Habanada Pepper

2024-03-17 Flowering

I recently purchased habanada pepper seeds from Row 7 Seed Company. They have a lot of unique seeds varieties that I am excited to try. They are a really cool company and everyone should check them out.

Habanada peppers are a special variety of habañero that were bred to have very little heat. The low heat supposedly allows you to taste their floral notes and enjoy them like a snacking pepper. I am really excited to try them.

I filled 4 6-celled seed starting trays from Epic Gardening with my homemade seed starting mix, which you can read about in the log for the March 17, 2024 batch of buttercrunch lettuce.

Row 7 Seed Company recommends using a germination heat mat, so I purchased a Vivosun 10" x 20.75" mat from Amazon.

2 seeds were placed in each cell about an 1/8" deep and covered with a little bit of soil. I used a misting spray bottle to lightly water each cell and covered them with Epic Gardening seed germination domes. The cells were placed in an Epic Gardening universal bottom tray and place on top the heat mat under two Barrina grow lights.

Along with the 2024-03-17 batches of buttercrunch and romaine lettuces, I’ve started hardening the seedlings by giving them a few hours outdoors. I’m gradually exposing them to sunlight by giving them indirect sunlight, increasing the time by an hour or so each day. After a few days of indirect sunlight, I will start exposing them to direct sunlight, increasing the time by an hour each day until I can leave them outside all day. It’s still a little chilly for peppers, so I won’t leave them outside when it’s colder than 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and definitely not overnight.

I poured a small amount of organic plant for edibles from Back to the Roots that had been soaked in a cup of water on each cell in the seedling trays.

I brought the seedlings inside after a few hours in the sun because it began to rain. I left them under the grow lights for a little bit and when I returned I noticed something had cut the tops off of 3 plants! I’m not sure what did it, but my guess is some kind of insect chewed through them.

A few habanadas popped up from the soil in the garden bed with the 2024-01-14 batch of buttercrunch lettuce. I guess the soil from the seedling tray cells that I mixed into the garden bed soil had viable seeds and needed more time to germinate. I’m going to let them grow next to the lettuce and hope they make it even though the temperature outside at night has been in the low 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

I found another seedling growing from the new soil in the lime bush pot. I removed this one because the lime bush is struggling enough.

I’ve been allowing the the seedlings to stay outside overnight, but the last few days have been too cold for peppers, with temperatures close dropping below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I started to bring them inside and placed them on a shelf about 18" below the grow lights. Apparently full spectrum LED grow lights do not need to be very close to the plants. I’m not sure yet, but they might have been bleaching the 2024/03/17 buttercrunch and romaine lettuces.

I filled the bottom tray with water lightly fertilized with liquid fertilizer from Back to the Roots. It’s supposedly for indoor plants, but I find it easier to administer to the seedlings than their dry fertilizer for edible plants. I am going to be away this weekend, so I am filling the bottom tray enough water to last until I return.

Looks like the seedlings also benefitted from the lightly fertilized water over the weekend, similar to the 2024/03/17 batches of romaine lettuce and buttercrunch lettuce. I also covered the seedlings with the transparent seedling domes to trap some extra humidity and heat around them since they prefer warmer conditions.

I moved the seedlings closer to the grow lights because it seems like they were lacking nutrients that the fertilizer provided and were not getting bleached by the light. They are not about 3" from the lights.

I started hardening-off the plants by giving them about 1.5 hours of direct sunlight.

The seedlings were given 5 hours of direct sunlight today.

The plants were left outside in direct sunlight for most the day.

Since I harvested the 2024-01-14 and 2024-03-17 batches of buttercrunch lettuce, I tilled the soil to prepare it for the habanada plants. Once the soil was prepared, I transplanted each of the plants into the garden bed, giving them about 6 to 8 inches of space.

Because the plants were recently transplanted, I have been giving them more water and attention. Today I amended the soil with some azomite to give them some added minerals and nutrients that might have been depleted by the buttercrunch lettuce that previously occupied the garden bed.

I planted 3 of the 2024-05-13 midnight roma tomato plants in the garden bed with the peppers and sprinkled edible plant food from Back to the Roots over the soil, which I purchased at my local Target.

I separated the remaining habanada pepper seedlings to 1 plant per cell in the 6 cell seed starting trays. This will give them more space to grow their roots until I am ready to transplant them into a new garden bed.

I gave the plants in the garden bed an extra deep soak and completely filled the bottom trays with water for the plants that haven’t been transplanted because I will be out of town for a few days. It’s going to be hot so I need to make sure they have enough hydration.

The plants in the garden bed are huge and the ones that haven’t been transplanted look pretty good, too.

The first signs of flower buds appeared today, so I started pruning the bottom branches and suckes just below the lowest buds.

It turns out you shouldn’t prune peppers like tomatoes though, because you want them to be bushy. Typically, you prune them by trimming the top of the plant, also known as “topping-off.” Luckily, I only pruned 3 of the 5 or 6 plants in the garden bed.

I watered the plants with a new type of fertilizer, Fox Farm Big Bloom, and a Cal-Mag Plus, which is a calcium, magnesium, and iron plant supplement.