Emergency Harvest

Yesterday, whilst replacing all of the pepper reservoirs, an awful snap indicated that the Ancho Magnifico stem broke away from a portion of its root system.

It's been a constant struggle to keep the pepper plants supported in the bucket farm. The latest design, which I felt certain would be strong enough to support the plants, has failed under the tremendous weight of the growing ancho pods. Now I'm certain that I know how to build buckets that can support these plants but the job is not a simple retrofit.

Since most of the plants have suffered some sort of stress or another as I tried (with varying success) to keep them supported as they grew larger and heavier than I had ever anticipated, I have decided to rush the current crops to harvest this week and start new crops in buckets that have a better design for supporting the plants.

Yesterday I changed all pepper reservoirs out with fresh nutrient solutions, a little heavier than usual on bloom enhancers:

Into four gallons of water:

-Five teaspoons General Hydroponics "Maxi-Bloom"
-Two teaspoons General Hydroponics "Kool-Blooms"
-Two tablespoons Technaflora "Sugar Daddy"

Adjusted pH to 6.0. PPM: ~1350

Starting Saturday morning, I'll flush the plants with Flora Kleen (more on this later) for two days and collect all of the peppers Monday morning. Many of the peppers will not be ripe, so they are probably better candidates for pickling than for fresh cooking.

I will post photos and instructions this weekend when I construct the new buckets.