There is nothing worse than spending all that time nuturing your little babies only to have them attacked by pests the second you get them out doors. Here are a few tips for dealing with various common pests.

Diggers

Diggers include squirrels, cats, dogs etc. Last summer I had all my plants in 5 gallon containers on my deck. Immediately after putting them out there, the squirrels in the neighborhood started digging in the new loose soil. I lost one plant immediately, the buggers managed to split the stem of the plant right at the base I had to do something quick. I read online that the easiest way to stop this is by simply covering the soil around the stems with pea gravel. I think anything with sharp nails hates scratching them in stone, it isn’t worth the effort to them. It stopped them cold, never had a problem again all summer long, at least with the digging.

White Flies and Aphids

These are the real enemy of the pepper plant. These little bugs sit under the leaves and slowly kill the plant off. You will find a pepper plant that is being attacked by aphids will drop flowers, and just stop growing all together, it will begin to wilt and start dropping leaves. I check weekly to make sure I don’t have any and if I do find some I take care of it right away. Here is how to get rid of this pest;

Mix 1-2 tbsps of dish soap into a spray bottle of water. Spray the underside of each leaf, this washes the bugs away, it works really, really well.

Another way to discourage whiteflies or aphids from coming near your plant is to plant marigolds around your pepper plant. Apparently whiteflies and aphids don’t like something in the marigolds and it will help deter them.

Nibblers

If you notice that something has been nibbling at your leaves there are a few usual suspects that you can look at. One is the slug. The slug is stoppable in one of two ways. First, take a half can of beer and bury the can in the ground around your plants leaving only the top lip and opening exposed, the slug will be more interested in the beer than your plants. Change the beer can every week and be warned, rotting slugs smell awful.

You can also deter slugs by purchasing some copper mesh from a garden center and placing it in a long tube like fashion around the parameter of your garden. Slugs can’t stand copper!

Another common form of nibbler is the one that is eating your peppers. Honestly the easiest way to stop animals from eating your peppers is to give them something else to eat. Feed the squirrels, rabbits and whatever else you have and they will stay away from your peppers. It sounds silly but when all else fails, it could be your last hope. Squirrels, raccoons, birds, you name it all love corn on the cob. You can buy squirrel feeders that are nothing more than a board with a nail sticking up the middle that you attach to a tree, simply put a cob of corn on the nail. Change it regularly.

Hope this helps and you all have a great summer and a great crop! It has been a pleasure writing these articles.

–Jay

Before you consider moving your plants outdoors there are still some precautions that we must take.

First of all, our little seedlings will still have some pretty weak stems on them, the second that any real wind comes their way they will be severely damaged. Secondly, our seedlings have been somewhat protected from their light source. Our plants, either grown on a windowsill or under artificial lighting such as florescent fixtures have never felt the full power of the sun. Even on a cool day the sun’s rays can burn. Ever been skiing in the spring? I bet you got a nice tan didn’t you?

It is very easy to get those stems a bit stalkier. About 3-4 weeks before you are ready to move your seedlings outside, start to introduce a little wind into their daily routine. The plant will slowly adapt, devoting more energy to thicking up it’s stem than it would towards producing more solar receptors (leaves).

I place a fan near by, on a low setting, for a few hours a day to slowly waft a bit of a breeze across my little guys. This is kind of like a work out and you will start to see the stems pumping up to handle the newly introduced element.

Now, picture a field of thousands of little re-sealable bags, each bag containing water. Except our bags have a very thin layer of plastic between our water and the sun. As we all know when water is heated it produces steam, but the plastic around or bags is pretty cheap stuff, it ruptures at the first sign of pressure. This leaves us with a field of broken bags with no water left within them. If you now pictured that field is the leaf of our little pepper plant. Even after just a few minutes of sun, all the little cells on the leaf of our plant could have burst and severely damaged our seedling, possibly harming it to the point of no return. All of our time and investment gone in just a few short minutes.

Ok, ok, I don’t want to scare you from ever putting your plants outdoors but you do have to remember that while it doesn’t take just a few minutes it can happened before you know it. If any of you are parents think of this, you wouldn’t leave your newborn son or daughter in direct sunlight for a few hours would you?

I would recommend putting your plants in the shade for a few hours each day to slow acclimatize them to the powers of the sun. Within about 2 weeks you will be able to slowly introduce them to more and more directly sunlight. This will help strengthen those cell walls and help the plant ensure the full power of the sun without worry.

–Jay

By now your seeds have sprouted and are now seedlings. If you have sown your seeds in 48 or 72 cell seedling trays, and your plants have a few good sets of leaves on them then it is probably time to give these little guys (or girls) a new, larger environment to grow.

Transplanting can be very shocking and potentially fatal to a young seedling which is why you don’t want to do it too soon, and you don’t want to do it too often. If you notice little roots protruding from the bottom of the holes or slats in the current container, then it is time to transplant.

To begin transplanting, it is important that you are going to move up to a home that will get them buy for a month or so, while some might be ready in the warmer climates to transplant directly into their gardens, others will be simply moving up to a larger container.

At this stage for me, I will be moving my seedlings from a 48 cell container to their own 4 inch square or round pot. This will be the second last time I transplant. After they have been in these containers for a month or so, it will be time to put them in their permanent home.

First thing we need to do to begin our transplanting procedure is to ensure that everything is ready. For successful transplanting you will need the following (I must admit I learned most of this from Pepper Joe www.pepperjoe.com – his FAQs and gardening tips are amazing, I recommend checking out his site for other tips and tricks);

• New soil. Preferably a good potting soil with a pretty even ratio of soil and sand. The sand encourages the roots to continue growing and keeps the soil loose enough for the newly transplanted seedlings to keep growing
• New containers. As mentioned, they need to continue to grow and build a strong root foundation (this holds up the rest of the plant remember) so we need substantially larger containers.
• Fish Emulsion and powdered sulfur. Fish Emulsion, diluted in water is an excellent source of Nitrogen and is excellent for root growth. Sulfur, available in powdered form from your local pharmacy is also good for this. If you can’t find it, it isn’t the end of the world. Pepper Joe also recommends fanning out a book of paper matches under the seedling if you are planting directly out doors. We want to encourage as much new root growth in our new location as possible.
• Time. We don’t want to rush this, if you are like me you have 30 to 40 seedlings that you are going to transplant. We do not want to rush this procedure and hastily damage everything we have accomplished so far.

How to Transplant

Now that you have everything ready and laid out, we are going to work in batches.

1. Water your seedlings about an hour before starting, this will ensure that our soil doesn’t fall apart when attempting to move it.
2. Lay out 5 or 6 of your new containers on a few sheets of newspaper. Add soil to fill almost ¾ of each container. Make sure it is loose, do not pack it down.
3. Make a little indentation in the center, just about as large as one of your seedling tray cells.
4. Sprinkle a little sulfur into the indentation you have made.
5. Carefully remove the whole ‘plug’ from your seedling tray, do not grab the plant from the stem. If needed, try pushing the seedling up from from underneath. Remember most seedling trays only cost about $2, if you wreck it trying to get the seedlings out, I’d say it is worth the cause. Be very, very careful with the root system, do not try to break it up.
6. Place the plug into the indentation that you made in the new container. Do not force it, you don’t want to damage the root system.
7. Gently add some more soil around the newly transplanted seedling topping off the container ensuring that the new soil height is actually higher than what it was in the seedling tray. New roots will grow from this newly submerged part of the stem (encouraging even further growth)
8. Next, we water, but with the Diluted Fish Emulsion mixture. To make the mixture, typically dilute 1 -2 tablespoons of the solution with one gallon of water. The Fish Emulsion bottle will have instructions on this for that particular brand. Gently water the seedling, ensuring that the soil is nice and moist through out. Let it drain.
9. Continue on with the remaining seedlings.

Remember, be gentle and patient. The time now will pay off ten fold when you are reaping harvest after harvest of beautiful little peppers.

–Jay

Watering…

When you water your young seedlings you need to be as gentle as possible. I recommend picking up a typical spray bottle, of course do not reuse one that has had cleaning products or any chemicals as this will probably kill your plants no matter how much you have cleaned it out. Set the sprayer to a mist and gently apply the water to the plants in such a gentle manner that you don’t ‘blow’ the plants over with a heavy spray. I apply a good soaking via misting daily when they are young. If you are using a heat mat to help the germination phase the soil can dry very quickly and the seedling can die very quickly. Keep the soil moist at all times at this stage. If you start to notice any mold or fungus then it is ok to let the soil dry a bit, but keep a good eye on the seedlings, it can turn ugly very quickly.

Thinning…

If you have chosen the safer, but more expensive approach of planting more than one seed per cell in your seed trays, you will soon reach the time of making a difficult decision. That decision would be to thin your seedlings to the strongest, healthiest one. Our ultimate goal here is to encourage more root growth and to give our strongest seedling the most nutrients possible that is remaining in the soil. To thin your seedlings down to one per cell, take a pair of small scissors and clip the weaker seedlings at the base, as close to the soil line as possible.

Do not pull them out of the soil as the roots might and probably are inter-twined with the good seedling and you could kill it very easily

Another method is to simply us your fingernails and give it a pinch near the base. It is very important to not disturb the young seedlings that you

Transplanting…

I am going to do a whole article on transplanting but I have seen a few questions in the comments wondering when the best time is to transplant. It is time to transplant when your seedling has outgrown the container it is in. I wouldn’t recommend transplanting until you start to see roots growing out of the bottom of the container through those little holes. You never want to disturb the plant until you have too and you never want to try to move a very young seedling as the process can kill it.

–Jay

Now that we have everything to get started, we can start planting our seeds. This is very simple and there are not really any tricks to this.

I lay out my seed trays on a large table and pour a good lot of potting soil (I personally use in a large pile in the middle of the seed tray. You will be surprised at how much soil is used on each seed tray but it is generally about half a bag of potting soil. Then spread it out ensuring that all the cells are fill to the top. Make sure though that you can still see the ‘ribs’ separating each cell. You will need to see these to know where to plant your seeds.

Now that all your trays are filled with potting soil, make one indentation with your finger in each cell. Only go a half an inch at the most.

Now, at this point, I use a chart that I have designed in Excel that shows each tray and each cell. I have a legend identifying what I put in each cell. This way I know what I have and can easily keep track of it.

If you want a copy of this chart, though it is quite simple to make one yourself, let me know and I will send it to you. It is currently set up for my 48 cell trays but I can add 36 and 72 cell versions if you want.

Most growers will recommend putting two or three seeds per cell and chose the strongest of the three when it comes time to cull the crop. This year, I have White Habaneros, Golden Habaneros and Spicy Mustard Habaneros, Pepperoncinis, and Bhut Jolokias. Each packet has at about 15 seeds. I have such a small amount of seeds of each type; I am ok taking my chances with the 15 plants of each variety I am going to get. If some don’t make it that is ok with me, I know that most will. I am hoping for at least a 90% germination rate, I got 99% last year and I got my seeds from the same source this year so I can be confident in my decision.

If you are confident in your seeds plant one seed per cell, if you are not, plant two or three. This can be quite expensive though if you are killing 2/3s of your purchase, where I get my seeds from generally cost me $5 per pack so that adds up pretty quickly.

In each of the little indentations, I place one seed. I then gently cover each seed with a bit of the surrounding soil. When all my seeds are planted and documented, I gently apply water to give the seeds the moisture that they require. Remember what I said in Part III? “For a seed to become a plant it needs heat, sunlight, soil and water” A seed is always checking for these conditions, when the conditions are finally met, it starts to transform. At this stage however, the light is not required until the seed becomes a seedling with two leaves to start soaking up the light.

The next few weeks are very crucial to our plants. We need to ensure that the soil is moist (not wet), and that the seeds get heat. To keep the seeds moist I keep a spray bottle near the seed trays that is just filled with water. The spray is set to mist, anything more would disrupt the soil or hurt our little seedlings when they appear. If you received a clear top with your seed tray, you will only need to mist your seeds once a day, if not, you might need to do it twice or more. Make sure that the soil doesn’t dry up completely at this stage.

Keep the trays on a heat mat, on top of the refrigerator, or near a warm window. If everything is right, within 10 to 15 days (sometimes longer) you will start to see little seedlings emerge from the soil.

–Jay

P.S. I don’t mind having 15 plants of each type of pepper. I get to keep a few for myself, but the rest I give to friends and family. You will be amazed at how quickly they go.

Now that we have our soil, seeds, trays and a place to grow them, there is one more thing that we need to accommodate for before we start to plant our seeds – Heat. As I mentioned before, if we are going to be growing peppers, we have to remember the climate that these seeds generally come from, and that climate is hot. We will need to have some sort of warmth to provide these seeds to help them germinate. You can accomplish this by setting the on top of the refrigerator to help get them to turn into a seedling, or place your ‘grow op’ near a furnace in the basement. I personally prefer to use a heat mat. And that heat mat is one designed for starting seedlings, not that old heat blanket that you got in the closet with the electrical taped up cord on it. If you are going to use a heat mat, use a heat mat designed for seed trays.

You can find them by searching for ‘Seedling Heat Mat’ on Google. They are waterproof, and designed just for this purpose. They will generally run you about $20 - $25. They are not a necessity, but I do highly recommending the purchase, they should last you for years and your seeds will thank you. You will need one of these per seed tray, but you can find some online that will accommodate two. Here is where we are now;

• We have, or should nearly have our seeds
• We have our seed trays
• We have our soil
• We have our lighting
• We have our heat
• We have our ‘Grow Op’

Next we plant our seeds.

–Jay

Makin’ Habaneros - Part VI – Makin’ the ‘Grow Op’.

Please forgive me for the instructions below, hopefully the drawings (thanks Google Sketchup!) will help clarify them. These are just suggestions, anything will do but I would suggest somehow allowing the light fixture to get as close as possible to the seedlings and being able to raise it as they grow.

Simple ‘Grow Op’

Making the Simple ‘Grow Op’ is quite simple and inexpensive, but not necessarily pretty.

All you will need is the following;

* 4, 8 foot 2×4’s
* 2, 8 foot 1×2’s
* 32, 1 ¼ inch screws
* 30, 2 inch screws

1. Cut 3 of the 8 foot 2×4’s in half, this will provide you with the four support legs, and two cross pieces.
2. Cut one of the remaining now 4 foot 2×4 into 4, 12” peices
3. Take two of the 4 foot pieces and join them together in a ‘U’ fashion by attaching a 1 foot piece across the bottom of the two 4 foot pieces. Using 4, 2 inch screws per side.
4. Next take another 1 foot piece and join it across the 2, already joined 4 foot pieces, this time in the middle, or slightly below the 4 foot length, using 4, 2 inch screws per side. This forms the brace.

You should have something like an ‘H’ with a brace across the bottom (formed in step 3).

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the other side.
6. Take the remainder 8 foot piece, and cut two pieces, just slightly longer than the fixture and affix them across the two middle braces, spanning the two ends that we created in steps 3 and 4.

Now, you have a basic plant stand, you have a cross-section to put your planting trays and a sturdy stand. Next, we want to allow for the adjustable lighting.

7. Take the 1×2 pieces and add them at intervals of about 6 inches above the cross members along the two uprights. This will be the ‘rest’ for the lighting fixture.
8. This is what you are going to rest your light fixture on. This will allow you to raise it up as required.

More Advanced ‘Grow Op’

There are other ways that you can make this, one would be using sturdier pine panel boards, which are also quite inexpensive. This is what I am currently using;

If you have any questions, please feel free to post here, and I will try to answer all of them.

–Jay

There are many different types of indoor growing setups you can buy. Some of the prices are out of this world (up to $300). I am not even talking about mega-expensive Metal Halide grow lights that commercial greenhouses use, I am still talking about simple, cheap, 4 foot fluorescent lighting here.

We will need at least one, 4 Foot 2 Lamp 40 watt Fluorescent fixture. One will do you for 2 flats of seedlings (36, 48 or 72 cell trays). This is more than enough for most people. They cost either $20 at Home Depot, or a couple of bucks at an online community page such as Craig’s List or Kijiji.ca.

The most important characteristic of your lighting that you are going to want here is full spectrum lighting (or close enough). To get this with a simple 4 foot - 2 lamp fixture you are going to need to purchase two types of bulbs. You will need a Cool-White and a Warm-White. Together, these will provide a good enough spectrum for our seedlings to help grow and think that they are getting real sunlight. You will see the difference between the light that the bulbs create; the Cool-White produces a bluish light, while the Warm-White a reddish or pinkish light.

There are several ways that you can now use this lighting to provide the light to your soon to be seedlings. You first need to think about a couple of things;

Your light needs to be as close to your seedlings as possible. I am talking no more than 3 inches away, (the heat from a fluorescent light is negligible, there might be a degree difference). You need to consider the fact that the seedlings will be gaining height on a daily / weekly basis, always reaching for the light. To accommodate this, we need to ensure that we can move the light up and up some more.

There are several ways to accomplish this, one is that you can put your light on a chain system where you can simply raise the lamp by putting a bolt through progressive loops in the chain, or you can build a stand that will allow the light to traverse up a support that will accomplish the same effect.

What I propose is a simple, cost effective way that we can do this on the cheap. The only tools you will require is a handsaw (or other cutting tool), and a screwdriver.

–Jay

I will start with space because this is a deciding factor on the lighting issue. Let me explain my situation to you first. I live in the lower half of Canada, while not entirely without light in the winter, I know that I am not going to get enough light to my seed trays to provide them with the nourishment they need without moving my seed trays all around the house many times a day to a different window. I am instead going to keep my seedlings to be in the cellar. There are two reasons for this, one is that I know that they will not be disturbed down there, and secondly I have the room to grow them there without having to worry about, well the next part.

The next part is the lighting. In a perfect world the sun would be on 18 hours a day beaming all those beautiful rays directly at my seedlings without any shadows or having to worry about cloudy days, or having to worry about the earth constantly rotating around the sun. Instead I am going to have to rig up a lighting situation where I can have a light on for 18 hours a day and not disturb everybody in the house.

The other thing about my cellar is that it is generally heated by the heat in my house, it is a bit cooler down there, but not enough to hinder the growth of the seedlings. I will have to add a bit of warmth directly to the seedlings but this is surprisingly easy, and fairly affordable. So, the solution to the lighting, heating, space issue? My friends call it my “Grow Op”. It will cost less $30, take up less than 4 square feet of floor space and allow you to start over one hundred seedlings. Sound good? Just wait for the coming articles.

– Jay

P.S. Warn your neighbors about that light that is on in the basement before hand. I don’t think my neighbors believe me even after giving them some of the ‘crop’ from last year!!!

This article will explain how to get started in growing peppers and the fundamentals of what you are going to require. We are going to be starting our peppers indoors so we will need to make arrangements. To grow seeds, we need seeds, soil, water, some form of light and heat. To add to this we need a dedicated place to grow them. This is a long process but once it gets going, I will show you how you can have it so it takes care of itself.

Let’s get by the real basics here. For a seed to become a plant it needs heat, sunlight, soil and water. If any of these elements are missing, the plant will suffer. Each must be in balance with the plant’s needs. Too much heat, the plant will need more water, not enough water, the plant will wilt. Too much water the plant will rot. If the soil is too firm, the plant can’t spread it’s roots. If it is too cold, the plant will not even germinate (turn from seed to sprout). It is that basic, and also that important.

Of course to get started I would suggest purchasing, or recycling some form of containers to hold the soil that we will be starting our seeds in. The seedling trays usually 36 or 72 cells per tray work good but remember the smaller the container, the quicker you are going to have transplant them. I am going to be using the 36 cell containers to start. You can also use any plastic take out tray, or even old ice cube trays that you pick up at a yard sale; anything thing that will hold soil.

Next you will need some soil. You can go organic, and purchase any organic mixture from your local Home Depot; you can use the chemically treated seed starter varieties, or you can use a couple of gallons from the backyard. Most commercially available mixtures will have a mixture of dirt, sand, and filler. The dirt has the nutrients that your plant will draw from, the sand helps keep the soil loose so the fragile roots can grow into it, and generally, the filler is used to retain moisture. Whatever you choose, will work as long as it is not pure clay. It must be loose. If this is your first time, and you really aren’t interested in keeping it ‘organic’ and, all you want is to produce peppers for personal consumption: I recommend Miracle Grow seed starter, you will get a good start on a great plant. Next year you can take the hobby further by trying a different mixture (maybe your own?).

Do not under any circumstances, use peat pellets. There are many reports that something in them hinders the growth or even germination of the seed. Bad news – just avoid them altogether.

There are three more things you now need to worry about, we have seeds, we have containers and we have soil. Coming up next we need a source of light, heat and we need space.

–Jay