Stickman's 2013 Glog - Time To Pull The Plug on 2013

I'm pulling things together to get ready for my next growing season. I bought NuMex variety seeds from Sandia Seed company in New Mexico, Hot Paper Lantern Habaneros and Antohi Romanians from Johnny's Select Seeds in Maine and Korean varieties from Evergreen Seeds in California. Due to the unbelievable generosity of a number of THP members I've also gotten seeds to a wide variety of chiles from around the world. Special thanks to BootsieB, stc3248, romy6, PaulG, SoCalChilehead, joynershotpeppers, highalt, cmpman1974, smokemaster, mygrassisblue, Mister No, chewi, KingDenniz, orrozconleche and most recently and spectacularly, Habanerohead with a great selection of superhots and peppers from Hungary!

There are eleven varieties of Hungarian peppers in here, mostly the early, thick-fleshed, sweet ones that range from white through yellow to purple and red.., plus Aji Lemon Drop, BJ Indian Carbon, Naga Morich, Bishop's Crown and TS CARDI Yellow! Now I just have to go through my seed bank and match the space available to what I want to grow. Thanks Balázs!

 

[stickman]

Starting to see a little life in the Red Rocoto seeds I planted a couple of weeks ago... one rotted unfortunately, but another one has a very short, fat radicle poking out. If I can coax it to the seedling stage I'll have at least one Pubiscens...

 

[DocNrock]

Glad to see the seedlings coming up, Rick. Good luck on the Rocoto. PM sent.

 

[stickman]

Thanks Doc
It's singular only ATM, but I hope for plural...

 

[WalkGood]

Rick love the Red Beans and Rice with Chorizo, looks awesome mon! Chorizo is a staple in our house, my better half and boys love it too! You know I was thinking ... if you dry up the juice/sauce in dat plate you could easily pass that off as rice & peas, a staple in Jamaica ... That said, I prefer mine just like yours moist & juicy but when living down there I did as the natives and ate it dry BTW that's also a staple in PR ...

 

[Stefan_W]

Red rocoto seeds are a menace, good luck with coaxing the one that is popping!

 

[Trippa]

I assume the word manzano translates to apple? Pubescens means hairy, hence all the jokes about growing pubes

About bottom vs top watering... it all depends on the medium. Basically if the soil or medium doesn't drain well then it is bad for plants, but it is made worse with bottom watering vs top.

At the moment I start my seeds in coco coir and as soon as they sprout they go into flood and drain hydro, which is bottom watering. The coco draws the water up really well and the cells are saturated in a matter of seconds. It does hold onto the water and takes a whole day to dry, but the cells are tiny and each flooding completely replaces the water. When I've bottom watered soil raising mix it takes a lot longer to draw up and drain, the capillary action is just not there.

When bottom watering a cup or pot that has a very young plant or new transplant in it you need to be careful of overwatering. When most of the bottom of the pot is just soil with no roots in it then it is pointless to water this and saturate it just to get to the roots. In my experience it is much better to top water at this stage. If you bottom water, all the rootless soil gets saturated, and because not enough of it is taken up by the plant it doesn't dry out and can become stagnant water = death to plants. The next bottom watering with fresh oxygenated won't effectively replace the old stagnant water. But if you top water the roots get what they want first and the rest is left to drain. Even if it doesn't all dry or drain away the next watering will provide fresh water to the roots, and push the old water out.

Ok that may sound confusing but bottom line - the soil mix or medium is the major factor in determining whether bottom watering or top watering is the best method.

edit: and when I've used seed raising mix I've had problems with fungus gnats. Man they suck! I've used sticky traps to get the big ones and sprayed the soil top with H2O2 solution. It controls them for a while but the come back. Don't know why but haven't had that problem with coco coir in the hydro. I've seen only the odd one and they don't start breeding.

The downside with top watering can be splashing of dirt onto the lower leaves causing fungal issues. Not only that but top watering if not done thoroughly can cause the roots to stay near the surface of the growing medium.

Bottom watering on the other hand wets the bottom of the medium first encouraging deeper growing roots as they seek out moisture and suspeneded nutrients.

In saying that I top water until I get a decent amount of water running out of the bottom of the pots and use mulch to stop any possible splashing of the water and dirt.


Anyway I digress (again ) top looking food Rick!! seems like it would be a great dish in the cold weather!
Those plants are starting to look great ...I always forget how long those Chinense varieties take to get established compared with the Annuums ... but they always look much better proportioned and not as tall and gangly as the Annuums or baccatums.

On you grow Rick!

 

[stickman]

Rick love the Red Beans and Rice with Chorizo, looks awesome mon! Chorizo is a staple in our house, my better half and boys love it too! You know I was thinking ... if you dry up the juice/sauce in dat plate you could easily pass that off as rice & peas, a staple in Jamaica ... That said, I prefer mine just like yours moist & juicy but when living down there I did as the natives and ate it dry BTW that's also a staple in PR ...

Hi Ramon
I'm definitely a fan of beans cooked well. It's nice to cook them wet so you can ladle them over cooked rice and let the gravy soak in, but they're good "dry" too with things like spiced potatoes (sookhe aloo)... it's all good.

Red rocoto seeds are a menace, good luck with coaxing the one that is popping!

Thanks Stefan... From your mouth to God's ear, eh?

The downside with top watering can be splashing of dirt onto the lower leaves causing fungal issues. Not only that but top watering if not done thoroughly can cause the roots to stay near the surface of the growing medium.

Bottom watering on the other hand wets the bottom of the medium first encouraging deeper growing roots as they seek out moisture and suspeneded nutrients.

In saying that I top water until I get a decent amount of water running out of the bottom of the pots and use mulch to stop any possible splashing of the water and dirt.


Anyway I digress (again ) top looking food Rick!! seems like it would be a great dish in the cold weather!
Those plants are starting to look great ...I always forget how long those Chinense varieties take to get established compared with the Annuums ... but they always look much better proportioned and not as tall and gangly as the Annuums or baccatums.

On you grow Rick!

Thanks for the additional info Trippa... it's all grist for the mill.
I hear you on the differences between Annuums and Chinense. I'd never grown them before last year, and I was surprised at how much slower they grew. Planting in the ground I never found the Annuums to be gangly... Check out some of my pics from last year and you'll see I had woody stems over 2 cm thick for the last half of the growing season. Cheers!

 

[stickman]

Some "Mutt and Jeff" pics of the plants I've separated into root-pruning pots and Solo cups to establish a baseline...

Jamaican Hot Chocolate

Douglah

Yellow 7

Maya Red Habanero

Apparently the cots on the new Criolla Sella got a bit mangled on the way to the surface, but it looks OK now that it's there and coloring up.

The Annuums downstairs...

And a shot of the onions from seed...

Now that the Onions are mostly up, I'll move them downstairs where it's cooler. I'll plant them outside around the end of March - early April... depending on the weather. Next weekend will be time to plant the Annuums and the early greens like Claytonia and Mache.

 

[KiNGDeNNiZ]

Rick. If it frustrates you even more I had two "miracle" manzano sprouts that germed on the tray itself. I had some excess soil dump out onto the tray and I guess I dropped some seeds. Next thing you know I had hairy sprouts. !! Without even trying they germed. Yet my turbo pubes in the jiffy pucks didn't.
What I could suggest is. Put some soil on the tray and sow directly there. It should get direct heat. Will put a couple more turbo pubes and see if that works. Good luck with Em. Wouldn't hurt to try

 

[Stefan_W]

Very nice looking starts! I am impressed with how far along your annuums are, and the onions from seed look awesome!

How are you liking those air pruning pots?

 

[stickman]

Rick. If it frustrates you even more I had two "miracle" manzano sprouts that germed on the tray itself. I had some excess soil dump out onto the tray and I guess I dropped some seeds. Next thing you know I had hairy sprouts. !! Without even trying they germed. Yet my turbo pubes in the jiffy pucks didn't.
What I could suggest is. Put some soil on the tray and sow directly there. It should get direct heat. Will put a couple more turbo pubes and see if that works. Good luck with Em. Wouldn't hurt to try

Thanks for the suggestion DeNNiZ... I'm on it you can be sure... I guess it means that when sprouting Manzanos nothing will do but good seed. I ordered a packet from Pepperlover... hope they'll work out if nothing else does. Since I was sending in an order anyway, I also ordered a packet of Aji Panca seeds.

Very nice looking starts! I am impressed with how far along your annuums are, and the onions from seed look awesome!

How are you liking those air pruning pots?

Thanks Stefan. I only started the Kurtovska Kapia peppers in January because they're supposed to be a long-season Annuum... about 100 days... just like the Habaneros, so I started them at the same time.
I haven't used air-pruning pots before, so I'm just getting to know them. One thing I did notice about them is that it takes longer to water. You can't just dump in enough water to hydrate in one go... you have to add a little at a time and let it soak in before adding more. Because the soil has so much more surface area due to the holes in the sides of the pots you have to water more frequently too... especially if you have a fan going on the plants. At room temperature it's not much more though. Out in the hot sun might be a bit different.

 

[Stefan_W]

Thank you, your comments are very helpful. Have you tried watering from below with those pots?

 

[stickman]

Thank you, your comments are very helpful. Have you tried watering from below with those pots?

Not yet. I think I'll wait a little longer. When I up-potted into the airpots, the lateral roots were showing but the taproot hadn't emerged at the bottom of the Solo cups. The airpots are almost twice as long as the Solo cups, so In another week or so the roots may grow down to where bottom-watering would be useful.

 

[megamoo]

The downside with top watering can be splashing of dirt onto the lower leaves causing fungal issues. Not only that but top watering if not done thoroughly can cause the roots to stay near the surface of the growing medium.

Bottom watering on the other hand wets the bottom of the medium first encouraging deeper growing roots as they seek out moisture and suspeneded nutrients.

In saying that I top water until I get a decent amount of water running out of the bottom of the pots and use mulch to stop any possible splashing of the water and dirt.


Anyway I digress (again ) top looking food Rick!! seems like it would be a great dish in the cold weather!
Those plants are starting to look great ...I always forget how long those Chinense varieties take to get established compared with the Annuums ... but they always look much better proportioned and not as tall and gangly as the Annuums or baccatums.

On you grow Rick!

You're right Trippa with the splashing dirt and fungal issues. In the wild water splashes all over everything and they grow fine, but moving everything inside and trying to recreate the perfect plant growing conditions makes it perfect for fungus also. Even if you have a fan blowing to keep humidity down, most indoor grows have a constant temp which encourages algae and fungus. Although I've never really had problems with fungus from splashing dirt, I have come to the conclusion its too much stuffing around to try and balance all the things inside to mimic chilli seeds' natural growing conditions. Therefore you're better off either doing it all outside, or use fully sterile hydro with chemicals like H2O2 to kill things like fungus.

I'm not dissing bottom watering, I've seen great results and it obviously works, but for me top watering is better when the seedlings are getting their first drinks after germinating. Once the roots spread a bit and if the soil is right then bottom watering is fine. Its almost more of a style choice than anything.

Also for older plants in pots its a good practice to flush built up salts from the top every now and then if you are like me and compulsively overfeed.


Whatever you're doing Stickman its working! They are growing well Keep it up and keep posting pics.

I've also got a thing for chorizo. Really love the smokey paprika flavour. I go through a lot of that spice.

 

[stc3248]

The Aji Pancas are right up your alley...I had one last year and liked it. Sorry to hear about the NONZanos...grrrrr. I used that same seed batch and got good germ with them. 3/4 so??? Still got my fingers crossed on this end.

 

[stickman]

I'm not dissing bottom watering, I've seen great results and it obviously works, but for me top watering is better when the seedlings are getting their first drinks after germinating. Once the roots spread a bit and if the soil is right then bottom watering is fine. Its almost more of a style choice than anything.

Also for older plants in pots its a good practice to flush built up salts from the top every now and then if you are like me and compulsively overfeed.

I've got to hold my hand up to being a bit conservative when it comes to growing... Nature top-waters, and I can't argue with the results, so I do the same. It's nice to know that there are real advantages to doing what you would have anyway.

Whatever you're doing Stickman its working! They are growing well Keep it up and keep posting pics.

Thanks for the kind words Trippa, will do.

I've also got a thing for chorizo. Really love the smokey paprika flavour. I go through a lot of that spice.

Me too! That's why I'm going to plant so many varieties of Paprika this year. Some I'll smoke, and some I'll just dry. I learned a lesson with some Krimson Lee Paprikas I dried and ground last year... In the absence of a way to vacuum seal, leave the dried pods whole until you need them, then grind just enough for the job at hand. They go stale too quickly otherwise.

The Aji Pancas are right up your alley...I had one last year and liked it. Sorry to hear about the NONZanos...grrrrr. I used that same seed batch and got good germ with them. 3/4 so??? Still got my fingers crossed on this end.

Thanks Shane. I'm not ready to admit defeat with the Manzanos, but with the most recent purchase of seed I have to admit I'm at the limit of what I can spend to widen the gene pool. I'll do my best, but in the end it'll just happen or it won't, and I'll still be smiling... though perhaps a bit crookedly... Nonzanos... I can see it...
Did your Aji Panca pods have the sweet, berrylike flavor they talk about? I was already planning to start Guajillos... it might be interesting to have both together to compare when the pods ripen. I got a package of dried Guajillos to experiment with last year, and thought they were sweet and fruity enough to use in desserts. Now there's a thought... Guajillos used for the filling in sweet poppers like you made in the throwdown... The skin on them would be too thick for the stuffing pepper I think... better ground in the filling.

 

[RocketMan]

Looking really good there Rick. I've seen the Air Pots before so I'm interested in seeing how the plants in them do versus the ones in traditional pots.

Happy Monday

 

[JoynersHotPeppers]

"[background=rgb(255, 244, 228)]Next weekend will be time to plant the Annuums and the early greens like Claytonia and Mache." Outside or in general? [/background]

 

[stc3248]

Those Panca did have a super sweet very unique flavor...no heat. I peeled and stuffed a few last year and they were very good. Peeled, stuffed, battered and fried into a relleno I bet they would be awesome. Denniz's idea of germing in soil under the lights is a good one. I germed several that way last year. I just planted a peat pellet into some soil and put the seeds in it under the lights and they popper 100%??? You better get at least one!!!

 

[stickman]

Looking really good there Rick. I've seen the Air Pots before so I'm interested in seeing how the plants in them do versus the ones in traditional pots.

Happy Monday

'Mornin' Bill... happy holiday to yourself!

I'll definitely follow through with the reporting on the airpots. What attracted me to them initially was their durability, ease of cleanup and purported function. We'll have to see if they live up to the hype.

"[background=rgb(255, 244, 228)]Next weekend will be time to plant the Annuums and the early greens like Claytonia and Mache." Outside or in general? [/background]

Hi Chris
Inside... I won't transplant the onions and early greens outside until the scallions I overwintered start to put out leaves.

Those Panca did have a super sweet very unique flavor...no heat. I peeled and stuffed a few last year and they were very good. Peeled, stuffed, battered and fried into a relleno I bet they would be awesome. Denniz's idea of germing in soil under the lights is a good one. I germed several that way last year. I just planted a peat pellet into some soil and put the seeds in it under the lights and they popper 100%??? You better get at least one!!!

Thanks Shane
Appreciate your review of the Aji Panca.

I have some of your pre-soaked Manzano seeds in growing medium on top of the seed heat mat with a plastic dome on top so they don't dry out too fast. All we can do now is wait.