Top 5 Pepper Growing Mistakes of 2022 - Pepper Geek 

My biggest mistake by far this year, was simply not using my harvest in a timely fashion. I had a sizable percentage go off before I had a chance to do anything with them. A lot of this I think comes from poor mental health which led to poor motivation. Next year I got to remember that working with your harvest is actually a beneficial activity

One of my lessons this year is to have more flowers. Next year I will plant flowers sooner and add different varieties. This year I started nasturtium and marigolds from seed. Took much longer than I thought to produce flowers.

My biggest mistake was using a "DIY Bug Spray" that my wife found on Pinterest. It literally killed every plant I had in a single day. 😕 We had a YUGE aphid problem and this DIY spray of Dawn dish soap, cayenne pepper and vinegar totally killed every plant. Don't do it...ever. 😒🤬

When the roots grew through the growing bags. "Life *chuckles* finds a way"

My biggest mistake this year was not having shade cloth. Our Spring was hotter than our summer with upper 90s and low 100s for many weeks...the young plants couldn't handle it. They were very stunted and just dropped all of their flowers until late summer and early fall. My harvest was 1/5th of what it was last year. If you want great flowers to attract bees and hummingbirds for pollination, Morning Glory is VERY good if you have something for it to climb on (and be ready for hundreds of seeds falling to the ground below). I had more hummingbirds than bees this year but they do just as good of a job.

Another really informative and useful video. To help with the first issue you mentioned (growbags growing into the soil) I found some relatively cheap and heavy duty plant saucer things at Lowes that come in several different sizes and they worked really well for me with my 5 gallon bags. They are around 2" deep and not only do they keep the bags off the ground they also catch runoff from watering and allow the soil to wick up the water that is caught in the saucers. This year I want to make and effort to set up insect netting and shade cloth. I fought both Japanese beetles white flies this year in 5a/b and during the hottest part of summer my peppers really suffered from scalding.

Accidentally sunscalded a two year old Dragon's Breath pepper plant to its demise. The difference of taking indoor overwintered plants outside for an hour or a few hours can be life or death.

I have sterilized potting soil for many years in the microwave. Make sure its fairly moist and fill a large container . I don't remember how long I nuked it, but I stirred it every few minutes until all the soil was steaming. Works like a charm!

I would love it if you flashed an image of the pest you're speaking about when you mention it"example thrips" I know it's extra work but it would be incredibly helpful to your audience, I will stay subscribed regardless, thank you for your good work and all the help you've given me and others

My biggest mistake was starting seeds too late. Just as the plants were full of fruit waiting to start ripening, we had our first hard freeze. Otherwise, hot peppers are my easiest summer veggie I grow here in Oklahoma. While everything else is contending with pest pressure and disease or suffering from the heat, nothing bothers the peppers throughout our summer of 100s and drought.

i made loads of mistakes. I did not plant the seeds early enough, i did not put in bigger pots quick enough so stunted the growth a bit and numerous other things. first time growing so even though i only got a few peppers off each plant i am still happy. will try again next year.

Y'all are awesome! love your approach to gardening.

I agree with all that you said. This is my first season trying Alysum as a living mulch during the growing season. Last year and this year I use pine shavings from TS and in the spring, I just bury it with more compost. I also plant a living mulch that over winters in some of the other beds. Weed wack it and cover with compost in the spring. Mother Nature doesn't like bare soil. I have also planted a ton of flowers mingled with my crops...I think my low production last year was a lack of pollination. It's fun to experiment.

Glad to hear you have some pepper projects going this winter. I was determined to only grow about 11 or so variegated varieties of Jalapeno I have and then I received some seed from Ub Solario from one of his crosses and suddenly I find I am planting much more! Should have enough time to make a few crosses and even have them mature before my regular season starts... or at least that is the hope and the goal!

had a huge infestation of aphids indoors. been a nightmare to get rid of

Finding this channel in the middle of the grow season was, if not a mistake, at least a setback. Superb information, thank you

My biggest mistake was an unforeseen side effect from a positive action. I grow in pots in a cattle panel tunnel. I use 30% shade fabric all year to keep out the plague of grass hoppers and prevent wind damage. We had no rain for several months. The plants were all about 5ft tall when the rains finally returned. Turns out... keeping them protected from the wind had given them really weak stems. The weight of the rain broke many branches and toppled pots. I should have had them tied up. I will from now on.

Thanks for sharing. I appreciate not alone

I'm planning the same with flowers, the bulk of this falls orders was new flowers. Probably 75% of 2023 will be flowers for me

Yeah ive used oaten hay as mulch this year (got a huge 5ft roll) and omg the grass/hay growing is unreal. Will be properly mulching next time

as far as the pest problem i have only had issues with fungus gnats that i seem to have gotten rid of havent seen any in over a month , but also have had a constant battle with spider mites every 2 days im spraying and wiping my plants

You guys are awesome and knowledgable, I can like the vid before i watch with confidence

Can you explain more about patreon only content for example I'd be interested in hearing more about your indoor growing activities since I am growing peppers indoors currently. Keep up the great work guys love the channel!

Lol I’m just starting my 2023 pepper journey I’ll be planting out soon I can’t wait

One tip if you place mulch down onto the ground to keep the moisture in and weeds out. Try placing old newspaper or cardboard around the base of the plant then place the mulch on top. This will help keep moisture in and weeds out. If you cut a keyhole into the paper or cardboard and place this around the base of the plant this will give you a nice, neat boundary around the base of the plant. Cheers.

I always pasteurize my soil to eliminate anything undesired while retaining the desirable beneficial bacteria. I give it about 4 or 5 days to allow the beneficial bacteria to bounce back before using it. It will also kill the seeds found in straw if you pasteurize long enough.

I started a fresh batch of peppers (from seed) in July - to prep for next season, over wintering. The issue is pests (aphids) were brought inside & keep popping up. I continually spray my plants with a natural pesticide made from peppermint extract and other extracts, which is helping but the pests keep coming back. I hope that when they are planted that they wont raid the whole garden. I plan on growing tons of alyssum to attract lady bugs to combat this.

Chili season was great this year I live in New Mexico in Rio Rancho. I decided to grow the classic hatch Chiles mild medium and hot. This year I plan to grow strictly the medium hatch Chiles very thick skin wonderful to bake peel chop and freeze. Thank you for the wonderful tips plant lots of sunflowers if you want lots of bees.

After I used leaf mulch, my plants took off with growth. So full of nutrients

Spinosad for Thrips works quite well!

Topping pepper plants and removing early peppers/flowers only seems to work in warm climates. I always get a larger harvest when I don’t in Illinois.

Hi there, that was a very helpful video - thank you. I have one question. This year, I've had thrips, too (some of them were tiny indeed!). Since I can only grow indoors my plants don't ever benefit from minerals and nutrients that the soil outside would provide for them. I want to sterilise my potting mix next season but isn't this preventing my seeds from getting off to a strong start? I didn't want to feed them a lot in the early stages, so I didn't boil off my potting mix this year but that might have been a mistake. Is there another way to do this?

I'm having my most successful season ever. I'm growing using hydroponic kratky method and starting to cross peppers successfully. The plants move outside without having to harden off. LFG.

I was a victim of my own success. I staked my pepper plants well, but they branched and set so many huge peppers many of them broke. I already bought netting for horizontal beds from Johnny's for next season. I've never had such healthy plants or such a massive crop. Goat manure and compost did wonders for me.

I too got my peppers in too late, last year I got caught with an abnormal late hard frost, saved my plants but they were never really right again, poor growth and pepper output. This year I waited 3 weeks later than normal to plant, they barely had time to produce usable size fruit (Poblanos) before an unusual early first frost, both our fall and spring here is becoming UN-predicable, we pretty much went from winter to hot summer with about 2 weeks of spring this year.

My biggest mistake this year was I didn't fertilize enough. Once I did fertilize I got overloaded. I think I have pepper Blake's for the next few years! Lol.

😅Great video. I guess my biggest mistake was not putting the deer in the freezer.

My biggest mistake last year was not having the heart to pull out the weakest seedling from each cell when starting ....I had let them grow together in the same pot. My yield definitely took a hit, but was my first year being successful with peppers; I have learned from my mistake and this year I just planted each seed in its own cell 👍 also bigger pots this year 👍

First peppers were started indoors in early March, Winnipeg MB, Canada, germination was good, two weeks later they were still 1 inch tall, never grew past that, soil started to mold, ended up starting over again, basement was 21 degrees C, but only 21 to 25 humidity, so no wonder they struggled. Second planting they c,ame up and same thing started to happen, kept them longer under the grow light and watered, misted more frequently, they still only developed to 2 inch maybe 2.5 inch in size and i thought they would be hopeless. However they were all still green, stuck together because i was lazy and tried to just throw all in a large tray. Transplanted them in late May to containers ranging from 1 litre to 2 gallon, pairing some together because i was scared to pull them apart. Peppers were not identifyable until then started to fruit because again poor labelling etc. Lazy me. 7-pot Carolina reapers , Scorpion Meruga Peach, Carolina reaper chocolate long, cayenne, jalapenio, purple chili, hot pepper mix lol, cherry bomb, thai chili, fire & ice (medusa pepper?), grew the best btw, like over a hundred on it. So yeah, i dunno, i realize now how long they take to start to fruit, growth sizes depends on container size, cayenne is the only pepper to produce when planted directly in garden. Right now they are going crazy fruiting, but season is about to end, i may try take them inside and see if they continue under grow lights. Alot learned, thanks to your channel and alot of experimentation.

I’m going to use Minature clover instead of mulch it’s very beneficial for plants nitrogen fixing.

Hope you can share your thoughts and techniques to conquer Anthracnose. Watching you over from Philippines!

I planted Cosmos and Zinnias in with my veggies and they took over! My peppers could not compete and were stunted. I overwintered my Cubanelle and Serrano peppers so hopefully they will do better next year. I was careful to use clean soil and rinse them in a mild soapy solution. I brought in aphids that killed everything inside last year.

tomato horn worms demolished my pepper plants the weekend I decided to go out of town on vacation. Go figure, now it's too cold for my peppers to be outside (night time below 50F) so now they're all inside, in a closet with a LED grow light praying that's enough for them to keep going and start producing. Luckily I live in Vegas so the weather isn't terrible and can probably bring them out in a few months

What should be the ratio of rice husk and Cocopeat in a grow bag for pepper plant ?

I live jsut north east of you, over on Cape Cod (for reference). Yes, we had the drought and high heat, and I also grow in Fabric Grow bags. I hear what you're saying about the roots growing, but, One caveat, and its a big one, wiht placing the bags on driveway, patio, etc. The driveway heats up HOT. and it also radiates MORE HEAT, from nearby onto the bags, so, that just increases the HEAT that you deal with. The roots growing into the soil can be an issue, so instead of onto the driveway, tarmac, or patio, I would say putting a thick grow fabric down. Lots of folks use that method instead of using the driveway. As for more flowers? YES. My wife and I removed a LOT of our lawn, and replaced it with flowers, bring tons more pollinators.

Just subscribed. Hello, im a new gardner in RI 4b. All containers this year due to an injury. However, next year i plan to have raised beds. I will over winter garlic this Fall. Have you ever cut down your pepper plants and over wintered with cold weather netting?

You can sterilize a full bale of straw in a 55 gallon drum setting on a propane burner. Fill with enough water to accomplish the steaming and cook away. (With a lid) There are lots of videos of mushroom farms doing this on youtube.

My recommendation is to use barley or oat for mulching. It's good for soil aeration and you just roll it down before seeds will form.;)

Here in Louisiana if I put my pots on the concrete they will die within 2 days, other then that I love the tips ❤️‍🔥

Flowers????? Watch out, she is winning!

Hi pepper geek i have a problem in my plant there are tiny little black dots on my pepper seedlings it appears they are egg idk why it also have black eggs on my basil too is there anyway to fix and remove this black egg

You mentioned in your video that the insect netting takes care of voles. Voles were a large problem in my garden this year they had eaten about a dozen pepper plants, and probably the same in tomato plants. Do you have any other recommendations for keeping the voles away?

Hey! would like your opinion on sterelizing soil? I just recently put an indoor grow space in my house and wanted to know if its a good idea to sterelize to prevent chances of root aphids and fungus gnats, thanks!

I've just started my earliest pepper seeds for 2023; one of the first things I did before doing so is to try to eradicate all fungus gnats from the house -- they were a very annoying problem last year. I now use ony fresh potting soil in sealed bags, and transfer it to buckets with lids. I also use buckets with lids outdoors which has multiple advantages -- keeps the soil at a constant humidity, keeps rain out, and keeps insects from laying eggs in it Indoors, I use the yellow sticky traps both for detecting fungus gnats and reducing their numbers. Has anyone found netting that goes over a 10x20 tray? And for outdoors, how long do you keep netting over your beds, just until the plans get too tall for it?

Where is the link to the other channel on leaf mulch?

I was expecting "scratching nuts after harvesting" as a mistake but i guess not /s

I really don't know what my mistake was, but my pepper plant was doing so well, leaf-wise that is, but it never grew any flowers. I did notice some tiny insects growing on it. I think they were eating off the young leaves, but is that enough reason for the plant not to grow ANY flowers?

Meanwhile... Potato growers are putting their spuds in grow bags (for good drainage), putting big holes in the bottom (for roots to escape) and deliberately placing them on bare soil (for some strange reason). 🥔 🥔 🥔

Hey man, I’ve been growing heifers for about a year now and I have an indoor garden with chocolate Trinidad scorpion peppers and also Carolina reapers which I’ve been flowering for about a month now and I have been hand pollinating them but still no fruits. Some of the flowers tend to fall off while the others never produce peppers whether they are pollinated or not. I am currently on a 1212 light cycle. What is the optimal light cycle to get your plants to produce fruit?

I think my mistake was planting too close together. Both the peppers with each other but especially the peppers and the tomatoes. The maters grew so tall and bushy that the 2 peppers that were closest to them were crowded out and produced way less than the others.

Pretty sure there are grow bags that prune the roots so they don’t grow through but not 100% sure. Also I buy straw mulch that has been sterilized so I don’t have problems with weeds. I use leaf mulch to cover my garden soil for the winter it works great at suppressing winter weeds.

Any advice for dealing with Fungus Gnats? I also grow aloe varieties and one of plants my grandmother gave me had fungus gnats and now they are in my house.

Whiteflies. Tried a dozen ways to get them gone. Failed every time. Anyone in Florida successfully beat them? If so how?

Buy straw and leave set one summer and all seeds should germinate should

i had all my grow bags on sand. Big mistake. Seemed like the perfect spot. My old above ground pool had been in that location. Lesson learned.

I lover hearing that it'll crunch at the beginning of the show.

straw is hollow and harbors bugs

I had a great year for peppers. Very few pest issues. The pests were too busy with my tomatoes to bother the peppers I guess. I think the biggest mistake we made was not shading the bell peppers. They struggled until almost September, then they blew up when it started cooling down. Lots of mid 90's days down here this summer.

Where is the link you said you would post to geeky greemhouse?

Mine was starting to late in the season...

The roots will still grow through the fabric pots if there's no airflow under them. You should get some pot elevators for them. Just one word of warning, you'll need to stabilize them for windy days.

Don't plant marigolds with peppers in the same pot. The marigolds will out-compete the peppers for nutrients/water and soon dominate the pot. Found that out this year. The black walnut tree in my backyard has gotten big enough now that it's effecting the soil of my backyard garden. Guess I'm stuck with pots from now on. I used wood mulch in my garden for a few years. I won't do that again as it seemed to starve the soil. Switching to pine needle straw in vegetable beds.

Building a deer fence that wasn't a ten foot concrete wall...

Wouldn't drenching your soil in boiling water kill off all of the good life that lives in there? Destroying the mycelium that we want to encourage as it develops a symbiotic relationship with the root structure of the plants we're trying to grow? Maybe watering in some beneficial nematodes might be something to consider instead? They are predatory and I believe part of the thrips' life cycle is in the soil where the beneficial nematodes could devour them.

Topping pepper plants was our biggest mistake this year and I will not do that again.

My biggest mistake was not giving my peppers enough attention🥲 But thank God for Pepper Geek💯 I know you all will help me in many ways❤️

How about looking into "Biochar" as a soil's amendment for potted plants & raised beds?

I gave up on my half dozen pepper plants 2 weeks after I planted them, the grasshoppers destroyed them all in 2 days

Its better to let the leaves stay where they are. It helps the soil. By taking them you are destroying your trees' chance of success

I added new soil and fertilizer to existing plants and it killed them 😢

Big first mistake placing your Patreon commercial before the reason why were here was shown

The beard game is strong with this one.

My biggest issue was having my plants too dense

Your best organic pesticide is Azera it's kind of pricey but a very good organic pesticide. Azera is amazing from what I hear. Travis from lazy dog farms uses it quite often and has no issues.

Never heard thripes pronounced like that.

why are my jalapenos black?

Sorry, I am not professional gardener, but I have some advices, you may never use. 1. Sterilize your soil - put it in oven, heat to 200 degrees C (or 390 °F) and keep it for at least an hour, better two. 2. Pasterise your straw in water with 70 degrees С (or 160 °F) for at least an hour, better two. 3. Insects do not want to pollinate your peppers because you have too many flowers. Peppers pollinates themselves, so you need just to shake them well often, you do not need insects at all.

first

Get rice straw instead of oat Not as big of an issue