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Tokyo Off-Season 2020-2021

Crawling back in here, tail between my legs, for another shot at this pepper thing.  :oops:
 
Last season I ended up... really preoccupied, let's say, and completely screwed up my grow. The outdoor plants were basically ignored, and the tent plants were in tiny starter pots until today, when they finally got brutally pruned and moved to one-gallon coir bags. Basically, all I've accomplished since February is identifying some -- not even all -- of the plants I started at the beginning of the year. Yikes.
 
But here we are, and after cleaning out the tent and rearranging the lights, I have five sad-ass plants ready to work harder than they should have to so I can eat their babies.
 
chop-top.jpg

 
The guy in the middle is almost certainly either a bhut or the second cousin of one; I'm not totally sure. He got the worst of the pruning anyway, so while I've definitely had plants come back from worse, he's got the biggest hurdles ahead to make his triumphant return to Flavortown.
 
Other than that, I have a CGN 21500, Lemon Starrburst, Alma Paprika, and Nanbu (a Japanese Cayenne-like variety with medium heat and great flavor) that are in pretty good health despite having been painfully rootbound. I managed to soak and massage them into opening up at least a little bit, so hopefully a gallon of coir will be enough to convince them to spread those roots and bush up. Then all I need to do is actually stay on top of the trimming this season.
 
As long as these establish themselves and fruit reasonably well, I'm planning on them being the producers for the foreseeable future, since I don't see myself starting up the outdoor grow again next season, if ever.
 
The bottom shelf is earmarked for one more attempt at some Khang Starr-style micro-Kratky experiments. Since I committed a whole lot of time and work to it the first time and gave them way too much root room, I spent marginally more money to save a ton of work and time, and just used exactly what he does: A koozie, a plastic bottle, and a round net cup. I'm planning to start the following, partially to see if I can get results similar to his now that I should have the reservoirs right-sized, and partially to see if I actually have true seeds for them, since I haven't grown any from the seed batches I'm using:

  • Jamaican Red Habanero (seeds generously donated by PaulG! Really excited for this one)

  • Datil

  • Sugar Rush Cream

  • Chocolate habanero

  • Casados
I also picked up a nice big batch of what they apparently use instead of hydrogen peroxide here, so hopefully with tiny bits of that I'll be able to keep the roots clean this time. Fin-gers crossed.  :cool:
 
Polishing off what was left on the indoor and outdoor plants from the end of the on-season grow, I threw together a little ferment! Giving this one a month to do its thing.
 
new-ferment.jpg

 
Since the garlic is embarrassingly weak here, I've got two bulbs of it in there, along with a bunch of Sugar Rush Peach (man, I love those pods), some Lemon Starrburst, a bunch of Nanbu that dried on the vine as well as a couple that hadn't ripened yet, two CGN 21500, what I assume was an unripe bhut, a single lonely Alma Paprika, and probably a partridge in a pear tree.
 
So here we go again. Fish me luck!  :pray:
 
PaulG said:
Sorry to hear the aphids are showing up.
Have you considered a neem oil soil
drench along with the spraying?
 
I forgot which seeds I was going to
send you. Can you refresh my memory?
 
Soil drench? Would it be helpful to dose the coir as well? I definitely will.
 
I believe it was primarily Sugar Rush Cream that I was looking for. Anything on top of that is gravy; I think what I'm missing right now is higher-end heat.
 
internationalfish said:
 
Soil drench? Would it be helpful to dose the coir as well? I definitely will.
 
I believe it was primarily Sugar Rush Cream that I was looking for. Anything on top of that is gravy; I think what I'm missing right now is higher-end heat.
I would give it a try- I don't think it can hurt,
but I have no experience with coir. The plant
should take up some of the neem. Topical spray
is probably the most effective, but the drench
might provide some added protection. Don't
know if I would do both at the same time.
 
Been a while! :)
 
Many thanks, again, to Paul for sending the seeds; I'll get them started as soon as I can. For now, the Kratky plants are doing well, and despite embarrassing neglect, the larger plants are turning out pods -- even the CGN 21500 and ghost (pretty sure now it's a ghost) that got chopped all the way down for their disturbing lack of production.
 
harvest.jpg

 
The questionable ones are there on the left; they should be either ghost or naglah, and I'm fairly sure they're the former. The profusion of runts is presumably due to that neglect I mentioned. While I'm definitely glad the CGN 21500 is producing, it's not exactly putting out bushels, so hopefully I can get on the ball and it'll be happier with more timely feedings.
 
Since I enjoy ending on a non-sequitur, here's a small child with a large drink.
 
mega.jpg

 
You have a problem, young man.
 
Well I've been offline for quite a while, apologies. A brief update:
 
Tomorrow afternoon, I'm planning to move my Lemon Starrburst and Nanbu outside for my wife to take care of, as they're definitely my favorites from the current batch. The CGN 21500 and Ghost have been almost completely unproductive, and I just haven't been using the alma paprika, so I was planning to scrap those plants. However, a fellow Tokyo grower here (hi, Alejandro!) asked about a plant exchange, so they may get a second (er, third?) chance if he wants them.
 
More importantly, currently on the bottom shelf and ready for a promotion from Kratky bottles to coir bags: Jamaican red hab (it's alive, Paul!), a Casados, Naglah, two Datil, and a Sugar Rush Peach. Since the Casados is growing like a vine, I think I'm going to give it the entire bottom shelf and move the other five up top, since five has been the ideal count up there.
 
The mini Kratky in general have entirely failed to produce quickly, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure I got it right this time. So I don't know whether I'll bother with that again. As much as I still really, really want to pursue at least one or two crosses, since it doesn't seem like I'll be able to force them to fruit early, I think for now I may just stick with growing what I've got. Perhaps small pots of coir would be better; I'll probably try that if I end up with potentially interesting combinations in this batch.
 
Anyway, I'm fairly excited at the prospect of an entirely new set of pods to work with, despite ripe fruit likely being at least a few weeks off. Hot sauce production has been going quite well; the last couple ferments were good, I have one ready and waiting to be processed, with plenty of pods for a new batch waiting impatiently to be harvested. Planning to have pictures to show off in the next few days after things get transplanted. :)
 
You have been busy, friend! Really glad the
JA Red Habanero is alive and kickin', hope
it does well for you. Mine have produced
awesome large pods every season.
 
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