Wolf's Learn to Grow Log.

Growing peppers out at my workshop this year, using leftover stuff from past years at the house. Hoping to get a few in dutch buckets, but will settle for getting any to grow at all. I've never done hydro so I am starting with what I know, and what I know, is how to kill a BUNCH of plants. Good part is, if they survive me, NOTHIN' will keep them down.
 
But if you're gonna kill a bunch of plants, you have to *start* with a bunch of plants. And that's where we are now.
 

 
I'll start with these old 3" square nursery pots I found up there too. Filled them with Miracle-Gro seed starter mix, that has been in a sealed bag for at least a year, but left on the front porch. Put some seeds in a paper towel, got them to sprout out, and into the dirt about 1/4" deep. Watered in till the water ran out the bottom, and let them sit in a 75F room for 20 days...no luck. they seem to have died quickly in the dirt.
 
So, next up, I found this 72 cell seed tray in the rafters of the workshop, and tried again. But, since I hadn't quite given up on the first batch, I didn't have enough starter mix left, so I mixed up my own.
 
50% miracle-gro starter mix
50% coconut coir starter brick thing, Burpee branded, mixed with 8qt water
Added 1/4 cup of "Burpee Seed Starting and Transplant" Fertilizer with mycorrhizae
 
Let sit a few days and then filled up the seed tray, planted the following:
 
25 Maduro Mutant M1
 
22 Cali TCW Bell
 
25 Chinese Giant Bell
 
Bottom of the frame is the chinese giants, top of the frame (the ones starting to sprout) are the Maduro Mutants.
 

 
More seeds are in the germination zip-locks, I have Tequila Sunrise (Third try, first try last year turned out to be purple bells, second try died in some of the 3" pots this year, and now the third try is in the zip-locks) and some yellow datil seed that I found on e-bay...guess we'll see if it's the real thing or not. I was unable to find it from any other sources, all of them are out of stock so far. Like I said...I'll be happy to get any to come up at all.
 
I'll keep this thread updated with a few photos as things happen. I know it's late for the C. Chinense datils to get started and out, but I am hoping I can bring them inside and keep them going long enough. Last frost is expected to be this coming weekend, and we won't get 50F overnights reliably till end of the month...but normally overnights will still be over 50 till mid to late October...and occasionally November. I'm gonna try to keep the datil plant/plants over winter anyway, they'll be decorative enough to keep inside and I won't get complained at.

 

[Sawyer]

You did say that pinched off stem sprouting leaves is a mutant, right? Maybe it's just showing its mutant powers. Regardless, it's definitely showing a strong will-to-live. I'm rooting for it.

 

[WolframMalukker]

Trade show out of town this weekend-found two black pearl peppers and a fish pepper. Hopefully when I get home, the majority of my grow will be ready to hit the dirt-only a week later than it needed to be.

These black pearl peppers are freakin sweet. I wonder how difficult it would be to cross the black foliage into a larger, longer pepper?

 

[BlackFatalii]

These black pearl peppers are freakin sweet. I wonder how difficult it would be to cross the black foliage into a larger, longer pepper?

 
In terms of taste, Black Pearl is anything but sweet. I think you will find that the Fish peppers have far superior flavor. Black Pearl is a pretty plant for sure, though. It shouldn't be difficult to make a cross with it. As far as what results you will get from a cross, there is really only one way to find out. 

 

[WolframMalukker]

Stuff went in the ground tuesday-just now getting to posting stuff. Planted 20 Maduro M1 mutants, and 6 Chinese giants. Potted up the fish pepper and will keep it separated by both buildings and distance from everything else. The Black Pearl peppers will go out in the front yard, as decorative plants mostly, but also as an isolation technique so I can save a bit of seed from those.
 
20 Mutants!
 

 
6 giants, 4 fresnos, 2 Mucho Nacho:

 
My Datils just now have first true leaves, and the Tequila Sunrise peppers haven't done much since the first leaves started showing. My back garden lot, where I've planted out stuff, has High phosphorus, medium-low potassium, and low nitrogen-so I haven't added anything but the 3-6-4+myco transplant fertilizer yet. Figured I'd give them a week for root development, then a dose of fish emulsion today to push some green, and get them up off the dirt.
 
Also gonna try to clone the suckers off the tomato vines, see if I can get those doing something.

Two of the mutants, A11 and A21, have rounded leaves.

(A11)

And A21,

A lot of the mutants grow silly, like this:

The ones with strange growth patterns like this are very slow to do anything, so I have "culled" them from the garden plant-out for now. We'll see if they start to do anything, if so, then I'll put them out too.

The black pearls are slowing getting blacker, older leaves are much darker and more even than newer growth.

They are in 2" pots, I'm going to pot them up to 5" pots and let them get a bit bigger before transplanting into the front yard.

 

[WolframMalukker]

So, nothing really happening here. Everything is the same size it has been for two weeks, which worries me. We're now into the 90F degree days, and that won't end for the next three to four months, so hopefully the heat won't be a problem with such tiny plants.

 

[WolframMalukker]

I think I found the issue with the stalled growth. The plants that got transplant fertilizer in the hole with them, then liquid fish, are doing much better now than the plants that just got the transplant fertilizer tilled into the soil before planting. It'll be time to cultivate weeds under tuesday, so I spent the day spreading the inter-row areas with compost from the WKU Agricultural Farm, which is just across the street from me. The sign said "30$ per small pickup bed full" but when I pulled up in the Parts Hauler, (my supercharged, 208ci V6 1991 S-10) he only charged me 5 bucks to fill the bed up. It's 50% cow manure/sawdust mix, from the dairy barn, and 50% leaf grindings, composted into some fairly nice stuff. When I cultivate the rows, it'll get blended into the clay silt loam I have to work with here.
 
Got tired of mixing liquid fish and 2-15-15 liquid, and ordered a quart of Dyna-Grow Foliage Pro to use this year. it's the 9-3-6 mix, and since I can't find Cal-Mag mix anywhere local, it obviates the need for the cal-mag. It just seems very easy to work with, and for 16$ I can't see how it can go wrong.

 

[WolframMalukker]

First break in the rain long enough for plants to dry out a bit, so today was the first watering with Dyna-Grow. 1tsp to a gallon, each plant getting about 1.5qt of fertlized water.
 
Lost a mutant in the field, but have plenty of transplantables left-in fact the 36 cell starter tray still has plants in it...they pretty much have no nutrients left except the fertlizer, but they are still green and growing...so I haven't pitched them yet. Same with some of the Chinese Giants, although I transplanted 8 of those into 4" bonnie pots a few days back and they are *just* starting to show roots down at the open holes in the bottom of the pot.
 
The Giants in the bonnie cups-these will make good plants eventually...I am planing to keep them isolated for seed stock, I have plenty in the field for eating bells.
 

 
transplanted two Tequila Sunrise into pots, and have picked out spaces for two more in the field, but until the lettuce gets tilled under I've not got the room to put much more out there.
 
Here's the Fish, Black Pearl, and two Tequila Sunrise all in pots, the fish is nearly 18" tall with no forks and no sign of a fork showing!
 

 

 
The datils are still worryingly small, but they are what they are. I have buckets I can transplant into, but they still haven't filled the 4" red square pots with roots yet, so until they're bigger, they'll stay in these 4" pots.
 

 
A few shots of the more interesting mutants:
 

 

 
I expect in two weeks to see mutants in the field blooming, so I can start culling plants that don't have the purple blossoms. That's one of the goals in this Enjoya seed planting. I want to save any plants that show purple on the blossoms, and preferably plants that show purple blossoms and are heavy producers. I don't expect to see striping or varigation, and I am not expecting the really good flavor that the Enjoya chimera has, but any seriously cool mutation that comes up, I will try to isolate the plant in a tulle bag and select out neat features to try and cross into my own pepper eventually.
 
Ideally, I will eventually come up with something roughly 8-12K Scovilles, purple marked flowering, heavy producer, with medium sized, thick-walled fruits. I *can* force point mutations with X-ray dosing, and I might if I don't have much success with the Enjoya stock, but others have reported getting flowers with purple markings on white flowers, varigated immature fruits, immature dark green fruits with purple shoulders, or mature yellow fruits with poor to OK flavor.
 
Right now, I'm thinking cross some purple marked flowers with Fresno chilies,and some purple marked flowers with Tequila Sunrise chilies, and some purple marked flowers with the Fish pepper. That should give me plenty of chances to get some genetic diversity into seeds, which will then get 50% of the resulting crossed seeds irradiated, and 50% of them will get planted straight. (Of the seeds I plan to plant myself-I will be of course saving some if anyone out there would want such mixed up, mutated, wildcard peppers.) I'll probably do 20 seeds of each cross, assuming I actually get to try.

 

[WolframMalukker]

Well, the fish has finally split out into it's first fork! It's gonna need a bigger bucket...it's in a 3 gallon nursery pot right now and it forked 18.5" from the top of the soil. Lots of side shoots, so hopefully I get a nice heavy producer of a plant. I am going to stake it just to keep it from damage if we get high winds in the next few weeks.

 

[WolframMalukker]

It has finally stopped raining long enough that tomorrow I can *probably* get out and do some weeding in the field, and glue a few flowers to ensure self-pollination of some of the plants. It's rained so much, in fact, that two potato plants have drowned, and two mutants, one chinese giant, and the orange bell pepper have just fallen over with root rot. The stems are just mush, they've just been sitting in water for almost a month. Nothing I can do about it but hope it doesn't rain for at least a week, to let the ground dry out a bit. We're at 4 days now...
 
The plants in pots are doing fine, they need sunlight but what can you do when leaving them in the yard results in the pots being completely washed out with rain? They'll make it, but maybe not this year...we'll see.
 
Picked up some free 2 gallon pots from the local home despot, just had to dispose of the dead plants in them. You get funny looks when you walk up and ask the counter girl how much for the dead plants...I have a bit of a reputation now I think. Broken bags of dirt, dead plants, hoses with the ends run over by forklifts...I'm "that guy who buys the dead plants" now. Next thing I know they'll be asking if I want to buy the concrete planters with cracks in them. (nope, crush 'em into gravel and I'll give you a dollar though...)

 

[WolframMalukker]

Got the OK from the boss to bring some plants in for work. Will probably do some of that this week, put in some of my tomato clones and extra peppers in barrels. We'll see.
 
First peppers of the year came in, almost a pint of sliced jalapenos. They're brining in a moderately sweet pickle right now, I had some at a local Mexican restaurant and got hooked. They gave me the pickle recipe, so we'll see if it works out as nice as they are at the place.
 
Next ones in will be the Fresnos, then after the fresnos the fish peppers will start coming in. I plan to keep two or three fish peppers for seed, and the rest I will harvest young and as close to solid white as I can get-I want some white paprika!
 
Looking like the golden cayenne will be rather low production value this year, but I hope to do some fun crosses with it-does anyone know if that bright yellow color is going to be a dominant trait?