Texas Heat
Its been just over a month since we transplanted the bell peppers into the greenhouse. Late July was hot with temps in the mid 90′s but early August has been even worse with a couple weeks in a row of 100+ heat. We are doing are best to keep the plants cool with the shade-cloth and fanning as well as regular misting. Initially we had the plants set with 1/2 gph drippers and irrigating 4x daily for 15 minutes, but they kept getting clogged since we don’t have an inline filter. So now we got a digital timer and just run the open 1/4″ tubing for 1 minute. I calculate that it’s about .30 gallon per irrigation event.
I am really enjoying growing in the bato buckets. They are cost effective and easy to install and manage.
Another point of interest is that we have been feeding these plants with Kimitec’s line of nutrients. These were developed in Spain by hydroponic vegetable growers and can be used organically according to NOP guidelines or you can add the non NOP ingredients for a boost in yield. They are highly concentrated and water soluble so they make a great bridge between retail fertilizers and commercial salts. Typical application rates are between 1ml/gal – 5ml/gallon depending on which component, because they are more concentrated than retail liquids the cost is about 1/2, it is still about twice the cost of salts, but I hope the results will be worth the cost, plus I don’t have to have a bunch of 25lb bags of fertilizer laying around.
For the bells we are using the entire line: bombadier, amifort, espartan, katom, and rhizo in the reservior and foliar spraying with caos and tundamix.
For the chilis we are using our 15-5-15 as a base and katom and rhizo as P-K boosters.
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- Despite struggling with the heat, the bell peppers are growing steadily.
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- Looking down the row, I’m pretty satisfied with the uniformity :)
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- This poor guy was attacked by aphids. We treated with soapy water but the combination of heat and the soapy water took it’s toll.
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- The back corner of the greenhouse
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- These are some habanero clones that we put into coco and have been hand watering until we can find a system to put them in. As you can see we where a bit late with the watering, but he perked up soon after.
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- These are the red habanero plants we are growing as a test crop for Texas Brimstone Hotsauce Co.
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- They habaneros are begining to flower. Not sure if they’ll take until temps get out of the 100s but at least they’ll be ready.
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- The difference in morphology between the three habs has been really interesting to watch.
