November

Short & dark days mean everything is quiet on the chillie front. I've mostly been following other people wrapping up their season 2013 on their blogs and doing little preliminary planning on my following season. The couple Bolivian Rainbows I saved are growing ever so slowly on the window sill without the help of any additional lighting. It's a bit funny how they are trying to flower even if the grow has practically halted. The drying project seems to have turned out nice so I'm looking for a spice mix recipe to ground them into.

Cold nights

After getting rid of the aphids it was time to move my two Bolivian Rainbows indoors to the now roomy window sill. Now a week later I realise my timing was spot on since we've had a couple of 0°C nights this week with more to come. My Prairie Fire is still producing new pods while ripening the others and Chichen Itza currently has one orange pod & the other is about to change color soon. I'll get rid of the plant as soon as it does. My second Bonchi experiment is taking it's first steps with the other stem getting nice and bushy.

Here comes the fall

Early September has been reasonably warm but the weather type has clearly made a turn for Autumn with foggy mornings and high humidity. The two Bolivian Rainbows on the balcony have been cut down and sprayed twice with Spruzit RTU to take care of the aphids before bringing the plants indoors to act as a base for my 2nd Bonchi experiment.

The other two plants from my window sill joined the Trinidad Scorpion that I threw away earlier since it never produced any pods and stopped flowering. The remaining branches with yellow & orange pods now sit in a glass of water to make them ripe. Chichen Itza managed to barely avoid the same fate by secretly growing two pods amongst the foliage so it now shares the window with the Prairie Fire.

Prairie pods

 

We've had a couple of clearly colder nights now with the temperature dropping to 7°C. I've cut all the excess branches from the plants I have on the balcony and the ones that have pods have been cut right after the last decent sized pod to hurry the ripening process.

Indoors the Prairie Fire has it's first red fruit. The plant got a little too much water when I was going away for a week and decided to give it some extra water since the week was supposed to be really hot but halfway through the week it turned to rain and high humidity. It's not affecting the pods but pretty much stopped the flowering dead on.

Pods&problems

My Bolivian Rainbow plants on the balcony have passed the midway point of producing their pods. They haven't flowered in a while and have given me a pretty nice harvest so far. The plants themselves don't look as great as they did earlier but the blame on that could be passed on to pesky aphids finding their way on to our balcony. It was a nice bug free 3-4 months but now they are becoming a real issue.

I don't plan on doing anything special about them this late in the season apart from cutting away the branches that look the worst. Trimming the bushes down was always the plan for me but I might have to check out if I have to do something to the dirt to make sure I don't bring pests indoors when the time comes.

Red Bolivian

7 days later I'm happy to showcase my first red pods that still remain unpicked as I'm waiting whether or not they still turn a bit darker tone of red. While the balcony is in full pod making mode my Prairie Fire is flowering nicely indoors. I've been doing some reading regarding easy hydroponics as trying out either a bubbler or ebb&flood system would be interesting, maybe I'll get to try building one in the future.

Prairie flowers

It's been about a week now since I told that my Prairie Fires are showing signs of recovering from the shock of being replanted and now they have opened their first delicate white flower. The weather has remained nice and sunny so I have a few more yellow pods and some orange ones on the balcony. It won't be long until I have my first fully ripe ones as long as nothing drastic happens with the weather.

Turning yellow

My two Prairie Fire plants took some time adjusting to their new shared pot and during that time all visible growth halted but now they are both branching out quite aggressively. Meanwhile a rise in temperature brought by the current heatwave has encouraged my Bolivian Rainbows to start ripening their first 5-7 pods which have now entered "the yellow stage". I might have to trim the ones growing on the windowsill a little as some of the branches are reaching over my chair.

Purple pods

Nothing too radical happening on the chillie front, just steady growth on all the plants. So far all of my plants have remained bug free. I think it's largely due to the fact that I live so high up from the ground floor and perhaps I've gotten a little lucky with the other plants on the balcony as they seem to have been bug free. Last week the 4th plant started to grow its first pods so all of them are producing fruit now.

Getting fruity

Past weeks heatwave has persuaded the Chichen Itza to ripen its first and so far only pod. It's a small one falling about 6cm short of the average size of the fruits in this plant. The plant hasn't been looking well lately so getting a ripe pod still feels nice even if it is only 2cm one. On the balcony the first Bolivian Rainbow has begun to grow pods. The first plant to germinate grew the first pods too, makes sense.

Rainbows everywhere

After confirming that the 5th sprout which I gave away was Bolivian Rainbow too I sent an email to the grower asking if he knew any similar cases. He didn't and his personal batch of Bird's Eyes had turned out to be alright so I just got extremely unlucky. On Saturday the mail brought me some seeds that I chose as compensation and he had put 2 extra bags with them so it looks like I already have plants for my next season.

Purple flowers again?

The Bolivian Rainbow on the balcony seems to be doing well and I like how dark the leaves have turned due to the plant getting more sunlight. My current unresolved issue is that the 4th plant has started to turn it's flower buds purple. Something is off here since I have only planted 3 Bolivian Rainbows in the first place. So even if I had made a mistake with the name tags and gave away the wrong one only 3 plants with purple flowers should be possible. The two Prairie Fire sprouts moved in an under watering pot together and are shown on the first picture.

Making space

This is the last "group photo" of my chillies as the biggest Bolivian Rainbow and the Bird's Eye Baby moved to the balcony today. I suppose my window still wasn't that crowded judging from photos I've seen on other grow blogs but now there is plenty of space and the plants don't have to compete for light so I'm happy with the arrangement. Had some issues with overwatering again. I just don't seem to get the amount of water to give to the rock wool cubes right. As a result the Chichen Itza has been dropping leaves and I'm still a bit worried about it even though the plant does look better now than it did a couple of days ago.

Purple flowers

The first flower of my Bolivian Rainbows opened on 29th of April and was soon joined with others. I must say I quite like the appearance of the purple flowers and they stand out more than the plain white ones. The flowers on the third plant turned out to be purple too so I guess I now have 3 Bolivian Rainbows and one Bird's Eye Baby on my window still given that I donated the one sprout away.

Out of the sprouts I've grown on my own my Bolivian Rainbows are currently 47, 50 and 57cm, the Bird's Eye is 40cm and the late Prairie Fire sprouts are 10cm high.

Mislabeling

One of my Bird's Eye Baby chillies seems to be growing purple flowers which isn't charasteristic for this particular variation so now I'm waiting to get a Bolivian Rainbow with white flowers so I can change the labels to the correct pots. I should have paid more attention when replanting them but a little mix-up never harmed anyone. Chichen Itza has continued to flower strong and surprised me this week with the first pod of season 2013.

Clearing space

It's been raining quite a bit lately which means the snow is melting away nicely. Last sunday was one of the first days when it really felt like spring is coming. The plants have grown a bit longer since the last group photo was taken 2 weeks ago. I cleared some more room for them on the window still by giving away the extra sprout I had growing in a juice box. Just couldn't throw it away since it sprouted so nicely. One of the Bolivian Rainbows looks like it might be producing its first flower buds so the next update might be about that.

Winter again?

Winter has made a comeback during the past weekend. Just when it was looking that spring might finally arrive in the cold north we get 10-15cm of fresh snow. The plants have been busy branching out but could really use more of that warm spring sun we had. I may be over watering the scorpion again as it dropped one leaf.

April fools

Or a fool in this case for trying to grow too many plants on the small space reserved for them. Seeing that much snow outside on April doesn't really encourage you to move the plants on the balcony anytime soon. Chichen Itza keeps flowering strong with no pods yet, Trinidad Scorpion has started to spread out and has a few more flowers. Both Bird's Eye and Bolivian Rainbow sprouts are growing stronger and some of them have started pushing side branches which is something I've expected from the more "bushy" variations. Prairie Fire sprouts are still comfortably in the yogurt cups and currently growing their second patch of leaves.

Steady progress

Nothing drastic to report on the growth front, steady progress on all the plants so far. Chichen Itza keeps flowering strong and even the Trinidad Scorpion which seemed to be dying has produced two flowers to annoy me and keep its spot on the sunny window still. The plant is still the same size as when I got it so something is still not quite right. First overview picture of the window still looking full, it will hopefully have some more grow space once it gets warm enough to move some of the plants to the balcony.

Yogurt cups

Small update to illustrate the replanting process and the idea behind growing my sprouts in yogurt cups. The sprout was given some water one day before to keep the soil from crumbling away. This particular plant had grown roots going down on all sides which is the reason I wanted something I could cut open instead of having to try and get the plant out of the pot using a fork or a spoon. Compact size is another definite plus of this method.

Changing pots

My second Bolivian Rainbow sprout found its way into a larger pot today. The soil I used this time is more peat based "seed and sprout mix" which should be better for the plant. One of the Bird's Eye Baby sprouts looks to be ready to be moved as soon as I figure out a spot for it on the sunny window still.

Chichen Itza keeps flowering strong with 28 flowers the last time I counted them and both of the Prairie Fire plants have emerged from the soil.

Temptations

One of the Bolivian Rainbow sprouts moved into a proper flower pot after I had fallen into temptation and bought Prairie Fire seeds from the supermarkets fruit&vegetable seeds -stand. "No, I don't have room to grow them" reasoning lasted for about 2 days before the seeds found their way into dirt. Maybe I am a bit addicted but then again I'm only growing 3 variations and the two gifted ones.

Prairie Fire (C. annuum): Small and ornamental pepper that is ideal for window stills or growing on your patio. The plant gives plenty of small peppers that go from yellow to red when fully ripe. Seeds planted March 1st, first sprout visible on the 11th.

Early flowering

I have to say I wasn't expecting this at all. The Chichen Itza I got pregrown in January has just opened its first flower bud. Unlike my sprouts that have been getting some help from my desks study light during the dark hours it has been growing completely with the help of daylight. It's nice to see it do so well when you look at the sorry excuse of a plant growing next to it. With that in mind I've now stopped watering the scorpion to see if there's any change in the droopy look of the plant.

Sprouts

Just a brief update on how the plants are doing. Bolivian Rainbow did really well and all 3 seeds planted have sprouted. First two have their second pair of leaves visible and the third isn't too far behind. Bird's Eye is doing only slightly worse with 2 sprouts so overall I'm happy with the results as the goal I set for myself was to grow two sprouts each.

The reason why I chose to grow them in yogurt cups is that they act as poor mans bluggbox and when it's time to move the plants to a bigger pot I figured I could just cut the cups open instead of causing possible root damage while trying to spoon or fork them out.

Season 2013

Bolivian Rainbow (C. annuum): Ornamental pepper with small pods ranging from purple when raw to yellow, orange and red when fully ripe earning its name "Rainbow".
Seeds planted January 29th, first sprout visible February 7th.

Bird's Eye Baby (C. annuum):  Small, very pretty ornamental chili plant with tiny leaves and pods.
Seeds planted January 30th, first sprout visible February 9th.

Chichen Itza (C. chinense): Strong growing plant with fiery orange habanero -type pods.
Pre-grown sprout that seems to be doing well. It's the one in the white pot.

Trinidad Scorpion (C. chinense):  Tall plant with pods with characteristic shape which sees a two or three inch pendant which tapers to a sharp point, "resembling a scorpions tail".
Pre-grown sprout that is clearly suffering from the dark nordic winter. If you compare the recent shot with the one in the previous post you'll notice it hasn't grown at all.

False start

Season 2013 seems to have taken a false start as the word of my hobby has reached some of my relatives. As a result I got two healthy looking sprouts on my birthday. This will lead to some special arrangements on my behalf as I was already conserned with the tight space on the ones I plan to grow this season and now I have two extra plants.

Chichen Itza and Trinidad Scorpion are both supposed to be really hot and they're quite far from the usual mild-medium heat ones I've grown so we'll see what I will do with the fruits. I'm going to plant the first seeds of season 2013 in 10 days.