Yah, not a reaper. A habanero does make sense.

Here is an immature Reaper pod from one of my plants last year.

Definitely not a reaper, but i have watched several clips where there can be some mutations or such...like 1 in 30 look like one i have.
Just trying to console myself. I was tricked, that's for sure.

a lot of people wind up with bogus seed. Where did you get the seeds from? If it was Ebay or Amazon.com, you have about a 1 in 4 chance of getting what you expect. You are better off getting seed from someone on this forum or ordering through one of the reputable online seed stores.

And by the way, Habaneros are plenty hot and they are good peppers to use in cooking.

It seems that i knew what i was buying.
I bought peppers on Veg. market, and they looked the same as this one i posted.
They had the tag 7pot California reaper.
Because i was fresh at superhots, i believed that it is some kind of variation
that you can find on internet
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/34199-carolina-reaper-hp22b-community-grow/page-18
Personally i liked it , and because of that i planted the seeds, habaneros or not.
I am only a bit sad because ...i dont know, i thought i can eat the hottest pepper in the world.
They are a bit different than habaneros, they dont have those odd curves,

and they are really really hot.

This is my first fungus gnat i caught. Loosing the battle btw.

Water with a solution of 1 part hydrogen peroxide (3%) to 4 parts water. Do this for about two weeks. It will kill off the eggs and larva, but you have to keep doing it to kill off the whole life cycle of them.

The plants are looking pretty good to me in any case. You got all this fruit production from a west-facing window's light? Pretty impressive for a C. chinense. What average day/night temperatures are the plants subjected to?

Thnx Esox, i am doing that peroxide thing for some time now, but they keep coming back. I find them in my soup now.. Will be more persistent.
Thnx Isgen!
The temperatures are around 20 degrees C. It never dropped below 16 -18 at night...i guess.
Day temperatures at winter time are 22C , but they were above radiators.
At night i guess it droops below 19 C, because central heating works until 22h.

The plants were at the beginning facing west facing window from November till beginning of march. They made a jungle there, and were all tangled up.
So i moved them gradually to south facing window. The ones i moved sooner , produced more fruit.
Why i didn't do it earlier is because i have poor insulation there (aluminium junk) and temperatures drop at night, so i waited for winter to end.
If you have south facing window that's well insulated i suggest you use it all the way.
My peppers look like weed now, because all that low west winter sun.
The tallest have more that 1.7m in height without the pot.
I feel that i could do some trimming on them...but hey. It's my first.

I water them every day with one liter per pot ( 8liter pot). I thought that its too much, but when i skip watering on sunny day, the leaves all shrivel up.
I fertilize them nearly every time i water them.
when they were growing i used some liquid fertilizer for foliage, then
i bought some organic liquid fertilizer that has some
NItrogen fixators( pardon my french)..some bacteria
phosphor mineralisators...again bacteria
Growth regulator- auksine
it smells like something rancid.
After that i mixed it with flower liquid fertiliser 50/50 (6,8,8)

In the beginning i haven't had any wind circulation around them, except convection of air trough the radiators below the window sill on west window.
But now i leave opened window beside them, and i think it helps producing pods, because the ones branches that is closest to window have more pods.
I shake them every day also.
I have snowing flowers every day ( 20-50 flowers every day per plant) ,
about 120 peppers 3 cm long out of 5 plants that never left the house,
and my flat looks like a jungle.... my wife is allergic to pollen so
i need to handle that also, but it certainly pays off. They are stress
relief just by looking at them , they smell beautifully, the are really
really hot and tasty ( fruit flavor).

The problem with the gnats is that they are probably living in other plants around your house and you have to kill them all at the same time to rid the house of them. Otherwise, they just migrate from plant to plant after you stop treating them. What you could do is just water once a week with the hydro peroxide to keep them at bay in the peppers.

Air circulation is always good and will help with the gnats as well. I run a fan on mine during the winter for a couple hours a day.

yes you are right, they do and I didn't treated them. They are some palms that aren't watered frequently, and i thought they wont survive there ...i was wrong.

I wanted to ask about fungicides. It contains Ziram.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziram
I watered them two times with it from beginning, because frequent watering & smaller sized pot. Is there any health risk involved , by consuming them trough peppers or by air inhaling small particles that dried out from top of the soil?

Thanx

You will need to keep up whatever program you decide to use. If you kill the larvae in the soil, the adults are still flying around, waiting for the pesticide to wear off. I don't know that I would use a fungicide. I get that you feel it will take away the food source for the fungus gnats, but that stuff looks to have some bad side affects and is supposed to be applied before the fungus appears. I would either use something that goes after the gnats themselves or just keep up the use of hydro peroxide.

Thnx Esox07.
I used fungicide mainly because the soil looked sporous , trying to protect the rest of us from inhaling it. Second reason was that my palms suffered severely from some fungi infection , and from that occasion i have some fungicide in my flat.
Third reason was as you guessed, trying to cut the food source, but i figured soon enough that it wasn't smart, as gnats would eat roots of peppers if there is no fungi.

Yes it really has some bad side effects, as it seems to kill everything.
I've drenched the peppers with that stuff and there is now fewer of gnats.
Usually they take off after i water the peppers, but now there was very few of them.
So my concern about health is at place.
I've read a little about it, and it seems that plant dissolves it nicely, so maybe i wouldn't eat that poison, trough peppers.

Hi,
Here are photos of my first harvest of flat grown...Habaneros.

Red Habaneros instead of the classic Orange. I grew the Red ones last year. Nice looking pods. Plenty of heat there for you, I am sure.

Thank You esox07.
Oh yes, there is plenty heat for sure. I love them... As a matter of fact i have mouth sores and I don't know what to do with peppers that are coming, but it seems that i am developing some tolerance...or alien in my mouth.
It's a pity to leave them to dry out or mesh them in a blender for some sauce or something.

Dry them and grind them into powder or flakes. They will go a long way throughout the year in seasoning foods.

Lacto-fermented hot sauce is where it's at! :) Use some red bell peppers along with the Habs to add volume and to adjust how hot the sauce turns out. I had great results using about 2 or 3 red bell peppers with 3 very ripe Scotch Bonnets. It also keeps for very long in the fridge.

Thanx, that's interesting, I'll try that for sure.
That gave me the idea about "Ajvar"...some domestic recipe but its too early for that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajvar

Thanks for the Ajvar link, I had never heard of this specifically, though it reminds me a bit of Letcho. Anything with roasted peppers is good!

True :) Barbecued even more ;)

Second harvest. First is drying. Haven't tried any recipe for now.
Fungus gnats art :) If you cant beat them, join them.

Picture 1: Nice!

Picture 2: Gross!

:D

Third harvest!

Fourth harvest.
Less than third , but i think there will be fifth and sixth harvest, and hundreds peppers more.
By now from 5 plants in 4 harvests ( pictured and not) there are more than 130 peppers.

Seems like you have some healthy producers! How's the gnat problem? At least it doesn't seem to be affecting yield.

Can we get an ensemble shot of the plants?

Hi,
It seems that they are producers!
Gnats....well, i notice them now and then, but they are not in my soup anymore. When the weather heated up, i guess they decided to go on vacation...and that peroxide did the thing well. Additionally it made the soil more...whats the word...loose?
Here are the shots of my thirsty plants. I skipped watering today, and look at them now!! Each of them drink 1,5 liter a day and when i skip watering, this is what happens.
Please don't look at the mess, as i cant move them for ensemble shot.
They are not beauties :)...except lemon drop plant, first pic, far right.

Thanks for the pics, great plants! I bet they drink up fast in these relatively (for the plant size) small containers. Pretty amazing production for windowsill plants.

Thnx, i appreciate it.
Yes I was advised here that 8 liter pots are not the best option. I guess that transplanting them at this stage is not a good idea.
The sad looking ones from second pic are giants, and they cant stand without water one day, but when they get their daily fix i don't need curtains...

As for 8 liter pots not being the best option, perhaps so, but empirically, it does not look like the worse either!

haha, true!
I guessed that if i used smaller pot they will not grow that big, but i was wrong. They are a bit crazy if you ask me, but i am guilty for that.
Those giants stayed the longest at west facing window during the winter time ( no direct sunlight ), so i made that mess, as they were reaching for light. They were the tallest from beginning and hard to untangle, so i left them there. But when they reached the ceiling i realized they are stubborn.

Hi it seems that there is more serious issue with this overgrown peppers.
When temps reached 30c, they started asking water two times a day now. Morning and evening.
Can i transplant them now in larger pot?
Additional question with drying peppers.
One string of peppers didn't dry that fast, 5 days, and they developed some strong sweet smell, that i don't personally like. It resembles to the smell of rotting chilly peppers. They have regular color, maybe some have blackish corners. I dried them in kitchen. After i moved them to direct sun, and they are now nearly dry, but still have that smell.
On the other string there were more dried ones, and some of them developed some aggressive black mold. I removed them and left the others. Should i throw them all?

The rest may still harbor the mold spores. Perhaps better to wash and cook them so as not to risk spoilage?

well 90% of them is completely dry.
Interesting thing is that i read somewhere that capsaicin is peppers defense mechanism against mold.
I could make mace, but I cant think of any food that i would want with 50 peppers :).

So you think even if I dry them complete and make powder that it could continue to spoil. Could I sprinkle them with that peroxide 3%. I hear that i can be digested, and that it dissolves to water when exposed to elements, and that it can kill mold?

Fifth, Muhammad Ali

Hi i left on vacation and left Habaneros for keeping.
25 days after three of them are full of this little plant lices. Help!
They weren't watered regularly.

Those look like aphids. Spray neem oil or insecticidle soap, or you can hand squish them. They mostly reside on the underside of leaves. Usually they attack plants that are stressed, but will go after healthy plants too.

thx for the advice.
There are too many of them for squishing.
I treated them with vinegar&dish soap mixture, and plan to wash them in bath tub, and after ill try with that neem oil.

No, this is where a lot of people run into trouble. Give it three or four days of the dish soap mixture and see if it works. Don't start carpet bombing them yet. Your plant may wind up as a casualty.

You could also take the plant outside and gently spray it off with the garden hose and remove a good portion of the little bastards that way. Then bring it back in and start treatments.

It's not all that bad.
This is only one branch from one of the infected plants.
I bought Neem oil for oral usage, and thing is set to motion.
It's interesting that aphids attack only flowers and baby pods in direct sunlight,
and didn't migrate to Lemon chilly pepper that is also neighbor plant.
I found few small yellow mushrooms 5mm, with mycelium about 5cm radius, at patients zero pot. Too bad i didn't took photo of it.
Smells like mushrooms, not mold.

I found mushrooms in second pot as well that has aphid infestation.
It seems that they are yellow house mushroom Leucocoprinus birnbaumii,
and that they are a bit of poisonous. Hope that don't interfere with peppers

So here's the pic.

I showered the plants and got rid of 60% of them, and sprayed Neem oil.
1 tee spoon of oil in 1 hot liter of water mixed with 1/3 spoon of dishsoap.

I'm seriously doubting now in effects of Neem oil.
I bought oil for oral usage, and mixed it to be 1% concentrate in hot water with detergent.
After week or so, there are poor results...in fact number of aphids is rising rapidly, regardless of my frequent spraying.

i think 2% does the trick.

I have had great luck with insecticidal soap. Give it a shot. By the way, you need to treat for several days to kill off the entire life cycle....but if you are treating plants outside, you are probably only buying a little time. They will just migrate from neighboring plants if they are a big problem in your area. In that case, you might want to consider either just spraying them off the plants every day or so or possibly a more persistent pesticide.

three of them made a mess in one room. It was all sticky, and bugy so i washed them in bathroom and took it outside. It was hell to do. They grew along the windows without real support so when i took them down....with all those bugs...hell.
Now they are outside on 5th floor. Wasps come by, have some lunch, some lady bugs as well. The nums od aphids is droping, but plants are loosing leaves rapidly. Htere were some cattepilars as well, but i guess that they didn't like neem oil, and me taking them down so there are no caterpillars.
It is interesting that lemon chilly pepper doesn't have many of aphids, even when the leaves of infested neighbor habaneros are touching. There is some chemistry that someone should investigate.

Three other plants were without aphids until recently, and numbers are growing incredible. I sprayed them on window sills with neem oil stronger than 2%, and i can see effects pretty quick...but i put also more organic dish soap.
They are not pretty anymore, loosing leaves, sticky. pods are sticky, some are soft to touch...not the plants "that i used to know ".
Talking about bad luck, i have some requests to sell them.
By now I had more than 600 pods, approximately one kilo of dried ones.

I had some experiment with those few pods that grew mold on stings when drying.
I washed them all in diluted peroxide 3%, than in vinegar, water and dried them allover. No mold now, and aflatoxin i guess.

I learned that that repeated drying process can give an extra flavour, like Urfa pepper ( Turkish/Syrian stuff )

After long battle with large amounts of aphids and applying various greasy stuff on pepper leaves ( neem oil, canola oil) and nearly killed them ( they were almost leafless) i called it quits for season that lasted from April till now. I have a throng of dried peppers, and pickled ones.
New leaves started already to come out and small aphids are emerging again on them.
I washed them in bath tub ( it is easier now) with nylon bag over the soil, not to contaminate the earth with washed ones, but i fear they will come back.
I couldn't stand another indoor fight with them and planing to sell them to some enthusiast.
How much could i get for such plants?

If you use insecticidal soap and do it for every 2-3 days for a week to two weeks, you should eradicate the aphids. You need to continue treating until you have killed off all generations of the pest. Treating them once will get rid of that generation, but they have eggs laid in the soil and larvae as well. Those need to be killed off as they emerge and before they lay eggs themselves.

I couldn't find insecticidal soap here, and one i found had carenza time for pesticides and somewarning about cancer.
I only used organic stuff, and i guess this insecticidal soap isn't one. Maybe you think about some mineral oil...but that doesn't sound like soap to me.
Good thing to know they are in the ground as well!
Can Peroxide kill them i the ground?

No, insecticidal soap is nothing more than soapy water. I made it myself. In fact, I used it with home made soap that my wife makes in a big pot with oils and lye and stuff they way they used to make it 100 years ago. Totally natural. You can also use commercial soaps. I understand some people even use Dawn Dishwashing liquid with good results. You could technically drink some insecticidal soap and not be harmed....remember when mothers used to wash their kid's mouths out with soap when they cussed?

I don't know if peroxide will kill them in the soil or not. It helps with fungus gnats, but I am not sure if it would work on aphid larvae or not. Maybe?

hahaha! But why is' called insecticidal soap if it's for washing tongues ?
Thnx for the soap advice! I'll try that for sure.
U used to mix neem oil and canola oil with dishwasher soap ( some organic kind), but it was horrible mess.