csvd87
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Hi My name is Curtis, and I am an addict. hahaha, I just bought more seeds, from Fatali, I couldn't say no to the Bhut Bell cross, or the Bonnet Bell cross., also picked up a rare wild variety as well as the Chocolate Fatali... looks like I need more pots :) will have 20 Varieties growing on my back deck. thats it, no more.. HELP!!! won't have room for Frankenchile, so you can keep those seeds for you or someone else, lol.

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stella1751
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Coincidentally, straight vermiculite I have. And, whoops, I might have referred to you as "she" or "her" in a post or two. Sorry about that, Curtis :oops:

You are in luck Re: Frankenchile seeds. I have reached the point where I have quit offering them; I think the plant will need until November or so to produce enough seeds for everyone who wants 'em, and it'll be lucky to make it to the end of September. Duh. This is my first year for seed saving. Live and learn, right?

Vermiculite, huh? I might check locally and see who has what in the area of rooting hormones. It'd save time if I could purchase it locally.

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I was going to mention vermiculite as well since I was pretty sure you're stocked up on that. :wink: Being me, I just use my regular seed starting mix -- finished screened compost/garden soil/sand.

I posted asking about natural rooting "hormone" a while back (the commercial powders contain chemicals including nasty fungicides) You might want to "search" -- I believe willow tea, chamomile tea, and straight honey were mentioned. Post the link if you find it before I do. 8)

csvd87
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[url]https://stores.channeladvisor.com/hirtsgardens/Items/totally247134187?sck=1487794&caSKU=totally247134187&caTitle=Big%20Chili%20II%20Pepper%2035%20Seeds%20-%20Great%20on%20the%20Grill[/url]

Big Chile II.... I have bought 3 orders of seeds from them and never noticed before, can't be the same as the Biggie Chile.. or it would be named the Biggie Chile... hmmm very interesting

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stella1751
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Curtis, this is great! Thanks! Last summer, long before my Frankenchile began producing these immense peppers, I looked everywhere to find seeds for next year, and I didn't find this particular website. I had bought my seeds from Gurneys, many years ago, but I never had an opportunity to use them. The seeds sat and sat and finally five were planted only to replace the NuMex Big Jims my dogs destroyed early this spring. If the Frankenchile hadn't continued to grow so oddly, I would have definitely bought these Big Chile II seeds. They look much like mine.

The name of mine is actually Hybrid Big Chile II or, to be precise, Guerneys Hybrid Big Chile II. Guerneys quit producing them years ago; I don't know how long ago. They replaced them with something called the Saguaro, I think. Another variant is the Biggie Chile. These that you have found are probably a variant, too, of the old Hybrid Big Chile II. I think it's especially interesting that they are an F1. They're not the Guerneys variety, but I'm betting they're the closest of anything around. A little puny at 10", but I guess you can't have everything, right :-) :lol: Just in case, I'm going to bookmark this website to my favorites.

My Hybrid Big Chile II's have been odd from the very beginning, which is why I call them Frankenchile and why, quite frankly, they seriously interest me. At the time I named them that, I hadn't an inkling the peppers would get this big. They just intrigued me because they were a genetic anomaly, perhaps something to do with improperly storing old, possibly genetically unstable, seeds? I don't know. Then the peppers started growing and growing and growing, and, well, it doesn't get any better than this.

What fun they have made my gardening season! I still have some of the original seeds left; the next time I start some of them, I'm gonna document their growth. I'm no geneticist, but these guys have been weird, weird, weird from start to finish. I can't remember when I last became this attached to a plant. This year, I will be inconsolable for days after the first killing frost :(

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CS, I saw those "bhut bells" as well, but it said there weren't hot, otherwise, I would get some. I'm in the same boat as you......too many varieties floating around in my head as it is, now.

Stella, I'm certain you can do it. I've seen pepper plants send out roots from the stems just like tomatoes, though to a lesser degree.

I know how you feel with you frankenchili.....I'm that way with everything :lol:. I was trying to eek out as much growth as possible with my tomatoes last year, only to have a frost come and hit them and the plants. I brought them all indoors, but they all rotted. You really have to have your timing on when you're trying to beat the frost date :wink:.

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Well.. after next season I will know what I liked and what I didn't. so I can cut a few from the roster and add a few more.

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I have three pepper cuttings soaking in willow tea right now. According to the instructions, the ones I liked the best, anyway, you steep the willow twigs overnight, and then you put the cuttings in it, leaving the cut ends to soak overnight.

After scouring the town for a rooting hormone, I was fortunate and found a place that offered small packets of Rootone. Tomorrow I will follow Curtis's advice to try different methods and start three more using the Rootone.

Tomorrow morning, I need to prepare my soil starting medium. I bought small bags of perlite and peat moss. I have vermiculite on hand. I also bought a huge bag of Miracle Gro Moisture Control, which I'll be using should those peppers ever mature enough for me to move the plant indoors. I bought a small bag of organic seed starting mix, just to cover all of my bases. Finally, I have a coffee can of my soil left over from when I had my soil tested two years ago. There will be weed seeds in it, mostly grass, but because it has been sealed for two years, I'm betting no critters or critter eggs will be alive in it.

I couldn't find any bone meal, nowhere, which is annoying because I am out. I believe I have some blood meal somewhere, which would work for nitrogren. I could soak some gyspum overnight and add that to the mix, I suppose, and I have some kelp meal.

So, here's what I have: perlite, peat moss, vermiculite, potting soil, seed starting mix, and garden soil. Does anyone have a special recipe he or she likes to use for propagating from root cuttings? I've found dozens of different recipes online, and I'm not certain yet which one to use. I could probably make up three different recipes, using one for each cutting from each batch.

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soil
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I propagate almost everything here in

1 part sand
1 part compost
1 part perlite/rice hulls.

with very good success.

no need for fertilizers like blood and bone until they root and are established.

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As a substitute for the bone meal, you could look into rock phosphate, though, as Soil said, that's not necessary until your cutting are rooted and growing.

Keep us updated. Oh, did you take any cuttings from Frankenchili, or are you waiting until you find a proven method?

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stella1751
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Soil, I think my neighbor has an open bag of sand; I can probably borrow a cup from her. I wonder whether I should buy a bag of compost. I could dig in the center of one of my bins, but I don't know what kind of animal life I might wind up bringing in the house.

Garden5, I've got three cuttings soaking right now. I looked at the plant this morning, and I really don't think it will bear further pruning right now, so I think I'll take the next three cuttings from my second-best plant. We appear to have nine more days of decent weather in store.

It doesn't look like the peppers have grown significantly since their last measurements of 11" and 11.5", so they may actually mature for me in time! I never thought I'd say this, but I hope they are done growing. I really do want to bring the parent plant inside for the winter.

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Peppers seem to love sitting in a sunny windowsill and watching it snow outside. I've seen some beautiful ones grown that way. They were also productive in the windowsill. I've heard of people cutting the plant way back when moving it from an outside garden site to an inside pot. I saw one web page where the guy trimmed the roots severely in order to create bonsai pepper plants with thick stems but still fit into small pots. They seem to be pretty adaptable. If you already have house plants, you may want to isolate the pepper from those other plants for awhile to make sure you are not transferring outdoor garden pests inside to feed on your house plants.

Ted

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Stella,

If the seeds make, I would love to try them. I decided to attempt growing from seed again. If you kept the envelope with the cucumber seed, you have my address. If you didn't, let me know and I will pm it.

Thanks

Ted

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soil
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Soil, I think my neighbor has an open bag of sand; I can probably borrow a cup from her. I wonder whether I should buy a bag of compost. I could dig in the center of one of my bins, but I don't know what kind of animal life I might wind up bringing in the house.
if you don't have any compost ready, I would go buy a bag of good quality wormcastings. if the comapny you find sifted the castings really fine, you might want to consider adding a little more sand and perlite to make it nice and well draining.

you should have good success, I am going to bring in more than a few peppers this winter for early planting next spring.

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stella1751
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tedln wrote:Stella,

If the seeds make, I would love to try them. I decided to attempt growing from seed again. If you kept the envelope with the cucumber seed, you have my address. If you didn't, let me know and I will pm it.

Thanks

Ted
Yes. You are on my list. I won't know how many seeds until I crack 'em open, but I'm worried. Never having saved seeds before, I've never counted how many seeds a pepper makes. When I used a NuMex Big Jim late last month, I decided to practice saving its seeds: Twenty-Eight Seeds. That was it!

I don't know whether that is normal or not for peppers. Like I said, it never occurred to me to count each seed. It just always seemed like there were tons of 'em. 28. Please.

Is that normal?

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I usually have more seed than twenty eight when I strip the seed and membrane out of a jalapeno. I don't know if there is a set number of seeds per pepper. I would think the longer the fruit is, the more room is available in the seed chamber and therefore more seed. The only reason any plant makes fruit is to produce seed for continued existence of its species. If you wind up not having enough, don't worry about it. I will take some if you have it. You might be better off sending seed to folks who have better luck germinating pepper seed than me.

Ted

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I'll bet you get at least 70 out of that big 11 incher.

28 doesn't sound like much at all, but I'm assuming this was from a chili pepper. It seems like different types of peppers have different amounts of seed. I got at least a hundred from one of my bell peppers, and I've probably gotten 50 from a jalepeno.

I know when I cut open one of my Thai peppers, there weren't that many seeds in it at all :?.

Really, I've found that my biggest problem is getting pepper seed that's fully mature. My bell peppers I got seed from were left on the plant till they changed color and almost began to rot. The seed looks good, so far.

My banana peppers, on the other hand, were harvested for seen when they were large, yet the seed still looked thin and brown around the edged once dried. That's what my saved jalapeno seeds looked like last year and not a one sprouted!

I definitely recommend sprouting a test-batch of seeds once you harvest and dry them, to make sure they are viable.

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soil
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Really, I've found that my biggest problem is getting pepper seed that's fully mature. My bell peppers I got seed from were left on the plant till they changed color and almost began to rot. The seed looks good, so far.
I find its best to harvest the pepper, and let it sit and mature as much as possible on the counter( next to a sunny window preferably). even until it becomes a dried chili. then the seeds are always fully mature and dried well.

I used to take the seeds out fresh and let them dry separate and didn't get as good of germination.

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Thanks soil, nice tip. This is my first year saving my bell pepper seeds and some of them don't look fully mature. I will try your tip with one of the last peppers.

I had one pepper we ate last night that had zero seeds in it, even though it was turning red on the plant and other peppers from the same plant had plenty of seeds. I guess there's just a certain amount of randomness!

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Wow, thanks Soil!

I never would have thought that the seeds would continue to mature while the were off the plant :shock:.

I'll have to give this a try with one of my banana peppers since I can't seem to get and mature seeds from those, yet.

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soil
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ok now that I read my post again I don't want anyone to get confused, you want it to ripen as much as possible on the plant if you can. but if say frost is coming in a few days and its not a very young pepper, you can ripen it on the side, let it dry, and then collect the seed. if you don't have frost coming, you can let it ripen on the plant as much as possible, then let the chili dry. once dried you can take the seeds out and there ready to go. this may not be the fastest way, but I'm in no rush because I cant plant peppers until may next year.

only take seeds from the best of the best! weak decisions now will affect the seed saver later on.

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soil wrote:ok now that I read my post again I don't want anyone to get confused, you want it to ripen as much as possible on the plant if you can. but if say frost is coming in a few days and its not a very young pepper, you can ripen it on the side, let it dry, and then collect the seed. if you don't have frost coming, you can let it ripen on the plant as much as possible, then let the chili dry. once dried you can take the seeds out and there ready to go. this may not be the fastest way, but I'm in no rush because I cant plant peppers until may next year.

only take seeds from the best of the best! weak decisions now will affect the seed saver later on.
I kind of figured that's what you meant, Soil :wink:.

I definitely agree with saving seed from the best. I read that you don't want to save seed from a pepper with any type of disease.

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stella1751
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It's been six days since I potted my Frankenchile cuttings, and they look very healthy. It's early days, yet, but I think the willow tea did the job. I potted the cuttings in my old 1.5" African Violet propagation pots. With those tiny pots, I could tell when the plant had rooted by lifting it up and looking for roots at the bottom. Nothing yet, but I think the cuttings will make it.

The more I think about it, the more certain I am that this is the best method for over-wintering a desirable plant. Given my lack of inside space, it will be November before these plants become excessively large. I'm also wondering whether limiting their pot size will help to diminish the plant size.

Best of all, if this works, I could take cuttings from these plants late next April and have them ready for setting out by June 1! No worrying about germinating seeds indoors in less than ideal conditions. And, should I be so fortunate as to grow peppers indoors from them, I will be absolutely certain their seeds will produce an F2 generation from the original plant.

This is a superb idea. I can't tell everyone how grateful I am for the ideas and help you have given me in this thread. Wow. I feel like my gardening hobby just took a whole new direction :D

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I just picked some frankenchille's myself. They are a tiny bit shorter but bigger around. Too bad I don't know what they are. :lol: I can't remember what I planted there. But as soon as I saw them I thought of you Stella. :wink:

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stella1751
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gixxerific wrote:I just picked some frankenchille's myself. They are a tiny bit shorter but bigger around. Too bad I don't know what they are. :lol: I can't remember what I planted there. But as soon as I saw them I thought of you Stella. :wink:
I saw some great chilies at WalMart last week. They were about 7 or 8" long and, flattened, about 3" at the top. I think they are Curtis's Big Chili II's or the Biggie Chile. They were stunningly attractive.

The WalMart up here always has enormous produce. I bought some bells from them a few weeks ago. I needed 2 cups worth for a recipe. Not knowing how thick were their walls, I bought 5 peppers, just to make certain I had enough. There were 2 cups of chopped pepper in each one. :shock:

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We haven't bought bell peppers for a while. At .89 each, we can do without. I stopped buying asparagus when it went to $3.89 per lb. When everyones gardens become winter dormant, summer squash rises from $1.69 to $2.89 per lb. We can probably afford the higher prices, but the principle is more important to me than the price. I don't know why, but tomato prices seem about the same winter and summer. With all the gardens dormant, I would think tomatoes would go sky high. Water melon prices didn't decline any in late summer like they usually do. Sweet corn was as low as five ears per dollar this summer. I can't raise that cheap. It went as high as $0.65 per ear the year fuel prices went sky high and they were converting most corn to corn sugar and ethanol. Farmers put more acreage in production and the price has leveled. Strawberries became very cheap this summer. It go so low, many farmers were simply plowing there straw berry plants under. It cost more to harvest and pack than they could get on the market. I still haven't figured why the containers of spring salad greens are so expensive at $4.89 per container. I've planted a lot of salad greens for a fall garden and we will have it in a spring garden. It simply won't grow here in the high summer heat. I haven't had any luck with Swiss chard planted in the summer time. I will plant a lot in an early spring flower bed. If I like the chard as a salad green or a cooked green, we will be eating a lot of it all spring and summer.


Ted

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gixxerific
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tedln wrote: I still haven't figured why the containers of spring salad greens are so expensive at $4.89 per container.

Ted
nutz: :eek: -helpsos-

$4.89 that is ridiculous. I have been getting a good sized bag of fresh local mixed spring greens from my local country store when I don't have any for about .85.

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stella1751
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Ted, you must live in a high-price area. Those Bell peppers I bought were .68 a piece, and they were huge. I thought it was a good price, but I don't buy a lot of produce.

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Glad to hear things are going well with the cutting experiment, Stella :).

How long did you soak them for in the willow tea?

I've read that it's actually not necessary to soak a cutting until you see roots, since these roots that form will not be of much importance when you pot the cuttings....apparently they produce different kinds of roots if they are in water or soil.

tedln
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Since acetylsalicylic acid or aspirin is the active compound in willow, I wonder if an acid tablet would accomplish the same purpose as the willow tea.

Florists commonly use and recommend an aspirin tablet in the water to lengthen the attractive look of cut flowers.

Ted

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stella1751
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garden5 wrote:Glad to hear things are going well with the cutting experiment, Stella :).

How long did you soak them for in the willow tea?

I've read that it's actually not necessary to soak a cutting until you see roots, since these roots that form will not be of much importance when you pot the cuttings....apparently they produce different kinds of roots if they are in water or soil.
Garden5, I just soaked them overnight. It's now been 7 days, and the cuttings still look as crisp as they did the day I potted them. I looked for roots this morning, felt my heart race at the sight of a faint tendril of white on the bottom of one pot, and plucked off a dog hair.

Oh well. I think they're going to make it.

I always wondered about that aspirin florists recommend, Ted. That answers a question. I also heard sugar is good. I wonder why.

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Thanks for the specifics on the willow tea :). I've heard of it before, but was uncertain on the details.

I's be interesting to do a side-by-side comparison with the asprin and the willow tea.

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Stella, its been a while since an update, care to share on how your Frankenchiles are fairing? How are the cuttings? Mine failed, 2 weeks in the gel pack with no roots formed, It was starting to curl up and die. I have had better results with powder hormone and a wet cotton ball in a glass.

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stella1751
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csvd87 wrote:Stella, its been a while since an update, care to share on how your Frankenchiles are fairing? How are the cuttings? Mine failed, 2 weeks in the gel pack with no roots formed, It was starting to curl up and die. I have had better results with powder hormone and a wet cotton ball in a glass.
Curtis, I am sorry to hear about the gel-pack failure. I hope the cuttings weren't from one of your favorites! How soon did you suspect they wouldn't make it? I still can't tell with mine, and it's been 18 days now.

Two of the cuttings are still hanging in there, with no signs of failure. One is beginning to look a bit limp, though, and I have my doubts that it is rooted. I am tempted to remove the plastic baggies and give them a tug, just to see whether any of them are rooted. That's what it said to do in the instructions, but I am afraid. I'd rather hope the two made it than know that they didn't :cry:

This morning I was thinking I should start three more, just in case. The plant has enough new growth to give me three more healthy starts, and today the wind is slated to blow, which generally means a weather change, At this time of the year, the weather rarely changes for the better. Besides, the weather couldn't conceivably be any better than it was this past week.

I do believe I have discovered why the HBC II was discontinued: They never turn red. I imagine there are ten-year-old plants out there, still laden with green chilies from their first year, their gardeners daily visiting them, as I do mine, to see whether there's the slightest change in color and always, as do I, walking away in disappointment. Change, already!

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Good to hear yours are still doing well, I know what you mean about the waiting for red.. My bells refuse to change as do my Jalapeno's

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After replying to your last post, I decided to be brave and remove the plastic baggies. While pulling the first one from the tray, I managed to drag the entire tray forward, dumping it upside-down into the sink. I am such a clutz!

One was rooted. I managed to shove it back into the pot; I'm crossing my fingers it lives. Another was partially rooted, resisting a slight tug. That one didn't turn completely upside-down, so I didn't disturb its new roots too much. The other one, the first one I decided to check, is dying. I don't think it set so much as one little root tendril.

They are now baggie-less. I'll know in two or three days whether or not that first one will make it. In the happy event that it does make it, I now have a question regarding pot size: What is the absolute smallest pot I could put these in to restrict their size indoors? The mature plant would probably go 5' to 6' tall, given unfettered root access. If I put them in a small pot, maybe something from 8" to 12", will that limit the plant's size and get them through the winter?

Our winters up here are long, running from sometime in October to sometime in March or April. They will need to be potted until May, at the very earliest, for a total of 8 months. I went through a container-garden experiment several years ago, and I found then that peppers will grow in virtually any size pot. Plant size and productivity is limited by the size of the pot.

However, I've never tried such a large plant in a pot before. My peppers in the experiment year were Hot Cherry, Hungarian Wax, Jalapeno, and (I think) some ornamental, all with a mature height of 3'. What do you think? What's the smallest pot I can get away with on these fellows?

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I know what you mean Stella, I managed to bump my lamp enough that I didn't notice it fall down and burn all the top new growth on one of my chocolate beauties and after that I pruned it got rid of the burnt dead foliage and let it try and recover, it did, so I took it downstairs to water it(bottom water) brought it up stairs and dropped it, spilling all the soil. That plant is a trooper, I just a couple of weeks ago potted it up because it took such a beating, it has been flowering. Also, good news, My Red Beauties are blushing :oops:
A 1 gallon deep pot, but I have had some growing pretty well in a 4 quart-ish sized pot, keeping it well pruned of course.
Oh and my cutting I was trying out was just a Banana Pepper, no big deal. A good pizza topping, but not my favorite pepper.

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Congratulations on the Red Beauties starting to turn! I looked them up online, and the first website I went to, Tomato Growers Supply Company, began their description with "A red bell pepper widely adapted to reliably turn red in almost any area of the country." Maybe that's my problem. I had no idea some peppers didn't turn red. They wouldn't say that if people didn't have a problem, right?

I've never had a pepper not turn red, but if the Frankenchilies don't get their act together, this will definitely be my first time for this particular situation!

I liked reading about the trials of your Chocolate Beauty. Poor thing! I am seriously more clumsy than the average gardener, and most of my seedlings, well, the ones that live, survive despite me, not because of me. This morning the one I tossed on its head into the sink is alive, maybe even well. I am going to dig in the basement for a decent pot for it and the other one that might make it. I should have a few in the gallon range down there.

Thanks for the advice!

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Thanks, Ya, I'm starting to think my Jalapeno's are a variety that doesn't turn, however, they have been on there for quite some time. Maybe the frankenchile's don't turn, but who knows. It took my Red Beauties probably 20 to 30 days after they were mature size and feel to finally blush.

My Chocolate Beauty is a Beauty, loaded with flowers and it almost froze last night. Nothing in the forexast even close to freezing, but I have a sort of mini climate at my house where just up the road the lawns were frost covered. But we were fine, must be all these trees. I also have only the Comox airport to go by for the temp, and it is right next the ocean and usually 3 degrees or so warmer in the colder months.

My other chocolate beauty that is fruiting has me worried, supposed to be Bell shaped fruit, but they are looking like Trinidad Scorpions. I'll go take a photo and upload it in a bit.

I know my Sweet Cayenne will turn red, I had some weird stuff happeneing with that plant, did really well, then started to die, produced a few tiny fruit, turned red in a week.. so I picked them and chucked them out. now it is loaded with 8 to 10 inch fruit all yellow, I had one spoiled, went all spngy and rotten, so I just pitched it.

garden5
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 3062
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:40 pm
Location: ohio

I'm glad to hear you're having success with your cutting experiment!

I might try the same with my ghost pepper plants this winter. The seed are expensive and the plants take a long time to bear fruit. I'll be bringing mine in for the winter, since the peppers are still green and frost is probably only about 2 weeks away. One of the plants was eaten pretty heavily by the deer, so it's mostly stalks with a little foliage....sound's like a good candidate for making a cutting.

I'm thinking that a one gal. pot should be fine for the peppers, just be sure to prune the plant when you plant it so that the now-smaller/restricted roost system doesn't have to support as much top-growth.

I've had pepper plants mature to a height of 1 ft.....and that's in the garden, thanks to voluntary pruning by the deer :roll:. They still grew fine and produced, though.

How is the dying cutting coming along?



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