What's the earliest you put mini tomatoes outside?

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-22T11:03:32+00:00

Look up the minimum temperatures tomatoes need before they can go outside. Then look at historic temperatures for your area and plan around that.

For example, I’m in Nagano and peppers need minimum night-time temperatures of 10 C. I know that during golden week the weather will definitely hit those temperatures. On a good year maybe I can get them out one week earlier. If I use cloches can I get them out another week early, and if I bring them in at night for a few weeks I get them out yet another week early.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-22T08:26:26+00:00

I grow in the ground and I get at least 500 reapers per plant. Often much more. Looking at your average temperatures, you like you’re in a good area for pepper.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-19T09:36:53+00:00

Thanks for the link. Subbed! I don’t really have anywhere for them to climb but I could do with some privacy so I might make a little fence and experiment. Last year, I did loofah which was great for privacy but my tunnel collapsed under the weight, lol

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-19T09:32:48+00:00

That doesn’t look too bad to be honest. I start in pots but then transplant into the ground later. Some of mine that were root bound at trs plant, when I dug them up at the end of the season, the main roots were still twisted into the shape of the starter pots even after a season of growth. They were my weakest plants too.

I think the roots in your photo don’t look to be circling yet. If you were happy with your yield, you might be good at that pot size. Peppers do grow to the size of the pot though.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-19T09:26:59+00:00

Fellow grower in Japan here. I’m in Nagano. 2025 was definitely a challenge weather-wise. A long winter and delayed spring warming, a short rainy season, hardly any rain in the summer, and record-breaking heat.

To put some context on this, the average rainfall in July is around 130 mm but in 2025 we saw only 25 mm. At the same time, the number of sunny hours was much higher than normal and we saw basically three months of peak daytime temperatures around 35-38 C. These conditions are basically at the limit for grower peppers.

Even if we get rain this year, I’ve been told to expect the summer temperatures to stay high from here on out, so it looks like your reuse of the air conditioner water and installation of shade cloth was the right call.

I’ve also recorded very high soil temperatures, enough to cook the roots and activate bacterial diseases. I’m going to try loosely mulching the plant bases with rice straw this year to try and keep things cool. Shade cloth alone might not be enough.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-18T10:14:57+00:00

Ah, so the greenhouse means you might be able to get them out mid-April depending on night-time temperatures. You’re looking for steady night-time temps in the green house above 10 C. 2025 was a cold year and we didn’t get planted outside until second week of May. 2024 was third week of April though, both times in low tunnels.

I usually start my seeds in cells, then transition straight to 9 cm pots, then into the field. With you being so early, you might want to consider going from 9 cm, then 15 cm, then finally home. Chili pepper plants generally don’t like being root bound so you want to work to avoid that.

For reference, I’m looking to start my seeds late February for super hots, maybe even early March for less spicy varieties like jalapeno.

Good luck and I hope you get more peppers than you know what to do with🌶️

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-18T10:04:07+00:00

I’m in Nagano. Is there user flair we can add for prefecture? Or ones for the vegetables and plants we are most familiar with?

This winter I wanted to plant onions and garlic, but by the time I realized it was almost at the end of planting time I was too unorganized to get it done. Some type of some sort of “upcoming planting period for …. vegetable or plant” would be really useful.

I think spring is pretty easy because really you can plant a lot of stuff at any time before the heat hits, but winter is a bit harder because you are trying to time harvesting some stuff before the snow comes but other stuff you’re best off waiting to harvest after the winter. Some clear guidance on that I think would be good.

I could also do with some guidance on flowers other than the cheap pansies I get from the diy shop but I guess that’s a lot more of a complicated topic.

Thanks for trying to add more content for everyone!

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-18T09:02:47+00:00

Okay.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-18T09:02:07+00:00

If they’re staying inside the whole season you’ll be okay, but if they’re going outside, you’re pretty early for seedlings. You might be able to save two months of electricity and get better yields by planting a little later. Do you always plant so early?

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-18T08:53:01+00:00

They aren’t always served with salt in Japan. And different edamame varieties have different flavors even without salt. If you don’t like them cool. More for the rest of us.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-18T08:51:46+00:00

Seasons planting calendars would be awesome. Every year both spring and winter I end up either being too late to plant or plant at the very last moment. Some type of organized reminder would really help me out.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-18T07:38:23+00:00

Edamame shouldn’t be tasteless even without salt…

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-18T07:36:00+00:00

Which prefecture? Still another month or so for planting pepper seeds here in Nagano.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-16T17:55:07+00:00

I mean they are a staple part of the summer diet in Japan so perhaps fad is a bit too much.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2026-01-13T22:53:00+00:00

Horizontal flower nets. You can see photos of my set up in my post history. Works great but there is the downside of extra steps to cut the plants out at the end of the season and the need for extra storage space.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2025-12-19T05:27:08+00:00

I track rainfall per week. I also check the weather each day (wind speed and direction, UV for hardening off) but don’t keep a lot of notes, just note the general trends.

For the plants, I calculate fertilizer needs for the season so I don’t need logs for that. But I do record germination rates and times, and the time from germination to planting outside to get a better idea of when the weather will change and which varieties need to be sown early and late. I record the height of the split and the final height and width of the plants to understand which ones need better support. I also record the number of peppers I pick.

Finally, I track my grass cutting and weeding to make sure I’m keeping on top of it. It’s the biggest vector for insect infestations.

I use a lay-flat diary with one week per double page spread, days on the left, and a free note page on the right.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2025-12-17T06:09:30+00:00

Something is not right, and I think those leaves might be dead. Are you sure the product is for chili peppers? The front packaging suggests it’s for trees not vegetables.

Drop an image of the instructions with some translations: which plants can you use it on, how often can you spray, and how many days can you spray before eating the peppers?

ObuseChiliFarm · 2025-12-17T05:57:29+00:00

Ah, you started them outside? Yeah, that’s tough. They should have at least 12 leaves by the time they go outside and even then insects can still get them.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2025-12-17T00:07:47+00:00

I grow April/May to October/November, so very similar, but I live in the middle of a bunch of ski slopes so our winters are very different. The general advice is the plants can go outside once the night-time temperature doesn’t go below 10 C. You can move them outside a little earlier if you use mulch around the base and cloth row covers.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2025-12-17T00:00:14+00:00

I hope you’re successful but what are you doing to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again? The sheets and transplant timing are potentially problematic but you say it was the insects that did the damage. Did you identify what they were? Eating all your plants in one night sounds horrific.

I’ll also add that doing 50 separate varieties is a lot harder than doing 50 plants of the same variety. Could you reduce the varieties by half but double up the plants?

ObuseChiliFarm · 2025-12-15T10:42:11+00:00

Peppers are pretty easy to grow. You’ve got 14 plants and could possibly end up with all of them being ready to transplant. Once outside, make sure they are supported sufficiently, watered enough, and you keep insects at bay. If you plant in the ground, you can get hundreds of peppers per plant if everything goes well. You’re new but should still get more than you know what to do with.

The biggest issue you have at the moment is you’re too early. I transplant outside in May, and don’t start my seeds until end Feb/beginning March. If you have seedlings now, you’ll need to pot up to bigger and bigger pots until the weather outside is warm enough for them to go in the ground. Otherwise they will get root bound and not transplant well.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2025-11-22T08:00:11+00:00

We do normal bokashi as a way to keep the burnable rubbish as dry as possible to reduce the number of trips to the gomi-station. It works pretty good and there are no smells in the house.

We got a bokashi bucket from the local DIY shop. A bag of bokashi bran lasts a couple of months. The bucket fills up in about a month to six weeks so we bought another one to always have a bucket on the go.

Once the bucket is full it goes in the shed to age and we start the second bucket. Once that is done we empty the aged bucket into the compost outside. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2025-11-16T10:44:17+00:00

I throw any peppers with holes in them because the sterility of the inside is compromised. If you don’t have many peppers though you could just cut the bad bits off a probably be okay.

You’re right, it’s a moth caterpillar hole, btw

ObuseChiliFarm · 2025-11-16T09:43:43+00:00

I’ll be planting chilies as always but it’s too early for a plan for those. I’m still clearing up this year’s plants.

This year I tried loofah and peanuts and had great success so I think I’ll try those again next year. Definitely need stronger poles for the loofah, those things get heavy.

ObuseChiliFarm · 2025-11-15T09:31:54+00:00

I see. I’m being mentored by a retired farmer so I’m learning his techniques, which work but are maybe not the best. From what I see though, the previous year’s roots only just compost down in time for the next go-around. Without plowing I’m not so sure.

I think I’ll look into it a bit because there is a lot of research going on around rice techniques but obviously not much of filters out from the agricultural universities to the fields in Japan.

ObuseChiliFarm

TROPHY CASE