smileyguys second season (a few progress pics)

roper2008 · Jan 14, 2014

That's such a cute picture of your son. Made me laugh.

smileyguy697 · Jan 15, 2014

roper2008 said:
That's such a cute picture of your son. Made me laugh.

Thanks! He's a gag.. little guy is always cracking me up. Actually its really cool at his interest in growing these plants. He has to go to the basement and take care of them with me all the time. He just shows so much interest for his age that it blows me away. He even planted his own trinidad sweets yesterday.. with help of course. My oldest could care less but the middle boy is all about it too. Hopefully i can keep both their intrest in gardening because its a good thing to know.

smileyguy697 · Jan 17, 2014

It just struck me that some of my overwinters hit a year old yesterday. Well maybe not a year but thats when i planted most of them!

smileyguy697 · Jan 24, 2014

I recived a special package in the mail today and been thinking about it all night. I finally cracked and planted a few more.

MA Warped red
Twisted (holy shit its a hot one)
Dasiy cutter (jonah pheyno)
Inferno

If I don't stop sowing seeds, I'm going to have to start scratching baccatums off my list or buy live annuums from the nursery. Hell I've sown 56 varieties in the last month and have another 25 in the basement. This is getting out of hand. Fml lol...

wildseed57 · Jan 24, 2014

Hey Smily, boy your plants are growing fast, I'm in a pickle with all I got between what you and some others sent I'll be growing out close to 45 varieties and I haven't started my sweet peppers and tomatoes yet I'm really going to have a space issue this season, last year was bad enough with just 30 varieties including my sweet peppers.
All in all it can sure get out of hand fast. I hope you won't get to crouded and that you have a great season.

smileyguy697 · Mar 10, 2014

Haven't posted in a bit so i decided to throw up some progress pics. Looks like I'm about on schedule with last year!

A couple of these don't look so hot and i need to pot a few tiny ones into trays tomorrow. Might do some selective weeding also.

Here's some that are under the 400 watt mh. I plan to go buy 16 small pots tomorrow like the ones placed between the 10 inch pots here

I also have some plants i moved from the 400 watt to the 1000 watt hps.

Goats weed

here's a reaper that was planted in may and pruned twice. It's never seen the sun yet!

Year old primo that's been kept small and pruned and just bagged up.

A shot from under the big hid. There's a few ows from last year I'm working on getting to pod in the mix.

And the overwintering buckets.. There's 20 plants packed in here!

Can't wait for some real sunshine! 60 degrees tomorrow! Maybe soon the big ones can start going in and out to catch some real rays!

HabaneroHead · Mar 10, 2014

Amazing plants, my friend! Good work!
How you were doing the pruning? Could you share the tricks?

Balázs

smileyguy697 · Mar 10, 2014

HabaneroHead said:
Amazing plants, my friend! Good work!
How you were doing the pruning? Could you share the tricks?

Balázs

Thanks!

As for the pruning its not that hard and I've tried a few different things. Actually these plants are very resilient and can handle a ton of abuse! It's getting close to plant out and I'm trying to get them bushy as i can before they go out or I'd start hacking one up for you.

Any how as you can tell this had been stripped of the leaves and the top was removed. The new branches will start coming out of where the leaves were at the nodes. It stops the plant from growing up and forces it to put chutes out the side.

here's the same plant a few months later

And here is the trunk today

And the plant.. Sorry it looks crappy but shes just waking up from her little nap and looks a little bare at the moment. But in this pic you can see the little stub i left, where the cuts were and where new growth is coming from.

Now new growth will not only pop at the y's but where ever a leaf has formed in the past. Like this here.. Not the best example but by fall this will be a new branch.

Ok so now for that bush of a reaper

The top was pinched and stripped of its leaves. After a while i had this for a base

It started taking too much space so i cut it back down to sticks again. So it basicly looked like the stump I started with on the congo above but with thick branches that had y'd in different directions. So i cut them a couple inches above the trunk and here's new growth along with the cuts

So the branch that is snipped will put out side shoots that turn into branches. Every time you cut them you will get a couple more per branch just like the original stick you start with.

So in turn, you can build a solid base with tons of branches if you keep clipping. Reason being each branch will grow at least 2 new ones per cut resulting in your bush.

Now this is a reaper that had been pruned just once. I'm trying something different on this guy tho.. It was stripped of all leaves except the tips of the long branches. Now there's new growth coming out everywhere!

I know it looks kinda shitty now but I'll try n remember to throw out some progress pics in a few weeks.

Any how you won't hurt them dude! Chop away!

JoynersHotPeppers · Mar 10, 2014

Looking good, ahead of me for sure!

Rymerpt · Mar 11, 2014

Wow!
Heck I'll be glad if I get a hand full of edible pods. If I can get a decent yield I'll havta have my wife film a happy dance.

Mike your operation is awesome.

Rymerpt