2022-03-03T08:00:00Z
What I’ve done:
Matchbox, OSSI pledged and in 1 gallon pots on my windowsill, is absolutely covered in flowers and tiny starting pods. These plants are just shy of a year old now, they spent their summer on my deck and have had a lot of variation in temperature, light, water, and feed. Currently my humidity is below 10% and one side of the plant is about 5C against the window while the other side fluctuates between 15c and 30C with my woodstove cycle. There’s a hint of difference between the four plants: one is a touch more susceptible to dry air/spider mites, another has more hanging/drooping branches. The fruit is largely the same; I haven’t checked to see if it’s the same heat level though. I love this plant and intend on crossing it with everything.
Hungarian black is in a 3 gallon pot but it’s the same age. It is in a west window with no lights on it, though there’s snow outside the window reflecting some light up. It’s also covered in bloom.
What I’m planning outdoors:
I’m preparing a big grex with high concentrations of saved Matchbox, black hungarian, doe hill,and paprika #8043 that may all have crossed (these ripened reliably for me last year) plus a ton of other stuff that mostly hasn’t arrived yet. There is also a touch of pepperoncini and bell pepper pollen and a few seeds each from one pepperoncini plant and a couple either ancho or quite dwarfed red bells. I’m thinking of doing some real close spacing in blocks with some pollinator-attractors in there to get things mixed up, but I’d also like to grow out a significant number of what worked last year and see if any interesting new crosses show up among them.
I’m specifically pulling in c chinense and c baccatum from high elevation/cool areas as well as assorted wild things. I don’t want too too much heat in most of the peppers but I’m happy to have a gradient, and to handle heat through selection over time (a lot of peppers will get either directly put into salsa and sauces, or dried and then used in sauces, so as long as my average heat is ok the individual plants can vary quite a bit). Hopefully all my seeds arrive soon so I can start March 1st or 15th for these.
Indoors I’m growing some c pubescens, which I understand are cold-hardy (not frost-hardy) but don’t cross with other capsicums well. I may do some playing among those but I understand they’re too long season to work well here.
Interested to hear other people’s experience with peppers.
I’ll post the varieties I grew out last year in my clay soil/cool nights below.
