After the tragedy of Pousse's death, I was determined to ensure my remaining peppers stayed alive. It was time to get some light! It was time to be DAYMAN!
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TIME TO SAVE SOME PLANTS! |
I was also spurred on by the fact that while I was examining the corpse of Pousse, the rest of my pepper plants began to droop and fade. Spicy McPepperson was in real trouble. I became seriously concerned that he was going to be the next to go!
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| DROOPY! |
I went over to Home Depot first to pick up some bio-degradable pots and seeding dirt. I was advised to only expect one pepper plant for every peat pod but since several of my pods had two or three sprouts, I decided to try and separate them.
After a successful trip to Home Depot, I went to
Frank's Magic Crop for some lights! I picked up a 4 foot light, a stand for the light and two dome greenhouse lids. In total, I got the whole kit and kaboodle for $105, including tax, which I feel is a pretty sweet deal. Also the lady who helped me was amazing. She gave me some great tips and suggestions about how to get the best out of my lights and in general was awesome!
While I usually take pictures of everything, I was so excited about the life giving light I had just bought that I totally forgot to take pictures of everything before I ripped it out of the packages and put it all together. I found the assembly was rather simple however snapping the lights into the light holder was a bit difficult. Fortunately, my girlfriend is much handier than I am and she figured it out. In the end, my light was set up and I was ready start transplanting.
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| My seedlings under their new light! |
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| The new light! Where no McPepperson has gone before! |
I found a pretty cool looking bag of seedling mix when I was at Home Depot. I bought
Pro-Mix Seed Starting Mix. While I talked to a Pro-Mix rep when I was there, I legitimately bought a bag because it seemed like a good soil to plant in, and has enough natural fertilizer to feed the seedlings for 90 days. When I opened the bag I looked over the mix and I like the look and texture of the soil. I guess only time will tell if it works or not.
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| The bag was shiny and pretty! |
I separated the bio-degradable pots I had bought and filled them with the potting soil.
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| Ready for plants! |
Looking over the sprouts there were several that had three seedlings in each and deserved to be moved into a new home. After picking out the lucky sprouts that were going to be transplanted I labelled the new plant homes and began separating the sprouts.
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| Three peppers! |
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| Only one left now! |
In total I transplanted 12 pepper plants, including Spicy McPepperson, into their new pepper mansions. I actually felt this was a pretty risky maneuver on my part as the plants were already looking wilted and disturbing their roots when they're already down is probably not a good idea.
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| A few of the McPeppersons find a new home! |
I watered them, covered them with the new dome greenhouse lid and put them under the bright lights. The lady at Frank's told me that they should perk up with some light and water. I was a little worried that all these plants would just die, but they have all recovered wonderfully.
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| Starting to perk up! |
After a few hours you can see the sprouts are straighter and they have already gotten a lot of colour back.
This is a picture of what they looked lat 11:55 pm last night. I was pretty ecstatic about their turnaround.
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| LOOKING GOOD! |
This morning they looked even better. I left the light on all night to give them a nice dose of light. Every plant stopped sagging and straightened up! While my girlfriend thinks I am full of hooey, I think they all look a lot more green. The nodes on them have perked up and I feel that the light is a game changing purchase for my little garden.
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Poppy Stands on Guard for thee McPeppersons!
(Don't they look so green!) |
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| They look so healthy! |
Overall it was a tough few days for the McPeppersons. We suffered loss and heartbreak over the passing of Pousse, but emerged a stronger healthier pepper clan basking under the glow of a brand new sun.
