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Stickman's 2012 Gochu Pepper Glog

Well, here we go... Started about 35 Korean Gochu Peppers and a few Korean salad peppers, jalapenos and orange habs. All are mostly up today but the habs. I started them early last week in my heated grow tent down in my cellar on top of a grow mat, but didn't have the thermostat quite dialed in. When I left it it was 70 degrees f. in the tent. When I checked again the next morning it was 85 degrees, and I was afraid I'd cooked the seeds, so I moved them onto my kitchen windowsill on the grow mat and awaited developments. Looking much better now. I'll give the Habs until the weekend to pop, then move the flat down to the grow tent.
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stickman said:
I had a jalapeno and an orange hab hook up today so I'm 4/4 with them as well. The fan appears to be doing its job... the seedlings were all quivering when I first plugged it in, but half of them are standing firm now. With the fan blowing over the plug tray the cells seem to dry out fairly quickly. I have to water twice a day to keep them from wilting. I have the fan on the same timer as the lights so when they go out for the night, so does the fan.
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I notice this, too. I have gone to three shorter periods of fans each day.
 
I got ten more varieties of C. Annuum seeds from BootsieB in Korea. One is Bhut Jalokia, three are drying peppers and the rest are green chilies. One looks like a variety of jalapeno. I'll start two of each and add to my grow list when they come up.
 
Most of the peppers have two sets of true leaves, so I repotted into 32 cell trays. One little problem... I managed to drop the tray that had mixed peppers. I could pick out the Habaneros since they were smaller than the rest, but the others are hopelessly muddled. Some may not make it and I'll have to wait 'til they set fruit to find out which varieties are which.

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Seeds provided by BootsieB from Korea. The three varieties in front are for drying and the other three are for eating fresh, pickled or in curries.
 
I have a bit of a lottery grow my self... Early on, my helper mixed up the cups that had been arranged according to the map.... Actually the cups weren't moved... they were just filled with the wrong plants more often than not... So who the heck knows how many of what kind I still have -.-

Fortunately the help stopped there, and I've kept pretty good track of what is what. She helped me once again when I planted out, but I was pretty specific in how I wanted things to go, so it should be alright... we'll see soon one way or the other haha.
 
In my case the "lottery" happened because I didn't take physics into account... I had transplanted the seedlings from the plug tray into the three inch cells but I didn't pre-moisten the potting mix. I put about two cups or so of water into the bottom of the seed tray and the liner with the seedlings inside to water from the bottom of the tray, then picked up the tray and was balancing it in one hand. The water ran to one end of the tray and it tipped right over. I guess sometimes I don't need a comittee to screw something up...
 
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Well, here's the progress at week four. The top picture is the Gochu peppers and the the bottom is my four Orange Habs. Except for the ones I dropped, all the annuums are doing about the same. The first Hab to sprout has two sets of true leaves though it's only about an inch high. Is this usual when growing Habs from seed?
 
My habs are short, too, and bushy little plants. Nothing like annuums.
Your gochu transplants are getting it on, Stick!, Really nice looking.
Sorry to hear about your lottery grow - damn gravity :doh:
 
hooda said:
Nice growth on the gochu. Looks like the will beat mine out in no time.
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Hi Hooda. I think the light and heat make a huge difference. Two 28 watt, 5000k CFL bulbs per tray running 18/6 and an old electrical heater like the ones they use in milking parlors blowing a stream of warm air in the bottom of the grow tent. Before I added the heater growth was much slower. If you have your plants outside I don't think it's a fair comparison. How are your babies doing?

PaulG said:
My habs are short, too, and bushy little plants. Nothing like annuums.
Your gochu transplants are getting it on, Stick!, Really nice looking.
Sorry to hear about your lottery grow - damn gravity :doh:
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Thanks Paul, I've never grown Habs before and wasn't sure what to expect. I noticed last year that the Gochu peppers had purple striped stems and it's starting to show up in this year's batch already. That should help sort out the peppers that got dropped. Your experiments with cloning have given me enough hope to let the ones that got chewed up continue to run. The primary nodes weren't touched though the leaves and cots got mangled.
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Hey, Rick. I have always thought of purple stems as a sign of a
robust vascular system. Why? I have no idea. I just have noticed
in the past that some plants when they are really in overdrive develop
those purple striped stems. It's never seemed like a bad thing to me.
I bet those seedlings with the mangled leaves and such will grow
out fine since they have intact nodes. These guys just follow the
life imperative - must survive!

Take, care, bro!
 
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You can just make out the faint vertical stripes on the stem between the cots and the first set of true leaves. The picture below is the same variety of peppers last year, and you can really see the stripes then.

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hooda said:
Mine are doing pretty good. I just moved all my first peppers outside the other day to make room for my new seedlings. But here is a picture of my tallest gochu. http://i1175.photobu...sh/346f89aa.jpg
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Nope... your peppers are definitely further along than mine if the rest are as big as the one in your pic. The leaves look very dark green. What kind of nitrogen are you giving them? I'm using seaweed extract which is 0-14-11 to really develop the root system... no nitrogen until I get them into the ground, and then I'll probably use bone meal and wood ashes.
 
Well when I transplanted all my peppers I mixed my own soil with Kellogg garden soil, the one with the red stripes, with some perlite and some osomocote and a bit of organic seed starter soil. I don't really give them that much nitrogen otherwise. I mix my own cocktail of very dilute fert of homemade seaweed tea, Mg, and a 0-10-10 liquid fertilizer in a blue bottle that I don't remember the name off the top of my head. But each watering I take about 6oz per gallon of water. The dilution is not very exact but seems to be working alright for me.
 
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The Gochu peppers were doing so well, I moved them out of the grow tent and put them on the table under a shop light. With the electric heater going in the basement the ambient temp is up to 60 degrees. The grow tent is up to 85 degrees during the day when the lights are on and 70 degrees at night. I Put some rock phosphate on top of the soil in the seed trays and added a pinch of epsom salts to every half gallon of water/seaweed mix to water with. Top picture is the Gochu peppers, bottom pic is the Habs and Jalapenos (and eggplant).The Onions, Mache and Claytonia in the top pic look pretty good too...

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Those are awesome flats of seedlings, Stick! It looks like
that little grow closet unit is really doing the trick for you.
I notice you're growing some mache - I planted some last
fall just to see if it would winter over outside, and it did great.
I'm going to plant for an all winter crop this year, along with
some kale. I'm figuring on a 2'x3' planter for each.

Have a great weekend!
 
PaulG said:
Those are awesome flats of seedlings, Stick! It looks like
that little grow closet unit is really doing the trick for you.

Thanks Paul, I think it does.

I notice you're growing some mache - I planted some last
fall just to see if it would winter over outside, and it did great.
I'm going to plant for an all winter crop this year, along with
some kale. I'm figuring on a 2'x3' planter for each.
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Yeah, my first attempt to grow it. I planted it inside the end of January and transferred it outside to an unheated hoophouse where it grows well if slowly. I understand it doesn't grow very fast so I started some more to flesh out the patch out under the plastic.
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A couple of the gochus have a bit of leaf burn, so I took one of the flourescent tubes out of the shop light and I'll try to be a little more stingy with the watering. The spots you see faintly on the leaves are the remains of a misting with seaweed extract that left behind a little residue.
 
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