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Peppers and Chillies - how to get the best crop?
Scarify
Posts: 20
in Fruit & veg
I've got a mix of peppers and chilli peppers in my greenhouse and know that I need to do something with them!
Some books say to feed (potash) when they reach 8" in height, some say to do this when the first fruit sets. There is also advice to pinch out the tops but then the dire warning that yields may be less.
Any advice on how to get the best out of my peppers would be great!
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HI Scarify,
As with most things, there is a lot of opinions as to what is the best thing to do with plants/veg and I am certainly no expert. That said I am in the process of trying a couple of things to see if they have a positive effect on my chilli's.
I have topped half of my chilli's to see if they grow into stronger bushier plants, the ones that I have topped have definitely started to sprout more leaves but its way to early to compare them against the non topped chilli's. Perhaps give it a go yourself? A lot of videos online recommends 'topping'
Chilli's love large growing pots. If you keep them in small pots you will end up with chilli plants that are generally smaller at the end of the growing season. The roots love space to expand therefore if you have the room and soil I would try putting into nice large pots once they are 6-10inchs tall.
The aspect that I am most excited about at present is a new feed I have bought for them called Chilli Focus, have a look at amazon for reviews (they are all ultra positive). I have fed them once with this last Saturday and must say they are looking a lot churpier. I think only time will tell but have great expectations
Last edited: 09 June 2016 16:55:03
Thanks for your post Torg22 and for the ideas and advice.
When do you start feeding? The advice seems to vary, either when the first fruit sets or 'just feed'. Any experience?
The feed I have states that you can use it when the plants are seedlings and then up the dose once the plants are more established. This is the first year I've tried feeding my chilli's though so I haven't really got much experience with it.
OK, thanks for your reply. I'll check out what the feed I have says. I bought some of them as seedlings at a local nursery and potted them on. The man at the nursery said to feed all the time and then I read my books and there was different advice!
This is the closest thing that I can find to a pepper/chilli thread for 2016 so thought I'd share photos of how mine are doing on here.
These are "Apache" chillies grown from tiny plugs potted up in March.
Sweet peppers on the left and on the right "patio sizzle" hot peppers, all grown from seed.
These last ones are an experiment. After reading that Lyn had grown bell peppers using fresh seed from shop bought ones I thought I'd give it a go.
No idea of the varieties, just stuck a coloured label in according to which colour pepper I took seed from to see which did best.
I had no idea you could do that!
do you know what the effect of keeping chillies in smaller pots will be apart from constraining size? And is there a minimum size you can do this with?
My book on chillies by Sarah Hunt says start feeding when they flower...
Regular potting on to slightly larger pots is the key to growing both peppers and chillies. Mine go from modules to 7cm then 9cm then 15cm and finally into 6.5l square pots. This is done when the roots reach the side of the pot they are currently in. If you put them straight into a large pot while small I guarantee they won't do well. Don't keep the soil damp in the pots, wait until it is drying out before watering. Here are some of mine started from seed (about 6 or 7 varieties):
If you reduce watering at the end of the season you can often overwinter them successfully. These are my overwintered ones which I'll soon be eating:
Last edited: 28 June 2016 18:51:21
Hi endpaper, I'm a complete novice with a bit of a chuck it in a pot and see if it grows way about things (as you can see by my experiment).
Mine are currently in 9cm pots filled with growbag compost and am using bog standard tomato feed on the "apache" plants which are the only ones flowering.
I'm thinking of getting some bigger pots but with so many plants space is an issue for me, I've also got tomatoes, cucumbers and cucamelons stuffed into my little plastic greenhouse.
The fresh "shop" seeds germinated much quicker than the dried ones from a seed packet. If my experiment produces a good harvest I will definitely do it again. I'll probably stick more photos on to show their progress at a later date.
Yours look great Bob, and you have fruits already. Are they plants you overwintered?
Don't think mine will end up in pots as large as yours, maybe I'll have to make do with 15cm.
Thanks for offering up some very helpful advice
Hi Bob and Kitty,
Thanks for your replies - both really helpful!
Bob, how do you tell when they're reaching the sides of the pot? I'll probably need to compromise on final pot size like Kitty as I unexpectedly have more than i have space for. Having no greenhouse, I ordered three plugs in the mail, which got lost (mail company's fault) and when the replacement came there were three extra ones included - maybe as a gesture of good will. But as I don't have a greenhouse or a sunny outside spot, they'll all have to live lined up next to the window. They seem quite happy currently and my Bolivian rainbow has even started to produce fruit - so what im hoping is that I can keep them a bit on the small side without ill effects...
On the overwintering question - how dry can you let them get? I've been following the advice to water well, and then really let dry out (till soil dry on the top and pot weighs roughly what it did before watering when I potted them) before watering again.... Can you let it turn into a cake over winter or will it become really difficult to rewet the soil?
Kitty, I like your experimental approach - I tend towards the other extreme and over-research everything which, when it comes down to it, doesn't necessarily give the answers you need in real life. There are just too many variables. will you let us know what happens with the peppers?