How To Fertilize Peppers (Complete Guide) - Pepper Geek 

All about that Dr Earth. With all my peppers and "herbs"😊 And I'll make different compost teas, depending on the stage of the plant. Works great.

IM SOO GLAD YOU ARE A PEPPER GEEK, much love and respeto from California

This year we used some garden-tone in the planting holes when we transplanted into our raised bed, then a liquid fish emulsion weekly early season and switched to sprinkling tomato-tone around the plants every other week when they began flowering. Our garden has never looked so good!

I have 5 aquariums and when I do water changes, I save the water to help fertilize my plant. Fish poop is very helpful plus helps the plants grow and serves a duel purpose.

Oh I have been waiting for a fertilizer video with this info. Thanks a bunch

I'm having an epic first growing season all thanks to Pepper Geek! All of my plants are now forming multiple peppers. Keep up the hard work I really appreciate your information

Before I subbed here for my bell pepper variety special for bucket we used green compost mixed with mushroom compost. We top dressed with leaf mold when it started flowering. We picked the first few very small peppers and then it took off into November. Used a cover on cold nights. Ran out of mushroom compost last year and short on cash. Here learning. Thank you.

I use the Pro mix organic liquid nutrients (one for veg and one for bloom) along with Sensi Cal Mag Xtra from advanced nutrients. I'm having great results with my La Bomba peppers. One of my potted plant has over 30 peppers growing plus a bunch more flowers starting.

I've used Tomato-Tone, which works great. It smells kind of bad on the day you fertilize (every two weeks), but my chili pepper plants kept on growing all winter even though I cut them back. They had so much growth momentum, it was like trying to stop a train!

This is just what I needed! Hoping to grow bigger peppers next year.

Such great ideas. Thank you!

Extremely informative! I learned a lot today.

This is exactly the video I needed.

I use Greenway Biotech 11-11-40. My pepper and tomato production has been incredible the last two years. Had to give peppers away to neighbors and I still had enough to make a couple gallons of fermented hot sauce.

It is SO HARD to plan around rain fall here in the Tampa Bay area. I wish I had room to move all my plants into my lanai.

I'm a big fan of slow release organic fertilizers too. I really like adding blood and bone meal and kelp meal with green sand and other goodies

I use Fertilome fertilizers. Water soluble 20-20-20 for vegetation growth stage and 9-58-8 for blooming stages. I use 50% of what they call for. Works great on EVERYTHING

I plant with Dr. Earth granular (whichever one I can find in stores, not a lot of difference in NPK numbers between them). Later in the season I'll top dress with leaf mold and use AgroThrive Fruit & Flower water soluble.

My go-to veggie fertilizers including those for peppers are: Espoma Garden Tone MG Performance Organics edibles/all-purpose Unsulfured blackstrap molasses Seaweed extract (BPN easy weed) These seem to work beautifully together, along with just good gardening practices. :)

I've used the garden tones , I have the exact same fox farms, the one with the bat guano and earthworm castings seems to be amazing. I also have made my own home made fertilizer in a bucket with water and weeds

I have'nt met a man that would read the directions on the package first; thanks for the reminder!

Every spring I mix about 1/3 cow manure to the existing soil and toss in some 10-10-10 and compost. Then start with the miracle grow when they start flowering.

I love Neptune’s Harvest; Fish & Seaweed, Tomato & Veg, and Rose & Flowering…great products that run the gambit. I also use worm casting teas.

My staple has been Dr. Earth with Neptune's harvest. I've moved back to Miracle Gro water soluble with Dr. Earth since Neptune's harvest prices have gone high. Thanks for sharing all of your knowledge and tips. I have been using and adapting here in GA Zone 8A.

I use Dr. Earths, Alaskan Fish, Worm castings, my own homemade compost, and my own homemade aloe vera water fertilizer.

Awesome, thank you!!

Well thanks for instructions .I'm organic and almost all manure and instant at transplanting and 2 weeks after if any yellowing. Great video

looking forward to the comparison video!

I am in my 2nd season of growing super hot Peppers. I had a few peppers, tomatoes, hardy kiwi, and grapes, in the midwest that all were having different issues causing problems, I started spraying all with Neem oil diluted of course, and presto all are looking alot better.

Great video! Thank you for sharing the info. I'm most curious about how you manage to thoroughly water a pepper in a grow bag and not have water seeping from the sides? Every time I water my plants in grow bags the water (and fertilizer) seems to pour out the sides. This year I set all of my bags in resin saucers that are a couple of inches tall and then pour the excess back in. I always start with a small amount of water first to let the mix get pre-moistened and then go back to add more but no matter what I do I end up with water pouring out the sides of the bags. Thanks again for sharing!

I love that "pepper crunch" sound at the beginning- it makes my mouth water!

Thanks for sharing your information

I've used trigger bloom in the past, but have gotten better results with Jack's classic tomato feed for pepper production. It's a 12-15-30. I'll start of with a 20-20-20 then switch to a blossom booster to get a crap load of flowers and then switch to the Jack's tomato feed to grow loads of peppers.

I mainly use my own mix of liquid compost, with used coffee grounds andcrushed egg shells with some gypsum.

I use Alaska fish emulsion and Happy Frog/ Fox Farm products like bat guano and cal-mag bush doctor. Still wanna try the Down to Earth products. I'm in Northern Az(6a-b 6'800) so all my pepper plants are new mexico types.

I use Alaska's fish 5-1-1 in the beginning, and then switch to Alaska's Morbloom 0-10-10 when flowering. I still seem to get enough Nitrogen because of my beautiful compost i add in every year. Thanks for the videos Pepper Geeks!

This year ive been mixing a blend of Alakan fish fertilizer 5-1-1 and Jacks All around 20-20-20. So far the results have been great!

I love peppers especially like the super 🔥 ones. This fall i am planing to plant varieties of chilies. I start with Asian peppers Blue Corbra pepper- AKA Thai pepper it was doing great for 2 years i never fertilize or use good soil i just threw in the ground and just watered daily( before i was into gardening) it thrived it gave me pepper for my dish daily. It grew to 3ft tall and bushy in Phx heat lol. I killed it when i start pruning. Which i regretted. I pulled it out and start over from it seeds i saved. It seems to do well as I'm speaking. Cross my fingers

I grow all my tomatoes in growbags. Sit them into a 18qt dishpan and add 2" liquid fertilizer mix & your plant will wick up the moisture and water itself. !

My favorite fertilizer is Fertilome Gardner’s Special 11-15-11 This stuff rocks and is my go to fertilizer! Sidedress around the drip line with about 1 tablespoon of this fertilizer once every few weeks. You’ll see!!! Let me know how you do.

Hi Calvin, I am attempting to grow peppers indoors exclusively and plan on using the FF trio and following their Soil Feeding Schedule. My question is, after harvesting, which step in the FF soil feeding schedule do I revert to to produce a subsequent harvest? If you are not using FF fertilizer, which fertilizer and feeding schedule do you recommend post harvest to keep the plant flowering and fruiting? Do you recommend I repot the mature pepper plants in new potting soil after each harvest or can I fertilize the same soil indefinitely? Thanks so much for your time and help

I've been winging it for 2 years indoors. I get mushrooms sproutng from my pots........ I get lots of hot peppers too. I assume the mushrooms are just a sign of a healthy enviornment.

My hydroponic kit and my carolina reaper + primotalii seeds are supposed to be here Thursday. I'm getting pumped.

Thank you

My favorite fertilizer is lobster compost and fish tank water.

The season is so long that i mix my soil with compost and slow release like jobes then i do a liquid feed, then i top with compost when I see flowers and add more jobes or dr. earth topping then more liquid feed every other week. all my plants are potted. I also grow 2 pepper plants in a 7 gallon grow bag so they do not get lonely lol

until the plant grows and bears flowers i use xgel active sapphire 25-25-25+4SiO2+T.E fertilizer, and in the flowering stage I give xgel ruby active 15-10-50+3MgO+4SiO2+T.E and I am completely satisfied from the result.the peppers are fed by foliar spraying, from the beginning to the end

🌶🌶🌶 🔥🔥🔥 Thank You For Sharing 🙏

Last years tomatoes i fertilized with Jack 10-12-30 applied at half strength, and my tomatoes did amazingly! This year will be my first year growing peppers. I have 2 types of bell peppers, and also a cayenne pepper. I'm growing everything in fabric grow bags and was wondering if its possible to grow two or even three sweet bell pepper plants in a 20 gallon grow bag?

For all of my peppers in containers I use Jacks Aquagold low-phos 21-8-18 for the first part of the season. Then I switch to their finisher fertilizer 7-15-30 when the plants start to flower. I’ll supplement with calcium nitrate and liquid kelp maybe every other week or as needed for a boost. The potting mix I use has no added nutrients except a little garden lime for calcium so I know I’m not over using a certain nutrient. For any plants in ground, it’s just a balanced granulated chicken manure based fertilizer once a month top dressed with compost. I get a much better and earlier pepper harvest using processed fertilizers in containers. For the in-ground plants I found it really doesn’t matter much.

Thx for sharing your great knowledge of the pepper plants.. 🌶 Pepper geek. This my first time growing pepper in containers. I am not sure when to water my pepper plants. I heard that to water very often and then I heard you may have to water more often if you grow in container.. My container are 3.5 gallon buckets 🪣. Don't you have any advice?? Thx

if you want to get earlier flowers than you have to use high phosphorus fertilizer or pure phosphorus like bat-guano

Here's what I've been using: Seedlings: ¼ strength; Start when 2nd set of true leaves & every 2 weeks until planted - Alaska 5-1-1 fish emulsion. >No ferts at transplant time (just rock phosphate at base). At 2 weeks post-transplant - Alaska 5-1-1 or Agro-Thrive 3-3-2; 4 to 6 weeks later: B.C. Bloom 1-4-7; End ferts mid-season.

Started using Algoplus this year as a shot in the dark. I'm not kidding when I say my peppers, tomatoes, and squash look better than they ever have. Best of all, it can be used at every watering. Throw that one into your experiment. I'd be curious to see how it compares with your best from this season. It's my new go-to nutrient supplement.

Also if you have overhead sprinkler system to water. Use fertilizers after you sprinklers go off. Hee in the desert west we water every other day.

I made a 3 way mix of Fox Farm Ocean Forest, Happy Frog and Strawberry Fields. My Early Girl tomato plant is loving life but the bell pepper and jalapeno plants aren't responding well. I guess I'll start using some liquid fertilizer on the peppers and see. Thank you.

I'm in the UK and use Chilli Focus to good effect.

guys do you have any advice on growing pepper where summer average temp is around 45-49 C ? . i got some success (30% success rates including flowering and getting good size and quantity yield ) with temp between 40-43 by watering twice a day and blocking 40% of sun light using shade cloth , plant growing is very fast , flowering is weak and looks weird , pollinating is even weaker. thank you guys regardless . great channel

What are your thoughts on this new push of using the Jadam method of fertilizing, especially for peppers?

I like Tomato tone once the flowering starts..its 3-4-6...

Does this work the same with hydroponics? Currently growing 2 ghost peppers which sprouted 2 days ago and once they're big I'll need to transport them to a pot

Great video! Very informative and very professional! Tks for all your time spent with experiments with peppers. I like the focus of your Channel :) Keep up the good work:)

Neptune's harvest is really rocking my balls this year

I use composted chicken/turkey manure monthly, and compost tea.

Fish Emulsion and blood/bone meal are my go-to

What NPK do you use if your plant is blooming at time of transplanting? Do you still focus on growth or go ahead and focus on blooming?

So glad I saw this video I love growing peppers but I’m not the best at it. Dr Earth and miracle grow liquid

I'm excited about the jalapeño experiment,!

Next year im going to try just seaweed and manure against the miracle grow types, just to see if theres a difference. Will probably throw some bone meal in there too, but may not be necessary since seaweed often has barnacles in it. Im glad you showed how to mix and how much to apply, because the miracle grow granules that you showed is designed for a garden sprayer, and says 2 table spoon per 10 gallons, and feeds 10 square feet. Youd think that translates to one gallon of mixed fertiliser per 5gal bucket, but thats actuall way too much for a bucket. Its better off to start with 1 table spoon per 5 gallons, and spread a half gallon to a 5 gallon bucket planter. Another very important thing to do is to never fertilise dry soil, a stressed plant or under watered plant. Make sure the plant isnt wanting for water in any way first before fertilizing, because its like if we just got done mowing the lawn in the hot sun for two hours then went out for beers and pizza with the boys. It will be a bad hangover even if you only have a few.

It'd be really helpful if you used metric measurements for us that live outside of the antiquated imperial system.

What if you use home made seaweed, worm castings, teas and ferments. How much do I need to feed and at what dilution? I add worm casting & organic pellets between grows. I use a soil mainly of 3 parts, local potting soil, compost, pumice. On the 3rd run Im going under and then over on the feed. Feed every 2nd watering, water PH is close enough for me, 45L bags watering at 10% of soil volume once a week. Any help would be awesome. The lawn looks like it really needs some run off, or a cube of water and some food

If you were wanting to do both slow release and water soluble, would you do half strength of each? My slow release is just macros but my water soluble has micros so I'm not sure which one I'd rather use. If you're also putting fish hydrolysate or emulsion do you add it at the same time as your water soluble feeding?

I just transplanted my pepper plants to larger containers that has Fox Farms potting soil. So how often would I fertilize them? Since the new soil has fertilizer want to know timings after a transplant.

My Sweet pepper plant started getting yellow bottom leaves after it has rained alot, so you may be right that the rain washed away some of its Nitrogen. I have Dr. Earth's Fruit Tree fertilizer which says on the package can go on vegetable plants too. Do you think adding some of that will add it back in. I don't know the Nitrogen content of it. Also, I have heard good things about Trifecta. Have you tried that out and if not can you try it and do a video on what you think of it? It is supposed to be a slow release all-purpose fertilizer.

Could you please please please make a video on using, Urea, Triple Super Phosphate and Muriate of Potash as fertilizers? Could you please cover dosage per plant, pros and cons etc. It would be very economical to use if one knows the right way to use it. Please make a video.

Have you used the JADAM method for fertilizer ?

The miracle grow generic 12-4-8 in yellow bottle just cooks my flowers. I am going to cut it down to 25% or so. not getting alot of sun so.

Quick question. Can you crush the little pellets of bone meal etc? Does that make it break down too fast?

Literally grew my ghost pepper plants straight from normal dirt and water. And they grew pretty good except I had 3 that did not generate but it happens

Hi I'm a new subscriber and found you because my pepper plants are not doing what I want them to do.. I was looking at the grow lights that you were recommending and I have the viparspectra xs4000. I haven't had very many flowers and I was wondering if I need to add in red light or if this light should be enough on its own. Sorry if you've already covered this information. I haven't made it through all your videos yet lol.

So do u stop fox farm fertilizer when is shows fruits or do u keep using the fertilizer?

I've tried pretty much everything on your counter top and currently prefer Dr. Earth 4-4-4, or Schultz 20-20-20.

Question cant there be microbial life even in potted soil or is it not enough soil to sustain it?

My scotch bonnet plants this year are monster size plants, almost double the size of my other plants

Thanks again! How do you know when to use Fox Farm’s Tiger bloom or their Big Bloom formula?

Great video, thank you! I am curious about your thoughts and use of Cal Mag? You didn't mention it in the video, but I know a lot of folks use it. Cheers from Canada!

Im doing dual root zone with aquaponics, cayenne, thai and habanero chilis and yellow bell pepper.I didnt realise how much nutrients you need anyway even with soil, makes me wonder what the point of the soil is at all might as well go hydroponic

If i havent used any fertilizer besides whats in my soil and my plant is at the 3-4 month stage, in a pot...what should i use? or should i at all?

Just before the beginning of my planting season I mix in compost from my bins and a slow release 10-10-10 into my raised beds, then about 3 months later I use that same 10-10-10. Not that I recommend my method, it’s just what I do. My results are average but I am not trying to set world records.

I live in south Louisiana where it rains constantly. I grow in containers, I use liquid fertilizer when I can. I also use jobes fertilizer spikes, they seem to do well. What are your thoughts on using fertilizer spikes, and do you use them??

@pepper geek is there a PH range that you shoot for ?

What's your opinion on adding coffee ground at the top of a potted pepper plant or mix it in with the soil? Reading mixed messages about using it at all. Thanks

Dont forget worm castings, great for soil health

Can we see a video on Epsom salt??

Can I use 10 26 26 fertilizer for jalapeno? I’m asking because I already have it

Great channel! subscribed! My serrano plant will thank you. How do you know when a container plants potting mix is depleted of nutrients and needs more? i.e. if it's fresh potting mix with fertilizer, how long before it's used up and needs regular fertilization.

I'm deciding between garden tone with calmag or the the maxibloom. I used the granular before but how do you like the maxibloom? Noticeable difference?

great channel!! with your help i managed to get some really nice looking chili plants this year. one of the questions i had was how do you get the fruit to be more spicy? one thing i read in some gardening forum was to use a touch of epsom salt fertilizer. another suggested a match head for the sulphur and phosphorus. one thing i have been using to a high degree of success on bith my chilis and tomatoes is fresh urine. it doesn't take much or very often but tomatoes absolutely love it!! i call my plant "droopy dog" as he went from a vine to a creeper and is just lousy with great tasting fruit. my chilis also reacted well to the urine regimen where they get about a cup every 3 to 4 weeks. they too are just lousy with great tasting fruit. one plant has already had one ripe pod and it was really really good.

Just bought my first 2 jalopeno seedlings, one for my girl & one for me and were having a friendly competition to see who does better lol she doesn't know i'm watching @peppergeek so i'm basically cheating... or just doing my homework 😜

My peppers have stubborn aphids! Do they need fertilizer to get strong? Is that why they got apbids- weak and hungry?