Turbo 2014 Pepper Growing: An Anecdotal Methodology

juanitos · Jun 6, 2014

now blast em with nutes

turbo · Jun 10, 2014

Well, I think I made a mistake this year with my soil mix for my pots. Last year I had an issue with the pots losing moisture too fast. I had to water every day or they would dry out. This year I used a lot more vermiculite in my mix in order to hold moisture in. Well, I think I used too much. I purchased a soil moisture reader and its been showing the soil in the plastic pots are very saturated, and I haven't had to water them in two weeks and they are sitting in the sun all day in 70 degree weather. The cloth pots are doing better at releasing moisture, and the moisture reader is showing that I need to water them about every 5-6 days. Thankfully I only used 4 plastic pots this year and the rest is cloth pots. The plants in the cloth pots are doing ok, but the plants in the plastic pots are looking pretty sad. I could pull the plants, remix the soil and replant them, but I just wonder if that would be a bit traumatic for them. But I might lose them anyway, so maybe its worth the risk. Another problem is that since I'm not able to water them, I'm also not able to feed nutes to them. The plants in the cloth pots look healthy, but they aren't doing as well as the ones in my raised bed.

Speaking of which, I got peppers-a-plenty in the raised bed; Congo Ts, Paper Lanterns, Aji Lemons, Big Sun Habs, and Scotch Bonnets.

And, I think I'm most excited about my two year old rocoto plant (upper left picture). It has NEVER grown a flower in two years. But its got its first flower buds poking out!!! Very happy about that.

bpwilly · Jun 10, 2014

Turbo,

Nice pictures of your plants, looks like things are doing well for you and great news about the rocoto. Looks like your patience has paid off for that one. Sorry to hear about the soil issue on those 4 plants in the plastic pots. I would just change the soil now rather than waiting, especially of you think your going to lose them if you don't.

Heck, maybe you take those 4 and try DWC with them. I see some folks have real good luck and impressive growth with it. I have not tried it myself, but always have it in the back of my mind as an additional experiment to do.

turbo · Jun 11, 2014

Thanks Bill. The lemon drop (bottom pic) and scotch bonnet (top right) are from the group of plants you gave me. They are all in the raised bed and doing really well. Can't wait till they ripen.

I hadn't heard of DWC before, but it looks kind of like outdoor hydroponics in a vat of diluted AACT, is that correct'ish? I think that would send my wife over the edge if I set that up in our backyard

bpwilly · Jun 12, 2014

Turbo

DWC is a very simple version of a Hydroponics system. The nutrients are normally the stuff you find in a hydroponics shop. Don't know the specifics, but the nutes are often measured in PPM or Parts per Million

Here are a examples of a simple one. Most of the videos focus on how to make the bucket systems

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y0rbxnGcE0
here is one that talked about mixing the nutrients
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te6-HixWRcA

Just samples, but there is also some info on the forum about DWC as well. Just search on DWC or Hydro and I am sure you will find plenty to give you new idea about how to spend your time and money! I ought to know. So much to try out.

thirdcoasttx · Jun 13, 2014

Dwc is very cool my bhut in dwc has explosive growth. I can't even get it out of my closet now when I go to change the nute solution.

turbo · Jul 1, 2014

This year I was going to try and run an experiment comparing peppers in a raised bed vs pots, but I f'd up the soil mix in the pots (way too much vermiculite) and before I knew it the roots of all the plants in the plastic pots were rotted out. I tried transplanting, but disturbing the plants seemed to guarantee them to die. So I'm trying to nurse them along. And see if I can get some kind of harvest from them.

On the other hand, the plants in the raised bed are doing great. They have started a great growth spurt and spitting out loads of peppers.

My Aji Lemon from BPWilly must have about 30+ peppers on it. Its heavy!

Hab Big Sun (also from BPWilly) coming along nice

Yellow Fatalii (yea, this one from BPWilly also)

Couple of Congo Trinidads

Something...don't remember...

Cherry Bombs are doing great!

Today I went to a local nursery to pick up some gardening supplies, and was excited to see they had some pretty fun peppers in stock.

I ended up getting 4 Scotch Bonnets

A little 4-pack of white habaneros. They are really little, so I'm not sure if they'll grow large enough to produce any peppers, but what the heck right?

They also had some fun purple ornamental peppers. On the left are two Explosive Embers and on the right are Bolivian Rainbows. Not sure if they will be good, but again...why not?

bpwilly · Jul 1, 2014

Turbo,
Your plants are really looking nice and seem to be podding up great!

If those white habaneros are the White Bullet or Yucatan White (jelly bean size) they will never get very tall, but sure should put out a lot of nice bite size hot peppers. I grew a bunch that past few years and they all were small plants, but very productive. They should grow well in pots and might be easier to harvest from pots that you can pick up and put on a table to make it easier to pick them. Makes a nice power to add to popcorn!

All in all, those plants sure seem to like what your doing!

turbo · Jul 2, 2014

Thanks Bill! All the plants you gave me are producing like crazy. The ones I raised by seed are just starting to put out a few pods. The only odd ball is the MOA you gave me. It has no fruit on it yet, but has build up a super dense branch and leaf structure, about the size of a basketball, and is only now starting to put out flowers. From how many branches it has I would be willing to bet it is super productive in late season.

Later this year I'm going to have to pick your brain on your growing methodology, from seed to soil, and also your potting soil mix. You've definitely learned some lessons over the years, and your plants look awesome!

bpwilly · Jul 2, 2014

Turbo,

Your MOA is acting just like mine. I largest one I have has got lots of branches and leaves, and is just starting to get open flowers, so I am expecting to bet some fruit on them soon. I figure it was jusy establishing a good set of roots. I have been out there with my q-tips playing the little bubble bee! Just got to remember to not reuse them with any other plant else I will get a cross that I am not planning for.

It always seems like the plants in the pots grow faster at first but the ones in the ground seem to get larger in the long run on the average for me. Although, last year my congos and fatallis in the pots out procuded all the plants in the ground. Might be that the ones in the pots were babied a bit more, since there are less of them.

Looking forward to seeing how your plants do, because they sure look good right now.

turbo · Jul 11, 2014

Had three ripe peppers this week. Two cayenne and one Lemon Drop. The Lemon Drop had end rot, but I'm not sure why. I feed them with CalMag every 2-3 weeks. I've also got some leaf discoloration on new growth, but that's another post.

Anyway, I decided to use my harvest to spice up some pickled red onions...YUM!!!

Also added in a bulb of garlic that I harvested last week. Really love fresh garlic!

bpwilly · Jul 12, 2014

Turbo,

Looking good. Let me know how you like the Lemon Drops. They really pod up nice and early, but sometimes I get the soapy taste in my mouth from them. Mostly when I eat from the top of the pepper where the seeds are. Just notice the difference as I was taking small bites from one yesterday.

Those pickled onions like like they will be a winner

turbo · Jul 14, 2014

Well the plants in the raised bed are certainly doing much better than the pots. The bed plants have grown a very nice dense branch structure, and have a dense foliage (I'm assuming that is a good thing). The pot plants have grown a bit taller, but have hardly grown any new branches and have very thin foliage.

These are some of the best looking pepper plants I've ever grown. Lots of green pods, and tons of flowers. And my Aji Lemons are twice as tall as any of my others plants.

The only oddity is on several plants in the bed I've got some discoloration on new leaf growth. These are fairly yellow...

...and this, my MOA, has a half green / half yellow coloration on new growth

Same with this one

I put CalMag on them two weeks ago. Not sure whats going on

bpwilly said:
Turbo,

Looking good. Let me know how you like the Lemon Drops. They really pod up nice and early, but sometimes I get the soapy taste in my mouth from them. Mostly when I eat from the top of the pepper where the seeds are. Just notice the difference as I was taking small bites from one yesterday.

Those pickled onions like like they will be a winner

Bill,
I really liked the Lemon Drop, though I would guess it was still a bit early to harvest because the heat was pretty low. I cut the placenta and seeds off the piece that I tried fresh. No hints of soap and a fun little hit of lemon. Pretty yummy. I did go through a week where the Lemon Drop plant dropped about 10 green peppers, but that has seemed to stop and the peppers are starting to ripen up.

turbo · Jul 14, 2014

Like I said above, I've been having issues with my peppers in pots, both plastic and fabric. They were holding onto too much water at first, and now that its hotter, the soil temps are getting REALLY high. I had all the pots positioned so they'd be getting a full day's worth of sun, but moved them up closer to the house to take advantage of the afternoon shade. I put them at a 3PM shade line, but they were still getting seriously over heated. So I moved them back to the 1PM shade line and they seem to be improving vastly.

My Reaper has doubled in size this week since I moved it up to the 1PM shade line last weekend...which goes to show how little growth the potted plants have put on this whole summer

In better news...Peppers! I've got about 4 lemon drops about ready to pick

A couple small congo trinidads getting pretty red

Here is one of my potted congo trinidads. You can see how small the plant is compared to the one above which is in the raised bed. That being said...Look at those peppers!!!

I love this guy. Its a Aji Lemon. The same super tall one a couple pages back in the solo cup just before I planted it. This guy in the exception to the rule for the potted plants. He hasn't really put on a lot of leaves, but it just keeps getting taller and taller. Its starting to pod up a bit

And this little sad guy was victim of a stray ball during a game of fetch with my dog. The ball hit the plant and it popped off like Queen Elizabeth the First's head. But there was one tiny little leaf sticking out of the soil so I kept it watered and now I've got a new growth going. We'll see what happens.

turbo · Jul 22, 2014

Hmmm...the seeds said Congo Trinidad, but me thinks it might be a Trinidad Scorpion. Or maybe a cross? I guess I'll find out when I eat it

OCD Chilehead · Jul 22, 2014

Playing catch-up. Glad to see your getting some pods. Lemon drops look good. Grew them last year, pods didn't get as big as yours. Most of my plants are doing better in the shade as well. My fabric pots are not doing good. Same soil, same nutes, and same varieties. Not much growth compared to the one's I have in the plastic containers. Don't know what is happening. Puzzled.

Thanks for sharing. Congrats on pods.

Chuck

turbo · Jul 25, 2014

I just have to vent for a minute, so bear with me.

After potting my plants this spring I spent the first two months having problems with too much moisture in the soil. The pots would get saturated with one day of rain, then literally take 3-4 weeks to dry out enough to need water again. Then it would rain again and it would be the same issue for another 3-4 weeks. By the end of June I ended up loosing about 5 plants, and the ones that did survive had stunted growth and very few leaves.

Ok, lesson learned. Measure the moisture level of the soil often, and when watering don't water too much. So I spend the next month being very very careful to only water when the soil is dry enough, and only enough water to moisten the soil, but not saturate it because I didn't want a repeat of before. My goal was to water enough to last about 3 days before I had to water again. And the potted plants grew very little, still don't have a very dense leaf structure, and only a few pods. I actually lost all the flowers on my reaper and 7-pot (though I have a whole new batch of flowers now).

Then four days ago it started raining. It rained for two days straight and I figured my pots of f'd. They are gonna get saturated again and the roots that grew back will rot away again, and I'll start loosing leaves again, blah, blah, blah.

What happened? Since it stopped raining two days ago the plants have all grown about two inches. Put on a ton of happy looking leaves. And the pods that were on them are starting to ripen.

I'm confused. I still have a LOT to learn about growing in pots.

turbo · Jul 29, 2014

Reflections on growing plants in pots (this is more of a journal entry for me to reflect upon for next year’s growing season)

I’ve been thinking and reading about growing vegetables in pots/bags a lot the past few weeks, specifically about water management. I’ve seen lots of examples of people like myself who have had water and heat issues, and as a result very minimal plant growth. But on the flip side, lost of examples of people who are very successful in growing in pots, producing very large plants with a great harvest in all sorts of climates. There seems to be 4 primary key factors to successful growing in pots/bags: water, heat, soil, and nutrients

Water management:
I think I’ve always had the wrong perspective when it came to watering plants in pots. I always watered based on the size of the pot instead of the size of the plant. I would water a newly transplanted 8 inch tall start in June the same amount that I would a 2 foot tall plant full of pods in late August if they were in the same sized pot. Upon reflection that makes no sense. The size and age of the plant determines how big its root structure is. A larger plant has greater water requirements than a smaller plant, and a larger root structure has more capacity to absorb water than a smaller root structure. So without proper soil drainage this can lead to a lot of excess water being held in the soil, potentially causing root damage as the roots try to grow down into the saturated soil.

(random thought: I wonder is there is some kind of function you could figure to calculate cubic inches of water needed based on height to width ratio of the plant or total branch length or something (easier than trying to measure its root structure))

I also tend to feel that the size of pot can also help with this. A smaller pot that is appropriate to the root structure size of the plant should allow the roots to absorb water without having a large portion of soil below the root structure that just sits and retains water.

These issues can be a problem in Seattle where there is often a fair bit of rain in late May and all through June. Next year, instead of going straight into large pots/bags, I think i should first transplant the plants into medium sized pots and let them mature for a few weeks. Then once they are fairly established outside with some good growth and a larger root structure, transplant again into the final larger pot/bags.

Heat management:
I’ve always felt that Seattle’s lack of (consistent) heat has always been an issue for growing plants that thrive in heat. To tackle this I used black plastic pots to help radiate heat into the soil. Again upon reflection, its not that Seattle doesn’t have adequate heat, its just that its slow to warm up in the summer. But by late July we’re usually well in the 80’s and 90’s.

So in May and June the black pots can be fairly useful to help radiate heat into the soil to help with the cool nights (upper 40’s at times). But once July and August kicks in the days are hot and the nights are still warm and these pots become an oven, heating the soil too much. This problem can be exasperated if you over water your pots and the soil doesn’t drain very well. You end up with really hot water cooking the roots.

I think starting the plants outdoors in medium black plastic pots in the early summer, followed by transplanting into large bags or white 5 gallon buckets after they have matured for 3-5 weeks is a better solution to managing heat.

Soil:
I’m still trying to figure out a proper mix for the Seattle area. First and foremost the soil needs to be able to drain well. Don’t use vermiculite…don’t use it, don’t use it, don’t use it. The soil needs to hold enough moisture in to let the roots take their fill, but then also have enough drainage to get rid of any excess water so you don’t end up damaging the roots.

Nutrients management:
I’m also still trying to figure this out for pots. The key is to keep a good journal so you know exactly when, what, and how much. I had crappy luck with foliar feeding. Just don’t do that. Also if you are using potting soil like FoxFarms Ocean that has a fair amount of nutrients already in it, wait a while before first applying fertilizer. If you want to micro-manage the fertilizer, use a home mix or a potting soil specifically for transplants that has nothing in it. Then apply liquid ferts based on your own schedule.

turbo · Aug 2, 2014

I haven't put many pictures up recently. I take a few every other day but get lazy and don't post them, then next time I go out to check out my garden the plants are even bigger so I take new pictures, and so on and so fourth.

I thought it would be fun to show the growth over the past 3 months.

Here is my first fatalii. I had to eat it right away to understand the "fatalii taste" everyone always talks about. It was wonderful!

My Trinidad Scotch Bonnet is spitting out pods like crazy, though most are still green. These are the first two (Thanks BPWilly!)

This is my from my Congo Trinidad. Its got a lot of pods on it and every one has a stinger like a scorpion variety. But its sibling plant that came from the same seed packet has pods without the scorpion tip

Roasted my cherry bomb peppers filled with cream cheese and cheddar. OMG so good!!!

OCD Chilehead · Aug 2, 2014

Nice pods. The Fatalii was my favorite pod I grew last year. Cherry cheese bombs look delicious.