The Must Haves

Okay, fall is finally arriving here, and I'm looking at temperatures down to 50°F tonight.  Now, thats not enough to kill a pepper, but its cold enough to stunt it.  So, I figured this was the perfect time to go through the peppers I have at the moment and decide which ones get to live on via overwintering, and which ones will get left out to mother nature.

Obviously, the project reaper made the cut.

Its clearly been doing quite well since the chop back.  There has been some minor root pruning that didn't really justify a posting, but its mostly the same as it was the last time you saw it.  Just been letting it rest and settle into it's new smaller container home.

Isn't time to bring it in permanently yet, but when I do it'll be getting another chop back.  You can see in the above picture that the canopy is leaning to the side, but we have some new limb growth that will help counter balance that after a good chop.

Also making the first round cut was the Zombie Reaper.  I chopped it back a week or so ago, and its been doing well.  Not only did it give me the best shaped pods and impressive roots, but it ended up with a very nice natural windswept appearance to boot.  Three good reasons to save it, so save it I did.

Next up is the Cumari.  I consider this one a failure as far as the intended bonchi design of being grown over that skull made of skulls, as it did end up letting go of the skull too much to leave it that way.  However, its a neat little pepper that was surprisingly hard to sprout, so I decided to save it.  Took the skull out, filled everything in with soil, it'll probably be happier this way.

Now these two actually surprised me.  I was actually pulling them up and composting them now, but after yanking them I noticed their roots were actually doing pretty well.  Well enough to justify letting them keep going, anyway.  Halloweens are easy to sprout, unlike those Cumari, so if they end up not working out, thats fine too.

Even with that giant cabinet I built last winter, my space for overwintering peppers is limited.  I might end up saving one more of the reapers, but I'm not sure yet.  Like I said at the beginning of the post though, 50 degrees won't kill these things, and I could probably leave them outside through it, but I'm going to bring these five inside tonight anyway.

The rest should be fine, and its scheduled to warm up later in the week.

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..

Steady as She Goes

The roots on the main project Reaper have stiffened to the point I was able to remove the ties.  Kind of wish we had been able to get more roots over the back of the skull for aesthetic reasons, but it looks like we'll have enough for practical anchoring purposes.  I have read about some techniques to get lignified roots to put out new growth in specific places, so I'll probably try those out later once everything else is done.  Not worth the risk of messing with things that aren't technically broken at this point.

We've also got a lot of big roots across the face that look like they may all stick around.  Have to see how it goes, but we may end up pruning some of them to give better visibility to the skull.

The Cumari is doing well after it's pulldown.  Just like with the Peter, you can see where key roots are fattening up while lesser roots are drying up.  The grip isn't as skin tight as I had hoped (really wanted roots snaking around the little surface details), but that might be something we can improve upon later.

The Halloween mini skull is coming back better than I expected.  It's been struggling a bit but seems to be doing better now.  Not 100% sure the small roots going around the back of the skull will make it, but we'll just have to wait and see.  They're not all going to be winners, it's always a bit of a numbers game.  Make lots, and then only show off the best ones.  Outsiders don't always get to see the failures like you are. ;)

Speaking of it being a numbers game, just the other day I took the strongest of the spare Halloween peppers and started it out over the rock wall Buddha decoration that I think I showed you a while back.  Again, doing this on the phone makes it hard to go back and check, sorry about that.  But like the others, I've spread the roots out over the front and a good chunk over the back to give it some grip.

This one didn't really have much if any in the way of dominant roots, so it's just kind of splayed out there at the moment.  Should prove interesting to follow along with, because I have no clue exactly what direction this one is going to go in!

Visible Progress

While out doing some pulldowns on the various secondary peppers, I started looking at the main project pepper.  It has been at a slower growth pace than the others ever since I put the skull under it, and some of the trimming I did earlier slowed it down even more.

Now, I'm not sorry I did those things, because I still think its for the best in the long run, but I got worried that the larger sister plants so close to it may have been shading it out a bit, making it even slower going.

As you can see, the project plant there on the end is much shorter than the backup/production Reapers, and they do shade it out in the late afternoon.  More I looked at it, more I questioned it, and long story short I've dug the project pepper up and put it in a container.

Two reasons for this.  One, as already stated, I can make sure it gets more sun this way.  Two, it also means I could check up on the root and start doing some pulldown on it as well.

Good thing I did too, because there was definitely some issue with the root placement.

The good news is that there is some good shape going on here in the front.  You can't tell from this picture (I can't even find it in the picture and I saw it in person) but there was a pronounced bulge on the inside from where I had pressed the roots into an eye socket.  What you might be able to tell from this picture though is that almost all of the roots are in the front.  Now, we want the roots to be fairly front heavy because thats where the main center of focus for the piece will be, but we still need some in the back to help hold everything in place.  That just wasn't there the way I wanted it, so the potting let me catch a defect in plenty of time to correct it (hopefully).

Since the roots were not in just the right places, the plant wasn't able to lock onto the skull completely on it's own yet, so I had to resort to using some twine to tie it down in place.  But you can see where I was able to pull some roots back over to the rear of the skull.  Was actually pretty happy with the amount of roots it had, if not exactly with the layout of them.  With some work though we should have some very interesting placement later on.

You can tell by the leaves here that it was indeed getting crowded out by the plant next to it.  Had to tie it back a bit to pull that branch over so that it would fill out a bit better.

Since I had plenty of root length to work with, I've gone ahead and left this as the pulldown soil level.  Its a little lower than I had originally intended, but it looks like all the roots are plenty long enough to get good purchase in the soil, so should be fine.

And since I mentioned working on the other projects, here's updates on them as well.

The Cumari on the skull made of skulls.  Had a lot of small roots, but not much in the way of anything well defined.  Pretty much just spread it all out evenly over the skull and reburied.  Much like the main Reaper, the length of the roots were enough that I felt I could safely pull it down fairly far on the first go.

The Halloween pepper on the miniature skull is turning out to be less than I expected.  Did a pulldown and had to tie it down to hold in place.  This strain of ornamental pepper stays pretty small, so there is less root structure here to work with than I thought there would be.  This one may end up being a failure, but I'll see it through to the end, maybe it'll surprise me.

Was out shopping the other day and found this ceramic pot that was just perfect for the Laughing Peter pepper.  Since the plant was showing no signs of stress from the pulldown, I went ahead and repotted it in this smaller container.  I figured that since the pulldowns were done, I might as well go ahead and put it in something more decorative and let it really settle in.

Low Stakes Bonchi

Okay, hasn't been any updates in a while because, honestly, there hasn't been much to update on until now.  I'm sure nobody wants to hear me talk just for the sake of hearing me talk.

So, whats the update about?  Tent stakes and jute twine, of course!  The Laughing Buddha Peter Pepper bonchi has been having a growth spurt, and has some nice long branches on it now.  Problem is, they're all going straight up, as peppers are want to do.  I however want this bonchi to have a nice canopy so that it looks like its shading Buddha underneath, and peppers are not known for growing low flat canopies.

Problem number two, I don't like wiring bonsai.  Sure, its great on bonsai trees that are rigid and have to be held in place for 6 months or even years at a time for them to hold their shape.  Its the only practical way of shaping the branches.  However, peppers are not trees.  Their green growth is very flexible, plus I'm not interested in tying the branches into knots, I just want them to be more lateral.  So, instead of spending all day trying to wire this thing again, I went for a... "less intricate" method.

I tied it down like a tent.

These are just super cheap aluminum tent spikes from Walmart that I had laying around, and some jute twine I bought from the craft department.  All I did was put the spikes down in the pot, loop the twine through them, and tied the branches down with a simple square knot.  If I cinched it a little too tight and pulled the branch too far down, I simply pulled the stake up a little bit until I got the branch angle I wanted.

Unlike trees, peppers can take this kind of extreme bending pretty easily with the new growth, although if you look closely you might see where I bent one a little too far and broke it off.  No worries though, it was a small branch and I found a suitable replacement for it anyway.  The biggest branch bent over easily, you can see it there quite well in the second picture.

Now I can just leave it like that for a while.  The limbs will start growing new branches pointing up again as the main branch lignifies to where it will hold it's shape on it's own, and then I can do the same thing to those new branches to get a nice flat bottomed canopy.  Added benefit, this jute twine is pretty thick, and not tightly coiled around the branches so it won't bite into them.  No worries about scarring the branch this way!

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Other misc updates, the Reapers are still growing slowly.  We've had some nights of low 50's to upper 40's which will stall pepper growth, but I'm hoping some slowed above ground growth will help promote faster root growth as they try to dig down for some warmth.

I have no idea if thats true or not, but its a more productive line of thinking than "they're just sitting there doing nothing".

I'm also hoping to see good results from the tent pegs used above to use on the Reapers later.  I want a twisted trunk for the main Reaper bonchi, and tying it down with twine and stakes to pull it in the directions I want it to go is going to be a LOT easier than trying to wire it or digging it up to replant at an angle.

Also some disappointing results from the weird Halloween plant.  Thats it on the bottom there, and you can see its quite green now.  There's some black shading to the leaves, but they are no longer solid jet black.  Mixed bag though, because one of the others (the one that is unfortunately in the shadow of my phone) is now displaying more black on the leaves, while the two on the left (the free growing on the far left, and the one on the skull in the middle) have no black at all on their leaves.

Might still be worth trying to cross pollinate the two darker ones.  I might still be able to breed up some solid black ones, just doesn't look like I was lucky enough to get it for free in a single generation's worth of mutation.

Spring Planting Time

Okay, our last frost date here is 4/1-4/10.  Last night we hit 36°F/2°C briefly, but the 10 day forecast calls for nothing but warm wet weather from here out, so lets plant us some bonsai peppers!

Alas, poor Yorick.  I knew him, Horatio...

Dug out our skull from it's storage spot since last time we saw him.

...he was an asshole and I'm glad he's dead.

Out in the raised bed, dug a nice hole big enough for the skull and just deep enough for the top of the skull to be just below the soil line.

Now this is where it gets more important what we're doing.  Here I've taken the biggest and strongest looking of the Reapers (sadly, it was not the zombie reaper, but it was one of my final 4), removed most of the soil, and found the main root.  Now while peppers don't have an actual taproot, they do have a main root which was the first to grow after the seed germinated.  The plant is going to try and grow it's roots in the direction that that root is going, so its important to find it and get it positioned where you want it to go, and the rest of the roots should more or less follow.

Here I've gotten the pepper and the roots laid out where I want them.  You can see I've gone for a location over the skull's left eye socket.  I decided I wanted this to be asymmetrical to keep it from looking too artificial.  Also pulled a good bit of roots out over the back of the skull as well, hopefully they will all fatten up enough to where it will get a good grip on it.

And here's where I did something a little bit stupid.  After I got everything in place I was pressing the soil down to compact it enough to hold everything in place where I wanted it, and I heard a crunching sound.  Pretty certain the glue on the hinge of that damned jaw broke again.  I would say that thing is fragile as glass, but that would be an insult to the glass.  Oh well, I'm not digging the whole thing up now.  Whatever condition its in when I dig it up later is the condition its going to be in for the bonchi.

And there we go, the raised bed now has the four best Reapers in it (along with a boarder of transylvanian garlic), and is being watched over by my disgruntled lawn gnome.  The one with the skull is on the far right, opposite end of the gnome, as that spot gets the most sun.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering, the reason I don't trim those clovers and things that are growing tall around the raised bed right now is because I also keep bees.  The bees love those flowers, so I'm letting them have 'em until the flowers fade.  When there's no more flowers to feed the bees with, then I'll cut it all down and toss it in my composter.

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And while we're at it, updates on the other practice projects.

The Laughing Buddha Peter Pepper is doing well.  Its putting out lots of nice new growth, which I'm probably going to not wire again but tie down to get more of a canopy going.  Also likely going to move him back into a large container for the season to really let it go wild growing.  Only way to thicken those roots and trunk up to the max is to let the top grow as big as possible, so thats what we're going to do.

The oddball Halloween pepper continues to exhibit odd growth patterns.  Its putting out a cluster of leaves, but only from one side.  If nothing else, this should make an interesting bonchi simply because of how strange its growing.

Speaking of the Halloween peppers, here's the one I planted on the small skull.  Washed the dirt off the roots, and look at that main root.  Just like I mentioned before, they'll all tend to have one root that is bigger and beefier than the others, which was the first root the seed grew.  If you look closely, you can see its got an interesting bendy shape due to it growing over the skull.

Some repositioning of roots, and making sure that nice big main root goes in an interesting place, and we're starting to look pretty good here.  I also balled the roots up a bit under the bottom of the skull to try and encourage them to stay there and fully enclose the skull to make it impossible to remove short of cutting it out.

After that, replanted everything.  You can see on the left where the top of the roots are still showing, then on the right where I just barely covered them (and pulled off a few low leaves to give it a little air at the trunk).

This is the one that I didn't do anything to other than let it grow.  As you can see, it has pods set already.  The mini skull one I went back and pruned off the wilting flowers (which most likely set fruit), but this one I will let go.  Why?  Because producing fruit requires a large investment of energy on the plant's part.  While its true that it also uses a lot of water and nutrients, which encourages root growth, overall it slows the plant down.  The skull pepper I want to put out as much vegetative growth (aka, leaves) as possible to build up the trunk, which in turn will cause thicker roots.  This one though, I'm letting it grow however it wants.  Later on I'll compare how it's roots came out to the others and see what we've got to work with.

Multiple plants, being treated in multiple different fashions.  Thats how you experiment and learn, do a lot of different things and see what works, and what doesn't.

Root Pruning

Its been long enough for the Laughing Buddha bonchi to have dried up it's unneeded roots as much as it likely will, so I went in and did some root pruning.  The results are looking pretty good.

I'm a little concerned with those thin ones on the back.  It looks like they are dry and dead, but when I gave them a tug they seemed to be firmly in place.  I'd like for that to be a big fat solid root like the others, but the plant has other ideas it seems.  So, I'll leave them alone for now and see if they fatten up later or not.  If it turns out those roots have dried up, I know a few tricks to try and get them to regrow that we can try.

I've also uprooted the Halloween pepper that I had in the pumpkin pot over the skull to put it back in a regular pot for the time being.  Its a little hard to tell in the pictures, but it is noticeably smaller than it's two sister plants.  I've had a harder time keeping it happy water wise (which was expected), but it overall has not been thriving, so back in a normal pot it goes until it gets bigger and we can try it again.

The good news there though was that I actually had some difficulty in pulling it off the skull, so it appears to have been bonding quite nicely to it.  Thats very encouraging for later on.

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On a non-pepper related note, I've also started some Moringa Oleifera seeds.  Supposed to be fast growing, very healthy edible trees.  I may end up making a sub-page for edible bonsai in general to put that on, but this blog is about peppers and bonchi relating to my final attempt at the Reaper bonchi, so I won't clutter the main blog up with regular old tree details.