Poinsettia, Tomatoes and Banana Peppers

Hey all,

I've never had much of a green thumb (in fact, I've killed several air cacti out of mere neglect and ignorance), but I've recently had some apparent success with growing. This has resulted in me deciding that I should try to spout and grow out some tomato and banana pepper seeds I had from a couple years ago. It has also resulted in my wife deciding that I should "take care of the poinsettia, too." After clarifying that this meant, figure out what to do then do it, I set into some research, and am just about ready to get down to bidness.

This is the poinsettia now:



I'll continue to post updates, and hopefully won't preside over a funeral.

The tomatoes and banana peppers will happen in a few days, once I get my single-bulb T5 set-up for them (and a couple other sorts of seeds as well), which will be early next week, most likely. Anyway, this is what I'm working with on those:



Any comments, suggestions, etc., are welcome!

Nice man, what other plants are you planing to grow? Are you going to run them indoor or just starting them indoors? what strain of tomato is that inside of the box?

I'm growing a random bagseed, which is a couple weeks from harvest; and a Double Bubble Kush mutt,* and two NYC Diesel mutts all about two weeks into flower (and running 12/12 from seed(ling)). I also plan to pop a Darth Maul mutt and a Sour Grape mutt along with the tomatoes and peppers. The mj will be indoors, of course, but I'm thinking of eventually putting the others outside once they get a bit bigger and harden some.

As for type of tomatoes, the seed pack says they're "Supersweet 100 VF, Hybrid" and the banana peppers say "Sweet Banana." I might also try to pop a jalapeno pepper or two, cause I love my spicy food!

By the way, thanks for the comment and rep!

* Mutt = pollinated by an unknown male

right on, supersweet 100's are a good cherry tomato, little bit larger than most cherries, but should be pretty easy to grow. I started all my tomato, peppers, cucumbers & ground cherries a few weeks ago. All I do is let them soak in water over night ( around 12 hours ) then use the paper towel method of germinating until I start to see the tap root just starting to crack threw the seed. Then I place them in quarter gallon pots with a soil-less growing medium so you don't kill your seedlings
with fertilizer.

Try planting some marigold, borage & maybe some kind of onion/bunching onion as companions as well.

Right on! I was wondering about germinating. I'm planning to germ the mj seeds soon, but wasn't quite sure what to do with the tomatoes and peppers. They came with the starter pellets, but I just don't like those, so I planned to put them into some pretty neutral seedling soil.

I love the onion idea, too, as I have an onion from the store that's sprouted and is growing like a beast! Its green is about a foot long already, and looking healthy as anything. I've heard grocery store onions are no good for regrowing to eat, but I don't really care, as I'm just trying to figure this whole plant thing out, so the experience will be great.

By the way, from the earlier post, Mutt = unknown male pollen. I have a couple hunches, but those are the first I'm growing, so we'll just have to wait and see!

Well, I got the T5 set-up, and got the poinsettia transplanted into a bigger pot. I also trimmed off some of the dead growth from the bottom, and had earlier broken off one of the red leaves, so I trimmed that branch. I also trimmed off one of the larger red leaves, which had a big brown patch on it, and the tip of one of the red leaves that also was browning.

I started with a layer of perlite on the bottom, then added about an inch of my soil mix, which is Happy Frog mixed with perlite and dolomite, in an approximate 5-3-.25 ratio. I wet the mix down with distilled water with 1 tsp/gal worth of unsulfered blackstrap molasses, and added 1 tsp/gal worth of additional humic acid and root grower stuff (both from the GO Box).



Interestingly, poinsettias apparently bleed...white.



I'll be trimming off the remainder of the red leaves, which will basically leave me with green sticks with a couple small green leaves, but (but for the lack of more green leaves, which I can do nothing about) that's apparently what is supposed to be done.

By the way, a couple of the guides I've been reading about this are:

http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_h/H-406.pdf and http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/07412.html.

More to come later!

Attempting to document each branch's leaves before the cuts:



This is the one that I cut a couple days ago after having broken off the only bract (the red leaves*).



The cuttings. I might try to root them (at least the one with the green leaves growing at the top), but I don't have cloning stuff. I did see a video about using honey as a cloning solution, so if I do try, that'll be what I use. Nevertheless, I'm not expecting much, given the lack of cloning stuff, cloning experience, a green thumb, and the fussiness of poinsettias.



And, finally, the stems. It looks like everything I see in pictures, but it seems so unnatural to cut a plant down so much. Granted, ideally, this would have a few more small green leaves left, but there's nothing I can do about that!



Currently, it's mostly under the T5 (it's a bit too tall to fit completely) since the sun's hidden behind the snow clouds. I might move it under in with my mj plants, to get it better might, once they wake up for the morning. And, of course, once the sun returns, it'll be moved back to the windowsill. This all assumes, of course, that I didn't just kill it.

This morning, I planted the tomatoes and peppers. Since I don't have much of a green thumb, I'm just following the directions and using the tiny pots with the plastic dome. The only difference is that I'm trying a bit of an experiment: I'm doing three with the pellets and three with a seedling mix I made (on a whim).

First, I plumped the pellets



Then, I mixed up the mix, which is a small handful of Happy Frog and two small handfuls of the Jiffy Organic Seed Starter stuff (which seems to be a neutral medium), and a bit of water, and filled the other pots.



The directions said to put 4 to 6 seeds in each pot, but that just didn't seem right, so I did two in each.



I forgot to take pictures of the pepper seeds in the holes, but I planted them (as well as the tomatoes) about 1/4 inch below the surface. These are the tomato seeds in the holes, though.



I did peppers in two pellet pots and one soil pot, and did the tomatoes in two soil pots and one pellet pot. After spraying them down with a bit more water, I put them under the T5 with a few other things.



And, since I'm here, the poinsettia seems to be doing well too. Since the weather has been horrible the past few days, I've tried putting her by the T5, but she's just a bit too tall to truly fit. Nevertheless, she seems to be doing well, adn is enjoying the first real sunlight since being cut back.



Cheers all!

You got things going now, nice!
usually when they say plant 6 seeds in a single hole is , because they want you to thin them out ( once a cluster of sprouts reach about an inch you pinch out all, but 1 seedling to insure you get a sprout).

Wish i could see the pic's , but something with the attachments wont let me see them.

purpz said:

You got things going now, nice!
usually when they say plant 6 seeds in a single hole is , because they want you to thin them out ( once a cluster of sprouts reach about an inch you pinch out all, but 1 seedling to insure you get a sprout).

Wish i could see the pic's , but something with the attachments wont let me see them.

Click to expand...

Thanks for letting me know! I didn't realize they loaded stupidly, but I believe they're fixed.

yup, the're up & looking good.