Uknow's 2019 - Less is More!

Hey all!

I'm back for another season! I'm about a month behind last year's schedule, but still plenty of time since I don't plant out til the first week of June. I think last year I started almost 500 or 600 seeds of around 50 varieties??? This year, I finally cut back, lol. Only did two trays, 144 cells total of 14 different varieties. I'm only planning on keeping 56 plants max, that's what my tent fits in 1 gal (6") nursery pots. However, I'll be keeping 4 to 6 of each variety, instead of only 2of each like last year, so that's where the less is more part comes in! The rest will be given away to friends and family.


Here's the pics...


(Not pictured is Chocolate Habs, added in after this pic)

For anyone new wondering about my setup, here are the details:

Homemade grow tent - 50" wide x 38" deep x 48" tall.

Lighting - 6 twin tube T8 shop lights (12 bulbs total) mounted together as one unit. with Sylvania Octron FO32/865/XP bulbs. 384 watts total with 34,200 Lumens. I'd like to upgrade this to a COB LED setup soon, probably the Optic 4 XL.

Heat mat - 48"x24". I use this one even when not starting 4 trays, because it's a more consistent temperature throughout the mat, vs smaller single tray mats (which I have a few) that get hot in the middle but the outside edges are still cool.

Here's a pic of the timers and stuff on the side of the tent:

Hopefully it's a great season this year!

Best of luck to everyone!

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[SpeakPolish]

I love your definition of less. I am starting two sets of 6 peppers. I couldn't imagine eating that much.

 

[U)<now]

I love your definition of less. I am starting two sets of 6 peppers. I couldn't imagine eating that much.

Lol, thanks! I don't eat them all right away. I make salsa (60ish pints last season), hot sauce, freeze some and dehydrate the rest. It was a ton of work last year though and I definitely had some extra pods left over. I had kept about 120 plants I think and harvested 4 or 5 five gallon buckets full of pods. Still have 2 buckets frozen.

 

[PaulG]

Beautiful grow set-up, Troy! 
 
Good luck getting great germination
on those trays of seeds. You have some
great names on those labels!

 

[U)<now]

Beautiful grow set-up, Troy! 
 
Good luck getting great germination
on those trays of seeds. You have some
great names on those labels!

Thanks! Last year I averaged just over 80% germination rate overall. Hoping for similar rates this year.

 

[U)<now]

So winter has been a bit crazy this year with snow. We get a lot of snow up here, but it's been an exceptional amount this year. We got another 8 inches or so last week and another 12 inches yesterday.



Here's a pic of the garden currently, those stakes are 4ft tall from the grass...

Comparison pic from towards the end of the season last year...

 

[U)<now]

Hey all,

I've had life in the tent for a while now, but nothing too exciting yet.


Started watering with 2.5ml/gal of CNS17 Grow this week. That's about 1/6th strength of what the bottle recommends (15ml/gal) for week two.

I had to close my grow tent door to keep the cat out, so my temps skyrocketed and peaked at about 97F during lights on time, obviously way too hot. So I ended up taking those two 120mm fans I had inside for circulation and cut a couple holes in the tent and used them for fresh air intake fans. I haven't had time to cut exhaust holes yet, I just leave the door cracked, but it dropped my temps to 81F max now. I'll probably add one more intake fan and cut exhaust holes up top to try and get closer to 75F.


Here's some update pics!


Overall setup...(wide angle pic)

Intake fans... walls are cardboard so had to be mounted gently. I saw a post on r/spacebuckets on Reddit where someone just poked holes, slid a zip tie through, then slid on another zip tie on the other side to pull the first one snug, cheap, quick and worked perfectly...

Tray #1...

Tray #2...

Blue Christmas, isolated seeds from last season, always so cool looking...

Purple Reaper F1, accidental cross from 2017 season. Last season (2018) I had one reaper plant from the years prior OP reaper seed stock that was purple. I was able to isolate some flowers and these are the F1 plants. Due to initial pods shape and color changing style, I strongly believe it was crossed with my Fidalga Preto plant that was right next to it. As expected, getting some variety in the plants, some plants are purple and others are a nice bright green...

That's all for now.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[PaulG]

The Purple Reaper looks like a cool cross.
Good luck developing that one!

Ditto the Blue Christmas.

 

[U)<now]

The Purple Reaper looks like a cool cross.
Good luck developing that one!

Ditto the Blue Christmas.

Thanks!

Yeah, I love the Blue Christmas. I just use them for decoration on my deck in nice pots. They are not great tasting, very thin and full of seeds, but do have some heat.

 

[CDNmatt]

Love that grow set up of yours..cool looking build for sure.
 
I also have some purple reapers on the go..will be fun to compaire to yours later in the year
 
/high five

 

[U)<now]

Coming along nicely. Going to pick my keepers tonight and pot them up to 1 gal pots.

F1 Purple Reaper crosses, some are getting very purple, others are green still, I'll keep a few of each to see what they put out this year...

 

[PaulG]

Lots of great starts to choose from.
Should look awesome when you get a
bunch into the #1 pots. Love the purples!
 
Have fun and good luck going forward.

 

[stettoman]

This is what we'd see if Buck Rogers was a pepper grower!
 
Luck to you this year, we're in similar boats...
 
 

 

[U)<now]

This is what we'd see if Buck Rogers was a pepper grower!
 
Luck to you this year, we're in similar boats...
 
 

Haha, thanks man!

Lots of great starts to choose from.
Should look awesome when you get a
bunch into the #1 pots. Love the purples!
 
Have fun and good luck going forward.

Thanks, Paul! Potting them up now, making my goal to only keep about 40, my max for this tent in 1gal pots is 56.

Good luck to you both also, hope your seasons are going well!

 

[U)<now]

Work in progress. All going into Pro-Mix HP this season for the 1 gal pots. I'll bump the nutes up to 5ml/gal (CNS17 Grow) with this watering now.

Still need more airflow in the tent, going to order one more intake fan and cut some exhaust vents on top.

 

[PaulG]

Awesome tent set-up. Looks nice and spacious.

For now.

 

[U)<now]

Awesome tent set-up. Looks nice and spacious.

For now.

Haha, yeah that's why I'm trying to do less plants this year, less work, but also more space inside the tent for better airflow.

 

[U)<now]

Picked up some Cal-Mag on lunch today, going to start mixing this in with my feedings also.

 

[PaulG]

Cal-Mag is great stuff. While plants are indoors
I use a mix of that and Silica Blast alternated with
AK Fish Fertilizer and MorBloom. For The fully
flowering and pod-setting plants, I mix both
half-n-half. 

 

[U)<now]

Hey all! I finished potting up my keepers yesterday, I have 39 total.

Here is my final list of keepers:

3x Aji Pineapple
2x Blue Christmas
1x Chocolate Bhut
3x CPR red grenade pheno F1 (should be F2 this year, but didn't save any seeds from last season due to me being lazy)
3x Purple Reaper Cross F2 (purple leaves)
3x Purple Reaper Cross F2 (green leaves)
1x Scotch Bonnet Faria
2x Scotch Bonnet Belize
3x Chocolate Hab
3x Yellow Brainstrain
3x Red Brainstrain
3x JPGS
3x BBM Chocolate
3x Carolina Reaper
3x Purple Naga Viper


Gave them all a bit of water at 2ml/gal Cal-Mag and 5ml/gal CNS17 Grow. Using RO water with a PH around 6.0 to 6.5.

Lights on temps staying at 81F and lights off drops to around 65F.

Humidity is around 30% to 35%


Now I just need to find some new homes for my extras!

Lot less work work this year with having 1/3 the amount of plants, that's for sure!


Thanks for stopping by and I hope you're all having a great season do far!