Back in the Saddle

Well, I had a wonderful week and a half there with a dead computer.  How was yours?

Anyway, back up and running, so time for some updates!

The amount of moss I've been able to grow so far has been insufficient for my needs so far (told you this stuff grows slow!), but I found a great big patch of the stuff ready to go.  So, I cheated and harvested the moss I'll eventually use.  Put some of that fine clay mud I gathered last year in a pot base and grabbed enough moss to make a full ground cover when I need it later in a month or so.

Here, along with the fact that I need to cut the grass, we can see that the chop I did on the project reaper has created longs of nice new growth.  All is well there.  However, all was not well when I measured how big the bonchi was in that old green pot and compared that to how much space was available in my grow box.  Its too tall to fit comfortably, and the other night it actually got down into the high 50's so I figured that since I was going to have to bring it in anyway, I might as well repot it into an overwintering container.

Luckily, I already had this plastic faux half wine barrel style pot laying around.  Its about half as tall as the green one was, but still deep enough that I could have some dirt underneath the "neck" of the roots from earlier.  So, still gives it some room to grow in.

Still looking good, and I won't have to worry about repotting anymore, its fully ready to come inside when the weather turns cold on a more permanent basis.  Now, high 50's wouldn't have killed a pepper, but this one at least I don't want to even have a slow-down, so anything under 60 and it comes inside.  And if you're wondering, the green thing is an ant bait plug.  Had some small little ants living under the green pot, and just wanted to make sure that they didn't stick around long enough to cause any problems.

Minor update, the Cumari started showing signs of leaf yellowing after all the heavy rains we had (combination of being in a small container and lots of rain, wet dirt and nutrients being flushed out), so it got repotted into the same pot again with fresh soil and some fertilizer.  The roots on it were looking really good, so I went for a pretty big pulldown on it.  Doesn't seem to have minded one bit.

On a sadder note, the Buddha bonchi is pining for the fjords.  It has ceased to be.  Its dead, Jim.  Oh well, it was a fun diversion, but it didn't really get the good root development I wanted for a long term keeper.  C'est la vis.  It's soft parts went in the composter, and it shall help nourish the next generation.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Branching Out

Couple days ago I gave the project reaper a chop to encourage some growth lower down on the main limbs, and as you can see new growth is exactly what is already happening.

Now, this is where I need to keep an eye on it.  The plant is going to try and put out new growth all over the trunk, which can include places where we don't want it.  A sharp eye and regular inspections will let you catch buds forming in places you don't want, and then you can just scrape them off with your fingernail.

The earlier you can catch and remove unwanted growth, the better.  The reason being that the larger a branch becomes, the greater the scarring that will result when you remove it.  You know that knothole in the main trunk (which you can see in the above picture)?  Thats from where I removed a limb that would have obstructed the view that I removed months ago.

Sure, it gives us a nice, well placed knot hole now, but we don't necessarily want that kind of thing up on the limbs.  So, pinching off new growth that is too close to the trunk now saves us headaches later.

And gotta say, this rainy, drizzly weather is doing wonders for the moss.

Big Important Update: Final Project Reaper Pulldown

After the last pulldown, I had noticed a change in soil characteristics in the project reaper container.  Today its been cool and rainy, so I went out to take a look.  The soil was definitely finer and denser than it should ideally be, and fine dense soil retains water.  Peppers don't like wet feet, and we were down to the point where feet is pretty much all the project pepper has left.

I looked at the forecast, we're in for a week of fairly cool temperatures and lots of rain.  If that dense soil managed to compact and block the drainage holes in the container, that would be a very BAD thing, like project ending root rot bad.  So, again, relatively cool temperatures (between 70 and 80 Fahrenheit) for the next week, I decided to repot now.  Get it some fresh soil with more particulate matter so that it can breath better, and to raise it up a little higher, give the feet more room underneath to grow down into.

Step 1: Lift the plant, soil and all, out of the container.  Now, if you've never really done this, there is a trick to it.  You don't want to dig the plant out, that causes root damage, which in turn causes undue stress to the plant.  Instead, hit the sides and bottom of the container with your hand repeatedly, going all the way around the edges and bottom.  This will cause the soil to come loose from the sides, then you can slide your hands down between the edges of the soil and the container, and lift the entire thing out in one solid piece, as shown above.

 Step 2: Use your garden hose with no sprayer on it to wash the soil away from the roots.  Use your thumb to get a jet going, but don't make it too strong.  The idea here is to wash the soil away from the roots without damaging them.  The bottom of the rootball I didn't do more than blast the very bottom of to loosen it up, I did not try to remove all of the soil from the middle column.  That will help lessen the trauma as the plant will still have untouched roots to draw from while the rest heal and settle back in.

At this point, it looked pretty freaky, honestly.  It was like the skull was trying to regenerate a new body made out of plant roots.  The good part of all this though is that the skull and the jaw are completely locked in place.  I had tried gluing the jaw in the open position originally, but I know I broke the glue when I put it in the container because I heard it snap.  Carrying it around as just skull and roots now however and I could see a little jiggle indicating that it was two pieces, but the roots held everything in place fairly tightly on their own, which is perfect.

I'm also noticing that the lower jaw isn't lined up 100% straight with the rest of the skull, its just slightly askew, and I think thats awesome.  I hadn't intended it to do that, but that little bit of imperfection should really help sell the overall image.  Happy accidents that I will of course claim were completely intentional design choices in the future. ;)

I want your soul...

Seriously, that was freaky.

Anyway, fill the bottom of the container with nice fresh soil, set Mr. Head & Shoulders in and get everything up to a level you're comfortable with.  Then start filling the edges in with soil to re-bury him back up to his neck.

3) Once the soil level is up where you want it (just under the jawline in this case), press in and down around the skull to make sure you push the roots up under the skull a little bit in order to keep it tight.  I used water from my rain barrel to wash everything down flat as I was going to make sure I had enough soil.  You don't want to think you're good and then find out days later that it settled and left you high and dry.  Plus, it helps wash the soil back in between the roots, again helping the plant recover quickly.

4) Last chance to re-position the roots.  We had some in front that were curling around in odd places, so I took them and moved the loops around to hook the chin for a good grip, and pulled some roots out of the mouth.  Originally when I first buried the skull, I pushed the roots up into the mouth to make sure they wrapped all the way around the skull.  We still want that, but the ones  near the front I wanted to look more prominent so I pulled them forwards and hooked them in place.  We also seem to have chipped a tooth somewhere along the line, but oh well.  That just adds some character.

And bam, the hardest, riskiest parts of the entire project are now complete.

We have grown the Reaper, we have done some early trunk shaping, and most importantly we have stretched the roots down over the skull in ways that are both visually appealing and structurally anchoring.

Next steps are to basically stop messing with it for a few weeks and let it recover.  As the root masses start to dry up and fall away, I'll of course be pulling them off to expose the key roots, and likely prune a few of these lower roots as we go, so keep checking in.

Also, after seeing how freaky the roots looked as a neck, maybe next time I do this I should see about the top half of a rib cage and shoulders.  Just how big of a project could I accomplish?  Hmmm... maybe next year I'll order a full on replica skeleton and see if I can't flesh the entire thing out in a single plant's roots...

Timber!!!

Okay, out inspecting and decided that it was setting far too many pods for this stage of the game, and as I was removing the pods I decided I might as well go ahead and do a partial chop on the top.  Not too likely that the roots will get significantly better now, and it'll do better recovering with good sunlight.  So, off with it's head!

Now, as you can see this wasn't a full chop.  A full chop would have gone down even lower and removed of those high branches, but I want to be playing it extra safe on this one.  So, a half chop that leaves plenty of leaves and nodes for it to recover with.  The idea here is that it will now start putting out branches lower down that I can then start shaping into a canopy later on.

Wasn't kidding about playing it safe, either.  Large cuts on peppers that drastically weaken the plant can become infected with a type of mold/fungus.  It causes the plant to start dying at the cut, and then starts eating it's way down inside the branch towards the roots.  It makes the stems hollow like a straw, and if you look down inside them you might see a fuzzy white substance.  When that takes hold, there's only one answer, cut below the infection and pray you got it.  There is no saving anything at or above the infection point, so you gotta amputate.  And just like with human cuts, a good squirt of hydrogen peroxide will sterilize the wound without hurting the plant.

A few customary update pictures after a few more waterings have exposed the teeth a little better.

And just because, a glamour shot that I'm calling the Peter Capaldi:

No, all 13 of them!

Pulldowns and Moss

Went out for some early morning watering and took a look at the root I had repositioned between the teeth, it hadn't taken after all this time, so I removed it.  Kind of sad to lose the one that was curling into the nasal cavity, but if it wasn't taking after all this time it wasn't going to, and it would have eventually just withered away.  Plus, that was the main thing holding me back from doing a pulldown.

You can't see in this picture, and can really only feel when you're touching it, but the top of the teeth on the lower jaw are now above the soil line.  We're getting into the home stretch here people!

That root ball on the side still has me confused.  It seems to have formed over the outside of the mandible joint, but I still can't really tell what its doing.

And if you were sharp eyed in that first picture, you probably spotted the green.  Since I had to lose the nose root, I decided to try giving it some carpet moss starts in the recesses.  Some in the nose, the backs of the eye sockets, and partially visible back up in the first image, around the base of the trunk.

I don't know if any of these plugs will take, but hopefully they're in sheltered enough areas that they will retain some moisture and be able to grow.  This is a different kind of moss than I'm growing as a soil cover.  That moss is more fern like and leafy, this stuff just forms a thick dark green carpet.

Since this moss is really slow growing, it should lend a great air of age to everything if it takes hold.

The Pepper Gods Giveth, and They Taketh Away

Well, first the good news.  I've been letting the project reaper set pods to increase it's nutrient demands, and hence it's root growth.  Was inspecting it today, and found these pods.

It's pods do in fact have nice stingers, and those first couple were in fact duds when it came to shape.  That is very good news for me!

And before I get to the bad news, lets take a moment to appreciate how much is going right on the actual project.  The roots look great, the main trunk already looks like an old tree (complete with knot hole), and the branches are splayed out enough that when I start chopping them back I can make a nice three tiered canopy out of them.  Thats great.

The bad news?  The Buddah bonchi may be a gonner.

Couple days ago the leaves went yellow with green veins, that's usually a sign of a nutrient deficiency.  I had been leaving the pods on it as a test, so I cut off the pods and fed it.  Tried not to mix up anything too strong, but after a couple days of no result I was afraid that pretty container may have had a drainage problem, so I did an emergency repot into fresh soil.

Its not looking too good, but it does have some new growth trying to peek out.  I'm hoping it'll survive, but I've done everything I can for it right now, its up to the plant to pull through or give up.

Gambled and Lost

Welp, it was no sure thing when I re-positioned those roots over the back of the skull that they would take, and they didn't.  Oh well, it was a gamble when I did it, and while it would have been nice had they held, we're not compromised by their loss.  So, since they weren't a concern anymore, bit more of a pulldown (but not too far, the one I put in the teeth is holding, and I don't want to mess that one up), and cleaned some other roots up while I was at it.

Interesting bit there in that last picture, lets take a closer look:

There appears to be a knot or a ball of roots there at the jawline, but I can't make out exactly what its doing.  The roots in it are fairly thick, so they'll at least be useful after the next pulldown, assuming they're not doing something completely freakishly weird.

I think we're done with the root pruning now though.  We've thinned it out enough that you can clearly see the skull underneath, while keeping plenty of nice ropey roots cascading around it to both hold it in place and accent the skull.  Any more now and I fear we'll start losing content instead of creating it.

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On a different note, I finished powdering the first real batch of Reapers!

Amazing how a big pile of peppers dehydrates down to such a relatively little amount of powder, but there's more where that came from.  So, I invested millions in designing and manufacturing a custom container for my powder...

...that is in no way an empty Sodastream bottle with 2 minutes of drawing with a Sharpie on it.  Honest.

The B Team

Hasn't rained in a while, long enough that I've used up my rain water storage and even the big raised bed reapers are looking wilty, so I broke out the hose to water everybody.  Figured while I had the big guns out, I'd blast some dirt away from the tops of the production pepper roots to see how they were looking, and I gotta admit I'm a little impressed with two of them.

Thats the zombie reaper, which I cannot get a good picture of to save my life.  Its just very unphotogenic, but looks good in person.  I gave it a good blast and went under the bottom of it.  This could end up making a really interesting Neagari style bonsai (where the freestanding roots are up above the soil).

But the surprise breakout today is...

The second best pod shape reaper.  It doesn't have that neat self twisting trunk, but just look at what I found after giving it a pressure washing.  Build that up right and it'll make for a very nice nebari.  Get some good bonsaid clay mud up in there in so that the roots look like they're tracing a hilltop, could be quite nice.  Might end up keeping both of these!

And since I can't leave well enough alone, I've been doing some more root pruning to the main Reaper.  I have to say that normally I would be doing a pulldown on it right now, but it was just last week that I repositioned some of the smaller roots on here, and I want to give it at least another week to make sure those roots get re-established before I go mucking around with them again.  If I get in a hurry there, those roots I so carefully placed will likely die off, meaning I've lost not only time and effort but aesthetics as well.

Skull Mountain 2: Halloween Boogaloo

While digging around, I found an old favorite of mine.

I did my very first root over rocks bonchi on this aquarium decoration years ago, and it looks like its faded a bit.  Oh what the hell, I've got some spare Halloween peppers, lets use 'em.  Time to start another project, Skull Mountain 2!

Into the pot it goes, and make sure to fill the inside with soil in case some adventurous roots decided to go inside.  Lots of fun carefully trying to cram dirt into eye sockets with your pinky, let me tell you.

This thing ended up having both too much root and not enough root at the same time.  Very little root overall to work with, and then one huge long one...

Much like the problem I had with the first bonchi I used this on, the perch is precarious even on the best spot, but this time I'm tying it down BEFORE we get started.

and a little more soil on top to cover those last exposed roots, and we should be good to go.  Will it work?  I have no idea.  This is a cool set piece, but I've had less than perfect results with it before due to it being hard to get a grip on, and this pepper has even less roots going into it than the first one did.  So, we'll see.  Worst case scenario is a complete failure and I compost the pepper with the other rejects.  No big loss, thats where it was heading anyway, at least this gives it a fair chance at getting to stick around..

Rolling Stones Gather No Moss

I said I was going to wait a little while longer, but I got to thinking that the longer I waited to thin out some of these roots the worse the scarring was going to be, and the greater the chance that one in a bad position would choke out one in a good one.  So, did some root pruning today.  This is one of those times where less is more.  We get a much more visually appealing result by removing some of that root mass than we would have had by keeping it all.

After I was done, I found some roots with slack and some previously empty areas of the skull (like the space behind the cheekbones) that hasn't had any soil in it, so I pushed the slack roots into those crevices and then packed them full of damp soil.  While I have some vain hope that maybe it'll encourage them to put out more roots in those areas, in reality the soil will dry out in this heat far too fast for it to do much in the way of new root growth.  But they will help keep the roots I pushed in there in place long enough for them to fatten up and hold that shape permanently.

As some of you may remember from last year, I collected some moss starts from out in the woods that I can use in the final project as cover for the bare soil that won't send down invasive roots and threaten to choke the pepper out of it's limited bonsai pot space.

Since moss takes no nutrients from it's substrate (the stuff it grows on), it is VERY slow growing.  I mean, this is seven or eight months of growth (and about half of what I currently have).  Much like the bonchi itself, it takes a lot of time and patience, but the payoff is worth it.  The hope here is that when the bonchi is done, I'll have a nice thick sheet of this moss already attached to this pliable mud that I can use to make a shell around the actual bonsai soil underneath.  And since its moss, I can just mist it with a sprayer on a regular basis to keep it green and happy without having to worry about overwatering the pepper.

And lastly, an update on the Cumari.

It had a small pulldown today, mainly because these little ornamentals don't grow long deep roots very quickly.  But You can see the plant is healthy and happy, and that we're finally seeing dominant roots appearing.  Which actually is one of the main indicators for this one as to when to pull down, I didn't want to do so when there wasn't signs of good strong roots.

And on the off chance that anyone is wondering why the soil is always sopping wet when I take these pictures, its because when I do pulldowns in containers I typically dig a trench around the plant about twice as deep as I want the pulldown to be, then use water to pour over the top and wash the excess dirt down even.  Much less traumatic to the plant that way than trying to dig it all out by hand.

That and usually I'm out watering things in this near 100 degree heat and checking in on them as I do it, and then if something interesting is going on I finish up then go inside to get the camera.