Peppers

I am growing some hydroponic chili peppers (pictured). However they are taking a very long time to grow. It is making me sad.

The larger peppers in soil pots in the back were started from seeds about 5 weeks ago. I repotted them from seed starter trays a couple of days ago. The ones in red pots are orange habaneros with seeds I bought at Ace Hardware. The ones in orange pots are supposedly Carolina Reapers, but I bought them from Amazon, which I have since learned is not a reliable place to buy superhot chili pepper seeds. Months later it may turn out that the seeds were actually for a different kind of pepper entirely, e.g. for jalpeños. I guess I will see what they really when the plants start fruiting.

The white plastic container in the middle is a DWC hydroponic system I built last week; the plants were started from seed between 3 and 4 weeks ago. The seeds are all from whitehotpeppers.com which comes highly recommended on thehotpepper.com, a forum dedicated to hot sauce and hot peppers I have found extremely helpful in my quest. These seeds are for the most part growing well if extremely slow, but I did manage to fry a few leaves by having the grow light too close to the seedlings and leaving moisture on the leaves after watering. Apparently water droplets on the leaves can act as magnifying glasses. Lesson learned – I am now carefully wiping any moisture off of the leaves after watering. I think the peppers should bounce back.

In the DWC system I’m using a RO water with a low concentration of Clonex Clone Solution and Hydroguard to promote healthy and rapid root growth. PH is adjusted to 6.0. While the leaf growth above the surface has been like watching paint dry, the roots are growing nicely. I guess that’s just how nature works.

Check back soon for more exiting updates about Cam’s indoor pepper garden.