WalkGood 2013, 2014 and Beyond

WalkGood · Mar 9, 2013

Cayenne Chili Peppers, should have a few to harvest in a few days ^_^

Cayenne Flower, if you look close you can see coffee stains/specs on the flower & leaves. I stopped spraying this plant as its loaded with flowers now and I'm not sure how that spray will affect it. I will probably spray a little Epsom Salt in a few days.

Chocolate Scorpion wasn’t looking that great so I up potted to some über dry soil. I went with the same stuff Shane is using miracle-gro moisture control. Hopefully it will love its new soil. Also did the 3 MoA’s and a few others, I’m going to give them a few days to perk up and I’ll shoot more pics

MoA’s & Choco Scorp

Thanks for reading/looking & have a great weekend

stc3248 · Mar 9, 2013

Hope that soil works for you. I like it, but some folks don't have luck with it. I think soil has to fit the grower. Don't feed them for a bit now...lotta nutes already in it! Now go munch on those Cayennes!!!

PeriPeri · Mar 9, 2013

Looking good Ramon! Like the cayenne's. I am also growing those this year and it's interesting trying the fresh pod in comparison to the powder. I also have the Jawala's ripening at the mo. They sure look ugly, but man they are so tasty... and will be excellent for powder I reckon. Anyway - all looking awesome mon!

STEVE954 · Mar 9, 2013

Bravo on the transplants! MG has never let me down.

Chicken wings seasoned with home grown cayenne powder before they hit the deep fryer!

cycadjungle · Mar 9, 2013

Hi Guys, looking good on the plants. I will try and remember all the questions you mentioned. You mentioned spraying a few times a week. I use the spray as a direct contact spray to kill insects. I don't use it as a regular rule, I only use it when I have an obvious problem, with aphids or something like that. The coffee is mixed in the soil already, which helps over the first 5 months for insects, but the organic fertilizer aspects of the grounds works even longer. I can see the spray working as a liquid fertilizer, but I don't think it would be worth all the trouble of spraying that many times.
On my article, it is still being printed in The Cycad Newsletter and will be mainly aimed towards cycads. I will be mentioning how it works on pepper plants, but it will be a very small part of the over all article. I don't expect that issue to get published anytime in the next couple of months, so it will be a while before I can get a final copy of it to show anyone.
As far as you changing the type of fertilizer you are using from a growth fertilizer to a flowering (and then Podding) fertilizer. I guess if all you use is a liquid feed that works at once, you may be able to get away with something like that, but most of the fertilizers I use work over a longer period of time. Unlike some plants that grow for a while, and then flower, and then maybe die, if you look at the growing of pepper plants in tropical Florida you really get multiple phases each year. You will get some growth at first and then a batch of flowers come out over a 3 to 4 week period. It then takes about 2 months for those pods that are produced to become ready to pick. About the time that the peppers are becoming ready to pick, you get your second phase of flowers. One good byproduct of the flowering stage is that the plant branches where they flower, so the second phase will have even twice as many flowers as in the first phase. Later as these pods become ready, then you will have your third phase. If you do well with the plants, I have had as many of 5 flower phases in a year, when I was able to bring them into a greenhouse. Changing your fertilizer doesn't seem to help for me. If you used a high phosphate fertilizer to push flowers you would also need to hit it with a growth fertilizer to get some energy going.
I don't have that much time to work with my peppers to get into this much detail, but if I was going to experiment with manipulating my pepper plants like I do cycads, I would do something like this. I am using the 18-6-8 formula of the 360 day nutricote. It literally gives a good steady push of fertilizer for an entire year. That makes sure there are no deficiency problems, even when the plants are full of pods. I would incorporate this early spring. Each flowering cycle seem to take about a month. It just so happens that triple super phosphate (0-46-0) lasts 3 to 4 weeks. If it takes 2 months for your pods to mature after the first set, I would use 2 teaspoons of TSP per gallon sized container at the 6 week period, or maybe better said, at the point where there should be flowers starting to show in another 2 weeks. This should increase your flowering a bit, but the main way I found that you get flowering is to make sure the plants are branching well after a flowering cycle. If you wanted to do an experiment, i would try the with TSP and without to see if you get a difference in plants that had an equal amount of branching already. Tom

Stefan_W · Mar 10, 2013

Once the cayenne start to turn red you usually have truckloads in no time.

Nice pics, thanks for the update! The chocolate scorp seems to be doing really well based on the picture, so what you are doing must be working.

DocNrock · Mar 10, 2013

Cayennes look good, Ramon. Dried out and crushed on pizza, yes! The up-pots look happy in their new shoes. Plenty of room for their little feet to grow.

WalkGood · Mar 10, 2013

stc3248 said:
Hope that soil works for you. I like it, but some folks don't have luck with it. I think soil has to fit the grower. Don't feed them for a bit now...lotta nutes already in it! Now go munch on those Cayennes!!!

Shane, I hope the soil works too, but I think it will. As the old soil they were in was retaining too much water and I needed to dry them out. No food for dem for long while, I agree & thanks for the tip ^_^

PeriPeri said:
Looking good Ramon! Like the cayenne's. I am also growing those this year and it's interesting trying the fresh pod in comparison to the powder. I also have the Jawala's ripening at the mo. They sure look ugly, but man they are so tasty... and will be excellent for powder I reckon. Anyway - all looking awesome mon!

Thanks Lourens, I like them fresh too, although when you get too many they do work well dried out. I use to have a huge Cayenne plant that yielded a lot but this one’s still small, I might have to up pot it sooner or later but I think she still has room to grow.

STEVE954 said:
Bravo on the transplants! MG has never let me down.

Chicken wings seasoned with home grown cayenne powder before they hit the deep fryer!

Thanks Steve, they were too wet as we noted on your last visit and I couldn't get them to fully dry out. Hopefully I didn’t let too much time pass and they’ll pull thru, I think they will. I believe the MoA’s will but the others are still in a hit or miss loop. I don’t do wings often but will consider soon

cycadjungle said:
Hi Guys, looking good on the plants. I will try and remember all the questions you mentioned. You mentioned spraying a few times a week. I use the spray as a direct contact spray to kill insects. I don't use it as a regular rule …

Tom thanks for replying, I have cut back on the spray and try only using if I see bugs but I still believe (without proof on the coffee) that soapy water does that trick for me very well. That said, the ones with coffee ground cover haven’t had any ants around them and that’s a good thing in my book. Regarding feeding the plants, some will get seaweed tea treatment later in the week and if any need, I will consider feeding them other as you have suggested, thank you!

Stefan_W said:
Once the cayenne start to turn red you usually have truckloads in no time.

Nice pics, thanks for the update! The chocolate scorp seems to be doing really well based on the picture, so what you are doing must be working.

Thanks Stefan, I’ve been working on some of my own pixie dust

Only kidding, but new batch of seaweed and using it more on plants. I think they really like it ^_^ so that will be my pixie dust.

DocNrock said:
Cayennes look good, Ramon. Dried out and crushed on pizza, yes! The up-pots look happy in their new shoes. Plenty of room for their little feet to grow.

Doc great to see you, hope your wife is back 100%, yea crushed on pizza is killer! We did make a pasta sauce the other night with a few in it and it came out really nice, no pics were taken but I’m soon due for another foodie I guess.

As always, thanks everyone for commenting and stopping in to look ^_^

I do have a question that some of you can help with. I have one of my larger JA Habs in a 10 gallon pot (maybe a little larger) that I found nematodes in. I hit them with soapy water till they ran out or died but now the plant is really stressed. She is also full of immature pods and I think a soil change is in order.

Should I wait till there is less plant stress and the pods get picked before attempting?
Or should I just pick the pods, move forward with the soil change now and risk it with the stress she’s going thru?

Sanarda · Mar 10, 2013

Looking good Ramon and I'm sure that Choc will bounce back great in that new soil. Its amazing what good new soil can do for the babies. Trust me.... I know :rofl:

WalkGood · Mar 10, 2013

Sanarda said:
Looking good Ramon and I'm sure that Choc will bounce back great in that new soil. Its amazing what good new soil can do for the babies. Trust me.... I know

Thanks Pia, I'm looking forward to see how they react over the next several days and I know you're right, dem all love new soil for sure!

PIC 1 · Mar 11, 2013

Your transplants will be fine...they're reaching for the light, that's always a healthy sign.
Fresh or dryed flakes of cayenne is always tasty on a pizza......minus the seeds.
How are the JA Habs performing, new growth on old wood ?

RocketMan · Mar 11, 2013

Hey Ramon, sounds like tom gave you some good food for thought. I'll be intereste in seeing which way you go and how it turns out.

WalkGood · Mar 11, 2013

PIC 1 said:
Your transplants will be fine...they're reaching for the light, that's always a healthy sign.

Thanks, I’m just letting them be, no water in days to dry the little bit of old soil that made the jump but I will be watering them tomorrow.

PIC 1 said:
… How are the JA Habs performing, new growth on old wood ?

Funny you’re the only one that caught my question \o_ My question was only regarding one of them that was in great condition, good new growth and full of pods. It only took a turn south after my war with nematodes on it. I believe I over did the soapy water and all but a very few leaves are drooping like mad, either I didn’t flush out the soapy water soon enough or some dish soap stayed behind to hinder it. I will be repotting it but its weak IMHO. I did flush out the pot with fresh water 3 times, no watering it now in a few days, I kind of want to flush it again today but will wait to read your response, before this I normally let them ride very dry (only one was affected but now have cement under pot). During the day almost every leaf on it is droopy, at night some of them do raise up but this has been going now 3 days and some of the pods (while small) have started to turn color. What you think? Should I flush it again today? It's sunny enough that much should dry out before night fall.

RocketMan said:
Hey Ramon, sounds like tom gave you some good food for thought. I'll be intereste in seeing which way you go and how it turns out.

Well I stopped spaying coffee and will test it if I see bugs. Secondly I may throw in the towel on the starters in the 50/50 coffee & soil mix, don’t think that will yield anything. I believe the soak in coffee the night before may have hindered seeds as no activity yet in dem eggs. I will continue to mix coffee into my soil, I don’t use ferts normally but might test some on a test plant. I normally use: chicken poop (I dry it out very well and turn it to dust), banana peals, seaweed emulsion, Epsom salt and that’s all she wrote. The new soil I bought does have some ferts that they claim lasts two months so I’ll see how that goes for now.

PIC 1 · Mar 11, 2013

Too much water can cause root rot. Depending how big the plant is, you can remove it from the pot root mass and all. Which will be heavy if wet. At that point spray all the existing soil off. Give it a slight root trim to encourage new root growth and repot in new soil...adding extra perlite towards the bottom for drainage. It's alittle more difficult with a 20 gal pot. though.

I'm in the process of doing that with some house plants. I wait to see the new Spring growth and I give the roots a trim, dump the old soil into the garden and repot in the same pot. The plants get their 1st booster shot of nutes and away they go. If your branching is green the plants should pick up, but if they're yellowing the plant could be taking up toxins from the soil that may not flush out easily.

Check the leaves 1st thing in the morning. Are they reaching for light, if the leaves are drooping during the day that can be caused by a combinationof soil water retention and a slow plant transpiration which happens during high humidity.............I have that in the main grow due to a higher than usual relative humidity. The easiest thing to do would to flake up the top layer of soil with a hand shovel (aerate) and let the soil dry. You can always mist the plants leaves before sunset................oh thats right, the sun never sets in Florida.............lol

WalkGood · Mar 11, 2013

Great feedback Greg, thank you! I'm transplanting it tomorrow ... stems are all green, even the leaves but drooping badly. Will be using new pot that's a little larger, nursery bucket type. I'll put the soil in a clear bag and sun till end of summer and probably put into a new compost by then \o_

Edit: I have a feeling all the pods will fall off, I will probably have to trim them off first. Last time I did one of these large ones successfully I had to remove the pods the next day. I believe it allowed the plant to focus on new growth VS pods on it's back, what you think?

Pr0digal_son · Mar 11, 2013

Nice photo on that serrano flower! As Greg said,too much water causes a lot of issues with chile plants. Shoot some killer pics for us and leave those guys dry out. I've watered plants in the morning and had them droop over from being in black pots,and resting on hot conctrete. They just needed some relief and not anymore water. I hate gradually potting up but it is hard to regulate the moisture in a bigpot with a little plant(root system). End up getting a yellow plant with rotten roots. Good luck Ramon,and keep the pics coming!

WalkGood · Mar 11, 2013

Pr0digal_son said:
Nice photo on that serrano flower!

Thank you but I'm just a hack, hehe.

Pr0digal_son said:
As Greg said,too much water causes a lot of issues with chile plants. Shoot some killer pics for us and leave those guys dry out. I've watered plants in the morning and had them droop over from being in black pots,and resting on hot conctrete. They just needed some relief and not anymore water. I hate gradually potting up but it is hard to regulate the moisture in a bigpot with a little plant(root system). End up getting a yellow plant with rotten roots. Good luck Ramon,and keep the pics coming!

I have to reiterate that the problem with this plant is from too much dish soap in the water I flushed thru the soil. I’ve done this before to successfully rid a plant infested with nematodes and its worked very well. That said, I normally only use 2 to 3 ounces per gallon and went double that this time. I wish I had shot pictures of the nematodes as I’m very familiar with them from previous encounters but I have never dosed a plant this strongly and I’d like to save this one as it’s my oldest plant and normally in great shape.

This time I started out the same as in the past and when they come to the surface or out the drain holes in the bottom. I pick them off to toss into the canal where the fish eat them, as I’ve witnessed. By the 2nd gallon flush I stepped up the dose to 3, then 4 and finally 6 ounces, the last dose they all came up dead. I waited around 45 minutes and flushed the soapy water out of the soil but possibly too late. The next day the leaves started to droop and I didn’t water for days. By the 4[sup]th[/sup] day I thought another flush of plain water might bring the plant back from the droopy leaves but no go. I also tried misting the leaves later that day, no effect. So another 4 days passed and now this series of posts, she looks worse now than any of the other days. Strangely many of the leaves pop up to normal at night, but last night not as much as previous days, thus my question to flush it again.

What follows are a series of pictures of how bad she now looks, note that she's full of pods but I removed 5 mid sized ones this morning that already turned reddish/orange. I believe removing them all might allow her to focus on recouping, the floor is open for suggestions ... Thanks in advance!

Edit: Maybe I should pull her into the shade for a few days and work her back into the sun once looking better?

STEVE954 · Mar 11, 2013

[sup]Hey bredren, [/sup]

[sup]Sorry about this unfortunate bump in the road.[/sup]

[sup]First and foremost, you should pick off all the pods and give them to me....j/k[/sup]

[sup]Honestly, I would leave everything be and put this old girl in some shade like you said for the time being until you see new growth. Just be patient and only hit with clean water. [/sup]

PIC 1 · Mar 11, 2013

WalkGood said:
Great feedback Greg, thank you! I'm transplanting it tomorrow ... stems are all green, even the leaves but drooping badly. Will be using new pot that's a little larger, nursery bucket type. I'll put the soil in a clear bag and sun till end of summer and probably put into a new compost by then \o_

Edit: I have a feeling all the pods will fall off, I will probably have to trim them off first. Last time I did one of these large ones successfully I had to remove the pods the next day. I believe it allowed the plant to focus on new growth VS pods on it's back, what you think?

You're right, I'd remove the pods ....that will send the plant off the taxi way, down the runway. I cloned a branch with 6 green habaneros on it. The pods turned red around Christmas....that was different. No new growth until I picked off the pods. But by May the plant was a monster, not tall but bushy with tons of pods before the end of the year.

I just hope your pods are usuable, if not then you'll have many more before I get any at all.
Take a photo of the before and after surgery....if possible.

Opps I didn't see the photos, they were still loading when I scrolled down.

Do as Steve said...........maybe remove some of the yellowing.

WalkGood · Mar 11, 2013

STEVE954 said:
[sup]Hey bredren, [/sup]

[sup]Sorry about this unfortunate bump in the road.[/sup]

[sup]First and foremost, you should pick off all the pods and give them to me....j/k[/sup]

[sup]Honestly, I would leave everything be and put this old girl in some shade like you said for the time being until you see new growth. Just be patient and only hit with clean water. [/sup]

PIC 1 said:
You're right, I'd remove the pods ....that will send the plant off the taxi way, down the runway. I cloned a branch with 6 green habaneros on it. The pods turned red around Christmas....that was different. No new growth until I picked off the pods. But by May the plant was a monster, not tall but bushy with tons of pods before the end of the year.

I just hope your pods are usuable, if not then you'll have many more before I get any at all.
Take a photo of the before and after surgery....if possible.

Opps I didn't see the photos, they were still loading when I scrolled down.

Do as Steve said...........maybe remove some of the yellowing.

Thanks guys, glad you both agree and so do I. Wish I would have thought of this a few days ago, as the damage did get worse over time … Well this is the way I’ll proceed, I’ll try to document what ever I do and post back. I have picked green pods before and many did change color so I don’t have any problems taking that step either but I’ll wait it out. I’ll give her indirect sun for a few days and then move her to a location that will give her diffused sun light for ¾ of the day. Thanks again!