Just proving that my frankenpeppers are not abused, or at least they suffered no lasting damage.

Looking good. That nose pepper looks like it might be getting a little shaded out at this point.
Bruce

I was thinking the same thing. I might need to do some pruning on the other two.

Death on Skull Mountain continues unabated (and correctly fertilized):

Ooh baby, Skull Mountain is coming along even better than I had hoped. I dug it down a bit to start exposing the roots so that they'd lignify better (along with repositioning them so they'll have a nice spread), and its looking GOOD.

{{gwi:12821}}

Frankenpepper is also doing well.

Its becoming a fight against the two bigger, older peppers to keep them from shading out the nose pepper, but so far so good.

Looking real good.
You might try clipping all the leaves on the inside of the two eye peppers, then if possible, face the thing so the chin on the skull is facing the sun.

Also, is that some kind of moss growing on the soil?
Bruce

I do clip the leaves on the eyeball ones, they just keep growing new ones that have to be taken off too.

And thats elfin thyme growing around it. Very drought tolerant, should make good living mulch.

*Bump*

Edy, when are we gonna get an update on this? Are they blooming yet? Any pods?
Bruce

Still in a holding pattern. This last... nearly a month of 100+ degree weather appear to have slowed them down quite a bit.

Just got the first rain in about as long, so thats good. They probably haven't been liking the chlorinated stuff out of the garden hose too much.

And if anyone is wondering about the hole in the thyme, it was mounding up in an unattractive fashion so I trimmed it back down. Does not seem to have regrown to close the hole as quickly as I expected.

Oh, and update on the Death Mountain Douglah.

As you can see, the roots have continued to bulk up nicely. So nicely in fact its about time to pull the soil level down on them again.

Insane what you do with the pepper plants, pushing them to the limits without killing them. Looks Cool!

hahahaha, some good stuff there. Those are some neat projects.
Bruce

Scary mood lighting, or just waited too long for it to cool down out there to take a picture without a flashlight? You decide!

Actually, comparing it to the picture from this morning, I didn't really end up pulling the dirt any further down at all. I did end up repositioning the roots though so that they fan out more. Can also see where I had to tie the trunk to the side of the skull. It always comes loose when I mess around with it. When its all said and done, I'm probably going to superglue it down to the skull. Until then, a bit of twine keeps it in place while I push the roots back closer to the mountain.

Well, I have either started the final phase of the project, or I have killed all of the peppers involved. I'll let you know in a week or two.

Was pruning the middle leaves off the big two when I realized how lignified they were getting. Lignification = bad for merging and flexibility. It was now or never, and the little one was still too short to avoid being shaded out by the two bigger ones if I left the tops on them. No choice but to top them all and start weaving the new growth together into a nice bush.

They're peppers, they should respond well to aggressive pruning, but it always feels like I'm killing them to do something this drastic, even though I've done it before and they turn out just fine.

I didn't realize you were going to braid them. Good luck and keep us posted on progress.
Bruce

Whoa! I didn't expect that!!

Do you think the mountain ones would grow more side roots if you covered them back up and kept it moist? Kind of a uncover, reposition, recover for root growth, repeat until you're happy?

Yeah, I want the stems merged into one by the end of this for the frankenpepper (hence franken-pepper, different bodies squished together into one functioning whole). I had hoped to get them merged closer to the base, but not sure if I can pull that off now. I'll make it all work out somehow though, assuming they don't drop dead on me. Will have to keep a close eye on their water situation for a while.

---

Thing with the roots is that while you do get more roots if you let them stay covered, the roots you get are small. When you uncover them and force the plant to grow them deeper to keep getting to the good soil, it will naturally prune back the extra hair roots and then bulk up the main tap style roots. They get bigger and thicker and cooler looking because they are having to act as main highways to get the nutrients from the finer hair roots below up to the plant above.

Its why I'm pulling the dirt level lower and lower down as I go, it forces the plant to grow gnarlier roots that then lignify in the light.

Went out and washed the soil down with water to get it to settle. Definitely ended up pulling the soil level down about as much as I had wanted to (thought I ended up bringing it back up to where it was, but it settled down nicely).

{{gwi:12824}}

You may notice I stuck some soil back up along the left side there and on top. The left side had a runner that I'd like to prompt to fill out some more, and would like to see if I can start anything from the top to drape across the back just for the sake of stability.

And the full plant, if you want to see that.

{{gwi:12825}}

Some leaf curl from the extreme heat and drought we were having, nothing serious though. Should bounce back from that pretty quickly.

And since I took the picture while I was out there, my sweet banana pepper that has finished it's production run, so I trimmed it way back to see if I can turn it into a bonchi as well.

It's trunk and roots aren't as pretty as the others, but all in all it has potential for being a large bonchi. Any new growth that I will want to keep is going to come from the fork there at the top, but it looked cooler right now to leave the extra stumps above it. Who knows, maybe something will sprout out of the tops of those. Can't hurt, might help.

Thats my inflatable snake in the background, keeps the rabbits out of my garden.

Frankenpepper... it lives... IT LIVES!

Awesome! Peppers really do bounce back from everything!

Yup, and as you can see, they bounce back quite quickly. Not bad for one day's growth since the last picture.

This project is quite impressive. Very nice job.

I was wondering what kind of moss is used in the skull project?

Thyme is mentioned in the thread. I think moss was not used because it holds too much moisture.

Yeah, I'm using Elfin Thyme in this one. The moss was too water dependant. The thyme likes being dry, just like the peppers, so it works out quite well. It also stays very, very short.

here is a potted Nu Mex from the seeds ya sent he is doing pretty good i also have 1 in the ground but he has no blooms just yet .

The foliage has blended together nicely. Its too thick now to really see whats going on underneath it.

Yes, looking good. It seems I can see three distinct plants but overall, it does look like one nice bushy plant. Can't wait to see some blooms and then pods on them.
Bruce

And we are officially down to the base of the mountain, so this is the last pulldown for this one:

Now to just leave it alone and let it thicken up and grow big and strong.

I hope...

That's pretty cool!

Kool. That takes patience, and some know how. Great job.
Bruce

Okay, across the board update time:

Frankenpepper:

Starting to put out some buds, limb braiding has started (as in I started just before taking this picture, since the branches are long enough now):

The thyme is slowly devouring the skull, but thats okay:

Skull Mountain:

Putting out some new growth, staying nice and green, so I would say that so far this one is a raging success. Was my first time doing this root exposure method, was half worried I'd end up killing it. Thank God pepper plants are tougher than an Arnold Schwarzenegger character!

They both look great!! Who knew there could be so much artistry in growing peppers??!! :-)

I hate these hugely long threads with thousands of photos (takes forever to load on my crappy DSL). But I always check this thread when it gets updated. Really neat looking projects. I would be proud to be the creator of either of them.
Bruce

Yeah, this thread is getting pretty long in the tooth, but the season is almost over and its kind of neat to scroll through and relive it all.

Hot diggity, just found that part of Frankenpepper has set pods. They appear to be on a branch coming from the left eye socket, so that would make them.... *scrolls up to see what the heck he planted in each hole*... 7-Pot Douglahs!

While I'm at it, the Skull Mountain Douglah has buds, but no pods yet. Not surprising seeing the hell I've put it through, but the stems and upper half of the plant are taking on an interesting shape as well.

The vegetation seems to be growing forwards, I'm guessing it must be getting more/stronger light from that direction. For the sake of a nice even grow, I've turned the pot around 180 degrees.

Minor updates.

Skull Mountain is doing well.

{{gwi:12826}}

Frankenpepper isn't living up to my expectations as well as the other, but its doing okay. I think it'll be a few years before it really merges together the way I envisioned.

I went around and gave all of my potted peppers fertilizer sticks that caused some burn and leaf drop in the days after, but as you can see they've all bounced back happier and healthier than before. Had me a little worried with how bad the leaf drop was, but it worked out for the best in the end.

Amazing work. I'm thinking ripe pods by Halloween?

Yes, very nice little project.
Bruce

Since the season is beginning to wind down, I decided it was time to start some preliminary sculpting on Skull Mountain. It had gotten nice and bushy, but since I want it to look like a tree some of those side limbs needed to go. By trimming off the lower ones (that didn't have any fruit set on them) now, I'll give the wounds time to scab over and heal before the big final chop down. Try to limit the stress I put on it at any one time.

Before:
{{gwi:12826}}

After:
{{gwi:12827}}

{{gwi:12828}}

And just because I thought that big gaping hole in the bottom of the mountain was, well, gaping, I made a decoration to put in front of it.

Now that is some serious rootage. Shall we re-name this the Hot Pepper Torture Forum, or start a new one?

Do you have a shot of one of the skull plants with red pods?

No ripe pods on the skull yet, although it has added a scorpion pod to the douglah pods it already had. The mountain one here has three or four douglah pods on it as well now, but still green.

I'll probably have to bring them in and wait for them to ripen the pods before I can fully cut them back for winter. Not 100% on if they'll get there in time before the weather goes bad on me or not.

Heh, for some reason, if you constantly chop and torture a pepper plant, it tends to be fairly slow in producing fruit. Who'd a thought?

Okay, well the pods on the Frankenpepper started turning the other day, and the small ones on Skull Mountain were still green and its getting pretty late, so I said screw it, time to chop back.

This'll give it the last few weeks of acceptable outside weather to leaf back out some before it comes inside for the winter.

Very cool plant. That will be fun for the winter.
Bruce

So cool Edy! I love how those badass roots wrap around "skull mountain".

Minor update, as much so I can track it's progress as to show you guys:

{{gwi:12829}}

Weather is getting cooler now, slowing it down a bit. Which is good, I think. Slower growth, smaller leaves, getting it used to having less strong sunlight, should hopefully help in overwintering it. At least thats my theory, it surely has nothing to do with just not wanting to clean out the space to bring them inside yet.

Awesome stuff Edymnion!

I don't know what you do for a living but I bet people would be willing to pay money for that kind of artwork.

Kevin

I'm a computer programmer that writes policy files for automating attendance and leave management software. Gotta do something artsy and creative when your day job is that dull. =P

Plant looks like it is doing very well. Good new growth too.
Bruce