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Spankyscolts 2012 GLOG

Well here it is against my better judgement my first ever grow log. I have no green thumb genius, no botany brilliance, and am doing this solely for your amusement. This is not a treatise on pepper perfection but rather, in all likelyhood a pretty detailed journal of what not to do. There will be mishaps, things that defy good sense, and sadly even deaths. In the end however irregardless of your pepper growing skill level, if you check in on my glog from time to time you will undoubtedly go away with a much higher view of your own growing ability. So with the proper expectations set let's get started just remember under no circumstances should you try anything you see here at home.

First off our selection started off with all the super and extremely hots 36 varities from multiple venders including some good folks here at THP. Will have another couple of trays of the medium hots and the other things required for my salsa in about 4 weeks., which will give me an additional 5-6 varities.

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Then the equipment a couple of 2 tray mats with thermostat, 4 72 cell trays with domes, a whole grip of rapid rooter style plugs and the table my blue eyed wife put together

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First thing was to soak the seeds in a germination solution I got from the Chilli Seed Co in the UK and distilled water for 12 plus hours in Dixie cups

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Then the work began after soaking the plugs in distilled water I seeded the plugs and filled the trays. I have a corresponding sheet for each tray to identfy what is what in the cells. I assigned each variety a number for ease of identification throughout the grow. When the same variety had multiple venders I added the letter A, B etc., depending on my supply of seeds some plugs got 2 seeds while others only 1. Those with 2 in the plugs where marked with an x on the sheet. I figured this gave me the greatest chance of ending up with what I wanted to have in the end.

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In the end there is 4 72 cell trays filled for a grand total of 288 starts. They were placed on the heat mats with the temp set at 86 degrees. At this point I have decided not to fill the tray underneath with water, that may change. I am misting the plugs with a spray bottle of distilled water.

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Well there you have it, the start of my first season. Thanks to all who provided seeds and offered your input not to mention put up with all my questions .. lol
 
"Thanks!! May take you up on that at transplant time if you're game !! You are right about space my wife and I live in a town house with no yard to speak of and my partners place out in Gresham is a small one as well so we have to get creative. I'm not kidding make seek you out at pot up time lol! "

Right on, bro!
 
Hey everyone have been very busy this week trying to close out the germination process while my partner puts the finishing touches on our grow room. A really great guy Harry at Chula Orchids http://www.chulaorchids.com/ hooked us up with a grip of 3.5 x 4.0 pots and trays. Our heater for the grow room arrived and we ordered up a case of 6500 kelvin bulbs to replace the 4100 kelvins currently in use. This weekend or the next we will begin the process of potting up and filling up our grow room (you out there Paul ..lol)
Will also start all the med hot stuff and tomatoes needed for our salsa. I'll get around to a full update complete with numbers this weekend but for now will leave you with a few pics of my baby's

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The seedlings are beauties, Robin! Please PM me to
give you a hand transplanting.
 
That's a ton of little ones! Can't wait to see them slip into those new shoes, and some pics of your grow room...and Paul is always out there! No matter where I go there he is!

Keep the pics flowing!
Shane
 
That's a ton of little ones! Can't wait to see them slip into those new shoes, and some pics of your grow room...and Paul is always out there! No matter where I go there he is!

Lol that's true if Paul I sometimes think he's the glue that holds THP together lol
Keep the pics flowing!
Shane

The seedlings are beauties, Robin! Please PM me to
give you a hand transplanting.

Will do .. I may do this in stages if so I may be ok. Will let you know.
 
That's a ton of little ones! Can't wait to see them slip into those new shoes, and some pics of your grow room...and Paul is always out there! No matter where I go there he is!

Keep the pics flowing!
Shane

How will I learn your tricks if I don't dog you, Shane?
It's Robin's fault for having a cool grow log!
 
Absolutely stunning pictures Robin. Looks like you're well on your way to a boatload of peppers.

Curious about the SB7J and how they ended up doing, still just the one out of four germinate for you? Rest assured it has nothing to do with your set up as my germ rates for them was pitiful too. From what I've read on others glogs they're not doing good for anyone. Kind of a bummer and my apologies.
 
Absolutely stunning pictures Robin. Looks like you're well on your way to a boatload of peppers.

Curious about the SB7J and how they ended up doing, still just the one out of four germinate for you? Rest assured it has nothing to do with your set up as my germ rates for them was pitiful too. From what I've read on others glogs they're not doing good for anyone. Kind of a bummer and my apologies.

Thanks ! My perspective of the SB7J is a little different then most instead of yea I only got one I prefer to think of it as YEA I GOT 1 Whoo- who! One is better then none . I actually went back and re-seeded the plugs of several varities including the SB7J but only got one I think too over time I may have kept the plugs a little wet ( it's a weakness ) I'm prone to to much water, and some of the seeds look like the rotted. Oh well I got one and will save the seeds and see if we can't grow em out next year! I ain't giving up ; )
 
Well folks been trying to keep my little seedlings thriving in the plugs they are in long enough to transplant them on my schelude but in doing so I think I've have given them to much nutes and kept them to wet, So a couple of nights ago I emptied the trays of diluted nutes flushed the little plugs and let them dry out a bit they look better but they need to be transplanted. My life is chaotic right now was hoping they could wait til next weekend once our space was prepared and tested for temps overnight. But I may need to pot up tray 3 today it seems to be the one with the greatest needs. Here is a pic before I emptied the trays, this is tray 3

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Here is a tray not sure which one 24 hours later. I know you can't tell by the pic but they look happier

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The reason I'm delaying the pot up is I'm waiting for my partner to get our space prepared and then tested to see how stable the temps are as it's in a garage and its still a bit cold here, Im hearing snow this week lol. He's almost done. It's not really a grow room but a 8x8 space cleared out in a crowed garage. He used 2,exhausting walls then threw up some particle board to box it in. He then took some sheets of foam insulation that has a shinny silver side perfect for a grow room. This is hard to photograph because of the space but here's an attempt. Here you see the overall view you can see that it incorporates the existing windows.

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Then heres what the walls look like. We will put this type of insulation on the existing walls as well

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We will top it with this same insulation only thicker the whole purpose is to hold heat as we bought a small induction heater that is good for 350 square ft. Again we are just trying to make them comfortable for a few months til we are able to sell some then plant out the rest. I promise I will get around to updating the numbers today or tomorrow.
 
:clap:

Lookin' fantastic Robin! I love the mini pepper forest you have going on there! Those pictures never get old no matter how old plants are. The grow room looks awesome. Should work great for you guys, it's also very cool that you have a buddy to help you with all of this. Being the one man band has it's drawbacks trust me lol. Let me know if something happens to your solo SB7J, From what I've read I think I lucked out getting them to sprout, I have 6 up n growing so I'll be glad to hook you up with some pods if you need em this summer/fall buddy. Again, Great job man! Have fun potting up.. It takes the cake for being my least favorite part of this hobby. Then again I don't think I'd feel that way if I wasn't crazy and felt the need to grow 250plants.. Ah well. lol. Glad things are going well for you!

Brandon
 
Lookin nice there... whatcha gonna do with all them plants?

The plan is to sell half or better to fund the last leg of the project and to grow out the rest for seeds and pods to make sauces and salsa among other things then perhaps overwinter 30 or so will see how things unfold

Thanks for the response Robin and great attitude!

Best of luck with the grow room.

You are welcome! I am commiting right now to highlighting and documenting the life of that little SB7J on this Glog once transplanted I will feature it often. I also (finally) got a Bonda Ma Jaques up yaay!

:clap:

Lookin' fantastic Robin! I love the mini pepper forest you have going on there! Those pictures never get old no matter how old plants are. The grow room looks awesome. Should work great for you guys, it's also very cool that you have a buddy to help you with all of this. Being the one man band has it's drawbacks trust me lol. Let me know if something happens to your solo SB7J, From what I've read I think I lucked out getting them to sprout, I have 6 up n growing so I'll be glad to hook you up with some pods if you need em this summer/fall buddy. Again, Great job man! Have fun potting up.. It takes the cake for being my least favorite part of this hobby. Then again I don't think I'd feel that way if I wasn't crazy and felt the need to grow 250plants.. Ah well. lol. Glad things are going well for you!

Brandon

Lol! Yea potting up sucks. I want to wait to next weekend when I have 3 days off and still may. I may have kept my plugs to wet while germinating.It didn't hurt the fast sprouters but for the SB7J, the Bondas, and the Brain Strain's that took longer it didn't help. Oh well one in many coming lessons learned I think. Tell me what is it about a man that causes him to turn his life upside down to grow peppers? .. lol Oh and you are right about having help my partner and friend Matthew is splitting the cost and work with me he's been a huge blessing and even better friend wish everyone had somebody like him.

So after checking in on the little guys today I think I'm gonna push back pot up til next weekend. The room will be ready and tested and I have 3 days to get it done whereas this is my only day off this week. I think the plants can make it another 4-5 days. I may be in the process of changing jobs as well so just a lot of balls up in the air right now. It's a little stressful as the love of my life has been sick for 3 years and our finances have been turned upside down because of it. So any change has to be very carefully weighed because we are so tight and the insurance issues so if there are any praying folk out there we'd love it if you kept us in yours ; ).

Here are the seedlings after 48 hours of emptying the trays and flushing the plugs, then allowing them to dry. Last night I did water them but I use a plastic bottle the kind you would put ketchup in to squirt it on your dogs. I put 2 shot glasses of Calmag and 2 of Pro Grow and the rest water and gave em all 2 good squirts as they look like they are hungry for some Cal. Here's tray 1

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And then the high maintenance tray 3 lol


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The pics don't do the justice, they look better a little yellow for my taste but I think it's the best you can expect considering they are living in 2 x 1 1/2 plugs.
 
Well I am winding down the germination process for the super hots. I'll get to the numbers in a moment but they are gonna be a little skewed because I started an additional 27 if memory serves and did not write them down, I also re-seeded some of the plugs as I was not seeing the results I had hoped for across the board. I also started some Chocolate Bhuts that I just got.I had a few varities that had no sprouts they were Brain Strain Red and Yellow and Bonda Ma Jaques. Neil @ Hippy Seed gave me some new Bondas and they are down now and Judy at Pepperlovers gave me some Brain Strains even though they were not hers to start with. I finally got a Bonda up a night or so ago. The biggest mistake I've made to date was keeping things to wet its a bad habit of mine. Today I also started about a 90 or so medium hots and Tomatoes needed for the salsa I make every year. Now on to the skewed numbers

Bhut Jolokia 32/33*
Trinidad Scorp Butch T 32/29*
Naga Viper 20/16
Infinity 32/31*
7 Pot Yellow 5/2
7 Pot Red 5/5
7 Pot Primo 10/10
7 Pot Jonah 10/10
Douglah 5/5*
7 Pot Brain Strain Yellow 10/0
7 Pot Brain Strain Red 10/14*
Dorset Naga 5/5
Naga Morich 5/4
TS Morouga Blend 5/4
Bih Jolokia 5/4
Morouga Red 5/2
Datali 4/4
Bonda Ma Jaques 5/1
Chocolate Habanero 4/4
Aji Lemon 6/6
Caribbean Habanero 6/6*
Peter 4/4
Red Savina 4/3
SB7J 4/1
Pointed Yellow Habanero 4/4
White Giant Habanero 4/4
Trinidad Scorp CARDI 7/6
7 Pot Barrickipore 7/7
Red Habanero 4/4
Red Devils Tongue 4/4
Peruvian White Habanero 4/4
Fatali 4/4
Fatali/Red Savina Cross 4/4
TCH Tuca Hot Chocolate 4/4
Caribbean Blend 6/5
Jamaican Hot Yellow 4/4
Chocolate Bhut 3/0

(*) Indicates varities whose numbers are skewed by re-seed plugs or additional plugs started. The Chocolate Bhut was only started 2 week ago.
We have a total of 260 starts up out of an estimated 315 started altogether not counting re-seeded pots or about 82%.

Today I also started another 96 plugs. Here's that list

Early Jalapeño 15/0
Jalapeño Store Pod 5/0
Cayenne 8/0
Cayenne my seeds 4/0
Serrano 10/10
Peguis Red Chili 10/0
Carmen 17/0
Casper my seeds 3/0
Early Girl Tomatoe 12/0
Early Goliath Tomatoe 12/0

Will update these going forward as well.
 
Your germination is looking great! re-seeded or not you're gonna have a TON of peppers! Great looking list! What are the store Jalapenos? Were they a jumbo type? if so they might not grow true...but they might. Most of the really big Jals are hybrids that don't produce the same pods from seeds.

What are you going to do with all your pods??? Are you going to try to overwinter a bunch of these?
 
Your germination is looking great! re-seeded or not you're gonna have a TON of peppers! Great looking list! What are the store Jalapenos? Were they a jumbo type? if so they might not grow true...but they might. Most of the really big Jals are hybrids that don't produce the same pods from seeds.

What are you going to do with all your pods??? Are you going to try to overwinter a bunch of these?

Yea the "store" Jalapeño was a giant red one I got when I bought several pounds to pickle I saved the seeds of big red, they are beautiful seeds that germinate quickly. I actually had a few plants going but edema got em.One actually produced a pod before I plucked it and it was true. You are right about having a bunch of pods not really sure what we'll do with them all our primary goal is to accumulate seeds. Gonna make some sauces and salsa nor much sure beyond that. I intend to sell half the plants or so. I do want to overwinter at least one of each variety. Now you got me a bit worried about the big jalapeño lol.
 
Yea the "store" Jalapeño was a giant red one I got when I bought several pounds to pickle I saved the seeds of big red, they are beautiful seeds that germinate quickly. I actually had a few plants going but edema got em.One actually produced a pod before I plucked it and it was true. You are right about having a bunch of pods not really sure what we'll do with them all our primary goal is to accumulate seeds. Gonna make some sauces and salsa nor much sure beyond that. I intend to sell half the plants or so. I do want to overwinter at least one of each variety. Now you got me a bit worried about the big jalapeño lol.

Wasn't trying to get you worried! They may be just fine! Even if they don't produce exactly true you will probably get some pretty big pods off there. You may get some small ones too. Some of my favorite Jals produce smallish pods. All my overwinters were that way, but they were HOT by Jal standards and had perfect Jal flavor. They are the perfect sauce/pickled pepper size.

You should be able to accumulate enough seeds to last a lifetime with this grow! Good luck!

Shane
 
Well here we are in the night before the big pot up and I wanted to share some before pics so that we can refer back in a few weeks. The past few weeks have been a little rough as I was forced to keep my starts in plugs longer than I wanted to due to our space not being ready. They are showing signs of Cal deficency, they are yellowing and many are turning purple from too much light. I changed out our T5 bulbs from 4100k to 6500k and this purple tinting doubled. I raised the lights to about a foot over the plants. It has been extremely difficult to find a balance in the plugs. I have tried to give them some nutes but finding that sweet spot has proved to be illusive. I think I have kept them too wet and these plugs don't seem to hold nutes very well all in all it's a lesson learned, while I love the ease of use the plugs offer next year I will move them out quicker and a lot less wet. Here are some pics

Tray one the best overall
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Tray two a little iffy
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And some close ups of tray 3 the one I'll be potting first after praying for its survival lol

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You can tell by looking at the roots these should of been potted up already. Interestingly enough tray three doesn't have the root balls of the other two trays and it looks the most stressed.

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So there you have it , the good, the bad, and the ugly . Thus far we've taken some lumps but things could always be worse and I'm hopeful potting up is just the medicine they need. Our grow room is staying at 80 degrees with the heater even with snow on the ground. Tomorrow we will pot them into a 50/50 mix of Happy Frog and Ocean Forest with an additional 10% big chunk perlite and a little extra Oyster Shell meal to help ward off Cal deficency issues these little guys love to have. Will post some more pics tomorrow and follow up with some after pics in a week or do. Thanks for stopping by comments, smart ass remarks or donations all welcome!
 
Wow those roots are crazy! With roots like that im guess they take off like shots from a cannon after the transplant! Good luck!
 
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