Re: [CH] Soil pH
Love2Troll (Love2Troll@kc.rr.com)
Wed, 28 Jul 2004 10:49:28 -0500
> Dave writes: If your temperatures are less than 50F or more than 90F it doesn't matter how great your macro/micro nutrients or what your soil composition is. Your chiles aren't going to do well.
> L.B. writes: A sort of average of the 5 elements keeping the soil between 6.5 and 7.0 will yeild maximum absorpstion of all needed elements.
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It's that time of year again. Seems every summer my C. pubescens start getting somewhat pale and some leaves turn yellow. Drives me nuts! This has been a fairly cool & wet year so far and what with the coolish temps in June/July had expected better plant color. And am not talking about sub 50F temps. Perhaps C. pubs are naturally more pale than other species? This is only my 3rd year growing them so am not expert. All the other species seem to be doing just fine.
I've decided to go 'natural' and have been making aerated compost tea for foliar spraying using compost from my year old pit. One gallon compost to five gal water and aerate with a large airstone for 12 hours or so. Strain the mess & spray full strength every 7-10 days. Just started an indoor worm bin and hope to be smothered in worm castings by this time next year.
Although I've been disappointed with many of my 2nd year C. pub varieties there have been several superstars. One of them is PI 593930 from Ecuador. Did well the first year & this year is producing nicely hot pods with the best sweet flavor I've yet experienced. (at least the last batch of pods were) Also have had the hottest ever C. pub recently from a different variety. My disappoint stems from my expectations of getting early in the year pods from all the 2nd year varieties. Just ain't going to happen for some of them. I'm partly blaming the lack of pollinators.
Happy growing to you all!
JohnT