WalkGood 2013, 2014 and Beyond

Stefan_W · Dec 24, 2012

Very nice list of additions. I have a few of those on my grow list as well. Have you ever tried the bahamian goat peppers? They are on my list because I have heard a few good things about them, but they are on the bubble because I'm not really sure whether or not I'll like them.

WalkGood · Dec 24, 2012

Stefan_W said:
.. Have you ever tried the bahamian goat peppers? They are on my list because I have heard a few good things about them, but they are on the bubble because I'm not really sure whether or not I'll like them.

When I was a teen and all thru my twenties I traveled to the Bahamas almost every summer to visit a good friend that lives there, we would dive and fish all summer. Sometimes his mom would make us some or we'd go out to eat at some of his local haunts and eat conch salad with Bahamian goat pepper. I loved it but haven't had any in a few years, this is the main reason that I'd like to grow it now. Locally we're under legal restriction from catching conch (although I see them here) but it's still legal to catch in the Bahamas and he'll occasionally bring me some, you can also buy the imported conch and I'm dying to make some fresh homemade conch salad soon as I get some pods. BTW it also goes well with ceviche

Stefan_W · Dec 25, 2012

Thanks for the info!

Merry Christmas to you and your family!

WalkGood · Dec 25, 2012

Stefan_W said:
... Merry Christmas to you and your family!

Merry Xmas back at you, family and happy new pod year

Chewi · Dec 28, 2012

WalkGood said:
Sometimes his mom would make us some or we'd go out to eat at some of his local haunts and eat conch salad with Bahamian goat pepper. I loved it but haven't had any in a few years, this is the main reason that I'd like to grow it now.

Did you need some seeds or do you have them sprouting already? Those things are truly great tasting!

WalkGood · Dec 28, 2012

Chewi said:
Did you need some seeds or do you have them sprouting already? Those things are truly great tasting!

Rob, thanks for the offer, I already have seeds and was planning on soaking them the 30th and starting the germination in soil on the 1[sup]st[/sup]. Here are the new ones I’ll be starting, just not sure how many of each to get a minimum of 1. I’d love to grow more but already have some 41 plants going and they keep me very busy, just don’t know how you guys take care of so many … again thank you for the offer

I should be updating some pics of all this soon, while I pick a few daily it seems this winter I've not had one huge yield so I don't bother taking shots of 2 or 3. I don't know if I can wait till the 30th seeing everyone's new glog's popping up daily are getting me very eager to start the new ones

OoNickoC · Dec 29, 2012

Heck of a start! Looks like you'll have your work cut out for ya, payout will be sweet though with that list. Awesome.

DocNrock · Dec 29, 2012

Why wait until the 30th? You'll have pods one day earlier if you start today.

WalkGood · Dec 29, 2012

OoNickoC said:
Heck of a start! Looks like you'll have your work cut out for ya, payout will be sweet though with that list. Awesome.

Thank you for checking out the glog and yes the payout is great ... 3 of my oldest (only 2 still producing very good) are roughly 3 years old now and still pumpin out de pods

DocNrock said:
Why wait until the 30th? You'll have pods one day earlier if you start today.

I hear ya and I'm certainly eager but wanted to be able to say they actually hit the soil on 1/1/13, hehe

Minor update till today December 29, 2012:
Cayenne still very small but has 2 peppers ripening and the plants looking very good but not much grow since last posted picture.

Thai Hots while yielding more peppers they are certainly very slow growers, almost looks like a bonsai plant as the stalk and protruding roots look larger but hardly any growth. These are nice tasting little peppers but not too much heat … only problem is you need a handful to satisfy your picante needs

Lots of pods on most my small Jamaican Habs in 2 gallon pots, I'll soon I’ll need to pot dem up to bigger pots. Here's 2 of them as I didn't have enough time this morning to shoot all 15 plants and while I did take a few other pics the wind was howling making close ups a little out of focus/blurred.

The plant below was my best looker ... She was in excellent shape. Two weeks ago we went down to 49 degrees for two nights and some heavy rain. Right after she started displaying all the symptoms of over watering, so I’ve not water her in over 5 days ... no changes to my surprise and still she's showing droopy leaves, yellowing and falling off :/ So yesterday I spayed her with a home made Epsom salt batch and not much, only a little improvement today. While she does look a little better today she still has some droopy leaves but no new yellowing (guess that's positive). Not sure what else to try, maybe a stronger Epsom spay tomorrow if she still looks under the weather, but I’ll be dammed if I loose her ...

Edit: I didn't shoot the Datils this morning but they seem to be responding to the H2O2 spay, I'll continue every 3 days till I see more improvement and shoot some pics then.

WalkGood · Dec 31, 2012

24 hour soaking in disposable cups started, if you can’t read all dem click here to see list. I'll be planting them into eggs with a roll-your-own soil starter tomorrow morning and take more pics. Yea I know you guys have all these fancy expensive starting methods and it's very possible that I won't get a good percentage of starts with my germination methods but hard to change after all these years and besides my method is free, lol. I only hope I get one start of the 3 seeds placed in each cup ...

Pepper laying sideways on a internode stem or is that called petiole stem, regardless it looks "hammock style" to me

Close up of same sideways pepper resting, seems he knows how to relax in FL sunshine

Datil still fighting off infection, if you look close you see the brown'in infection, I've been treating with H2O2 only a few days now and the plant is starting to look better but still not sure about her :/

Jalapeño plant is still very small but keeps popin out pods like a pez dispenser and they're very tasty.

That's it for now, hope to get up some picks of da eggs in the morning ...

Stefan_W · Dec 31, 2012

Do you find soaking the seeds makes a big difference? I soak for some things, like peas and beans, but I have never bothered with peppers.

WalkGood · Dec 31, 2012

Stefan_W said:
Do you find soaking the seeds makes a big difference? I soak for some things, like peas and beans, but I have never bothered with peppers.

You are going to lol when you read my response ...

I've never done this in all the years I've grown peppers but have read about it here on THP and assume most you guys know more than I. So I figured "what the hell," I've got nothing to loose and I've never grown supers in all the years I've grown peppers. So if it increases my odds for germ I'm all in. On the other side of the fence I hope it doesn't decrease any chances of them spouting ... this is my first time soaking, normally I've always done the egg thing and keeping the soil in the egg moist.

Stefan_W · Dec 31, 2012

Yeah, I read about soaking seeds here too. The thing for me is that I also read somewhere that you actually should not soak peas and beans, because the increase chance of bad bacteria means it does more harm than good. I haven't read anything bad about soaking pepper seeds yet, but I figure that if it aint broke don't fix it. Let me know if you notice a difference in germination rates, that may convinve me to try it out too.

WalkGood · Dec 31, 2012

Stefan_W said:
Yeah, I read about soaking seeds here too. The thing for me is that I also read somewhere that you actually should not soak peas and beans, because the increase chance of bad bacteria means it does more harm than good.

Good point

Stefan_W said:
I haven't read anything bad about soaking pepper seeds yet, but I figure that if it aint broke don't fix it.

I agree with “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it,” although I thought I’d give it a try for these reasons: I had a very hard time germinating Datil pepper seeds that were fresh in early 2012, took me over 4 weeks. Some did not pop up at all … almost 2 months later after transplanting seedlings to larger pots I’d see a baby pop up every now and then, it was strange. This made me think there might be something to softening the seed husk, just don't know for sure. But I assume some that stayed in moist warm soil eventually stuck their head up. That said, I’ve never had issue germinating JA habs, JA country peppers (wish I still had some of this seed), Cayenne, Jalapeño and some Cuban wild country chilies my grandfather grew with me as a child. We always did it the same way I do it today, my mom did the same w/eggs. To this day I have no idea what abuelos Cuban chilies are called, abuelo use to call them “aji picante verde del campo.”

Stefan_W said:
Let me know if you notice a difference in germination rates, that may convinve me to try it out too.

Sure I will but not sure if I’ll notice much difference. So far my egg method has yielded me around 95% germination but I’ve always grown 4 or 5 varieties, no supers.

WalkGood · Jan 1, 2013

I wrote about my seed starting process in a thread I called “ Seed Starting.” But I’ll try to inject it into my glog as well since I wanted to add 12 or more new plants to my current grow. While I only eat eggs once or twice a week, my wife, kids and neighbors save shells for me as well. Even if I’m not using them to start new seedlings, I crush them to mix with my soil or even add around the surface of many plants around the yard. While I can not prove it, there should be some calcium benefit to your plants as the eggshells break down they will nourish your soil.

Back to the seeds, take a ½ Egg and poke a little drain hole into the middle. For this you’ll need a …

a screw tool like the one below, lol. These are hard to find and could be very expensive

Not only can you use them for drain holes, they come in handy after packing the ½ shell with soil to press a divot into the soil for seeds to drop into. And if you drop a brick on your foot, you can safely yell out “screw this!” For soil, I find the low cost organic starter mix and tweak it a bit with some of the left overs I keep that has not been tweaked. I throw any left overs into a small compost when finished, nothing special …

Egg with drain hole inserted from screw tool …

Finished seeds planted in eggs and resting comfy in the egg carton. IMO the carton makes a perfect holder so I use it till they get planted out. I number the slots in a way I can remember if the ink washes off later and I leave the lid on for easy/safer transporting. Finally I place the whole thing on a warm windowsill with indirect lighting indoors. BTW this isn’t my invention, I credit my grandfather and mom for showing me this. Almost forgot, I keep an Excel list on pc and back up on pad near our back door ...

Final list copied to first post and here from post #40

Closed lid with Nick & date. I normally keep the lid open so I can keep an eye on the moisture in each egg. Don’t over water but keep semi moist an warm … Now for the warnings; if you over water (even though there's a drain hole in the egg) the water can accumulate in the foam egg carton and possibly rot your seeds. While the second thing only happened to me once, a seed flowed out of the egg while watering and actually germinated in the foam carton under the egg. But I guess any germination is a good one

Wish me germination luck as this is my first crack at super hot peppers.

Stefan_W · Jan 1, 2013

Pretty high tech outfit you got going. I can see all of the garden stores that sell seed starting kits for big bucks will be hollering that you posted this

WalkGood · Jan 1, 2013

Stefan_W said:
Pretty high tech outfit you got going. I can see all of the garden stores that sell seed starting kits for big bucks will be hollering that you posted this

Doubtful but if I get 100% germination I could see dem shakin in their boots, lol. But seriously this is low tech and not hard to do, only takes time and planing. I only hope it works as good for germinating these variety of peppers as it's worked for the others I've grown this way in the past.

DocNrock · Jan 1, 2013

I have no doubt it will work for the supers. This past year (in July!) was my first time trying to grow supers. They can take a while to pop, but I had some that popped pretty quickly.

WalkGood · Jan 1, 2013

DocNrock said:
I have no doubt it will work for the supers. This past year (in July!) was my first time trying to grow supers. They can take a while to pop, but I had some that popped pretty quickly.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Brent

if things don't pop up, I don't give up easy. So far the only seeds that took for ever to pop were the Datil's I'm currently growing. Would be funny if all pop as I used 3 seeds per egg and 4 of the White Bhut Jolokia ... I only made plans for 12 more plants, lol, guess I can gift a few to local pepper growing friends.

Trippa · Jan 1, 2013

Nice start. What are you soaking the seeds in prior to planting??