Trent's 2014 Grow Log - COLD COLD COLD

TrentL · Jun 10, 2014

WET WET WET outside.

Good grief. 4.5" of rain here since Friday.

Not much new to report other than my ditches/rows have completely prevented any washout. Plants are going apeshit - cucumber plants are growing 6-9" a day, tomatoes about 4-6" a day, and I have onions reaching 3' tall.

Beans are flowering and I have my first cucumbers forming.

Two more tomato plants are showing wilting. I've replanted a random "volunteer" tomato where I pulled out the first one that died.

If the other two die I'll do the same; I have about a dozen more volunteers that have popped up. They should still get big enough to produce this year if things go south on the indoor grown ones.

Pods have formed on Cayenne, Jalapeno plants.

Flowers are forming on several superhots.

Devv · Jun 10, 2014

So where are the boner pics? LOL

That's an interesting grow you have there..

Glad things are coming around Trent!

maximumcapsicum · Jun 10, 2014

The wet can really screw up tomatoes down here. Luckily this year has been kind to me. Looks like most of your plants have worked through the poisicide dose. Continuing to send good vibes your way... Hoping your plants grow out of it.

Cayenne pods on the other hand are looking spectacular. You got plans for them? Powders? Grillin?

TrentL · Jun 10, 2014

Devv,

Unfortunately the "boner pics" didn't go off as planned.

#1, my game cam refused to go in to time lapse mode, and kept reverting to motion detect. Which sort of threw things off.

#2, these damn things grow only at NIGHT, apparently, as each morning for two days of video there were fresh "boners", and the video consisted of them shrinking and, shall we say, going flaccid through the course of the day.

Time lapse composition here; did the best I could.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=763331730364426&set=vb.100000628173559&type=3&theater

Unfortunately I didn't get the video I wanted, which could have been paired quite nicely to this music:

maximumcapsicum said:
The wet can really screw up tomatoes down here. Luckily this year has been kind to me. Looks like most of your plants have worked through the poisicide dose. Continuing to send good vibes your way... Hoping your plants grow out of it.

Cayenne pods on the other hand are looking spectacular. You got plans for them? Powders? Grillin?

You know I've had HORRIBLE luck with cayenne in past years. I've tried to grow them now 4 years in a row and each year I have problems ranging from insects, to blossom end rot, to sunburn... anyway I only have got a dozen or so pods on the best of years.

Last year I dried them in the dehydrator and turned them in to powder, which was tasty.

Hoping for more this year so I can make my blackened cayenne fish filets again.

Jeff H · Jun 10, 2014

I hear you on the water. We've had about enough rain for a while.

Good thing is that my irrigation system has been off for a while now. Saves the water bill.

TrentL · Jun 13, 2014

IT NEEDS TO STOP RAINING! (So I can get out and weed a little)

In the last 6 days we've got 6" of rain. The ground is fully saturated down to about 1 foot deep at this point.

Peppers are still growing slow, but other plants are growing HUGE. Cucumbers are 4' long vines now, tomatoes are 4 1/2 foot high and putting on lots of fruit, squash is going nuts, onions are standing nearly 4 foot high (never seen them have this big of stalks before), beans are a couple foot high, branched out and flowering.

I've got pods on all of the annuums now. Jalapenos have about 6-8 pods per plant growing, cayenne 4-6 pods per plant, some of which are 6" long now.

I've got flowers forming on most of the bhut jolokia variants I'm growing.

One of my Habanero overwinters that didn't get hit by herbicide has set flowers too - hundreds of them. It is branched out and growing massive again. The only downside is the soil is exhausted so I have to watch it closely - it's essentially hydro-in-soil this year. Starting to yellow a little because of all the rain - I use liquid nutes so they'd just flush out.

All other overwinters are doing great, the ones that were hit by herbicide finally quit doing wonky shit and are growing normally again. They've stalled out on top, so I think the root hormones I added are having an effect finally.

The plants in the garden I've topped and pruned a few weeks ago are finally filled back out and starting to grow vertically again. All of the chinense have forked at least once due to the topping, and they are all very bushy now.

LOTS of predator bugs have moved in, can't find a trace of aphids or other pests. The peppers are literally covered with swarms of soldier beetles. Haven't seen many ladybugs but when I was walking around the garden yesterday evening, some plants had upwards of a dozen soldier beetles on them. They've annihilated the aphids and apparently spend all their time looking for more. Won't be long before they starve off or move on.

Basically, everything at this point is "going according to plan"!

Should have fresh Jalapenos in a week or so. Tomatoes a week or so after.

Bushy little pepper plants:

Horny little fungus

The second tomato plant that is still wilting is circled in red. The line that goes across indicates (roughly) level ground.

This tomato plant that is circled, was *the* largest one I had when I planted it a month ago.

At few days after planting. the same plant is circled, and the one I removed is X'd out. The plant that is circled was already at the second rung at the time of planting while the others were barely hitting the first rung.

It COMPLETELY stalled out once it set fruit a few weeks ago. Now it wilts daily, and only recovers after a few days of clouds and rain.

I want to tear it out, my wife thinks I should leave it ... I think the stalk was "kinked" when I planted it sideways, and can't suck water up through the 90 degree turn in the main stalk, causing it to slowly rot. As it gets heavier on top, the kink gets worse.

How it looks on bright sunny days. Soil was still saturated with water; this was in between several rainy days on both sides;

Took this 5 days ago of the habanero overwinter that is going nuts now.

That OW habanero is going to produce like crazy this year. I'm considering pulling it from the pot and putting it in dirt (somewhere?!!!).

Anti-Marley ropes:

At least it keeps him out of the peppers and on to the paths this year!!!!

Took that for a sense of scale. In the first two Marley pictures the peppers look tiny because people's minds don't generally scale dogs THAT big.

The dog next to my wife (and my son's Mustang) should help put the other two pictures in to context.

Devv · Jun 13, 2014

Looking really good Trent!

Is this a normal season rain wise?

kgetpeppers · Jun 13, 2014

Looks good, that rain was sure coming down for days here too. Tomatoes loved it as well as my annuums but chinese still slow and steady

TrentL · Jun 13, 2014

Devv said:
Looking really good Trent!

Is this a normal season rain wise?

Well I started growing ultrahot peppers in 2012, and both 2012 and 2013 were nasty drought years (our water table dropped about 8 foot in our lake).

So this is a "new thing" for me.
So far the peppers are LOVING the wet!

Cute puppy pic of the day. Neko was snuggled up in my wife's chair when I got up this morning.

Pruned the last of the big shade leaves off the plants today. They'd matured enough I didn't feel they needed them anymore.

Big picture

While I was doing this I had this little guy fall out of the nest in the tree above me, and land right next to me. So we played for a while. He tried his test-flight and failed.

It's a yellow-breasted-somethingrather. Mom was watching from above. He didn't seem to be any worse for wear after his 40 foot fall, wings were fine, no broken bones.

So I stuck him in a Naga Morich overwinter pot and went on about my business.

Some pod porn. (Jalapeno)

Some more pod porn (Black Jalapeno)

And yet more pod porn (Cayennes)

The Chinense I've topped and pruned are forked like crazy and bushy as hell.

Unmolested (not pruned, not topped) example specimen

Note how much taller and sparse those are? I prefer my "in the dirt" plants to be compact and superproductive - which means, need more nodes, which means.. careful pruning and topping as they mature.

Topping stops them from growing taller and sends out more branches. Then carefully pruning to ensure light hits the nodes encourages them to develop strongly. The net result is more compact plants with more nodes, which produce much more fruit than unpruned plants, as they don't have as much foilage and brute "size" to nourish. Did the same thing last year and was pulling 250+ pods off most plants in the dirt.

The downside is when they DO start producing I have to watch water levels in the ground and add nutrients a lot more frequently as they are burning up nutes so fast while producing.

The upside is if I choose to "let them suffer" for a bit, it is easier to make them suffer, and it makes the pods hotter than hell. The last couple picks of the year I let "suffer" last year and oh man, did it ramp up the heat levels.

... And that's 10.

Jeff H said:
I hear you on the water. We've had about enough rain for a while.

Good thing is that my irrigation system has been off for a while now. Saves the water bill.

Yeah I'm enjoying not having to stand out there and water for an hour every day. That shit was getting old.

I'm going to set up my tomato soaker this weekend, don't need it for awhile, but it'll be nice just to turn on the hose and be done. Going to put the sprinkler on a stand out in the middle of the rest of the garden so I can run it too. I don't like topwatering tomatoes, I think that's mostly responsible for my 'maters getting late blight last year.

Will put a splitter in so I can switch 'em, still a manual process to start it, but I won't have to stand out there like a dork holding a hose for an hour a shot each night when it dries back out.

Besides, as my legs are currently telling me by itching severely after spending an hour out there tonight, all the water we got was liked by more than just my plants.

Mosquitoes are incredibly thick right now. And HUNGRY.

John1234 · Jun 13, 2014

TrentL said:
I want to tear it out, my wife thinks I should leave it ... I think the stalk was "kinked" when I planted it sideways, and can't suck water up through the 90 degree turn in the main stalk, causing it to slowly rot. As it gets heavier on top, the kink gets worse.

How it looks on bright sunny days. Soil was still saturated with water; this was in between several rainy days on both sides;

I vote with your wife! I was thinking of bending a mater at a 90 degree a week or so before transplant, to see if you could supercrop the stem, and voila, super huge root node. Potentially

The garden looks great despite the weather

Devv · Jun 13, 2014

Looks like the plants are ready for the spring burst!

I simply hate mosquitoes! One benefit if you can call it a benefit of a long term drought, is few skitors here.

And to the post about the 90° bend in the mater plant, just leave them at a 45° angle and let them straighten up on their own....that's what I do.

TrentL · Jun 13, 2014

Devv said:
Looks like the plants are ready for the spring burst!

I simply hate mosquitoes! One benefit if you can call it a benefit of a long term drought, is few skitors here.

And to the post about the 90° bend in the mater plant, just leave them at a 45° angle and let them straighten up on their own....that's what I do.

Yeah it's definitely stunted. It was a foot taller than all the others, now it's over a foot shorter than all the others.

If I'd been thinking forward a month ago when I first noticed the problem, and if I'd discovered what the "root" cause was (haha), I would have cut & cloned them. More than enough material there, and I've got extra root stimulant sitting around. There were two main branches that were 3' long above the soil line. I could have cut them, replanted them 2/3 of the way in the ground, after wrapping the buried portion with paper towels and dousing them heavy with root stimulant.

But... with it now being mid-June, it's probably way too late for that. If I did that now they wouldn't start growing upwards and producing again for another month or so, and by the time fruit started hitting, the season would be over.

miguelovic said:
I vote with your wife! I was thinking of bending a mater at a 90 degree a week or so before transplant, to see if you could supercrop the stem, and voila, super huge root node. Potentially

The garden looks great despite the weather

Well, live and learn. Next year I'll do it differently. The reason I planted sideways was they're in the dirt that used to be lawn, and it's hard-packed clay under them. I chewed up the top 8" with the tiller but below that it's like a frigging brick. Couldn't dig through it.

So I dug trenches and buried them as deep as I could sideways... wasn't thinking about kinking the stem though.

The second batch I put in (a week after the first four went in), I made much gentler bends in the stalk, and those plants are taking off like crazy! All of them have green tomatoes growing on them now.

Last of the pics I took today.

Another Black Jalapeno. These things are hot when mature, but somewhat bitter. Like green Jalapenos, they eventually turn red. (And get even MORE bitter)

Bhut Jolokia overwinter. Survived the herbicide incident - had to prune it back TONS - but now it's back to normal growth patterns. VERY bushy because of the herbicide.

Habanero overwinter. Dodged the herbicide somehow, and has really put on some fantastic growth the last week.

Close up of one of the nodes shows me that I'm in store for mega-poddage.

A few other overwinters. A carolina reaper, moruga scorpion, and a 7-pot (I think, can't read the tags). Anyway they're doing great. But I really have to watch the nutes on these - the soil is over a year old now and very exhausted; I'm running them as hydro in soil basically.

Some nons (Cucumber). Going to have lots of pickles soon.

More nons (Beans and onions)

That Cumari I topped and pruned a few weeks back has recovered, forked out like crazy from every node.

Orange Habanero - Topped and pruned 5/28. Picture on left was taken 5-29, Picture on right was taken today:

It hasn't grown any taller (since it was topped, it disrupted the auxin signals telling it to grow "taller", and caused nodes to compete to reach light; since it was pruned, light hit the nodes encouraging development).

As it grows up and out now, it'll have mega-branches.

It was also hit with root stimulant on 5/31.

(That hab got a BIG whiff of herbicide, so it had started pushing out branches before I even topped/pruned it. Seems to be sustaining it now - root stimulant slowed down the growth some, but it's still doing really well!)

cypresshill1973 · Jun 14, 2014

Now your plants look very healthy ... Have you finally found the pathology that attacked your tomatoes?

TrentL · Jun 14, 2014

cypresshill1973 said:
Now your plants look very healthy ... Have you finally found the pathology that attacked your tomatoes?

Working theory is 'human error'.

TrentL · Jun 14, 2014

New working theory is "too much green stuff not enough root"

I gave them a dose of 4-12-4 liquid fertilizer today hoping to encourage some stronger roots.

THREE tomato plants are now wilting. Those three also happen to be the ones which put on the most growth in the last month.

Devv · Jun 14, 2014

Looking good Trent!

Your grow is in full swing now and soon it's salsa time

I had a few mater plants go south. I hope to extend the sunshade frame so I can do a better job rotating the crops. Cover crops can help when rotation is not an option.

Have a great weekend!

cypresshill1973 · Jun 14, 2014

Perhaps you have exceeded the amount of fertilizer. Solanaceae are very susceptible to that effect.

In my case I do not use any kind of fertilizer. Only natural fertilizers, vegetable compost, humus and horse manure.

TrentL · Jun 14, 2014

Not sure what is going on with those tomatoes. Two of the three bounced back after the sun went down, the third looks like it's melting. Totally flacid stem. Looks like it's been cut off from the water in the ground.

If it doesn't bounce back I'll rip it out. Still time to plant other crap there.

Devv · Jun 15, 2014

Happy Fathers Day Trent!

HillBilly Jeff · Jun 15, 2014

TrentL said:
Not sure what is going on with those tomatoes. Two of the three bounced back after the sun went down, the third looks like it's melting. Totally flacid stem. Looks like it's been cut off from the water in the ground.

If it doesn't bounce back I'll rip it out. Still time to plant other crap there.

Sounds like something with the root system. Sounds like a pepper I have a few years ago that I had left the peat netting on.