Hot pepper no-till grow in a 5x5 tent

Northwood said:

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.

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Nice, I grew peppers in my tent this past summer and picked the early buds off. I greatly underestimated how much bigger they would get, it's not like weed where they set their flowers and then mostly stop growing vertically. If I did it again in a small space I'd just leave them on.

Things are starting to look more lush in the tent. All plants have flowers or buds now, and the Piccante de Cayenna has pods all over the place. Here they are:





And look at these pods on the Piccante de Cayenna! I haven't had a single flower drop off before fruiting on any plant yet. I'm not sure why because when I transplant them outdoors in the spring, their first flush of flowers all mostly drop off first. Maybe the nice indoor environment?


This was the most stubborn to start flowering - the topped Red Caribbean Habanero monsters. It's finally started!

Things are getting crowded as the tent fills up. I plan on chopping 3 of the plants once lights are on this evening. 2 of those are the mislabelled seeds I bought from Atlantic Pepper Seeds, as well as the Santaka because I don't like the way it grows/fruits. I'll be replacing these with what I hope to be a couple of Reapers, but just in case I ordered some dried Carolina Reaper pods in case these new seeds aren't Reapers either.



I'm really impressed with the piccante de cayenna peppers. The plant has hundreds of pods, but nothing ripening yet so far. The photo below is just me lifting the foliage of one corner of the plant that's growing over the edge of the pot:


The Caribbean Habaneros are finally growing little pods. Their flowers seem to take forever to set fruit. Only a couple of flowers have dropped, the rest are setting so I'm happy with that. Sadly my Ghost peppers are not setting pods. There are dozens if not over a hundred flowers, but oddly the Ghosts are the only peppers dropping their flowers and not forming any pods. I'm not sure why. They're all growing in the same pot, under the same conditions, etc. The only thing I can think of is that Ghosts perhaps want a higher humidity being from tropical India. I have forced air natural gas heating and it's below freezing outside now most of the time, so getting the humidity up is difficult this time of year. I'm doing good if I can get it above 35%.

I have Ghost pods! My very first super-hots I've ever grown. I'm as excited as a little kid at Christmas. Lol
I was pretty worried because of the crazy flower drop, but now they're starting to form all over the place. I noticed the first ones just a few days ago. This is the biggest one so far:


It looks terrifying even though it's still growing and far from turning red yet. These are going to be insanely hot, likely over a million units on the Scoville scale. I can't wait until I have enough red ones to ferment a deadly sauce.

I'm getting my first ripening Cayennes. These should make a great wing sauce since Piccante de Cayenna cultivars are only about 70,000 on the Scoville scale at most. For reference to all this, ripe jalapeno pods crank in at about 5,000 units on average. The plant is getting quite large, but not out of control yet. I likely won't keep it around forever as I'd rather concentrate on the more exotic super-hot Capsicum chinense species. Here's part of the plant with a couple ripe ones:

There are a crazy number of pods on this plant now, certainly way over 100. The plant has trouble supporting all the weight. If I was to grow a tent full of these, I'd probably try a scrog from what I know now.

The Caribbean Habaneros are out of control, especially the one near the tent door. It's getting too tall. Once I get a couple flushes of peppers from it, I'll likely cut it back to a stump and see what happens. Here's what the peppers look like so far:

This particular habanero cultivar is really hot, but not sure if I'd consider it a superhot since it will likely register maybe 400,000 Scoville units. But I'm probably splitting hairs here. They look innocent, but I certainly wouldn't eat a fresh one just like that. Lol

I bought some Carolina Reaper seeds from an Amazon seller, and after removing those offensive Atlantic Pepper Seeds Company plants I'm beginning to think these aren't the real deal either just by looking at the leaves. I'll let them go thought until they put out their first fruits, but in the meantime I'm sourcing more seeds. I bought some dried Reapers from this Canadian company, and dug the seeds out of them. These are definitely Reaper pods in look and the fact that they can't entirely dry out because they were so oily. All the peppers have nice stingers. I'm just hoping they weren't irradiated or something that would kill the seeds, but I'm planting some tonight. When I first opened the vacuumed sealed bag of course I stuck my nose in it. Bad mistake. It was like getting hit by nerve gas. I got them from this site: http://ghostpowder.ca

I also ordered these seeds from a company I was told tested everything (according to Reddit users) and the posts showing grows from their seeds look very impressive. I bought the following seeds:


So the plan is to start these as soon as the seeds arrive and move outdoors next late spring. I might also use some to replace the non-superhots I have in my indoor grow now. We shall see. I thought growing weed was addictive, but now I realize this could be even more addictive. Now I need a bigger tent! Lol

Christmas harvest and the first harvest ever for me indoors! I got 22 cayenne peppers and 7 super chilli hybrids. I'll likely leave most of them out for a day or two to get a bit more ripe before sticking them into a freezer bag. The plan is once I have enough of them and the super-hots start getting harvested, it will be fermented hot sauce making time. I have a lot of time until then because only a few of my ghosts and red caribbeans have just reached mature size now. And they take at least another full month before ripening from the time they're full size. This is truly an exercise in patience.

Looks painful

But in a good way

Autodoctor said:

Looks painful

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Naw... not the cayenne anyway. They might be as high as 60,000 units on the Scoville scale. I can eat those raw to the stem without getting even a tear in my eye. I have built up a bit of tolerance over the years. The little "Super Chilli Hybrids" are considerably hotter registering up to about 100,000 units. I tried eating one, and yup... they were pretty hot for me!

Now the Ghost peppers especially are on an entirely different level, with up to over 1,250,000 Scoville units. I wouldn't eat one raw. It wouldn't be just painful, it would mean I might be calling the hospital! Lol

Northwood said:

Naw... not the cayenne anyway. They might be as high as 60,000 units on the Scoville scale. I can eat those raw to the stem without getting even a tear in my eye. I have built up a bit of tolerance over the years. The little "Super Chilli Hybrids" are considerably hotter registering up to about 100,000 units. I tried eating one, and yup... they were pretty hot for me!

Now the Ghost peppers especially are on an entirely different level, with up to over 1,250,000 Scoville units. I wouldn't eat one raw. It wouldn't be just painful, it would mean I might be calling the hospital! Lol

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Nice indoor garden you have there.
Word of caution with the super hots and making fermented sauces. Use good ventilation.
I made a batch with Caribbean Red habaneros over the summer and just about tear gassed my whole family after pureeing the mix after fermenting and cooking. It wasn’t bad when I opened the food processor but I aerosolized it when cleaning the food processor bowl under running water. Wife was not happy. Sauce turned out good though, I put that shit on everything LOL.
Those aren’t even really super hot at -400,000 compared to those ghost and reapers you’re running, but they are awfully damn hot nonetheless

C. Nesbitt said:

Nice indoor garden you have there.
Word of caution with the super hots and making fermented sauces. Use good ventilation.
I made a batch with Caribbean Red habaneros over the summer and just about tear gassed my whole family after pureeing the mix after fermenting and cooking. It wasn’t bad when I opened the food processor but I aerosolized it when cleaning the food processor bowl under running water. Wife was not happy. Sauce turned out good though, I put that shit on everything LOL.
Those aren’t even really super hot at -400,000 compared to those ghost and reapers you’re running, but they are awfully damn hot nonetheless

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Agree! Capsaicin seems to be somewhat volatile. When I recieved my order of dried reapers, of course the first thing I did was stick my nose inside the pouch and took a good whiff. In retrospect, that was a really dumb thing for me to do. I thought during the first second "these smell nice!", and then 2 seconds later it started hit me. I was blowing my nose into tissue, and had a weird sensation in my lungs for about an hour or two. I too recommend caution. Lol

Northwood said:

Naw... not the cayenne anyway. They might be as high as 60,000 units on the Scoville scale. I can eat those raw to the stem without getting even a tear in my eye. I have built up a bit of tolerance over the years. The little "Super Chilli Hybrids" are considerably hotter registering up to about 100,000 units. I tried eating one, and yup... they were pretty hot for me!

Now the Ghost peppers especially are on an entirely different level, with up to over 1,250,000 Scoville units. I wouldn't eat one raw. It wouldn't be just painful, it would mean I might be calling the hospital! Lol

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I love hot food until the next day

Autodoctor said:

I love hot food until the next day

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Oddly I don't get affected much that way, but my wife on the other hand has some issues with the next day thing sometimes. The funny thing is that going way back my family tree is Scottish, and my wife is originally a South-East Asian immigrant. I make a bit of fun with her when she makes "noise" in the bathroom, but although she's not good with peppers on the next day, she's really used to my teasing her after all these years

I haven’t made it past jalapeño yet. Love growing those here in Texas

The Caribbean Reds are totally out of control. I'm delaying cutting them back because they have hundreds of pods forming on them.



The Ghost peppers are really starting to produce now. The full grown ones should be ripe before February maybe. I'm trying to be patient.

Nice job on the Peppers. I'm interested in your soil mix and feeding routine. I'm going to be starting mine indoors in around March from seeds I harvested last year. My red habanero crop didn't turn out as well as I wanted so looking for some tips you may have picked up over the last few months.

Dorian2 said:

Nice job on the Peppers. I'm interested in your soil mix and feeding routine. I'm going to be starting mine indoors in around March from seeds I harvested last year. My red habanero crop didn't turn out as well as I wanted so looking for some tips you may have picked up over the last few months.

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I don't have a feeding routine because I don't technically bother to feed my plants. Lol So nothing much to say there. For the soil mix, it's base is Promix Organic Herb & Vegetable, with added alfalfa pellets, some calcium bentonite (to increase caption exchange capacity), some azomite (just for the worm grit), homemade worm castings (with worms!), and a bit of organic hen manure pellets. That was a few years ago now though, because I've just been reusing the same soil without disturbing it.

Edit: About the red habaneros. C. chinense are a bit more picky when it comes to environment and growing conditions - way more picky than cannabis. They need a lot of time to produce, and I've tried them outdoors from indoor starts here in Eastern Ontario, and never got a ripe pod. Our summer just isn't long enough here before the cold weather comes. Start them earlier if necessary so that they're big enough to just start to flower. Those guys need at least a full month just to ripen a pod from the time it reaches full size. That's like half our hot summer right there. Lol

That's why I'm growing these indoors. Thai chillies, bell peppers, jalapenos, etc. of C. annuum species all do very well in summer here outside. Anything of C. chinense species do not do well outside here.

Thanks for the response. And the "sorta soil recipe". Reason I asked about the medium is I did a quick and dirty mix in the wrong type/size of pot that contributed greatly to my lack of pepper success this time around. It got sludgy because I was in a rush to plant and didn't pay close enough attention to the soil. It also didn't help that the peppers were bought at Superstore end of May and were but wee little seedlings in Pepper terms when I potted them. I've grown Scotch Bonnets with quite a bit of success previously so I was kinda disappointed with the red habs.

Dorian2 said:

Thanks for the response. And the "sorta soil recipe". Reason I asked about the medium is I did a quick and dirty mix in the wrong type/size of pot that contributed greatly to my lack of pepper success this time around. It got sludgy because I was in a rush to plant and didn't pay close enough attention to the soil. It also didn't help that the peppers were bought at Superstore end of May and were but wee little seedlings in Pepper terms when I potted them. I've grown Scotch Bonnets with quite a bit of success previously so I was kinda disappointed with the red habs.

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I grow habaneros outside most years and find regardless of how early or late I get them started, they don’t really hit their stride until late July or early August outdoors. They really go nuts when it gets hot and love sun. They don’t seem to like heavy/wet soil and really can take some abuse with under watering. I had pretty good luck with them last year in new planter filled with a bulk 50/50 topsoil/compost mix from a local landscape supply. Top dressed with grass clippings and fed every two weeks with Botanicare CNS17. Had a pretty good year with them.
Live near Detroit. Not sure where you’re at.

Sorry about the lack of proportions. It was more of an ad hoc thing, but there's way more detail here, both in the initial mix and and my grow method that involves "water only": https://www.rollitup.org/t/one-pink...le-7-in-4-foot-diameter-pot-5x5-tent.1028655/

Basically I'm just doing the same method, this time with peppers instead of cannabis.

No worries about the porprtions. Thanks for the lead!