They're also LOADED with those things.  Here, you can play "count the peppers" or something:
 
http://imgur.com/TGIhwhE
 
My Fatalii Whites have started looking very suspiciously like Fatalii Reds...
 

 

 
The plant also has a seemingly appropriate guardian...
 

 
Cheers, guys and gals. 
 
 

 

[Thegreenchilemonster]

Your garden is looking good!

 

[Muckyai]

Surgery went well, but I'm miserable and will be for a bit.  Here's a massive photo dump on my grow
 
 

Wishing you a speedy recovery with you up and at 'em very soon! The peppers look great too.

 

[peppamang]

Black widow? Rough. Basement has a chronic infestation, have had the exterminator twice, they always come back. I think it's cursed, I don't keep anything down there anyways. 
 
I love the 7pot and the bubblegum phenos, combined that is one badass pepper. Well done slug! I'd call this the farthest from ghetto

 

[Slug]

I'm back!  Surgery went well and recovery is going okay.  Taking me longer to heal up than I would prefer; but they got all of the cancer, so I'm okay with the delay.  (Hopefully work stays cool with it, because I dunno if I'll be ready to go back next week as planned.)
 

Well done slug! I'd call this the farthest from ghetto

 
Thanks, but in this case it was sort of a literal statement.  One of the recent homicides in my neighborhood happened next door to the police station in broad daylight and today I was stopped and blessed in tongues by a voodoo priestess over my recent illness. 
 
People who have been taking care of my plants for me the past couple weeks have done a great job.  One of my 7-Pot Primo plants is so loaded with massive, gnarly pods that it uprooted itself and had to be repotted then tied to a railing:
 

 
7-Pot Bubblegum Yellows are starting to ripen:
 

 
Pulled about two pounds of peppers off my Red [Should Be White] Fatalii plant and dried them with a few others for powder.  Here are the leftovers, an assortment of 7-pots, Fatalii, Habs, and Trinidad Perfume
 

 

 
The gnarly red seen above.  Not much placenta, but it is difficult to convey just how much oil is in these 7-Pot Bubblegum (should be) Chocolates.  They are brutal and awesome.  Even the ones I have dried smell like death:
 

 
7-Pot Yellow - Coming in more white than the florescent yellow of parent plant.  Freaking delicious.  So far...neat.
Chocolate 7-Pot Bubblegum - Huge, terrifying, neat phenos, but unstable.  All other pods on both plants are going red. 
White Fatalii - (Should be white.)  Most go a neat red-orange swirl when fully ripe, but my camera fails to capture it.  Kinda cool.  Hot for a Fatalii, but only average taste.
 

 
Ripening porn!
 

 

 
Thanks for looking.  Appreciate all the well-wishes and the help from folks who got me back on my growing feet this season.

 

[Slug]

RIP Spud Pepper.  This one got knocked off by mowers before it could finish corking and ripening.  They were kind enough to not run over it, but they picked it up and placed it very gently in the top fork of the plant rather than knock on my door or stick it in the bucket.  I can't tell if they were trying to hide the fact they knocked it off (like I wouldn't notice something this enormous missing from my plant) or if they simply picked it up and had no clue what to do so they gently placed it on the plant like "there, little guy...you're home".
 

 
My first harvest was a few pounds worth of various awesome stuff.  Here's some of it after I mailed a SFRB to Bicycle for hooking me up on Scotch Bonnets.  My Yellow 7-Pots are amazing again.  Great flavor, heavy, and the walls on those things are so thick you could probably put one in a slingshot and kill something with it.
 

 
The little multicolor dudes on the far right in the middle are fascinating.  I had a Red C. Frutescens cross with something, but no idea what.  The mother plant had prototypical Frutescens tabasco looking peppers.  The classic shape and color people associate with a chile pepper.  These things are currently growing out like Hershey's Kisses.  The first one I ate was super juicy and very sweet just like the mother plant's pods.  It had no heat at all and also had the same super thin walls.  I couldn't tell what it crossed with at all.
 
Looks hab'ish, but the only things I think it could have crossed with were Bhuts and Fatalii.  Pods I ate last night were easily habanero levels of heat, but still juicy as all heck and super sweet.  I love em'.  Guessing they crossed with a Fatalii, because it has very similar burn characteristics.  Hard to tell, though.  The flavor and everything but the shape/heat are 100% the mother plant.  We'll see what they look like later in the season.

 

[Walchit]

Keep up the good work slug, and kick that cancers ass. Have you ever heard of Dr Max Gerson? He was curing a lot of disease with fruit and vegetable juice, and diluted coffee enimas. They claim to cure most cases of cancer that come to their clinic in Mexico, but the US government won't let them opeperate in the states. Definitely worth looking into.

 

[Thegreenchilemonster]

Nice harvest!