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Stickman's 2014 Glog- That's all folks!

Hi All,
   I've got Manzanos sprouted and my Bhuts, Lotah Bih and Donne Sali seeds planted so it looks like time to leave 2103 behind and begin to concentrate on 2014. Last year I started some of my late-season varieties right after New Year's Day, but our season was too short to bring the pods to full ripeness so this year I started 2-3 weeks earlier.
 
Manzano seedlings...
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Fruts and Bhuts ;) ...
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There are many more varieties yet to plant in the proper turn, and I have 4 overwintered pepper plants from 2013 that I'll report on later. Have a great weekend all!
 
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Lots of love for the powders stickman, very cool. How do you dry your pods? I just hung a bunch by a window but I've been a little worried about mold and humidity.
 
Trippa said:
And hes off and racing .... again/still??  Nice one Rick ... love your enthusiasm brother! ... best of luck with the 2014 season ... looks like you are off to a flyer!! .. Merry Christmas to you and Yours as well!!
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Hey, Tristan's in the house! Thanks for the good vibe brother, and Happy Holidays to you and yours as well!

maximumcapsicum said:
Lots of love for the powders stickman, very cool. How do you dry your pods? I just hung a bunch by a window but I've been a little worried about mold and humidity.
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Humidity's definitely a problem here in the east. The first time I tried to sun-dry my chiles I lost about a quarter to a third of my crop to mold inside the pods. After that I bought a (relatively) cheap Oster dehydrator. It doesn't have a thermostatic control to regulate temperature but it stays at a constant 150 degrees. That's good enough for my purposes.

Sanarda said:
Sorry I missed wishing you a happy birthday :bday: belated :rofl: :rofl: .  Great list you have.  I will be following intently my friend. 
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Thanks for the good vibe Pia... good wishes are always gratefully accepted whenever they happen. :)  Welcome aboard!

Checking in on the babies this morning I see two more King Naga hooks, two more Lotah Bih hooks, and one in the Donne Sali pot! :woohoo: They're still pretty small, so I'll get pics when they stand up later today. I planted more seeds than I needed to make sure I'd get at least one viable plant, so having extras means I'll be looking for homes for them in a little bit. My extras now are Manzanos, Lotah Bih and King Naga Jalokia... if any of you folks live in southern New England or plan a trip here, maybe we can arrange a hand-off.
 
stickman said:
 
Humidity's definitely a problem here in the east. The first time I tried to sun-dry my chiles I lost about a quarter to a third of my crop to mold inside the pods. After that I bought a (relatively) cheap Oster dehydrator. It doesn't have a thermostatic control to regulate temperature but it stays at a constant 150 degrees. That's good enough for my purposes.
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Oh cool. That was my plan. Glad to see it works. 
 
I was looking at your 2013 glog, when you grew the seedlings 4 or 5 to a cup. At what point did you snip the weaker ones? After true leaves appear or before? I've been worried that growing too many sprouts in a cell will inhibit the growth of others, but not sure at what magic moment you make the cut.
 
maximumcapsicum said:
 
Oh cool. That was my plan. Glad to see it works. 
 
I was looking at your 2013 glog, when you grew the seedlings 4 or 5 to a cup. At what point did you snip the weaker ones? After true leaves appear or before? I've been worried that growing too many sprouts in a cell will inhibit the growth of others, but not sure at what magic moment you make the cut.
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You can snip the extras anytime, but if the plan is to prick them out and replant in a pot of their own, I let them grow a set of true leaves first and handle by the cotys only. If you pinch the stem it's game over, and pinching the true leaves is a pretty severe setback when the seedlings are this small. They're gonna shed the cotys anyway, so they're expendable.
 
Still waiting on the Bhuts to germinate, but that's expected. The seedlings are only getting natural light ATM, but I'll fire up the lights on the grow table after the holidays.
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Two hooks and a seedling in the Donne Sali pot now.
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The Nagas are looking good.
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I had to pinch three hooks in the Lotah Bih pot to conserve space.
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Not much progress with the Manzano seedlings, but I had them downstairs with the OW plants, so they were in 50 degree temps with 12 hours a day of artificial light. The cotys I pinched the tips on have opened up after bringing them upstairs and giving them a night of warmth.
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The OW plants are holding their own, and the Butch T and Manzano are still growing slowly.
 
Butch T.
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Manzano
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Douglah
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Yellow 7 is beginning to recover after leaf drop from Aphid infestation and spraying with pyrethrin. It seems to need more water than the others, so I upped the size of the water bottle from 350ml to a full liter and it seems to be helping.
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Happy Friday eve all!
 
Rick you're getting all kinds of good results with the seeds popping.
Any chance on running your lights up to 16 hrs...the added light will raise the ambient temperature and foremost raise the Chlorophyll levels. Once your OW's take off they need a solid light source for lush growth. Kinda like a dormant house plant that becomes very active with the gradual lengthening daylight (windowlight).
In any case you have a solid start to the upcoming season.

Happy Holidays
 
PIC 1 said:
Rick you're getting all kinds of good results with the seeds popping.
Any chance on running your lights up to 16 hrs...the added light will raise the ambient temperature and foremost raise the Chlorophyll levels. Once your OW's take off they need a solid light source for lush growth. Kinda like a dormant house plant that becomes very active with the gradual lengthening daylight (windowlight).
In any case you have a solid start to the upcoming season.

Happy Holidays
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Thanks for the input Greg... that's my plan in another 2-3 weeks. I'm walking a thin line financially, so my agreement with my wife is that I won't increase the hours of light downstairs or order more seeds until after the holidays. Then I'll bump the lights on the OW plants up to 18 on/ 6 off and set up the grow table for the seedlings with the same timing on the lights there. I made an enclosure on the grow table out of 3 quarter inch styrene board with a foil facing on one side. It traps the waste heat from the grow lights and warms up the enclosed space 12 to 15 degrees when the lights are on.
 
Seedlings look great Rick. Glad to see the monzanos after last year's debacle.
 
 
stickman said:
 
Thanks for the input Greg... that's my plan in another 2-3 weeks. I'm walking a thin line financially, so my agreement with my wife is that I won't increase the hours of light downstairs or order more seeds until after the holidays. Then I'll bump the lights on the OW plants up to 18 on/ 6 off and set up the grow table for the seedlings with the same timing on the lights there. I made an enclosure on the grow table out of 3 quarter inch styrene board with a foil facing on one side. It traps the waste heat from the grow lights and warms up the enclosed space 12 to 15 degrees when the lights are on.
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Just be warned, when they take off, they take off. I've already resorted to doing some selective trimming and even rotating some plants out of the grow room and up to a window hoping to slow them down a bit and my lights are only on 12 hours a day right now.

Although selective trimming isn't a bad thing. It gives me cuttings to try and clone. I want one more monzano anyway.
 
Lots of progress Stickman. It's great to see all the hooks transitioning well to sprouts. 
 
I was looking at your OW's again. What kind of soil do you have them in? How does this watering technique compare to others that you've used? Seems to be working pretty well.
 
The 16 hour lighting helps a lot... I actually use my bonchi grow shelf as the main light source for my office room, but I live in a pretty small place and we generally keep our power bills low. I may not have enough bulbs burning on them though... I got 1450 lumens on about half a dozen plants. One of my ficus bonsais has dropped his leaves... gave up after the move indoors I think.
 
Glad to see all the babies germing Rick!
 
It's really a fun time of year getting them all up and running.
 
Glad the OW's are still hanging, it's funny how some plants are always needing more water. I had one last season in a pot nd it always showed signs of needing water early.
 
Weekends almost here!
 
Looking great in December, Rick!  Especially the OW; they are hangin' in there   :party:
 
Jeff H said:
Seedlings look great Rick. Glad to see the monzanos after last year's debacle.
 
 
 
Just be warned, when they take off, they take off. I've already resorted to doing some selective trimming and even rotating some plants out of the grow room and up to a window hoping to slow them down a bit and my lights are only on 12 hours a day right now.

Although selective trimming isn't a bad thing. It gives me cuttings to try and clone. I want one more monzano anyway.
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Thanks Jeff :)
 
I'm getting the whole OW thing dialed in and there's still so much to learn about growing chiles outside in the northern latitudes that it'll probably be a year or two before I try to tackle cloning. I used to do it back in my college days when I had a work-study job in the biology department prepping the lab modules among other things. One of my tasks was to clone Coleus cuttings for the chlorophyll chromatography lab, so I think I've got a pretty firm grasp of the basic technique. I'm glad to see yours are doing well anyway!
 
I knew from the outset that I wanted to keep my OW plants alive, but at the same time I also wanted to stall their growth as much as possible until I was ready to restart their growing cycle. Putting them down cellar where its a little bit below the range needed for optimal vegetative growth seems to have accomplished this despite a couple of glitches caused by inexperience. The Yellow 7 was a beast compared to the  other chile plants this past season and I miscalculated how much water it would need. (Note to self, in future, take into account variations in plant metabolism. Some will be faster than others...) The aphid infestation didn't help either. I think Scott (Devv) was right when he observed that putting potted plants close together inside is the perfect conditions for infestation.  Fortunately I was able to rectify that one by spraying with the pyrethrin.

maximumcapsicum said:
I was looking at your OW's again. What kind of soil do you have them in? How does this watering technique compare to others that you've used? Seems to be working pretty well.
 
The 16 hour lighting helps a lot... I actually use my bonchi grow shelf as the main light source for my office room, but I live in a pretty small place and we generally keep our power bills low. I may not have enough bulbs burning on them though... I got 1450 lumens on about half a dozen plants. One of my ficus bonsais has dropped his leaves... gave up after the move indoors I think.
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The potting soil I used for the OW plants isn't anything special... just a peat moss-based mix with enough osmocote to last for 3-4 months. I used it before I read Guru's recommendation to use a mix without any added nutes if semi-dormancy is your goal... (my other noob mistake... ;) ) They seem to have done well regardless.

Penny said:
Haha....love it...no plastic surgery needed :rofl:, but I do know what you mean and it was the same thing here, I could smell the powder through the envelope!! :hell: :hell: :hell:
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:)

Devv said:
Glad to see all the babies germing Rick!
 
It's really a fun time of year getting them all up and running.
 
Glad the OW's are still hanging, it's funny how some plants are always needing more water. I had one last season in a pot and it always showed signs of needing water early.
 
Weekends almost here!
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PaulG said:
Looking great in December, Rick!  Especially the OW; they are hangin' in there   :party:
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Thanks folks, it feels good to be underweigh again... and it just keeps getting better... I just looked in on the seedlings and I see a hook in the Bhut Orange Copenhagen pot! :dance:
 
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