Just Chillies

Pepper Lanterns

I’ve not posted in nearly a month, well it’s been a hectic three weeks what with a holiday a hectic time at work and Julie getting through her 12 week scan. Yup another little chilli head on its way due in January.

Holiday was wonderful and despite my concerns the house sitter did a wonderful job by not killing any of the Chillies. Infact the ones in the Octogrow and DIY grow have completely taken over the greenhouse and the Tunnel is doing well, I’ve also had quite a few ripe pods and am very pleased with progress, it would seem that starting early with lights has good pay-back.

I’ll update more over the next week when I’ve a little more time, but have posted some pictures below – click to enlarge and see descriptions.

Cheers
Jamie.

Impressive Octogrow

 Just over a month ago I decided to pick up an Octogrow from Greenhouse sensations. It was an impressive, yet simplistic bit of kit. Real tangible growth was noticed after only a week of the plants being in the system compared to the plants in normal pots. Immediately I wanted more, but was a bit stuck for cash – they are currently £80 a pop for the Octogrow.

A few weeks ago I decided to try and make my own Octogrow, (click here for previous post) this weekend I finally managed to get round to creating the reservoir and auto-top up systems. My main change to the design was to make the system modular – so instead of having a single large tray with the plants on top, I’d have several smaller trays which could be interconnected and then expanded upon in the future.

Mini Ball-cock for auto-top-up

The key item for this was the mini ball cock – this allows for a central reservoir feeding the trays. It is possible to run the system with out this, however you’d need to keep an eye on the water level in each tray and manually fill them when they we’re running low. This also means you’d need to either, move the plants off the tray lid and take a look at the level (this could be a potential pain in the backside) or have an element of the tray exposed so you could see in (however this would increase water evaporation from the chamber meaning more frequent refills). Anything can be used as a reservoir, but due to time and for simplicities sake I just split the hose from the existing 25L which came with the Octogrow

Creating the Trays for the Octogrow

After sourcing the mini ball cock, I found 2 old trays and picked up 2 new trays from B&Q. I was planning to create my own tray from wood, but as I’m struggling to find any time at the moment decided to leave it until next years larger system. The trays were put in position and 8mm holes drilled for the connectors – rubber tubes with plastic connectors to expand the tube to the size of the hole in the tray, preventing leaking. Once everything was in position I connected the reservoir and the trays started filling. The filling process took just under 2 hours and used around 15L of water - I could have cheated and just manually topped them up but I needed to see that it all worked – but this is a one off time cost as the levels should now always stay the same due to the auto top up.

Creating the Trays and Lids

Whilst the trays we’re filling up I moved on to the lid, which is made from 13mm ply wood.I was planning to cut this down to the size for each individual tray but found that it fitted perfectly over three of the trays. A jig saw made short work of the slits for the capillary matting to go through. I had space for an extra 5 plants other than the 2 Cheyenne and 2 Chenzo plants, so I found some old 11L round pots and added a single ‘wick’ to each. I haven’t yet had time to complete the lid of the fourth tray but plan to get this completed in the next week or so – in the mean time I’m just using some random planks of wood.

The total cost of the system worked out as £38, however I used a lot of my own pots and had two trays. I’m pretty sure I could have built a much larger tray for the cost of the two (£12), also the Mini Ball Cock is a one off cost (£10) due to expansion capabilities and I’ve only used around 1 fifth of the capillary matting (£10). I’m also sure I could have used thinner ply (£6) and just had some supports in the trays or got a larger sheet from a local builders merchants to bring the cost down.

Any questions please feel free to comment to e-mail. Click on the pictures below for larger images and descriptions.

Octogrow 17th June

It’s amazing how fast Chilli plants can grow, I’ve been away on a work trip for the last few days and have come back to a mini jungle in the tunnel. Most of my varieties are now fruiting, however there’s still a fair few flowers dropping off all the plants - which I can’t figure out. I’ve looked on the forums for a solution, but most just present an unhelpful list containing items such as;

- Too Hot,
- Too Cold,
- Too much Water,
- Too little Water,
- Too much feed,
- Too little feed,
- Moon in wrong position, etc

Perhaps its none of the above. I also dropped in on the Upton Cheney Chilli Company last Wednesday and have noticed their plants are all very small with only a few buds on each, this has reasured me, perhaps its just still a little too early in the season for all the flowers to fruit and seeing how fast everything’s growing I’m not too concerned.

The plants in the Octogrow are having a growth spurt and its starting to look like the default spacing on it isn’t big enough as the plants are starting to bush out and touch each other. The four plants in the DIY wick system are doing great, all four of the plants are looking great and keeping up even growth with each other, this supports the theory that pot size (too a degree) doesn’t really matter with the Wick watering system. I’m planning on moving a number of other plants to the wick method and ejecting the tomatoes as I’m running out of space. Which brings me onto the tunnel, somethings having a good random nibble of all the plants, but there’s too many different species of crawly and flying bug in there to figure out what’s doing it, as long as they keep out the nasty little critters like Aphids and Spider Mites then I’m happy for them to have the occasional munch on the leaves.

Something Munching the leaves..

Some pictures of the Chillies below – click to get the larger version.

Little Bonnets in the Octogrow

I didn’t manage to find time to create the reseviours for the DIY octogrow, but made some make shift ones which connect to the main resiviour of the Octogrow by tube and automaticlly fill. Hopfully I’ll find the time to get the DIY one completed this week. I have 3 little Scotch Bonnets on one of the Octogrow plants and the Bhuts have small buds on them – greenhouse is getting rather full now.

Unfortunatly the Habs arn’t looking so well in the polytunnel and also I’m suffering sever flower dropping on the Jalapeno’s and Ring of Fire’s. The flower gets pollinated, but then just after the little chilli begins to show the stalk yellows and it dies. The only thing I can think of is that there not getting the right kind of food, or there’s too much Nitrogen in the soil from last years Bean grow.. I’ll have to keep a close eye on this issue.

Chillies in the polytunnel 6th of June

Capillary Matting from Focus

A few weeks ago I became the proud owner of an Octogrow, almost as soon as it arrived I started to have aspirations of building my own, obviously with a few tweaks here and there. My main aim was to see if I could replicate the system cheaper and with little effort.

I figured the system comprises of 2 main parts;
- The pots and wicks (capillary matting)
- The main reservoir, top up tank and flow control

As always I decided to start off with the easiest part the pots. I decided to try two different sized pots to answer the question – does pot size make a difference when using a wick method of chilli growing? – lucky I had 2 x Cheynney plants and 2 x Chenzo plants that are the same size and needed re-potting..

First task was to find some capillary matting – focus sells this in large sheets for £10, next was the pots – any would do, however I found the square type from the local garden center we’re fine. The large ones cost £1.80 each and the smaller ones £1.20.  Instead of using a single wick sticking up into the pot I decided to use two long strips per pot, about the width of a ruler and length of the matting sheet. These would be positioned in ‘half’ loops inside the pot with the two ends hanging outside the bottom. I figured that this should help water/nutrient absorption.

It took around 15 minutes to cut the four holes in each pot (using a blunt blade!) whilst the strips were soaking in water. Once the strips were in position I lifted them slightly and jammed soil under them using the ends hanging outside the pot to tension the ‘half’ loop. Finally I just potted the young chilli plants as normal and gave a light watering. These then sat in a tray whilst I thought about the reservoirs.

J

Unhealthy Habanero

One of my Habaneros hasn’t been doing too well, it’s situated at the back of the tunnel and despite a lot of my love just hasn’t been growing. I’m not sure why, perhaps one too many spittle bugs, or perhaps it’s just plain bad stock.. Anyhow today I decided, reluctantly, to pull it up and replace it with one of spare Cayenne plants..

Whilst settling the Cayenne in it’s new position I noticed this little Ladybird. Now Ladybird’s are a gardeners best friend as they eat most of the nasty little bugs, one of these little critters can munch it’s way through xxx aphids in a day! Good news? Perhaps not as there is a darker side to this tale..

Need to weed the tunnel...

Friend or foe..

I’m pretty sure that it’s a ‘harlequin’ Ladybird. This variety is native to Asia which, over the last few years, has invaded the UK in huge numbers. They compete for food with the Native UK Ladybirds and eat them when food is scarce, there are even reports of them biting humans. Nasty little creatures..

Click here for a handy PDF Ladybird identification chart made by http://www.harlequin-survey.org and here for a more comprehensive chart of native UK Ladybirds, made by http://www.ladybird-survey.org

What's this bug!!

Another week rolls by. The plants in the tunnel are doing well with quite a few of the early chillies now nearly full size. The Habs and Bonnets haven’t produced any pods yet, but I’m sure their on their way. I’ve found a few of the Jalapeno’s have been dropping their little chillies – basically the little chilli pokes it’s head through the flower then the stem turns yellow and falls off  

The temperatures in the tunnel are getting a little high which could be causing the flower drop, so I’ve been drastically thinking of ways to help with the ventilation. Currently I’ve got both doors open during the day and the temps are still going over 40 degrees. Will have to think about this a little longer. 

I also found another little bug on one of the plants. I have no idea what kind this is, any suggestions welcome. For the time being I’ve left it hoping it likes eatting little nasty bugs and not my plants… 

On a brighter note the 8 plants in the Octogrow are doing really well. So much so I’m planning to build my own, which I’m sure is a lot cheaper. I’ll post the design and build once I’ve come up with it! 

Some pictures of progress below – Click to enlarge.

Spittle bug eating Chilli!

So yesterday I noticed one or two of the plants weren’t doing so well. Upon closer inspection I found what looks like some foamy white stuff. 

This is from a ‘spittle bug’ a tiny little bug which makes a foam like shell to protect itself, there were only two of them and apparently they don’t do much harm so I decided to wash them away with water instead of take draconian bug killing measures…

Spittle bug eating Chilli

 So I’ve finally managed to find time to setup the Octogrow. It’s a rather basic system, based on capillary strips which soak up water and feed from a large reservoir, which in turn is connected to a 25 litre bucket.

Installation was very simple – soak the capillary strips, insert them into the pots, put the pots on the reservoir tray whilst pushing the matting through some ready made holes (a tad fiddly). Once this is done, fill the reservoir and fill the pots with compost (West+ is my normal brand). The tricky bit here is to ensure that the matting is standing up, this is done by creating a small mound around the matting, I guess this is to help ensure the transfer of water and also gives something for the roots to attach to.. 

Finally, after almost 2 hours, i managed to get the plants in. I’m a little concerned that the greenhouse will be too small for the Chillies grown in this – well if all the marketing hype is to be believed.

The simplistic nature of this has inspired me to create my own – with a few tweaks of course. Idea would be to create a larger reservior and create better spacing between the pots. Probably shouldn’t get carried away until I’ve seen how this compares to pot and ground placed Chillies. Will update once I’ve done the design.
J

Recieved my new Octogrow system today. Octogrow is a passive hydroponics system, using strips of capillary matt to transfer water and feed from a central chamber into 8 11ltr pots. More on this when I’ve setup.

J