Just for the fun of it I started two 'Frank's Sweet' peppers since I read that they only get about 2' tall. My lights can manage that so why not?
I've been paying pollinator with a q-tip swab and so far it's working. Baby peppers starting!


The larger of the two plants is 12" x 12" right now and it's absolutely loaded with blooms all over the outside and inside too. If you look closely in the upper left corner of the plant there's a pepper that's about 1.5" long.


I seeded a small pot each of basil and Chinese chives. Both came up yesterday., The parsley (as usual) is taking it's sweet time.

The three micros are needing to be transplanted to their forever pots and that will happen this afternoon. L to R: Golden Hour, Krasny Milo and Red Robin.


Anybody else playing indoors?

Need you ask glad things are doing good for you.

I've been dragging my feet a little. Changing up the lights and making decisions about that.
I usually take the first hard frost and move to lower temperatures as my cue, because that means the ants are dormant before they realize there will be temptations indoors. This year it's still very mild, no frost in the ground at all. I have peppers ripening in the greenhouse, and found a leaf covered in aphids today.
However, I love this topic!!
Will have something to post soon.

I'm growing House tomatoes, lettuce, basil and beans hydroponically this winter.

The two toms are up after 4 days, but the lettuces aren't, after 14 days. (I started more 2 days ago on paper towel so fingers crossed). I only bought the seeds last year.

The best way to start the bush beans for hydroponics is in damp paper towel. Mine are 4 yrs old, but should be ok.

have a small planter with multiple seedlings in it... was not sure if the cosmic cream seeds I going to save were still good after a week fermenting... I saw tails when I was getting ready to dry them so simply dumped them in a pot just in case...

I just got a larger rack will be putting it up tomorrow and just going with 1 shop light per rack the maters did just fine with those last time I did it and it will just center the middle since there will only be 1 row on each shelf instead of over crowded and putting 2 rows ..

i brought a couple basil pots indoors. they are still growing, and i have
rooted cuttings to pot up. one of the pots has some chives, and there is
a brassica of some sort in there too. i have been thinking of starting some
peppers over winter. franks is a good idea, and grandpas home is a small hot
pepper. i also might try something like jimmy nardello or similar pepper.
i brought in some greek oregano still alive. rosemary is already in doors.
micro tomatoes, lettuce are on the to grow list, and i will be trying some
catawissa walking onions in doors for the first time.

first i have to get all my seeds together and sent in for the swap, and a few
other things accomplished before i can think of starting seeds already.


keith

@Labradors how is the house tomato? Any good I’ve started that one a few days ago

Are the House tomato leaves supposed to be rugose or just somewhat more rigid and still a bit floppy? I've looked at a couple of seller websites and they don't show the leaves very clearly, but some looked more like rugose dwarfs than others. Sounds like a nice window sill tomato.

AKGardener, I was happy with House last winter! I grew it hydroponically in a one-gallon glass jar, and it didn't grow more than 10" tall, but it did need support. I strung it to the shelf above, which wasn't ideal because the light was in the way! The taste was good (for a winter tomato). It wasn't tart! When I added Maxibloom, I thought that the taste got even better! It was quite prolific.

ddsack. I wish I could remember what the leaves were like. I think they probably were rugose. Nice and compact .

Sweet I have some started !!

Got those three micros potted up yesterday. The potting soil lives in the shed and was pretty cold so I had to bring the filled pots in first thing so they could warm up ahead of time. So now the micros share space under the lights with the peppers.


The basil, chives and finally the parsley are all up.

A progress report!

The Golden Hour (new to me) is now 17" tall and blooming. The other two are only about 8x8" so far. The one behind the Golden Hour is Red Robin. That one should get up to about 14" eventually.

The Frank's Sweet pepper is just loaded with peppers. The largest so far is 4" long and about 1.5" wide at the top. This is the first time I've grown one and will have to look up how big the peppers should get. I'm going to have to put a stake in the pot as the plant is starting to lean a bit under the pepper load. 2' tall is the predicted height.


Has anyone grown this pepper before? If so, about how tall does it really get and how big should the peppers get?

I remember Frank's being on the short side for a pepper - maybe foot and a half? That is, in a fairly small pot.
Amazing job GoDawgs they are loving it!! Are you hand pollinating or just letting them self?
Just wondering as well, what kind of lights are you using and how many watts in that setup.

bower wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2024 7:31 am I remember Frank's being on the short side for a pepper - maybe foot and a half? That is, in a fairly small pot.
Amazing job GoDawgs they are loving it!! Are you hand pollinating or just letting them self?
Just wondering as well, what kind of lights are you using and how many watts in that setup.

Thanks, @bower. From what I've read Frank's is described as "short" but one description said "up to 2' tall". Sounded good for under lights! Peppers are described as "elongated" but I've not seen a size listed. They are OP and 56 DTM.

I did hand pollinate them with a q-tip swab just like I would a tomato. There were tons of flowers on the initial setting and they put out lots of pollen!

The lights are regular 4' florescent tubes. That's all I've ever used my whole gardening life and get good results with them. I first used T12 tubes until they started getting harder to find so I switched to T8's. There was a discussion in here a while ago about different kinds of lights, wattage, and light spectrum to use. So I decided to use two different tubes in each shop light:



I think they work a bit better than plain old shop tubes but I've found I have to turn my seedlings 180 degrees every other day as they will start slightly lean towards the brighter of the two tubes.

Lights are kept about 3" from the top of plants. I tend to run them a hair on the dry side. When I lift the pot and it feels like it's getting light they get watered. They get a small sip of the blue stuff fert every 2-3 weeks. They were potted in a 50/50 mix of Happy Frog potting soil and Miracle Grow potting soil.

I bought a couple of everbearing strawberry plants this summer, and in late fall when visiting I noticed that Mom hadn't stuck hers in the ground. They did bear a few berries but very overcrowded and one had a little plant on a runner. So I grabbed that pot and brought it home to pot up. I got some new lights boasting a "full spectrum" so here is a way to test them, too.
My goal was to hand pollinate as many strawberries as I can before Mom's birthday: today!! The ol girl has turned 90!!

Anyway, here is the result of the strawberry experiment.
One plant has 20 berries, counting a couple of just opened flowers that have been dusted with the paintbrush once. There are two ripe ones. So the verdict is: success!! Yes we can grow strawberries over winter.
The second plant only has made 4 berries. this is the one with the runner and little plant I tucked in at the end. That little one has come on is looking good, so I potted it up yesterday, but also found a second runner coming from that plant. I clipped it and put it in water, hoping the new little plant will develop to the point I can plant it.
So here is a graphic explanation of strawberry production: always cut off runners. Perhaps?
When I removed the two daughter plants from plant #2, I also fertilized and backfilled with good compost - and I'm hoping that will be enough for this plant to switch to making berries instead of making extra plants. Time will tell.
I did buy a small pot-sized light for these strawberries as well, which has options of 3 different spectrums including the fruiting light, and set up the plant at Mom's today with the wee light, hope it works, time will tell.
At least she should get some berries! As shown a few days ago, before I removed the third little plant and runner.

GoDawgs wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2024 10:47 am

bower wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2024 7:31 am I remember Frank's being on the short side for a pepper - maybe foot and a half? That is, in a fairly small pot.
Amazing job GoDawgs they are loving it!! Are you hand pollinating or just letting them self?
Just wondering as well, what kind of lights are you using and how many watts in that setup.

Thanks, @bower. From what I've read Frank's is described as "short" but one description said "up to 2' tall". Sounded good for under lights! Peppers are described as "elongated" but I've not seen a size listed. They are OP and 56 DTM.

I did hand pollinate them with a q-tip swab just like I would a tomato. There were tons of flowers on the initial setting and they put out lots of pollen!

The lights are regular 4' florescent tubes. That's all I've ever used my whole gardening life and get good results with them. I first used T12 tubes until they started getting harder to find so I switched to T8's. There was a discussion in here a while ago about different kinds of lights, wattage, and light spectrum to use. So I decided to use two different tubes in each shop light:



I think they work a bit better than plain old shop tubes but I've found I have to turn my seedlings 180 degrees every other day as they will start slightly lean towards the brighter of the two tubes.

Lights are kept about 3" from the top of plants. I tend to run them a hair on the dry side. When I lift the pot and it feels like it's getting light they get watered. They get a small sip of the blue stuff fert every 2-3 weeks. They were potted in a 50/50 mix of Happy Frog potting soil and Miracle Grow potting soil.

Frank's is the only pepper that isn't a near total failure for me. It only gets to about 18" max, and is always loaded down with peppers, more peppers than
a plant is what it often looks like.

I've kept dragging my feet not doing the usual mid winter greens, but I did start a bunch of things that take a long time:
Leeks, Chernomor Celeriac from Ukraine, and 5 kinds of strawberry seeds. Got some small cilantro and arugula sprouts too, but today was pot up time for 77 baby strawberry plants. And that's not all of them. Two kinds still to come.
The celeriac is like a little dense forest. When the true leaves come out, will be trays of em for sure.
My little strawberry runner has started to make berries too.

I had big plans to start a bunch of new varieties but alot of my seeds just didn’t germinate totally fine so I decided to plant 24!of one variety because they are our favorite so far but out of all them 3 are definitely not Vilma’s .. but again ok with it and now that they all have maters I restarted some new ones. I’ll give updates once they are up and running..

12 micros, 8 sticks, 2 full sized and a basil LOL in a tower garden.