Growing peppers can be frustrating with how slow they grow. In this episode I will give you 4 ways to increase the growth of pepper plants and speed up fruiting.
Always pick off the very first pepper you find on your plant, when you first notice it. The plant needs to know that it needs to produce more than one pepper. Remove leaves from the bottom of the plant and compost them. I live far north of Michigan and always have lots of peppers.
@@kaylab539 I just take that very first tiny pepper off the plant and any unproductive leaves. Your cuckes might need some shade on the stem and something to cling on. Maybe plant in containers with a trellis?
Hey, you know what i did last year? I planted my pepper plants from seed in Sept/Oct and kept them under flourescant lights all winter. I pruned them hard 2 or 3 times. And they were very large putting in the Spring garden. Right now they are going bonkers. The type of thing you only dream of. I've never before seen anything like it. Tons and tons and tons of peppers of all kinds. :-) Love your channel.
@@deborah820 yes, very unfortunately i did that too THIS year. peppers very small. sigh. well live and learn. next year they will be planted in November.
I've started overwintering my pepper plants. At the end of the season I dig them up into pots and put them in my basement under grow lights. I was harvesting chilis into March. In Canada!
I’ve seen some videos on this… I tried last winter with some bell peppers that did well, but I was too late to the party and my soil was too wet and the plants didn’t make it. It was root rot because I didn’t get them dry enough before I pruned them and got them inside. Located in the GTA… good luck in the future and I will try this again… (Peppers we’re container grown in 5gal buckets)
Water every 2 weeks? Here in GA wait 2 weeks to water and they will have been dead for 13 days.. I water almost everyday and the peppers here are doing incredible
Yeah...I'm from the Upper Midwest (but not Michigan, like he is) and mine would be so effed if I ignored them for 2 weeks, especially since I grew mine in pots.
@bmc007 I'm in north Idaho. In a "normal" spring-early summer, 2 weeks is almost too long to wait, but we're getting gentle rain a couple of days each week. Come summer, with Temps 80-100 degrees, every other day watering seems advisable.
Here's a comment from northern Europe. I started pruning pepper plants several years ago and never looked back. But it's a different pruning - I'm trying to get a tall plant, so it can use space efficiently and have a lot of fruit later. At every node where plant splits into two branches, I try to cut one of them, usually the one that is into the plant, so it does not become too bushy and dense. As a result, plants get tall and slender (almost a meter sometimes), like tomatoes, and have big nice fruit. Towards the end of the season I prune tops off completely, so it has energy to ripen existing fruits instead of creating new ones. All of this happens in a greenhouse, growing in 16 liter containers - so I have to use area efficiently, very tall plants help with that. Growing medium is peat, automated irrigation is used, as I am not there every day.
In shorter growing season areas I have learned at season’s end to lift the peppers from the ground (for those not growing in pots all ready) and plant them in pots…cut them way back and place in a frost protected area where they still get light…and continue to water lightly until next spring. The peppers will be far ahead of anything I can grow from seed at next season. Then simply repot or replant in spring. I have peppers setting long before I generally would. Bountiful harvests as well.
I received my first yield in the middle of May. I saw that peppers are perennials. They suggested that you pull them out and put into a pot and protect from winter. We don't have super cold weather in California so instead I covered them with a huge plastic sheet. Wow, out of about 40, I lost 6. They did so well that they are way ahead of newly planted peppers.
@@ritasenergyherbs3650 I think they would be fine inside. Her in CA it can freeze a couple of time each winter. I just covered them with plastic and they survived. It was much colder than 68. out of about 48 I think I lost 6 or 8.
@@lynnharris6877 It's something precious few RU-vid creators think about. It makes a difference in watch-ability. I'm not here to listen to 5 minutes of why you're making the video or why you're excited to make it or how you felt about the last video you made on this topic. Cut to the chase... Sounds mean, but it's an important concept for creators. When you make your living sharing information, the faster you get to it, the better you're doing your job. Contrast MIGardener with Gary Pilarchik for a prime example.
I learned from my father back in the 60's we had and organic farm when organic was not known about . We had a city farm that was grandfathered in of 7 acres . We even had restaurants that bought from us besides neighbors . Word f mouth kept us busy . I am now retired and moved from NJ to VA and still garden
So glad I had my notifications on. My father in law and I were just talking about how the peppers aren’t doing as great as we think they should be 😂 I immediately sent this to him. Love your channel. Keep up the great work!
Hi SM, one thing I wanted to clarify is that the reason his two plants that had fruit were so tiny was BECAUSE they had fruit on them. In the beginning when you plant out your peppers you first want to make sure that 1) if there are any buds on the plants you take them off. Don’t let it flower. 2) don’t plant out the peppers into the garden until the nights are no longer going below 60. They hate being cold and this stresses them out and could stunt their growth. 3). Like Luke said, you want the plant to develop so a fertilizer with a higher N of the NPK, like Alaskan Fish Fertilizer which is a liquid and has a nitrogen of 5 and the other two numbers are 1 and 1. (5-1-1). This allows the pepper plant and roots to get established. If the weather is warm then fertilize with this type of fertilizer once a week with a good soaking. If it’s cool and raining, still fertilizer once a week but just pour a little over the top of the plants on a day that isn’t raining so this way you are foliar feeding and not drowning the roots. Once you see new flowers develop then switch to a liquid fertilizer where the “P” is higher. Something like 2-6-4.
Thanks Luke, you provided information about pruning pepper plants which I needed; I live in Pennsylvania and due to the shorter growing season I have decided not to prune the plants as you advised for a short growing season; I appreciate your advice and your many videos take care and have a good day
We tried topping for the first time last year. We are in Maryland and had the same experience you describe. The plants we did not top prune got way more fruit than the ones we topped. Thanks for your videos!
I've never actually had problems with my peppers once they're in the ground. They always end up big, beautiful, and very productive. Very little actual intervention from me. Also, like beans, I make sure to pick them regularly to get them to keep making more flowers. It's the early stages as seeds and seedlings indoors that's the tricky part for me. That's getting lots better though too, keep heat mat at 80* while germinating (which takes a long time...85* for hot peppers, and they take longer), keep grow light on from the get go because they will actually pop up unexpectedly and get leggy literally overnight...good luck!
Very informative. You've cleared up questions I've had growing my peppers over here in Wisconsin. Awesome. I won't worry about topping them, because of the short warm season here.
Great thorough video. Thanks for walking is through the process. I have a long growing season so i top my peppers when they first produce 4 to 6 adult leaves. The pepper plants are bushy and strong. The serrano pepper plant that I didn't top off is very leggy but is producing well. Applying compost and a balanced organic fertilizer helps a lot.
You, and the garden planting guide I got from your store, are really helping me to keep trying some things I have failed with in the past. Last year, thanks to advice from James P's Gardening Channel, I grew great carrots. I already have strong pea plants knee high by mid May, thanks to... some garden person on RU-vid I am sure. haha. Thank you for the great advice on peppers. I have starts going, so I hope to have a good year for peppers, because my son uses them in most of his cooking.
I didn’t use any fertiliser in my garden this year. Best harvest I’ve ever had. I cover crop in winter and add compost in spring. Usually I’m struggling to get three months tomatoes, this year I picked for six months. Love compost. ❤️
I have been wanting to do "compost in place" or "trench compost" and last fall I threw my daughter's pumpkin in my flower garden and this year when my tulips came up, the ones that were under the pumpkin were 3 times as big as the rest. It pretty much confirmed that I need to start composting in place/ trench. (Not separately because I never get around to actually doing it). Throwing it on the ground is so easy. 😂 I've never had fertilizer make that big of an impact.
@@melissadavis5954 Anytime I prune my plants(except for disease pruning), I drop the fruit or leaves directly under the plant and let all the nutrients it took to make them go back into the soil. However, I have started to switch it up and added the printed plant matter into a large bucket of water to make liquid compost/fertilizer.
A wealth of knowledge… and very timely for my first “save over winter peppers”(slow motion growth into summer)… Now I have some tricks to try…. : ) thanks MI gardener! 🐸
Your timing is perfect! My dad was a Gardner & always said “Plants are like puppies, there’s always a runt”. I don’t know it that’s really true or not. lol. I just thought I happened to buy all the runts at the nursery last year! 😂I missed out on a garden this spring because of a move. 😢. It seems many of us were wondering what was wrong or had questions. Friends like you are a treasure. Thank you!
@@artstamper316 Potassium. Banana peel hence cut and place under roots. Mi g a rdmer talks about banana peels about half eat thru present as toon. Bone meal too.
I’ve learned so much from your channel about growing vegetables. I am a 2nd year vegetable gardener and have expanded my garden with various vegetables. Your tips really are helpful so keep up the great work!
Everything you are telling us makes so much sense for my growing area. I planted 52 peppers last year and had a huge crop. I was very happy and still eating those peppers all last winter. I never used trifecta plus. We use wood ash, bone and blood meal. Really appreciate your information.
@@JohnCooperWilliam We use a variety of methods: frozen, dehydrated, pickled jalapeno, Jalapeno jelly and jams, Cowboy candy. Use a combination of mild and hot to make jelly.
We are still eating from last year's pepper. I had around 30 + plants n got lots n lots of laundry baskets full of pepper. We cut them up an put them in the freezer. We did our Onions the same in middle of April, they were starting to turn soft n some rotting so we cut them up for the freezer. Very handy:)
Love all the advice. Being in Michigan with such a small growing season got me into hydroponics and indoor gardening. For our pepper plants we create a huge mound or like a volcano around them and it holds in water too. Works great for the outdoor gardens!
I pinched out the tips on all my peppers as soon as the plants had at least 6 lower leafs. I did this last year for the first time AND my green peppers plants grew into thick healthy multi stem bushy plants LOADED with peppers👍🙌🙌 i live in northern michigan zone 5...I started all my peppers inside march 1st.. I pinched out the growing tips on my peppers this year also and they are multi stem bushy plants loading up with buds now and gonna produce a ton of pepper this season too👍🙌 No more tall leggy pepper plants with 5 peppers no i have literal pepper bushes that produce lots of peppers.😁
Interesting -- that is an earlier approach for "pruning" than I'd heard before, probably worth a try on types of peppers prone to being too tall and narrow. However, some varieties (like ghost or habaneros) are prone to super-bushy grown habits anyway, so it probably wouldn't make sense for them. I'm curious whether your plants prone to be leggy while growing inside -- mine do not get leggy at all (I use focused LED lights), but from what I've heard from people using fluorescent grow lights they tend to get leggy plants.
It is not to late in zone 5 to pinch out the very tips of green peppers and other peppers to get them to bush out...last year I pinched out the very tiny growth tips on June 30th after I watched a video on RU-vid about doing it and they turned into bushy productive strong plants..but the earlier the better...
Good tips! Thanks. I am in Melbourne Australia. I managed to keep a capsicum plant (with small capsicums - variety named Wings) in a container fruiting over the winter, even though we are a cool temperate climate here. This morning I cut it back by half and repotted it as it's early spring and it was starting to produce new growth, so hopefully, it will keep going and I will get early fruits. The root ball looked very healthy. Anyway, some of you in the northern hemisphere might want to try this approach. At the end of autumn, I placed the container under a roofed patio, facing the north (in northern hemisphere this would mean facing your plants towards the south). The fruits that were produced over winter were very tasty and sweet.
We freeze here, and the sun is too low for some plants in the winter. You would need a greenhouse at minimum, and then it takes extra to keep the greenhouse from freezing. Just part of the perks of living in a year round above freezing climate for you, that things live.
I did this and picked the early bell peppers and ate them. I think the smaller peppers seemed more bitter but I'm glad to know it may have helped my plants in the long run.
My pepper plants last year were so fantastic, i almost wish id have tried the overwintering thing with them. I want to mention here, that i took a small brush and self pollenated each flower whenever i thought about it. I also did this with the tomatoes. Bees are getting rarer, and do the brush thing, just go over each flower stamen, then go back over all of them. You will have so much fruit, my garden was the best ever. Also used miracle grow which attaches to my hose and fertilizes them i did this twice in the entire season.
4:35 Here is Arizona, I have found that peppers LOVE our long hot growing season. So, I always top my plants and eend up with a ton of fruit! I've never really thought about places with shorter seasons until now. Thank you Luke!
I do the same with my strawberries 🍓 Hurts in the moment because they go in the compost but the plants leaf out way more and I get more strawberries down the line! ♥️
I was just outside this morning looking at my pitiful pepper plants and eggplants, feeling very discouraged by them. Perfect timing for this video. Thanks! 😁 Sounds like I need to get out there and give them some nitrogen. I think I'll use the nettles growing in my backyard.
I think taking off early fruit is beneficial for just about every plant. I now do it for peppers, citrus, tomatos, cucumbers - the lot. Once you've got a couple of seasons growing experience and don't get giddy at the first sign of a fruit growing it's easier to absorb the loss of that one or two fruit knowing that it'll give back in spades later.
I don't know about that. I've done that and Ive skipped it and I can't say I've noticed any big difference in fruit set. My best year ever I didn't pinch but I do prune aggressively. I have noticed much smaller fruit and more disease if I don't.
I’m so glad people post tips and hints on here!! I’m a first time gardener and have learned LOTS of valuable info just reading comments! I live in zone 6b, so we have quite a long growing season. I “almost” gave away some of my smaller pots that I am now going to use to overwinter my peppers in anticipation of next spring. :). Just didn’t know peppers are perennials! Haha
Hi Luke! I'm in PA so not much difference in growing season if at all. I do have great luck with yields when I pinch the top center growth off when plants have about the 6th set of true leaves. They bush out,and seem to be so much more productive. I also get those ones that are stumpy... happy growing!!
This is very true! I planted 2 types of bell pepper plants and they were tiny little 4-5 inch things. One of them is now loaded with peppers and the other is producing its first fruit. I had completely ruled them out as stunted. Also, the one that is loaded took off after I harvested its first fruit.
I really needed this video now... I'm growing my own garden for the first time, and everything is doing well more or less... But my peppers are looking pathetic. It's been so cold for a long time here, and then it suddenly became too hot. At the beginning of the season it rained every single day, and now when we need it, it didn't rain for about month or so. With peppers I felt rather discouraged to continue growing them, there were days when I literally felt like going in the garden and just plucking them all out and try replacing them with something else. What I wanted to say with all this is -thank you for the video, it came in the right moment for me, and thanks to you I'll try and do my best to save my peppers and get the best out of them... And in the end if they don't meet my expectations, at least I'll know I've tried my best and definitely learned a lot so hopefully will do better next year.
Thanks for the info. Going to use some of this this season. I've grown peppers for a long time and b usually they do well, but this year not so much. We've had some really crazy weather this year where some days are over 90 degrees, but then we get a 40 degree night on occasion. My plants are setting too early and dropping most of it when it gets hot or cold. Still have 3 more months here so I think we can turn it around. Best of luck to all!
I'm so grateful to have your advice! It's hard to follow some of what other channels say because they're from much warmer climates with longer seasons - your channel has been so valuable to me as a fellow Michigander! :)
Great tips! I like to do both to stagger the harvest a little bit. On some of my peppers I will remove flowers only in the beginning (these I will harvest first) and on other pepper plants I top them in order to get off branches and a stronger main stem/branches. Those second set of plants I will harvest sometimes through to October, depending on the weather and if I can cover them.
Excellent point you made on topping. Most plants, no matter what species, go through a shock period after topping. Many vegetable, fruit plants don't respond well at all after topping. They send emergency response signals to the system that all energy should go to recovery from being topped, and they'll will produce little to no fruit or vegetables. A storm took out a tree in my yard two weeks ago. The 60 ft. tree fell southeast right across the garden. It broke several tomato plants and pepper plants off right at the top main stems. I left the plants in and they're going to produce, but it's obvious even at this time in mid June, they aren't going to thrive the way the undamaged plants will for the growing season. The damaged pepper isn't even setting buds, and the tomato plants have just started setting one set of buds each, while the other tomato plants have on average about 50 flowers ea.
Thats what happen to me the last 2 years. This year I changed location , loosened up the soil and added nutrients. Hopefully they will be fuller and more fruitful
Peppers are one of the few plants I have had success with during the summer here in central Florida. But I do find them to be slow growing so this info will be put to good use. Thank you.
I live in Montana, very short growing season. I never used to top my plants and only got 3-5 peppers on each plant.. When I started topping my pepper plants, I got tons of peppers.. I always top mine now!!
I topped mine for the first time. I was terrified. But now they are extremely bushy off the sides and look great. No flowers yet, but it’s been 115 degrees here which is miserable. I don’t blame them for being stubborn.
@@dncviorel No it doesn't set them back 6-8 weeks.. if it did, I wouldn't get any peppers! We have the shortest growing season! I know what I'm talking about... It's just like marijuana.. people top their plants to get a bigger yeild, and it doesn't set them back but a week, maybe! Obviously, you didn't read what I wrote.. I used to NOT top my peppers, and I would get maybe 4-5 peppers per plant in a whole growing season, but when I started topping them, I got tons per plant! I know from experience, and I know what I'm talking about! I'VE DONE IT! Obviously, you don't garden???
I’m in NJ zone 7a and i never top my peppers, last season each plant gave me around 50 peppers each and I made a load of hot sauce for family and friends. I grew the kind that humans shouldn’t be eating lol
@@dequan9867 I grow other types as well but the ones I am talking about include the trinidad scorpion, caramel moruga scorpion, dragons breath, and carolina reaper.
Thanks so much for this video! I’m in northern Iowa so similar growing conditions, but we have had a very hot spring. My vegetables don’t know what to do this year. I’ll definitely try these tricks out to see if I can get more pepper yield.
Luke, thanks for explaining about topping. I hadn't heard about that until a few months ago, and I wasn't sure if it was something I should do or not (I'm in MN), so you settled that for me!! :)
I’ve always done a foliar spray with epsom salt (about a tablespoon in a gallon of water) once I’m noticing blooms. I only do it two or three times during the fruiting season. I do the same to the tomatoes. If I’m already doing a baking soda spray, I just add in a little Epsom salt. Edit: if anyone tries this, remember to not do foliar sprays during the heat of the day or while they’re in direct sun!
@@priscillafuentez8382 I’m in Texas too. Morning is good, but I’d wait till we have a bit of a cold front (at least 90 degrees). Your plants will struggle to set fruit as long as it’s this hot no matter what you do!
@@jeanclowers3709 yeah. I use a half gallon sprayer. 1 tablespoon of baking soda, 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, and a few drops of dish soap. It’s to prevent or treat powdery mildew or any kind of blight. I use half the amount of baking soda if it’s to use on beans or something else that burns easily. But this amount works great for squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, zinnias, and peppers.
perfect video for solving the fruiting and plant growing issues. very informative. i have actuall taken notes on your video...fantastic. got all the answers i needed regarding the NPK. thanks a million.
I am symbiotic with ur gardening tips since i live in eastern Ontario i.e. close by in terms of Zone metrics. Ur technical analysis is better or superior to other garden talking heads especially from outposts like Australia which have little relevance to us in cool climates or South Carolina. I did not know that early season pepper plants like mine have already some hot peppers but the plant is a dwarf. I think u hit the botany real well on this subject, peppers are a hot weather genre n us naive northern gardeners believe short seasons are equivalent to our 2-3 month growing season here in Canada vis a vis 9 months in Mexico. Thanx for ur tech analysis and fertilization regime for us so we can exploit our environment in this era of food price escalation n God forbid food shortages this winter (2022) which seems on the horizon...
@@ilovejackass8 Sara, you would ger a better understanding of composr tea by doing a Google search.. There are a few ways to make it. I'm not saying the other comments are valuable, but it's more detailed online. Happy gardening😄😄😄😄😄
@@phifediggy9659 yes a compost weed tea just cut those weeds specially neetles from your yard and put them in the bucket with water let it sits for weeks/months keep adding weeds scraps and use it for watering your vegetables. By my experience i used it for my veggies they sure turn very green and healthy, i believed it is full of nitrogen.
I live in Tucson AZ and just started planting hot peppers. I have Anaheim, Tabasco, Habanero and Cayenne off shoots about 5 days old. I had no idea how to make them grow fast and increase the yield until I saw your post. Wish me luck. I'm planning to make real hot spicy Mexican food with them!
@@bigflatsominxy9038 same here. I'm in NY with a pretty similar season to Luke's. I start my peppers early and top them when they're young so they get side branches, but once they're in the garden they don't get pruned unless the deer come by for a snack.
Here in the west I’m planning to move my in ground pablano (that’s in the shade) into a 3 gallon container so it can be placed in a sunny area. I think it will need more water than just once every other week. We don’t have humidity to worry about and currently going thru a drought so I’ll be watching it as the season progresses. Hope you can revisit this topic in about a month and show us how your peppers are growing.
I'm in California and have some containers and fabric bags. I've set up drip irrigation and water my peppers twice a day 15min each. Containers always need more water for retaining moisture and nutritant use.
I start all my plants from seed in winter using milk jugs and I put them right outside all winter . In spring I have huge plants. Waited this year because of frost. Works great on flowers as well. Happy planting
I had seen youtubers recommending that you top your pepper plants to get them to bush out more and produce more, but as our plants continued to mature my instinct was to not top them, and now many of them are producing multiple fruits and the plants are thriving. Maybe next year I'll top one of each variety we grow just as an experiment, but here in Michigan I decided it was better to just grow a lot of pepper plants to get the amount of production we're wanting, so far so good!
The one pepper plant I did not trim until quite late during winter is languishing with yellow leaves, but still producing. I put epsoms salt in water and watered them before a rain, but they are still not recovering as of yet. Will have to look up the problem somewhere.
Start seedlings 6-4 months before June 1st inside under grow lights and prune/top them and let them focus on foliage growth during the spring until it’s summer time, then transplant outside and enjoy all the fruit.
I have a Facing Heaven pepper plant I started from seed. I grow inside my apartment on my windowsill so I can’t afford to top my plants as the amount of peppers I generally get are already so minimal. But, the pepper plant is producing a lot of fruit untopped. This is great as the plant I got the seed originally from is also on my windowsill in its second year but may or may not make it to year three? I now have a great back-up plant.
In area with short growing season, ALWAYS start growing them indoor. ALWAYS top the plants and remove all the first few sets of flowers to promote more more flowering before transplanting them outside.
I've already got Fresno Chilis pumping out fruit here in Georgia. Pretty nice. Gotta love this state where the weather guy will say we're in a drought while we're having flooding problems.
I tried everything to grow lot's of peppers but nothing worked until I started cutting off the tops of my peppers. Once I did that, wow! I live near Buffalo, NY and our growing season is short, but I got about 8 large peppers per plant, enough for fresh eating, freezing, and dehydrating into pepper powder. Now all my family does this for large crop yield.
I live in PA and tend to have shorter growing seasons...what i do is when pepper plants in pot before being set out and planting in garden reach their 3rd to 4th full set of leaves i do a single topping, then once planted in garden and take hold they will grow tall and bushy with plenty of fruit. I plant bells, japanese swt, swt banana, ect with great results.
I really appreciate your hard work and the great information, I have been doing this all my life, and I learn so much from your videos. We did a potato bed like u showed in a video and they are doing wonderful.. the flowers have fallen off now and we reached down and pulled a beautiful potato out, folks here kinda actually poked fun at us.. not anymore. Thanks to you I have some wonderful potatoes..I appreciate ya here in Tennessee ..
I learned a trick many yeas ago to get many peppers on your plant. When the plant puts forth flowers you make a solution of epsom salt and water and spray them. This causes the flowers not to fall off and you produce many peppers. However the peppers being so many will produce smaller fruit.
@@truthtriumphant5503 About a couple of teaspoons. Epsom salt has high magnesium content and it can be used as a fertilizer for grass and vegetables but for the leafy kinds.
@@truthtriumphant5503 that other dude has no idea what he’s talking about. Put a teaspoon of epsom salt around the base of your plants. Do not spray onto the plants. This helps bloom set.
I just learned why my peppers and even cucumbers did not do well at all by this video! I watered mine daily! It’s my first ever garden, and I thought since I live in Texas where it’s so hot, they needed tons of water! Thx for sharing!
I started using my blender this year to emulsify all smaller garden cuttings, left over raw kitchen vegetables, citrus, fruit, etc, adding a couple tbsp. of cider vinegar because of the alkaline/clay soil in my area. You can also add a bit of Miracle Grow or similar fertilizer of your choice, but optional. I mix 1/2 of the full blender emulsion with about about three gallons, of water and feed my garden & flowers. Milk, preferably lower fat or powdered, is another options to add calcium. In my case I mix about 1/4 milk with 3/4 water in a 3 gallon container. For this first time this year, I am using the blender & milk feedings, and my small garden & flowers are showing off with good results, green leaves, pretty flowers and nice fruiting. Happy gardening.
A note on peppers if your in zone 8b/9 and you live in a hot humid climate: I've been poorly growing peppers for 6 years, in my area the problem tends to be too much rain for a few weeks, followed by a hot (but still humid) drought for a week or 2, so the inconsistent water levels weren't allowing my plants to grow properly, I'd be getting maybe 2 peppers off each plant if I was lucky and it was extremely disappointing. This year I've finally found success in the upside down bucket method. I drilled holes in the bottom (a bigger hole in the middle to place the plant) of 3 gallon buckets and planted them at about 8 inches tall, filled the bucket with quality soil, compost, and organic fertilizers then hung the buckets from a platform I built about 8 feet tall. The buckets have lids so when it decides to rain for a week straight I put the lid on and remove it for a few minutes each day that its raining. When we get a dry spell (the current one has lasted about 2 and a half weeks with Temps in the low 90s F) I water them every morning about an inch of water. Most varieties I've grown this year have been super successful, there are a few that are stunted which is why I came to this video and have now figured out it's because I let them fruit instead of picking them off while they were still small, but only 2 out of the 7 I am growing have this problem. The rest are large and bushy, I'm getting tons of peppers and the plants themselves are just beautiful. If you live in a similar climate and have issues with peppers I strongly urge you to try growing them this way! It's been am absolute game changer and it works well with tomatoes too.
@Frankee Smith i got the idea from a video I watched here on RU-vid, they call it the topsy turvy method. The video I watched they didn't use the lids but I have to in order to keep my plants from drowning when we get a week long down pour. I'll be growing peppers this way from here on out as I'm so pleased with the results 😊
I love pepper and grow many pepper varieties and yes, they love nitrogen and love sun and because I'm living in a country where we had sun almost all year long pepper thrive here. You are so correct about water, we here need to make sure the plant didn't stress so much because in mid day pepper plants will wilt so fast if not enough water on the ground. Love your channel.
Extensive studies on green pepper plants have been done and those studies indicate that watering everyday during the hottest months produces the greatest yield of peppers. I've been doing that for a very long time and I've had excellent results.
@@143366220798 I have compared horse manure that I add at the beginning of the season, and plenty of wood chip. Then I usually water with a fertilizer once to twice per year. I would probably get better results if I fertilized more, but I've burnt my peppers by over fertilizing, so I try to limit what i add.
Thanks for another great video. Did you start your peppers from seed? I've been topping mine the past two years and I'm never going back. I'm on zone 6a. Each plant is covered in 10+ blossoms and I find it makes them more stable and bushier. I think the best way to do it with a short growing season is to top them around the 5-6 week mark from seed when they have 6-8 true leaves. This gives them plenty of time before growing season to catch back up and really increase your yield.
Hi Kelsey! What do you mean by topping them? I am in zone 6A too and am starting my first garden this year and would like any advice you would be willing to share. Thank you!!
@@amandamoody9705 basically to cut the top of the plant. This makes the plant focus on side shoots, therefore making them bushier and more balanced, stronger one might say. They will still grow, but they won’t just be tall skinny plants. They will be tall bushy ones :)
I've been growing my first hot chili peppers this year, they've been green all July... haven't turned yellow into red yet. The base has become brownish too. It gets plenty of water especially during the last couple of rain days we had. Lots of peppers showing and bought at a nursery in May, now about 1-1.5 feet tall.
And....reduce watering before harvest, it concentrates the flavors in the fruits. In New Mexico, a good rain can practically ruin a harvest of green chili, making them flavorless