First of 2008 !

Hello and welcome back to my blog's first post of year 2008 ! The climate in Finland has treated us, victims of it, with ultracrappy weather.

However, things in the plant area have changed dramatically. The Bird's Eye Babies which I sowed late 2007, refused to sprout. However, I didn't give up. I emptied the bottle from far too sandy soil and replaced it with peat soil that has lots of delicious nutrients in it. It is also better than sandy soil, since it isn't that dense and allows water to pass through it much easier. This decreases the chance of overwatering the plant.

Now welcome, the Pink Habañero!


Pink Habañero, C. Chinense should grow a beautiful bushy tree!

As you can see here, it has been pre-germinated in a rockwool cube that has been in a plastic miniature greenhouse. Rockwool cubes are very handy when it comes in germinating seedlings -- They are cheap, absorb a *lot* of water and won't form mold very easily. We hope to see new growth in this little fella!

Also, it's friend has been updated too. Remember the thai dragon? I overwatered it and it fucking died. First time killing a chile! However, I took another identical plant and repotted it.
It has now formed lots of new, fresh growth!



pink habañero and thai dragon living in a consensus.

To my surprise it has also started splitting itself from the top, which means growth of first branches. Yay!



Thai Dragon with leaves pointing bit downwards - Time to rest now, after a long day of branch-growing!

This is it for today, looking forward for your comments! Have a nice 2008.

So. Christmas is here and no one should feel lonely, and that applies to chiles also! That's why I got the unsprouted seedlings a small friend. Nothing less nor more but a nice, small Thai Dragon. Hope it would be a motivation for the yet-to-sprout Bird's Eyes! Merry Christmas folks!

For people who ask why am I doing this, the answer is that this bottle is the first and last pot for these fellas. I want to see how well they can cope together and how will their roots develope and will it be able to come out 'normally', as it is usually meant to be changed to bigger and wider pots as their roots will expand and need more space.

Process!

As I have now beginned with this blog, I think it's now time for my first proper entry. Enjoy!


Alright, I spotted a perfect pot for this experiment and it had been on my desktop for days!
Now - Meet mr. Lipton.



It's a 0.5 liter (or around 0.13 gallons if you live on the wrong side of The Pond) PET-bottle, just perfect for my needs!

As the "mouth" of the bottle wasn't too wide, I figured that it wouldn't help me with growing plants in it. It definitely needed lightweight modding! Here's when the king of all-around-tools (drumroll here) kicked in. The knife.



After carefully mutilating the "pot" for a while, it seemed perfect and ready for soil. First I filled it almost up to the neck, then watered it, waited for a moment and added a thinner layer of soil and again carefully watering it.

Now it was time for sowing the seeds! I thought of something ornamental and nothing too big, so I decided to go for Bird's Eye Baby. I got seeds of this beautiful Annuum from Fatalii himself! ( http://www.fatalii.net )

After sowing 2 seeds it was time to get some heat for the little seeds, as it is crucial while growing tiny seedlings. I covered the mouth of the bottle with plastic wrap and made few ventilation holes to avoid mold to form. Finally, I placed the bottle on my dear D-link DI-524 which has worked perfectly for warming up dozens of little seedlings. (Warming up seeds is the only job this thing can manage 100%) Sorry D-link lovers!



Now it's only matter of time when little seedlings will sprout to life. Until then, happy holidays from kilpikon3!

The beginning

Hello and welcome to my blog. This is an epic story of an epic experiment; growing chili-peppers in a simple PET-plastic bottle. Will there be seedlings? Will they survive in arctic Finland without any fancy growing equipment? Stay tuned!