Hot pepper no-till grow in a 5x5 tent

[Northwood]

I think I've reached the point where I need to switch things up a bit to prevent boredom. Plus I have enough bud and hash from my previous grows to last me a few lifetimes over, so I'm moving on to something new for awhile: hot peppers! One can never have too many hot peppers, plus I thought it might end up being a challenge compared to our quick and easy cannabis. I'll have 11 varieties once I have everything planted, but I started today with 5 so far. I'm on a pheno hunt, which is why I planted so many seeds but plan to offer the extras to friends while keeping the single best of each cultivar.

Today I planted caribbean (red) habanero, ghost (bhut jolokia), super chili hybrids, santaka, and piccante de cayenna (a hotter cayenne type). Next to plant tomorrow are carolina reapers, siling labuyo (Philippine wild pepper), hijo puta madre, trinidad scorpion (moruga satan strain), thai bird's eye, and a super hot named CGN 22155 which is a newer C. chinense cultivar bred for fermenting that likely needs a better name.

Peppers take a long time to germinate compared to cannabis (weeks instead of a couple days) so I'll be updating this journal next when I see some sprouting happening. I plan on a 16/8 light cycle, but otherwise I'll keep everything else the same as if I were growing weed. Feel free to ask questions or comment as things develop. Considering some of these super-hot cultivars can take over 150 days to yield their first fruits, it will be a long process.

 

[Tracker]

Ooooohhh...I'm watching this one!

 

[PJ Diaz]

Spicy!

 

[DoobieDoobs]

peppers do take a while, I planted some serrano and jalapeño peppers a few months back, and they needed like 2 weeks to start sprouting.I thought the seeds were no good at first, but then they all came out and I had to select the best ones.

 

[Rurumo]

Some pepper seeds I've almost given up on, but then all the sudden they all sprouted at the same time 3 weeks later. I love them, those red habaneros are my favorite, reminds me of Belize and Marie Sharps. Good luck with your grow, should be awesome!

 

[ISK]

I tried to grow hot peppers in my living room with sunshine.

They were doing great, formed little flowers but nothing happened after that...they didn't produce any fruits/peppers

So not sure why they didn't produce...I might have to try again another time

 

[Northwood]

I tried to grow hot peppers in my living room with sunshine.

They were doing great, formed little flowers but nothing happened after that...they didn't produce any fruits/peppers

So not sure why they didn't produce...I might have to try again another time

It's possible they didn't pollinate. You don't necessarily need bees because peppers have "perfect" flowers with both male and female parts, but they do need either some wind or to be shaken a bit for the pollen to be released.

 

[ISK]

It's possible they didn't pollinate. You don't necessarily need bees because peppers have "perfect" flowers with both male and female parts, but they do need either some wind or to be shaken a bit for the pollen to be released.

maybe that's was it as they won't get a whole lot of wind....I'll keep that in mind for next year

 

[Northwood]

Things are going as slow as expected. I ended up planting the sili, Carolina reapers, and Trinidad scorpions about 8 days from my original post, so I'm still holding out hope that some reapers germinate. I have one scorpion at least. The ghost peppers are still coming up that I originally planted above, so those reapers could take another week or two.

Here they are today:


I'm probably giving all (or nearly all) of the super chili hybrids, santaka, and piccante de cayenna away because I'd rather dedicate the room to the super-hots, particularly the C. chinense and hybrids. I planted lettuce in that tray in the back today. Considering this is going to be a slow process, I'd like to grow something quick that can temporarily take up the vacant space until the pepper plants get bigger.

All the Habaneros popped up nicely. I'm not entirely sure they're Caribbean Habaneros because the peppers themselves came from the store where they were advertised as Carolina Reapers. Yet they didn't have any stingers. Most on r/Peppers think that my "reaper" was a Caribbean Habanero, so I'll call them that. They're hot AF though for habaneros, so I saved those seeds which is what I sprouted here.

 

[WintersBones]

cool experiment. I'm thinking I might try something similar myself this winter. Right now I've got some hot peppers, scotch bonnet, trinidad scorpion and habanero, struggling to finish outside in pots, thinking I might throw them into my spare tent and see if they ripen. Then maybe I'll try a fresh run if that works out.
Good luck!

 

[Severed Tongue]

Nice!
I got a California pepper for 10 cents at the local farmers market last year, and planted its seeds. Did it indoor along side my 1st group of 4 cannabis seeds. It produced 18 plants from just one little red pepper.

I kept one, here it is at 1 year old
That's a 5 gallon fabric pot
It's 4.5 ft tall

 

[horribleherk]

This is good stuff I've grown some of the varieties you have I'm wanting birds eye but cant find seeds the super chili is one of my favorites one pepper you might want to consider is the tabasco heirloom pepper available from baker creek seeds it's one of my favorites this is a nice switch up from weed grows I like seeing this

 

[simpleleaf]

Interesting! Subscribed.

I'm lucky to live near an excellent grocer with a largely Hispanic clientele and they have plenty of different fresh and dried peppers available for purchase, though I don't think any of the varieties are the same as what you're growing, except for habanero.

 

[horribleherk]

I'm drying out hatch & black thai chilis to get seeds for next year the black thai came from a local vietnamese family & are next to impossible to find outside of the asian community the hatch seeds that these came from were bought from baker creek

 

[ISK]

Nice!
I got a California pepper for 10 cents at the local farmers market last year, and planted its seeds. Did it indoor along side my 1st group of 4 cannabis seeds. It produced 18 plants from just one little red pepper.

I kept one, here it is at 1 year old
That's a 5 gallon fabric pot
It's 4.5 ft tall

what light schedule are you keeping your pepper plant at? (12/12 or 18/6)

 

[Northwood]

what light schedule are you keeping your pepper plant at? (12/12 or 18/6)

They are on a 16/8 schedule, but my lights are way turned down in there right now. The 5X5 is lighted with about 400 watts of dimmed LM301H diodes. I can go well above 1,000 watts if later they could take it. Thank goodness for dimmers. Lol

I'm still experimenting with how much light they can take. I gave them too much earlier so turned it back to about 300 watts for a time and gradually increased it each day. Lights are about 20" above the plant tops. Is that all normal? Lol

 

[Northwood]

I apologize for the lack of updates, but late summer to fall is a busy time around here with outdoor food harvesting and processing. So anyway, here's the peppers today:



So starting with the one closest at the bottom of the photo and moving clockwise we have:

1. Red Caribbean Habanero - From fruits I bought at an Asian veggie store. Huge crinkly leaves, recently topped.
2. Piccante de Cayenna - From Vessey's Seeds. Already flowering prolifically - had to do a little LST.
3. Ghost/Bhut Jolokia - From fruits I bought at Loblaws. Just recently started to develop signs of flowering.
4. Super Chili Hybrid - From Vessey's Seeds. Flowering prolifically now.
5. Another Red Caribbean Habanero - Same as #1, also topped.
6. Trinidad Scorpion, Moruga Satan Strain - From Atlantic Pepper Seeds. Well this is a huge disappointment. Not only is this not the right cultivar, but it's not even the correct species!
7. Santaka - From Vessey's Seeds. Just starting to show signs of first flowers.
8. Siling Labuyo - Also from Atlantic Seed company and another huge disappointment. Again this is likely not even the right species, let alone cultivar. Labuyo are supposed to be Capsicum frutescens. Obviously the only way to get this cultivar is to either travel to the Philippines or have a friend there find some wild ones and mail the seeds to me.
9. Another Ghost pepper - Middle of pot. Same as #3, also beginning to flower.

I was disappointed with the Atlantic Pepper Seeds company. I really had my heart set on growing the Carolina Reapers, but not a single one germinated. The other two cultivars that did germinate turned out to be mystery plants and not what I ordered. I do not recommend this seed company.

So mostly I'm just winging it here because I admittedly have no idea what I'm doing. I've turned up the power on the 4 lights and they're now using about 500 watts. Lights are still about 20" from the tops of the plants. I manually top water a bit every 5 days or so. No nutes as usual, except for the hay mulch.

The lettuce I recently planted don't seem to enjoy the light intensity and are growing kinda flat. Hopefully they grow out of it. I have two garlic plants that managed to sprout through 3" of hay mulch and are now doing very well, so yesterday I planted a whole handful of garlic cloves here and there.

 

[weedstoner420]

Are you picking off the early buds or just letting them do their thing?

 

[Northwood]

Are you picking off the early buds or just letting them do their thing?

I'm too lazy, and I'll probably end up damaging the plants with my clumsy fingers. Usually the plants will drop their first set of flowers before setting pods anyway, but who knows. I might get a couple early ripe ones to try out before deciding whether to keep growing it or replace the plant.

 

[Northwood]

Here's a closeup on how far along the ghost pepper flowers are. I just noticed them a couple days ago and was pretty surprised to see them this early.