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WulfGrow 2019 - AKA, I get knocked down, but I get up again.

"When I first grew here, this was all Canada.  Everyone said I was daft to grow Peppers in Canada, but I grew in all the same, just to show them.  They got eaten by aphids.  So I grew a second year.  And those ones got eaten by aphids.  So I grew a third.  Those dried out, fell over, and then got eaten by aphids.  But the fourth grow...."

Am I on my fourth grow?  Fifth?  Eleventy-seventh?  Who can even tell anymore.  The important thing is that this damnable bastard country shall succumb to my whims and provide me with peppers if it's the last damned thing I do.   (Fast forward to shot of my gravestone: "He died pepperless")

Each year I grow, and each year I get a tiny handful of peppers before winter closes in.  I bring them in, and aphids run rampant.  I poison the aphids, the plants die.  I water their withered corpses with my tears to salt their earth as a final act of retribution for failing me.

I took last year off to give the elements a false sense of victory, but neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this grower from the swift repetition of his failed methods.

The victims of my dream for this year, already moistening:

https://ibb.co/Bj5ZLP3

10x Trinidad Scorpions (The last seeds harvested from my first grow)
10x Jalapeno
11x Chocolate Habs
10x Scotch Bonnet

I've also ordered the following from Pepper Joe's:

10x Black Jalapeno Seeds
10x Ghost Pepper Seeds
10x Carolina Reaper Seeds
10x Butch "T" Trinidad Scorpion Seeds
10x Peter Pepper Seeds

I'm not sure how much of the ordered batch I'll get around to doing anything with this year, but I'd like to dream about possibly being ambitious enough to maybe want to do them all.  At the least I want the Reapers and the Peters in, but I'll post back with whatever I end up doing.

I've got a decent grow light that I'll be setting up for whenever these little bastards start turning green, and I think this year I might even show mercy on them and point a fan at them as they grow.

Tune in next time for another exciting episode of "The Idiot That Dreamed of Peppers".
 
The main thing is to start them early, for the last two years winter has started October 1, not enough time for most peppers to mature, so starting seeds this month and by using Kratky methode they grow fast and can be transplanted out side once the temps are good. Aphids are a common enemy here also wiping out my whole crop, im in the process of dunking them in a bucket of soapy water to help them survive till the next year.
Good luck !
 
 
Welcome back Wulf, I recall your previous battles. Best of luck to you this time around. 
 
You just made me go back and read the topic to refresh my memory on what i'd posted here.
 
Those were dark times... Dark times indeed.
 
But this time I've got a secret weapon that they won't be anticipating.
 
For, you see, no aphid can stand against my fully armed and operational BOUNDLESS OPTIMISM.
 
cbs.jpg

 
 
 
 
dragonsfire said:
The main thing is to start them early, for the last two years winter has started October 1, not enough time for most peppers to mature, so starting seeds this month and by using Kratky methode they grow fast and can be transplanted out side once the temps are good. Aphids are a common enemy here also wiping out my whole crop, im in the process of dunking them in a bucket of soapy water to help them survive till the next year.
Good luck !
 
 

The Kratky method seems like the sort of thing that's way better when you know what you're doing, but probably ends up with an angry wife and a tank full of toxic sludge on your first few attempts.
 
I'll file it away as a future maybe.
 
For what it's worth in your own battle, I've found that poisons are far more effective against the plants than they are against the bugs.   I'll have to give soapy water a better shot next time it becomes relevant.
 
Do you have a spot indoors where you can permanently grow a few of your favorites? Seems like it'd be a nice consolation prize when the Great White North inevitably reminds you just how bitter it is. It'd have to be pretty far away from wherever you plan on overwintering your outdoor plants to deny the aphids a total victory, but perhaps it's something to consider.
 
I used to grow in my basement but it's not really ideal down there.  Too dank.  I left some scissors down there over the summer and they're coated in rust now.
 
I have a storage closet upstairs (really more of a hallway that goes nowhere, weird room) that I'm planning on using in the meantime but it's not really set up for this.  I'll see if I can re-arrange things a bit in there to make it more suitable for long-term use, but it's so narrow that I'm not really sure I can do many full-grown plants justice with it.
 
Wow, that's some serious dank.
 
Hopefully the closet works out. Having even two or three fallback indoor plants seems like a good way to at least keep you in fresh pods.
 
Dec 12 - Moisten date - https://ibb.co/Bj5ZLP3

Dec 15 - https://ibb.co/3fT4nk4

Dec 16 - https://ibb.co/Y0h3Jtr
 
Spoiler Alert - They're still goddamn seeds.
 
In both pictures.
 
Seriously.
 
Why did you even click the links above?
 
Did you expect to see anything more than slightly dampened seeds?
 
What kind of unrealistic expectations do you have for me?  Nay, I am but a man, not some sort of Johnny Pepperseed wandering the countryside who discovered fabulous secret powers the day I held aloft my magic seeds and screamed "By the power of flameskull!"
 
I don't know if I can live up to this pressure you're putting on me.
 
I mean, fine, I'll continue checking them EVERY GODDAMN HOUR if you guys insist, but nothing's gonna happen to them.
 
They're seeds.
 
Accept it.
 
Germinating pepper seeds is an exercise in patience, Wulf  ;)
 
The only way I can get them to germinate is to stop looking at them  :rofl:
 
Anytime I start feeling cocky as a pepper grower, I just check
out some of those same grow logs!
 
PaulG said:
Anytime I start feeling cocky as a pepper grower, I just check
out some of those same grow logs!
 
 
 
 
 
SomeFarminGuy said:
Welp, I saw that Venus was in Retrograde and knew that would be shifting the solar energy from the sun 13 nanometers off from the ideal.  So I did what my dear old pappy taught me and created a fertilizer mix of 63% alpaca feces, 35% guano, and 2% hand-milked bull semen to make up the difference.  It was still a smaller harvest than I'm used to as I was only able to fill up one semi-trailer full of peppers, and each pepper was barely the size of a baby's head.
 
 
Wulf said:
I put the thingies in the dirt and then i put in the water.  The thingies didn't make more thingies.  I was under the impression they would.  But they didn't.  I'm sad and sleepy now.
 
Absolutely nothing to report.  2 more days of non-green seeds.
 
Dec 12 - https://ibb.co/Bj5ZLP3 - Moisten date
Dec 15 - https://ibb.co/3fT4nk4
Dec 16 - https://ibb.co/Y0h3Jtr
Dec 17 - https://ibb.co/FwXhPh1
Dec 18 - https://ibb.co/Kw2nS4x
 
I don't even know why I'm taking pictures.  Let's claim that it's for comparison at a later date when I want to look back and analyze my seed to dead stick trajectory.
 
Despite there being absolutely no difference, it mildly bothers me that I don't have seed pics for the 13th and 14th.  My seed pic collection is incomplete, the uniqueness of those days forever lost to the sands of time.
 
Future historians will debate endlessly over this gap in the historical archives.  Some will claim destruction on religious grounds, the images purged due to a disagreement over heliocentricity.  Others will claim that the images were recovered, but the information was buried by the Illuminati in an attempt to dismiss the anthropological theory of Lunagenesis.
 
Others will claim that maybe I just didn't take pictures that day, but they will be laughed out of the historical circles as crackpots.
 
Wulf, mebbe you do like I did and discover overwintering as more than a tactic to attract insects and prolong the inevitable. I am 222 miles south of Winnipeg, in the clutches of the shortest grow season of these United States. My first 2 overwinters were Bacaatum, and still are. I have since added a Large Orange Thai and a dozen varied and sundry Pubescens. Aphids never made an appearance in year one, but the farmer across the road grew soybeans this last season, so yes, I had aphids. But they treated easily and never returned. This is, I have to admit, the only best way to actually harvest a crop after an entire summer of hard, obsessive work and have fewer germination headaches.
 
...There's also the benefit of developing the reputation as the Local Pepper Kook, as opposed to the Fool Who Repeats Every Season Expecting a Different Result.....
 
 
I won't mention that your mileage may vary, it seems an axiom of this, uh...hobby adventure-obsession---endeavor. Ooops....
 
I don't suppose that a smidgeon of luck would hurt either, so I wish you some.....
 
I always try the overwintering thing and the little bastards prove more resilient than the plants to whatever treatments I try.
 
I'm thinking "gas and a match" might be a more rewarding aphid treatment next time.
 
Wulf said:
I always try the overwintering thing and the little bastards prove more resilient than the plants to whatever treatments I try.
 
I'm thinking "gas and a match" might be a more rewarding aphid treatment next time.
 
No. Not gas. Kerosene, you want kerosene.
 
Might as well stop bitching about the thistles too, right?
 
Been sick.  Been busy.  Christmas.
 
Ugh.
 
No plethora of humourous commentary this time.
 
But more importantly, I did include a bunch of pointless seed pics.
 
This time with actual CHANGES!
 
Dec 12 - https://ibb.co/Bj5ZLP3 - Moisten date
Dec 15 - https://ibb.co/3fT4nk4
Dec 16 - https://ibb.co/Y0h3Jtr
Dec 17 - https://ibb.co/FwXhPh1
Dec 18 - https://ibb.co/Kw2nS4x

Dec 19 - https://ibb.co/SKbn9BV
Dec 20 - https://ibb.co/JkwRFNK
Dec 21 - https://ibb.co/RN1H5v6 - Scotch Bonnet makes first break for freedom
Dec 22 - https://ibb.co/3c22Jdq
Dec 23 - https://ibb.co/5YbtyHc
Dec 24 - https://ibb.co/3NDLSRQ
Dec 25 - https://ibb.co/yBPtg6z
Dec 26 - https://ibb.co/xXJzD5S
 
Tonight I'll separate the Scotch Bonnet into a cup.
 
He deserves it.
 
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