May 14th 2016

So it's been a pretty unremarkable season so far - most things have germinated well and grown on without too much drama.

I've lost a couple of plants, given loads away and I've just finished potting the last few plants on into their final pots. For some reason it feels like I'm behind where I normally am for mid-May, but in other ways it feels ahead. I think it's time to go back and check some old photos to see where I was at the same stage in previous years.

The greenhouse is slowly filling up - tomato plants are growing on nicely, two bamboos that I grew from seed last year are filling out nicely, and a whole selection of odds and ends are coming back to life. Although I'm not so sure about the dahlias this year, most of them look pretty dead with signs of life only visible on one plant so far. Well, time will tell.

So a few views on the greenhouse. Nothing remarkable yet, but plenty of growing time to come. 

2016 Progress

This year I have started just a few days earlier than usual, but apart from that it's business as usual.

Seeds were soaked for 24 hours and then into Rootriot cubes on the 21st Dec, with the lights on at night and the heated propagator on for 30 mins of every 45. Two seeds per cube gives me six chances of 16 varieties for 96 possibles. Enough chances for two of each for me and plenty to give away.

First to germinate was one seedling of Fidalgo Roxa on Christmas Day and then it's been a case of seeing up to ten a day for a little while. Now on New Year's Day I can safely say I've got at least one of everything up. I don't think that's ever happened before.

Roll on spring.

2015

So last year was hard work. Great weather in April, some greenfly in May and then poor weather when we needed it most.

Resulting in a poor year and a poor harvest.

A few things did better though - the 7 pot gave a good harvest of bright yellow pods and the Rocotto Aji Largo plants were superb with a massive crop of hot red pods. The Goronong did better than when I grew it last time, and everything else was fairly unimpressive.

Enough pods to dry for a few gifts and that was that.

2016 will need to be a lot better.

54 and counting

A few more days and a lot more seedlings.

Currently there are 54 up and more subsurface hoops visible. So far the only no shows and no hoops are the Neon Habanero, the Fatalii and the Goronong - the Rocotto's not up yet but there are definite hoops to be seen, so I'm far from worried.

Here's to the next week or so.

Another Year

2014 whizzed by for a number of reasons and although the chilli crop was good it wasn't great. Too many reasons to go into, but hopefully 2015 will be better and I might get a little more blogging time. Maybe.

So 2015. The only plant I decided to overwinter was the Giant Rocotto, my 2013 plants were disappointing in 2014 so I decided to limit myself to one plant that was interesting but not highly productive in the hope of a better second year, we shall see what comes of it.

This season has followed my standard germination process - seeds from semillas.de soak for 24 hours, plant in rootriot cubes on 23/12/14 (thanks to my little helpers) in the heated propagator (pulse  heating only) and lighting for 10 hours overnight per day. The only difference is that I've put two seeds per cube not one. I double planted like this for some mystery seeds last year and they turned out fine (provided you cut the cube in two at an early stage) so in the interests of getting at least two of each variety up and still having plenty to give away this is the plan. However this means I could have close to a hundred seedlings soon... and space could get quite challenging. But, as they say, that would be a nice problem to have.

So the news.

4 days in and there were signs of subsurface hoops.

5 days in and there were 5 germinations. (The hoop has to break the plane of the rootriot cube for me to count it)

6 days in and there are over 25 germinations. Hopefully it's going to be a bumper year.

One of my little helpers checking on the germination to date

My germination sheet - this is the easiest way to keep track of what came up when

What's up Doc?

So a little progress to report, in fact quite a lot, in fact probably the best germination I've ever had. Pulsing the heat to the propagator has kept the temperature at a better level, and by swapping the trays from inside to out, all the seeds have had a bit of heat and the germination levels are very high. And two of the rows which were initially in the warmest spot have had 100% germination in less than 10 days - I've never had that level of success before.

So far it's as follows:

Pinzón 0/3
Jellybean 3/3
Purple Habanero 2/3
JAFSH 2/3
Peruvian Golden - PI 238052 3/3
Beni Market - PI 543205 3/3
Cumari 2/3
Aji Cochabamba 2/3
Pimenta da Neyde 3/3
Aribibbi Gusano 2/3
Scarlet Lantern 2/3
Giant Rocoto 0/3 (two subsurface hoops visible)
Trinidad Perfume 1/3
Bunte Mischung (x6) 6/6
Gumdrop (x5) 0/5 (old seed)
CGN 21500 0/3 (old seed)

Looks like I will have a surplus of plants this year... I just hope the four no-show varieties make an appearance in the coming weeks.

A little action

16 seedlings have now popped up. Mostly concentrated in the right-middle area of the propagator.

I shall see what happens in the next few days, but it might be time to swap the trays over to spread the heat around a bit.

This is considerably better than where I was in the previous two years. 2012 and I has 12 up and 2013 it took two weeks to get to this point. Hopefully this means that the new heating process is better - the internal thermostat is in the mid 20s when the light is off, and showing 90% humidity most of the time. The seedlings that are up seem to be loving it.

It looks like my target of 90% germination for this year could be very achievable.