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Turbo 2014 Pepper Growing: An Anecdotal Methodology

2014 season came to an end...planning for 2015 grow season
 
I'm trying to work out my final list of peppers for the 2015 season.  I keep adding and removing peppers from the list weekly.
 
In 2014 I planted 16 pepper plants in my one  8' x 3' bed, and by Sep the plants are pretty full, I think its too crowded.  The plants are all healthy, but there definitely is very little room for air circulation, the potential for disease is probably pretty high, harvesting is also a pain, and some plants are completely covering others, so very little sun is getting down to them.
 
For 2015 I'm going to build one more 8' x 3' bed, and I'm only going to plant 12 plants per bed and see if that spacing works a bit better.
 
I also only have one t8 light fixture, so there is limited space for seedlings, and I'm pretty sure its close to 24 plants (and getting another light isn't an option)
 
With a hard cap at 24 plants, I was having a hard time deciding if I want more varieties or more plants of the same variety.  I think this year I'm going to go with way more varieties, and only 1 or 2 plants per variety.
 
Update 11/25/2014: Well crap...PepperLover sent me some free seeds in my seed order that I just couldn't turn down.  Had to edit the list to make room
 
Peppers I will grow next year (this list is pretty much changing weekly)
 
Click to expand...
Glad to hear you are getting some ripe pods.  My fataliis have a ways to go, but the lemon drops seem to provide a handfull each day.
 
Last year the Yellow Fatalii and Congo Trinidad were my top producing plants.  When they grow well, they sure seem to produce.  Those stuffed cherry bomb pictures made me hungry!
 
GnomeGrown said:
Fatalii have a phenomenal flavor
 
Those cherry cheese bombs are making my mouth water just looking at them
 
:onfire:
Click to expand...
 
Yea, those were awesome.  I'm bummed I've got no more cherry bomb peppers.  My plant looks pretty sad and has no more flowers.  A local grocery store does carry rocoto peppers, and if you get there on the right day they might actually be fresh.
 
I'm thinking next time fill them with a mix of cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and crab meat...and maybe some minced up garlic! 
bpwilly said:
Glad to hear you are getting some ripe pods.  My fataliis have a ways to go, but the lemon drops seem to provide a handfull each day.
 
Last year the Yellow Fatalii and Congo Trinidad were my top producing plants.  When they grow well, they sure seem to produce.  Those stuffed cherry bomb pictures made me hungry!
Click to expand...
 
Most of my plants seemed to have gone through a burst of spitting out small pods, and then a big growth spurt in plant size and leaf density with no new pods, and now are busy producing pods again.  It'll be another few weeks before they are ripe enough.
 
But my Lemon Drops have been growing like crazy and producing pods at the same time.  Like you, I'm getting around 1-4 a day.  I think I've got enough saved to do a small batch of sauce; probably a lemon drop and scotch bonnet pineapple fresh sauce.
 
One of my favorite uses of the daily lemon drops has been dicing two really fine and mixing into tuna for a tuna sandwich...YUMMY! 
 
Turbo
 
What local store has Rocoto peppers?  Would be interesting to taste them and see if there is any difference in the ones I am growing this year.
 
Let me know.
 
Glad to hear your getting pods.  I have been very frustrated with flower drop due to the heat we have been having.  Getting a few pods, but the plants are not loaded up like they should be given all the flowers they have had so far.  Will se if some slightly cooler weather will help (once it actually cools down)
 
BPWilly, its the grocery store that used to be called the Tukwila Trading Company
 
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tukwila+Trading+Co/@47.473226,-122.285692,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x5490433d3268ad3b:0xbc7e1d13f63329d6
 
They usually have Rocoto peppers there, but they are often pretty old and mushy.  I drop in once a week or so to check if they are any good, but only end up getting some every other month or so.  Next time I see that they are fairly fresh I'll give you a shout and let you know.
 
Yea, the heat really hurt my plants that were in the pots.  I moved them so they are now only getting sun until 3PM and they really bounced back to life.  Sadly the reaper and 7pot you gave me dropped all their flowers about 4 weeks ago, but luckily they both bounced back nicely and are full of flowers again.  We'll see how it goes with the pots.
 
Well I'm starting to think about next season's pepper selection.  I've got the list broken down into two groups
 
[Edit]  This post is where I'm working out my final list of peppers for next season.  I keep adding and removing peppers from the list weekly
 
This year I planted 16 plants in my one bed, and now that its late Aug and the plants are pretty full, I think its too crowded.  The plants are all healthy, but there definitely is very little room for air to flow through and the potential for disease is probably pretty high, and harvesting is also a pain.
 
Next year I'm going to have two beds, but only plant 12 plants per bed and see if that spacing works a bit better.
 
I only have one t8 light fixture, so there is limited space for seedlings, and I'm pretty sure its close to 24 plants (and getting another light isn't an option)
 
Peppers I will definitely grow next year
  • 2 Aji Lemon
  • 2 Aji Pinapple (pretty excited about this one)
  • 2 Yellow Fatalii
  • 2 White Fatalii
  • 2 Trinidad Scotch Bonnet
  • 1 MOA - Jamaican Scotch Bonnet
  • 2 Congo Trinidad
  • 2 Morouga Red Habanero
  • 1 Trinidad Morovas
  • 2 Chocolate Scotch Bonnet
  • 2 Safi Scotch Bonnet
  • 2 Brazilian Starfish
  • 2 Criolla Sella
 
We interrupt the scheduled gardening update for a breaking lunch announcement: I found Manzana peppers at the store and I'm gonna eat them!
 
axi7q.jpg

 
Filling made from 1/3 crab meat, 1/3 cream cheese, and 1/3 cheddar cheese
 
xkwtnm.jpg

 
Oh damn...this is gonna be goooooood...
 
veumbm.jpg
 
bpwilly said:
Looking like some good eats!  Those manzanos are big!  Nice find
Click to expand...
 
Yea, they were good, with pretty good heat also.  I felt bad about not letting you know that same store had fresh manzanos, but I selfishly bought all the had (10 peppers).  I'm going to put the rest in a ferment I plan on starting this weekend
 
I ran an experiment this year in my raised bed.  In half the bed I put 2 liter bottles filled with water between each plant, in the other half there were no bottles.  The theory was that the water in the bottles would heat up during the day, and at night the heat would then radiate out into the soil.  The nights in Seattle during late spring / early summer can get down into the high 40's to low 50's.  The hope was this technique would help keep the ambient soil temperature higher at night.  Below is a picture of one of the bottles.
 
2nhgjdi.jpg

 
Next is a pic of my raised bed from this morning.  The left side is the side that had the water bottles.  You can see the plants are bigger and bushier than on the right.
 
Unfortunately I didn't think through the experiment very well.  I planted two of each variety right next to each other.  So its possible that I the varieties I planted on the left are just naturally bigger and bushier than the varieties I planted on the right.  I should have put one of each kind on each side.
 
But, the odds of that being the cause of disproportionate growth are fairly low I'd think.  Either way, I'm going to use the water bottles next year for all plants
 
2w524o8.jpg
 
My new toy, an interesting coincidence, and a burst of pepper growth!
 
For the past few years I've notice an interesting pattern with my garden. It'll be in mid-summer and I'll get a full day of rain, then over the next few days my garden will go through a massive burst in growth.  Its just maddening.  Its not like I don't water my garden or anything.  But I've just come to accept it and moved on.
 
This happened again two days ago.  It dumped rain all day and by this morning my pepper plants had about 3-4 inches of new growth on them, and (seriously) all of a sudden packed with green peppers that were not there last weekend.  Its totally Fatalii madness going on in there.  And my white habs which were about 4" high and only had a few flowers, are now 7" high, wider than tall and have about 10 green peppers. YAY!
 
Then last night I got a pH tester in the mail (for testing my ferment sauces) and on a whim tested my tap water, which came in at 7.8, a bit on the high side.
 
So my assumption I came to is my plants may have had nutrient lockout.  Then when the rain hit it lowered the pH (is that how it works?), which allowed my plants to absorb all the nutrients laying around from my fertilization and BOOM!  Makes a bit of sense.  I need to do a couple tests to help verify.  Find some standing rain water and test its pH to see where it is, and also test my soil's pH.
 
Looking at this page it looks like 7.8 is ok for NPP uptake, but sup-optimal for iron, manganese, boron, zinc, and copper.  And again, I don't even know what my soil pH is like.
 
So this leads me to a couple questions:
  • If my water is too high, should I be lowering my water pH each time I water? 
  • If I just lower my soil pH down to something like 5.5, is it be ok use high pH water?  Basically, would the pH average out to something thats ok for the plants?  Does it even work that way?
So many new things to learn...I love this journey
 
My new toy!
20140814_085034.jpg
 
turbo said:
I ran an experiment this year in my raised bed.  In half the bed I put 2 liter bottles filled with water between each plant, in the other half there were no bottles.  The theory was that the water in the bottles would heat up during the day, and at night the heat would then radiate out into the soil.  The nights in Seattle during late spring / early summer can get down into the high 40's to low 50's.  The hope was this technique would help keep the ambient soil temperature higher at night.  Below is a picture of one of the bottles.
 
 
 
Next is a pic of my raised bed from this morning.  The left side is the side that had the water bottles.  You can see the plants are bigger and bushier than on the right.
 
Unfortunately I didn't think through the experiment very well.  I planted two of each variety right next to each other.  So its possible that I the varieties I planted on the left are just naturally bigger and bushier than the varieties I planted on the right.  I should have put one of each kind on each side.
 
But, the odds of that being the cause of disproportionate growth are fairly low I'd think.  Either way, I'm going to use the water bottles next year for all plants
 
2w524o8.jpg
Click to expand...
 
 
Nice idea and experiment...
You're  right about planting unlike varieties for the bottle  test.
Looking at your photo I'm not sure if the right side of the photo  is facing west or south, but in either case I'd recommend putting the bottles on the right side of the bed. That area drains down, the higher area will stay moist longer and the right side will heat up faster from the sun, drying the soil quicker.
 
PIC 1 said:
Nice idea and experiment...
You're  right about planting unlike varieties for the bottle  test.
Looking at your photo I'm not sure if the right side of the photo  is facing west or south, but in either case I'd recommend putting the bottles on the right side of the bed. That area drains down, the higher area will stay moist longer and the right side will heat up faster from the sun, drying the soil quicker.
Click to expand...
 
Good observation about drainage on the right side of the bed.  I hadn't really thought about that.  I have 3 egg plants on the far right of the bed and have noticed that they require water more than the other plants, and just figured it was an egg plant thing.  But fast drainage on that end makes way more sense.  Thanks for insight!
 
Pepper Madness!
 
The plants are taking off.  The lower two in the below picture are my Aji Lemon plants.  They are huge (compared to any pepper plant I've ever gown that is).  Its hard to see in this picture, but there are hundreds of green peppers on these two guys trying to ripen. 
P1070060.jpg

 
Whole bunch of green Congo Trinidads on a pretty small plant
P1070063.jpg

 
Its Fatalii madness going on in there!
P1070067.jpg

 
MOA baby!!!
P1070069.jpg

 
One interesting note; my Paper Lantern peppers have done almost nothing this season.  Some plant growth, but little to no pepper growth.  And the few peppers I do get are tiny.  I was most excited about this pepper because they supposedly do very well in northern climates.  Maybe Seattle isn't far enough north.
 
Well, my second round of Aji Lemons are coming in strong.  Picking about 3-5 per day.   I'm not sure if its my gardening techniques or the climate or what, but these have definitely been my best peppers of the year so far.  With the exception of the occasional Scotch Bonnet, nothing else has really ripened yet.  Everything else is still mostly green.  I've got one Fatalii that is half green/orange, and a couple Congo Trinidad that are starting to change colors.  But that's it.
 
The big disappointment this year has been the the Paper Lantern pepper.  I planted 4 of these this year, more than any other variety, because I had read how well they do in northern climates.  But they just haven't done much at all.  All the peppers they have produced have been tiny 1" suckers, and not a lot of these really.
 
yeah probably your climate, my plants went from lots of green to most all ripe when i got 100 degree temps for a week.
 
weird the paper lanterns aren't doing good =[
 
turbo said:
Well, my second round of Aji Lemons are coming in strong.  Picking about 3-5 per day.   I'm not sure if its my gardening techniques or the climate or what, but these have definitely been my best peppers of the year so far.  With the exception of the occasional Scotch Bonnet, nothing else has really ripened yet.  Everything else is still mostly green.  I've got one Fatalii that is half green/orange, and a couple Congo Trinidad that are starting to change colors.  But that's it.
 
The big disappointment this year has been the the Paper Lantern pepper.  I planted 4 of these this year, more than any other variety, because I had read how well they do in northern climates.  But they just haven't done much at all.  All the peppers they have produced have been tiny 1" suckers, and not a lot of these really.
Click to expand...
Turbo
 
From my own experience it seems that the Aji Lemons are pretty easy to grow around here, which is nice when you need to have something to count on.  But it is strange that the congos are not doing better or at least sooner.  Mine are acting the same way, but last year, they were the star of the show in that they produced for a few months and they started early like the Aji Lemons.  They do seem to be short and wide plants (at least for me) but were prolific last year.  Who knows, maybe they will finish with a bang this year. 
 
bpwilly said:
Turbo
 
From my own experience it seems that the Aji Lemons are pretty easy to grow around here, which is nice when you need to have something to count on.  But it is strange that the congos are not doing better or at least sooner.  Mine are acting the same way, but last year, they were the star of the show in that they produced for a few months and they started early like the Aji Lemons.  They do seem to be short and wide plants (at least for me) but were prolific last year.  Who knows, maybe they will finish with a bang this year. 
Click to expand...
 
The congos actually did give me some very nice early season pods, and are now packed with green pods.  Mine are also short (about 8 inches tall) and fairly wide (~16 inches wide), and I made the mistake of planting them right in the middle if the bed, so they are towered over by all the other plants.  Now that I have a sense for how tall each variety gets in relation to the others, next year I'll be planting them East to West, shortest to tallest.
 
Some pepper pictures.  Not much color, just a lot of green
 
Jonah 7-Pot I got from BPWilly.  They are starting to ripen up
P9050067.jpg

 
A lot of scotch bonnets
P9050071a.jpg

P9050071b.jpg

 
White Habanero - I didn't think they would actually produce since I planted them so late in the season
P9050073.jpg

 
I've got a billion and a half Aji Lemon peppers...only one ripe today
P9050076.jpg

 
My yellow fatalii is doing awesome!  It probably has more pods than any other plant (also from BPWilly)
P9050080a.jpg

P9050080b.jpg

 
My MOA is a pretty big bush and only one one (beautiful) pepper on it.  I'll definitely be saving the seeds from this pod and trying again next year
P9050085.jpg

 
My Congo Trinidads are also producing pretty well. 
P9050089.jpg
 
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