Man that's a pretty sight....Great looking peppers

Nice harvest Littlepepperboy. Soap won't do anything to alter the flavor. A lot of people actually spray down their plants with plain water an hour or 2 after soap treatments -- less chance of leaves burning in the summer heat.

Kevin

how many plants do you have? you just made me self conscious about my first harvest.

Great looking harvest!!!

Hey Judo,
I have a lot of plants. I started planting seeds on dec 31st and planted around 250-300 plants total. Because of limited space I culled the plants to around 100 total in the greenhouse, maybe 50 or so outside(doing poorly). I have 50 or so in an aeroponics system and the rest are in soil. I planted santaka japanese first so that's why I have so many of those. the 7 pots and Trinidad Scorpions are frikkin loaded with pods, Im growing around 40 different varieties. I built a greenhouse just for the peppers since I live in a cool foggy coastal area. this is my first year growing superhots and its an ecstatic experience! All the new flavors I never tried, amazing!

And also I had an initial harvest that looked very similar to yours Judo, about 1 month ago.

Heres a photo taken this morning in my greenhouse. Aero system on the right.

Heres a couple of the ones in soil:

wow. impressive. now I don't feel quite so bad about my own.

Bugs are not necessarily bad. Many of them are beneficial and you don't want to be spraying them down. Before you start nuking the plants with insecticidal soap, make sure you know what kind of bugs you are trying to get rid of.
Bruce

What Bruce just said.

the plants are way ahead of the bugs at this point but Ive noticed quite a few plants that are damaged. I released ladybugs into the room and that helped for a couple months but they eventually got sucked out the exhaust fan.
My current bugs are:
1. a flat white bug about 2millimeters in size. they are everywhere on the lower branches, especially on the soil plants.
2. a greyish black fly also about 2millimeters.
3. Aphids

The plants are growing so fast the bugs dont seem to do that much damage now, but because the greenhouse environment is so ideal the amount is growing exponentially. I sprayed about 3 weeks ago and that really knocked em back. i think Ill spray again tonight when I get home. I make my own using dr. bronners. seems to work great. way cheaper than buying store bought Safer's brand or others. Its impossible to saturate the plants because I have so much overcrowding, so i just get them the best I can.

Lacewing larvae are, from my research, a much better beneficial than ladybugs. Plus, they probably wouldn't get sucked out. The adults, I'm sure, would. But, the adults don't do all they preying You just wouldn't have future generations propagating.

Where did you purchase your Dr. Bronner's?

Kevin

i just ordered the bronners on Amazon. im a prime member so most general goods like that have free shipping.

I just did a little research trying to figure out what pests im dealing with. It looks like they are whiteflies and fungus gnats(scariad flies). (the aphids are easy to identify)

theyre mainly just a nuisance. I see now why the fungus gnats are mainly on the soil plants (if not completely) is because they feed on decaying matter and fine roots which is only present in the soil containers. My aero system is mostly immune.

Whiteflies are not JUST a nuisance -- they can take out your entire grow. Very difficult to control. Though I'm sure in a greenhouse they are easier than outside.

If i were you, I'd up the treatments of soap to once every few days and then start some neem oil treatments. Then I'd release some lacewings eggs/larvae.

Don't mean to alarm you, but I hate for people to just think that they don't cause any harm. Every year, I have to battle them and sometimes I have to start pulling plants early just because they suck the life right out of them.

They're invading my tomatoes as we speak. I'm ordering lacewings tomorrow.

P.S. LOL was hoping I didn't have to order soap online -- can't find fels naptha or castile anywhere locally.

Good luck with your grow.. looks awesome so far

Kevin

Beautiful harvest. love the greenhouse, basil looks good too!

I too loathe white flies, they were working on a stem of one of my plants and almost took down the whole thing. I spray them with Concern brand insecticidal soap. It takes a few applications to finally wipe them out but we've been getting so much darn rain, I'm almost through an entire bottle of concentrated soap which typically lasts me the whole season.

I agree with others that the soap does not affect the taste of the peppers, I do notice it on some of my herbs though.

Here is a link that might be useful: PEPPERMEISTER!