Porch Peppers

As you can see, things are coming along nicely.  Everybody has been out on the front porch getting morning sun for about a week now, with them staying out at night for the past several days.  Three of the Reapers are getting nice and big, three are still straggling a bit.  But, thats why I started so many of them, to have a wide range of choices to select from when it comes time to pick the perfect one to start crafting into my bonchi.

So far, this one is the front runner.  Its the largest and healthiest looking of the 6, and hence most likely to continue to grow larger at a fast pace this season.  Overall size is going to be very important when it comes time to chop them down into bonchi, we want them to have as large and as thick of a trunk as possible.

This one grew with a twisted, mutant looking leaf, and it isn't as big as the others (in the first picture, this one is bottom row, far left, where the front runner is bottom row, 4th from left).  However, its already leaning over sideways without any intervention from me.  Why would I consider that a reason to keep one of the runts in contention for the main bonchi plant?  Well if I can get them to lean over (something I plan on trying to get the other one to do through tilting it later on), I can place it more down over the eye socket or face of the skull and rotate it so that the leaning direction points straight up or even up and slightly back over the top again to give a more dynamic pose.

I'm still pinning my hopes on the big one right now, and will be taking steps to get it twisting a bit as it grows, but I'll be keeping an eye on everybody, especially the ones that are straggling behind but showing interesting characteristics otherwise.

Speaking of interesting characteristics, the oddball Halloween pepper is putting out new leaves in earnest now.  They're green at the moment (as were the black leaves when they started), but that biggest one there already shows signs of abnormal coloration developing.  Hopes that the entire plant will have this leaf coloration are slowly rising.

And last but not least, update on the Laughing Pepper.  Now you can really start to see how some of the roots are thickening while others are dying back.  I have not done any root trimming to this, all of the root reduction you are seeing is entirely the work of the plant itself.  You can also see in the first picture in this post that the plant itself is doing well and putting out good new growth (its the one in the red pot), so it is doing quite well.

I'm going to give it another month or so before I try taking that last bit of soil around from the bottom of the statue though.  The roots weren't *quite* long enough to give good purchase for all the roots I wanted to be sure and keep, so I want to be absolutely sure they've had more than enough time to grow before I pull it down again.

The up side is that all of the new vegetative growth on the top of the plant will put increased demand on the roots for water and nutrients, which will cause them to fatten up faster as well.  Right now its a balancing act between keeping the plant happy and healthy enough to grow at a good pace, and shaping the roots into doing what I want them to.  Too much either way will hurt the other end, so gotta find the middle ground as much as possible.