So a weird occurrence for me here in Canada, but almost all of my hot peppers have now been sun scalded. Usually hardening off is more about cooler nighttime temps than anything else, so I totally didn't expect this and am not that sure how to deal with it. It's looking like I might lose the smallest one that germinated way late, but what should I do for the others? I'm already keeping them well-watered, and I've tried to shade them a bit with some other plants. Do I remove the leaves with the most damage, or leave them? Anyone from hotter areas have some tips?
Are you sure it's sunscald and not blight or some sort of disease? Do you have any pictures? What variety are you growing? I haven't had any issues with my peppers burning but I also don't grow any super super hot varieties. I think the hottest that I grow is maybe the pasilla Baja peppers. I also think that the big oak tree shades mine from the worst of the afternoon sun. We have temperatures in the 90s already, not considering the humidity Factor. Out of all the plants I have grown in the past the pepper seem to tolerate the heat way better than any of the others.
I'm pretty sure it's sunscald, I don't have any pictures of my plants right now, but they look exactly like this, although that's a lilac bush: url Some of the leaves are turning partially white and crispy. Mixed varieties - a couple of different kinds of ghosts, a scorpion kraken, couple of different kinds of habs, sugar rush, lemon drop, cayenne, a few others I can't remember right now. Probably the "mildest" one is called Venezuelan Tiger. They were all nice and green and healthy before I transplanted them into larger pots to put outside. Pots were all cleaned and sterilized and it was brand new soil. The leaf discolouration showed up the day after - deck faces south, so direct sun pretty much all day and we've been 27-30 degrees all week, which is a touch cooler than you, but warm for us this time of year. Before that they were inside under a grow light.
Well fuck me with a chainsaw. I was an idiot yesterday when I installed the pond liner, as I proceeded to staple it in place, with multiple staples down in the corners, well below the waterline. As in the opposite depth of the waterline. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking, other than I was in “landscaping fabric” mode, not “water barrier” mode. Needless to say the lawn was soaking and there was very little water in the liner after sitting over night. This afternoon has consisted of pulling out the ruined liner and putting in the other half that I had saved. Thankfully I was too lazy/tired last night to fill it full of gravel yet.
Are these plants that you started inside and then moved outside? You need to harden off plants that are going to be moved outside because of the UV radiation from the Sun by allowing them to be exposed to some sunlight in a more sheltered area. If you move them directly outside to a Sunny Spot that may be what happened. And if that is the case, then the sun scalding is temporary and all the new foliage will be okay. If that is what happened and it were me, I would just leave it alone and let it recover and then trim off anything that is dead dead later.
Have you already re-installed the replacement piece? If not, you might consider some kind of cushion geotextile between the liner and wood box. Once you pile in the gravel, the corners and folds may cause tearing, even with rounded stone. I've never done it before - just a thought.
It's all done with the first yard of stone in it now, and it seems to be just fine... I basically loosely positioned the liner and then filled it with water so that it could free-form into the box. I then installed the overflow port and started in with the stone. Then I stapled the top edge of the liner into place to keep it out of the way. I've checked for undo stress in the membrane, especially in the lower corners, and it seems to be just fine. I guess time will tell, but I think this will hold.
That's totally what happened I think, I'm really used to hardening off for cooler outside temps, didn't realize the same applied to sun. So they went straight from inside to the sunny, sunny deck. Learning! I took some pics but I'm having trouble resizing them... Doesn't really matter as I'm sure we've found the problem.
As a technical aside, I've found that an easy way to resize pics is to just text them to yourself... they seem to downsize them automatically... then I just copy the pic from the text and upload that one. Works for me on an iPhone, anyway.
Sorry that you had to redo the liner, Nett. Glad that you had the other half on hand. I am finally taking some of the plastic off of my tomatoes, which is awesome. I buy the cheapest plastic drop cloths to wrap my cages until the plants are happy, really helps with the wind et al. It also removes the need to harden the plant, which is also awesome. Trim them up, plant them deep with some 1-4-1 quick start, and just wait for the magic to happen!
Meh, I had originally thought I'd make two of these things if the first one goes well, so I bought the pond liner and designed the dimensions of everything based on that pond liner dimension cut in half (tweaked slightly for the lumber from the mill). Just means that if/when I do the next one (next year?) I'll have to get another pond liner. I'd probably go for a slightly bigger one based on my current experience anyway. Right now I'm just jealous as hell that all y'all get to put your plants in the actual ground right now... I'm hoping to get things planted by the middle of next week. We are about a month behind in the season so far... as in Spring/Summer was just delayed by a month.
Got the overflow pipe installed, the drainage pipe, and the gravel all installed. I am now in full-on drinking mode. Spoiler: a few pics Here you can see the cloth covered drainage pipe. There's a standpipe at the near end that is the fill pipe for the reservoir... you stick the hose in, and then it goes down into the drainage pipe, and then it evenly spreads out the water across the gravel bed and fills it up. Once it hits the overflow pipe, stop filling. In theory you only have to do this ever couple of weeks. We'll see. Here's the simple vent pipe coming through the box. When the water level gets there, it just starts spilling out the pipe. The inside of the overflow was something that I couldn't find a proper fitting for so I made my own. Took an old cutting board, some scraps from the previous attempt at the pond liner, and a fuck-ton of below-the-waterline capable polyurethane, gooped it all together, then screwed it from the inside of the box and through the pond liner. I also gooped a rock strainer over top of the pipe. Let it all cure overnight, and it's rock fucking solid and not leaking at all. Ugly, but mission accomplished with scraps already on hand. The 2 cats lending a hand. Gravel's finally all done and level. You can also see the filler pipe that is simply band strapped to the inside of the box.
Was able to do most of my planting the last few days. Still have some more to do and cleaning the yard but here is what I have so far: I have 3 types of tomatoes, 6 eggplants, 6 bell peppers, 6 jalapeno peppers, 6 mariachi peppers, a ghost pepper, cucumbers, potatoes, and broccoli.
Has anyone ever tried topping their pepper plants? I guess now would be the perfect time to do it but I never have done it before.
I have never bothered, Zyron, but there is definitely something to it. Pushing growth down, into blooms, versus going up up up. I think the timing and method are probably important, but I have never bothered to explore it in detail. Fortunately, the folks at the hot pepper site have. They talk about pretty much nothing but peppers. I have been browsing there for years, mainly for the Drunken Chef thread......used to be hilarious. Check it out: http://thehotpepper.com/forum/100-growing-hot-peppers/ Good luck, sir.
Landscape fabric and some topsoil now in. I think I’ll need one more yard and that’ll do it. Really looking forward to getting this thing done.
Awesome. You mentioned top soil and I was just worried you were going to fill it with plain topsoil and it would become compacted over time with no life able to move up into the soil through the pond liner / rock combo.