Heres a pic of my Thai

It seems pretty happy, I'd just let it do its thing.

i uh....id have to say theres a good chance thats probably a cherry pepper plant...i have a few that look just like it...except not quite that small...
doesnt look like a thai plant to me though
and as far as everything else i wouldnt worry to much about it....everything looks fine

Your right I just noticed the chillis on it. They are round. Thais are 1 1/2" long and about as thick as a pencil.

Raoulie, I have a half dozen kind of Thai peppers this year and they are generally much bushier than other types. I don't thin them out as the more leaves there are the more photosynthesis that takes place.

Thanks for the replies! It seems to really like the CFL's (got 2 more cool blue ones, my room is BRIGHT!) as it keeps growing and many new blossoms are forming/maturing. As for being a cherry pepper plant, theres a strong possibility as the people it was bought from dont speak english very well. Although what made me think it was a thai was the multiple blossoms all clustered together, as I dont really see that with other pictures of plants. Its got 7 or 8 chilis forming at the very top, and every other place where blossoms are forming they are doing so in multiples. Any ideas?

Oh and if it helps, theres alot of purple streaking on the plant which doesnt appear on the leaves. Doesnt seem to be a problem (got it like that and it hasnt gone away, just become more apparent), although could it be?

That's normal........

My Thai chilis are quite shrubby....and even moreso after the deer got into my garden and
munched all of my pepper plants in half. My brother's Thai chili (which I gave him) is
very tall and lanky because he was growing it with little sun. My sister's Thai chili is
even shorter and more squat, having been grown in full sun - it's also loaded with peppers.

I included a link to an Thai Chili Thread from a while back.

Josh

Here is a link that might be useful: Thai Chili Peppers - Lots of Pics

Thanks chililover, this is the first plant ive grown so im not sure whats normal or not (besides obvious things like yellowing/etc). Greenman, those chilis you recieved look to be too small to be what I have. My picture isnt the greatest (wish I had my sisters slr camera to take a photo!) but the fruit forming at the moment is quite bulbous. However it might be one of those other "stubbier" ones in that thread, as the oldest fruit is *slightly* elongating where the pistil was attached - younger sister confirmed this as well. So the one that started forming a few days after looks plump almost like a tomato, but the eldest and the other 2 that followed a day after have started to raise at the middle. My father also said the other plants surrounding this one had purple/dark peppers. . . perhaps thats a clue to what it is?

Oh and thank you everyone for confirming the shrubbiness, I was just curious since so many other pictures ive seen here show much more lanky plants with large spacing between nodes (even younger ones) whereas this one I have here has very little spacing and is even getting a bit woody at the main stem.

Well I wonder if this might be an ornamental pepper. The bushiness of the plant, round fruit and purple color of stems or leaves make me suspect that. There are many kinds of ornamental peppers of course, with either round or long, thin fruit, many with multicouloured peppers as they mature.

I think the ornamental peppers are edible as well although not 100% sure about it. They are bred more for appearance than flavor...

That would be a shame if they looked great but didnt taste that good, wouldnt have much use for a great looking plant like that in an apartment except for. . .looks. I managed to get my hands on a better camera however the battery is charging. Once its done ill post a much clearer picture with a better view of the fruit, this webcam is convenient but leaves something to be desired in terms of clarity.

Finally took the pictures

shows the purple streaks i was talking about

the top middle one is the one that looks like its starting to elongate a little. the rest look like fat berries (well arent the chilis technically berries?)

it looks like its going all woody (supposed to be a good thing right?). Im curious, would it be wise to remove those leaves at the bottom with them being so close to the soil?

tried to capture its shrubbiness but it was hard.

Anyways, what do you all think?

im still pretty sure thats a red hot cherry plant

The thing its got multiple flowers (and chilis for that bunch in the photo) at the nodes, does a red hot cherry plant do that?

Multiple flowers at nodes indicate capsicum chinense.

well my red hot cherry are growing all in a big bunch like that under a little canopy of leaves

juicyj thats good to know, i wasnt doubting you but just wanted to make sure that yours did that too. I just repotted it (sortof) in the same pot. If you notice the soil is a quite under the lip of the pot, I wanted to raise the plant more and mix in perlite that i bought. Interestingly the plant already was becoming root bound. Roots went all the way to the bottom, then were coming back up and starting to go around the pot so I loosened it up (they were all healthy looking except the ones from when it was root bound in the cup it was grown in) and put it back in. juicyj would you happen to have a picture of yours? Im googling red hot cherry plant and see the cherries and some pictures of the plant, but it doesnt show any ones with multiple fruits per node like yours.

Thanks!

oh wait...sorry for my ignorance...i went out there to take a picture and realized what you were talking about

mine actually arent growing out of the same node like yours...my mistake

though i do still say its some kind of a hot cherry plant
heres mine
{{gwi:1191479}}

see?

and heres my thais

No problem, great looking plants you got there. So I guess ill just have to play the waiting game and see how they look in a couple weeks when their plump-turning slightly pointed shape matures. At least my uncle found me a young scotch bonnet, so I will have some consistency with that. The mystery remains!

thank you thank you
yea not a whole lot you can do
nothin wrong with a scotch bonnet though....never had one but ive heard nothing but good things

keep us updated im curious to see what it turns out to be

Ok so it has been a bit over a week since I last posted, and it appears as if these chilis arent changing shape besides the slight point at the tip; the oldest one has already started to turn a bit red so Im assuming the shape wont be changing much now. The plant has been growing well (had some leaves dropping after I repotted it but its doing great now) and although with the really terrible weather alot of the blossoms have been dropping, there was a few sunny days and it looks like some of them actually took.

One strange thing though, 2 sprouts have suddenly appeared in the pot. I have no clue where they came from and Im not sure what they are. I did dump a bunch of (what I thought to be dead) habanero seeds that I was trying to get to sprout back in the big soil bag a while back, perhaps when I was repotting a few of them got in and for some reason started growing?

Oh and there appears to be a ton of little white bugs in the pot. The plant doesnt look sick or anything so Im assuming they are fine, but can anyone tell me what they are?

those little bugs are aphids...they suck the juice out from the underside of the leaves

check under leaves for them
you dont want none of that

I thought they were aphids as well, but the thing is they rarely are on the plant. I just got some scotch bonnets from my uncle (asked him if he could get one, he got me 9) and they had some aphids on them. I think I managed to get them all off, though Ill continue to keep a close eye on them so when I put them in a larger pot and keep them next to this mystery plant, they dont infect it. They look very different from these and are much slower. I can even see the little needle they use to pierce the plant, but these guys are alot smaller than the full ones, and ALOT faster/resilient. What I mean by resilient is I can press one with a pretty standard insect crushing force with my finger; it rarely kills them as I suppose they could fit between the grooves on my finger but even then they can withstand some force. These aphids pop when I squish them and just have a generally different look to them (I can make out their eyes while these little ones are either too small for me to make out, or dont have eyes that stand out). They have been in the pot for a couple weeks now, and recently there have been alot of these small fly-like insects buzzing around and walking on the soil. They as well dont appear to be interested in the plant, but are definitely laying eggs in the soil as I can see white ones emerging to "harden off". They look like fungus gnats from a quick google search.

oh wow.....well dang
you just have a whole little bug city going
thats crazy man!

Hi Rauolie,

It does sound like you have fungus gants in the pots based on your description. They are not normally a big problem.

They are common on house plants. The easiest way to get rid of them is to change the way you water. Usually they live on constantly moist soil. If you begin letting your pots dry out so the top several inches (at least) of soil becomes mostly dry they will probably decrease or leave altogether.

Another update with pictures. I switched to a larger pot (random one I found laying around with a bunch of fake leaves hot glued to it) and went with Al's mix, as bark nuggets and sphagum peat moss were on special locally - I couldnt resist. The plant seems to do great with it and it seems to have solved the problem with fungus gnats; the miracle gro stuff was bone dry near the top, but inside and in the middle it might as well have been soaked in water. I still have to get used to watering it before leaving it into the sun as this afternoon it was wilting after being watered the day before, it rebounded incredibly quickly but I suppose it has to adjust to not having waterlogged soil. I was suprised actually that there wasnt any root rot, for some reason all of the extra perlite I had mixed in got compacted to the middle right under the plant.

Anyways, here are the pictures.

Looks like the Scotch Bonnets could use a little liquid fertilizer. The yellowing is probably a sign of nitrogen deficiency and the wrinkling of the leaves a mineral deficiency, maybe calcium? I have read on this and other sites recently about the use of bone meal to correct this. Epsom salts of seaweed extract may help also, just not all at the same time! ;-) Try searching this site or google for info on using those. I'd tell you myself but I grow my plants in the ground and don't have the nutrient problems so common to container growing (other than a little leaf wrinkling on my habaneros).