Yaargh!'s first steps. New here and to growing peppers

Alright, I'll take your $.02. I've read quite a few posts that have stated more or less the same. Still, I've looked around and have not seen any sort of controlled studies that state a pepper plant will not benefit from different sources of nutrients/minerals, etc. I'd love to read some. If anyone does know of any scholarly articles, or recorded testing from from places like New Mexico State University who may have or have not made related tests it would probably be beneficial to all.

It's when I think about pre-European Japan and then the generation that grew up with western sources of dairy and beef in their diet resulted in sudden rise in the average height of that newer generation compared to the previous one.
 
Here's the latest as of today. The hab in soil is doing alright and the bhut is coming along slowly. I went ahead and ordered some 3gal nursery pots to transplant them into when the time comes.
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And the roots. I'll have to start another tote, probably smaller in size for the two smaller plants as they are getting light blocked by the bushy jalapeño and tall cayenne. The serrano is managing fine. Today is a water/nutrient change and I'll be switching them from the grow to bloom nutrient.
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I've decided to go ahead and germinate a beefsteak tomato and a tomatillo. I'm using rockwool starters and will grow them in 5gal buckets the hydroponic way. While finding no luck in bugging my local food stores for 3/5gal buckets I found a $3 deal at Lowe's. Other than that, I have onion, garlic and the necessary herbs in the process of germination to complete most salsa recipes's.
 
I have a DWC bubbler set up that I am hoping to try out for the first time. Just seeing your results gets me all warm and fuzzy inside.
 
crazy8 said:
I have a DWC bubbler set up that I am hoping to try out for the first time. Just seeing your results gets me all warm and fuzzy inside.
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Being new here and to hydroponics I certainly didn't plan on bringing anything new or to motivate anyone. Now you're just elevating my ego. But cool, it's appreciated. I put them in the tote back on March 29th and now I have flowers starting to open. I wonder if I am ahead of schedule compared to soil? However, none of the peppers in the tote are super-hots. If there's any indication, my hab is still rather short and just now producing 1 or 2 buds.

Hopefully, today I'll receive my THSC order as well as some net pot lids for my 5gal buckets. This certainly is a fun hobby. Just wish I had more room. If I did, I think I'd try my hand at aquaponics.
 
Nice looking plants Yaargh. Since you have an HPS light and are going hydro do you plan to keep them in all summer long? Just wondering, I planted all mine out yesterday and of course last night it dropped to 34 :( Looks good for the next 10 days, and we're 'supposedly' past the last frost date.
 
Straticus said:
Nice looking plants Yaargh. Since you have an HPS light and are going hydro do you plan to keep them in all summer long? Just wondering, I planted all mine out yesterday and of course last night it dropped to 34 :( Looks good for the next 10 days, and we're 'supposedly' past the last frost date.
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That's the plan. Facing the the north west and not being a "hanging" but boxed in balcony, my apartment lacks in adequate daily sunshine so they'll all be kept inside. Seeing as how I am limited on space I figure I'll continue growing a particular pepper until I get my harvest worth, retire it or give it away and start a new one.

Yesterday I started a new tote for the smaller two plants and have put the other 3 larger plants into I guess the bloom phase as I switched the nutrients. Still waiting on the lids for the 5g buckets and the seed order as I'd love to start a 7pot and TS to show off. I also snagged some clamp on socket/reflector lights for 6 bucks a pop at Kmart and some cfl's to add some supplemental light.
 
I'm wondering... I have a lot of leaves growing towards the base of the stems of my three largest plants which are starting to bud. Would it be a good idea to pinch these off? From what I've read this helps divert energy to the pods, correct?
 
Latest Photos
Set up shot
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Some buds just waiting to open up.
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The Bhut (smaller one) and the Hab have made some progress.
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Went to Valley View Farms today. Picked up a Tabasco, Trinidad Conga Chocolate, 2 Trinidad Scorpions and a Pepperoncini
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Received my THSC order today, wonderful service provided by Neil. Think I'll start some of his Fatalii and Yellow 7pots tonight.

Been losing a few flowers here and there. It's probably the temperature in the apt as the A/C output is relatively close, I may need to reposition my plants to a warmer area in the apt.

The Trinidad Scorpions I picked up at Valley View Farms are doing quite well along with my other purchases. As this is the first time I've actually attempted to grow a plant it's surprising how much faster my one tomato plant grows in contrast to the peppers. It's quite voracious in it's watering/feeding requirements as well.

Good stuff.
 
Just a few quick comments on your spider plant. You may or may not know these things but you mentioned you'd never seen it flower before. Spider plants will not flower or produce babies until they are rootbound in the pot. They like 14 hours of light per day so the lights from your pepper set up is perfect for them. It looks like the plant is in good condition so you will probably see offshoots ( babies) soon. They can be left on the plant or rooted so you have more plants.

Your peppers look good, we have one pepper in a dw bucket, first time using hydro. Need to learn more about this method of growing.
 
willard3 said:
If you want to control plant size, you can prune both the tops and roots. Since you're growing in hydro, root pruning is a doddle.

Keep the plant pruned to the size you want it, it will produce fruit.
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From Willard that is very good imo!
 
Novacastrian said:
From Willard that is very good imo!
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He's a great source of info. I've had to do some pruning on the Cayenne, it really shot up and was touching the hps bulb one morning. I haven't pruned the roots yet. I figure once they start getting tangled I'll cut them.

I have a few spider plant babies in water attempting to get them to root. As an air purifier, I'd like them in the other rooms of my apt.
 
I decided to drop the second tote and transplanted the hot cherry to soil, not sure what the other plant was but he was tossed. I picked up some 3gal nursery pots and potted up several peppers, one of which was the hydro to soil transplant. I just gently pulled the roots out of the net pot and dropped it in the pot like any other plant. The grow medium I have been using was advertised being capable of doing so.

I may decide to do the same with my three remaining hydro plants; after I get some peppers off them first of course. Hydro has being working great and effective but running two dwc systems takes up quite a bit of room and takes a bit of effort to move around. I think after I transfer my last hydro plants I will set up an ebb & flow with a detached reservoir. The Bubbler buckets I have ready to be used once my tomatillo and another pepper seedling in rockwool really start up.

I wanted to grow both a tomato and tomatillo but after some time thinking, I really prefer salsa verde over tomato based salsas. Plus, I have one beefsteak tomato growing in a peat moss based container already.

In the meantime I am waiting patiently for other seed orders and for the THSC fatalii and yellow 7pot to germinate.

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Oh man... an update on my one pepper. Good news is that the majority of my other plants have started to bud some close to flowering. I'm going to go ahead and pot the three hydro plants in some pro-mix planting mix. The hot cherry I transplanted from hydro is doing great.

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Yaargh, I saw the youtube "how to make a dwc" similar to yours and have been planning to make one(I tend to analyze things to death before actually doing something), I have all the materials and my only concern is the material that goes into the cup to hold the seedling - I don't feel like going to a hydroponic shop for rockwool or some other material......... but is that just ordinary cotton in the cups? If it is I can get started right away, guess i have to germinate some seedlings.
 
No, the white stuff is Sure To Grow (STG). It's an alternative soil-less grow medium mainly for hydro but transfers to soil without much of an issue. I choose it because I did not want to clean Hydroton but looking back I think I would rather have that now or Rockwool or a combination of both.

Edit:
The reason to want to switch is mainly cost and developing a strong root growth in the STG starter cubes. However, the STG fill items like the inserts, hail and loose fill I feel are great if you intend to transfer later to soil. Hydroton, I assume, would offer a bit of a clumsy transfer.
 
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