Merry Christmas Longhorn, I am new too, just started growing hot chilis. I do not have any experiences of gardening.

Your plants are beautiful. Do you fertilize regularly and what kinds of soil you used it?

Thanks,
Caelian

Merry Christmas!! I'm fairly new at this too ..but just wanted to compliment you on your plant.. very nice!!

From what I've read though, with cross pollination, I'd be more afraid of the ghosts making the jalepenos extra extra hot.. lol. I haven't grown them but thinking about it for next year, ..and with a very limited amount of space, I might have that problem.

For your question about cross pollination, it would not affect the heat of the parent pods only the subsequent pods from the child plants grown from the seeds from cross pollinated parent pods. So looks like you are overwintering the parent plant which will continue to produce normal pods. If the 6 seeds that you planted were from the parent plant next to a jalapeno it's possible that they could have crossed but its never 100% that a cross will always happen, it's a crap shoot unless you are crossing them by hand because you are looking for a trait between two different peppers and you want to try to get the two or more into one.

Mark

I'm very lucky to have good, sandy loam here. I just started it in potting soil and transplanted in the ground. I found the best fertilizer, for me anyway, is 15-30-15...same as 'Bloom' but generic..it's cheaper..lol I fertilize about every two weeks. My jalapenos went crazy when I started using it. They went from a lighter green to a lush dark green and popped out blooms everywhere that turned into peppers...same with the Bhut, in fact it still had blooms when I dug it up! Just don't overdo it with the 15-30-15. There were almost as many Jalapenos on the plants as there were leaves!The Bhut would have done the same if it had had more time. Dwain

Thanks, Cheezedoodle... maybe that explains why an occasional stuffed jalapeno would just light us up! lol It doesn't look so pretty now but it'll be great next summer

This post was edited by Longhorn294 on Tue, Dec 25, 12 at 17:52

Thanks, Mark.. All the seed were from the Univ. of NM. I had sprouted them all and would take them outside in a big pan with clear wrap it to get them sun and harden them off. I didn't uncover them because it was cloudy and cold one day.. then the sun came out..5 were toast and one somehow survived. I should know better than try to remember something like that. lol I was thinking what you said about cross pollination was right but someone told me different.. just making sure

As Mark said, the crossed genetics are only in the seeds. The parent plants (including their fruit) aren't affected by each other. But, if you grow out the seeds from the parents' fruit, the next generation could be all over the place with regards to size, color, heat, shape, productivity, etc...

Hi Longhorn294, yeah understandable, I made a similar mistake while hardening off my seedlings left them in a transport pan with no drain holes in the pan and shortly after I got to work it stormed the rest of the day and damping off set in. Cinnamon helped a few but some did not pull through and died.

You got a great looking plant and it seems to be doing well for overwintering, just remember to treat it the same come spring, needs to be harden off also, as the new leaves are not used to the sun.

Mark

Good idea about hardening it off in the spring, Mark. I was wondering if it should be pruned back any. Just about all the limbs have new growth on them

From the looks of it, you have the branches well managed with the cage and the plant looks healthy enough and controlled that I would not at this point cut it back. If the branches start growing spindly then maybe start thinking about trimming it back. Also search overwintering on the forum for great advice and what does and does not work.

Mark

The fruit are produced by the parent plant, not the pollinated seeds. Absolutely nothing involving pollination will affect the peppers, it can only affect the pods produced from the plants grown from the hybridized seeds.

Think of it in terms of animals. If you have a female white cat and a male black cat that mate, does the female cat turn gray while she's pregnant? Of course not, its only the kittens that might turn out that way. The offspring is the hybrid, it doesn't retro-actively change the parents to match it.

Help! What's the best thing to do with my Bhut plant? All the branches grew new leaves and now they all have tiny blooms on them! Should I just keep pinching them off or let them grow? I never expected it would start blooming again in the house after being dug up and put in a pot.

i need a little help to identify ghost pepper plant between a butch t the two on the right have broad wrinkly leaves and the ones on the left have smooth leaves i forgot to label them when i planted them which was a big mistake

[IMG]http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r584/raptor4444/DSC00125_zpsb6dd40f6.jpg[/IMG]

Longhorn294, I would just leave them, my starts last season did the same under lights but dropped most buds on their own, some went to flower then dropped. Too much time consumed trying to pick every one of them off.

Mark

Newpeppergrower1105, you won't know until they develop peppers. They are both C. Chinese so they grow similar that there is no way to tell at this point. The slight differences is conditional the ones on the left look like they have more nitrogen in the soil than the left (darker green leaves) and environmental conditions and watering can play a part in the slight differences. I would just keep growing them the same as they look healthy.

Mark

Yeah, you don't need to worry about pinching buds off. They'll fall off on their own before they do anything (the light requirements for fruit set are different than for vegetative growth). Just enjoy the pretty flowers and don't worry about it.

As for pruning, this is how I like to overwinter my peppers:
Pepper Bonsai!