Hot Pepper Garden Update
Well, I don’t think anyone is actually reading my posts here on my blog, but that isn’t going to stop me from posting them for my own enjoyment. So here goes, an update for my self on my pepper progress for 2008.
Everything is going well in pepperland.
Most of the peppers that I originally planted on March 19 have been transplanted into styrofoam cups. I usually use plastic cups because of their durability and reusability, but this time I’m using styrofoam cups after a recommendation I read at a pepper forum. The advantage is that they are dirt cheap (actually cheaper than dirt), they are easily labeled, and you can literally peel the cup off the rootball when ready for transplant. I’m not very pleased that the cups are not reusable and are incredibly wasteful. I think I’m going to look into crushing the cups up and using it like perilite, mixing it in with my soil for added aeration. I’m just not sure what type of chemicals will be leached into the soil by the disintegrating styrofoam.
I’ve began topping the pepper plants that are ready for it to encourage branching. Topping is as simple as cutting the main growing shoot right off the plant. I’m cutting after the fourth node and, depending on how the plants develop, I may cut again at the sixth node. Last year, my pepper plants were not pruned at all, and grew very tall– some over six feet. They were in 10″ pots (way too small). I think I would get a better harvest with a plant pruned to grow like a bush instead of a tree. I’m excited to see how this pruning works out.
I wanted to get into the types of pots I plan on using for the final transplant, and I wanted to get into soil mixtures and amendments, but this post has already grown long. So, picture time…
Here’s a picture of most of the peppers we’re growing. They were all planted at the same time, but due to differences in germination period and growth rate, they obviously are not all keeping the same pace. Besides these peppers, we are also growing thai peppers, which are in a different flat and not shown. We’re also growing in cups (not shown) a bell pepper “carnival mix,” which includes several colors of peppers, and also another colored bell pepper mix that is currently germinating in a flat cell in the oven.
Here’s a closeup of one of the purple peppers up close. I’m really excited about this variety. The foliage of the plant is supposed to be a purplish color with white spots– very cool. You can see some of the spots in the picture, and the deep purple stem.
Here’s my Tabasco pepper, originally purchased from a home improvement store for last summer’s growing season. It made it through the winter, and is doing very well. Last year, in a ten inch pot, it grew well over five feet tall, and had more than one hundred (surprisingly hot) peppers. I’m expecting a huge harvest from this plant this year. I’m planning on making my own Tabasco-brand style sauce, although I have a feeling that mine will be much, much hotter.
Here’s a scotch bonnet that was planted for last year’s growing season. I got the seed from a pepper I bought at the grocery store. They called them habaneros, but it was obviously a scotch bonnet. But, since it is from a grocery store pepper, I’m not sure if it is a true seed. Last year, this particular plant grew incredibly slowly– the slowest of all my pepper plants– and only produced three peppers. I’m hoping that this huge jumpstart will equate to huge yields. This plant was originally in a ten inch pot, and I transplanted it into a five gallon bucket.
That’s it for now. I’ve already got another garden post in the works (herbs will be the topic), and like I said, I also plan on talking about soil types and pots.
More to come…
Hi -
I’ve never seen that purple pepper with the purple stem before – what a beauty.
An ecologically bent garden writer said that using previously used styrofoam cups is perfectly ecological in his view.
They’ve already been used and planting in them is at least giving them a second go around.
About crushing them and using them to aerate the soil? Many gardeners use the styrofoam peanuts at the bottom of large planting containers to provide drainage so why not just mix them in with the soil in the bottom half? Sounds like an innovative use for them.
Martha
Hiya Martha.
Wow, how did I not respond to you earlier? I’m sorry about that.
I decided not to break up the cups and put them in the soil. With my luck, I’m just too concerned about taking something that was once in a very moist environment and close proximity to the plants, and crushing it and putting it in the soil. I really don’t want to spread a fungus to all my peppers just so I can reuse a few cups.
But, the good news is that I never, ever will use styrofoam cups again. Pepper plants– at least good, strong, healthy plants like mine– tend to grip the surface of the styrofoam, and that makes removing the plants from the cups very difficult. On a lot of them, I had no choice but to tear away the cups bit by bit. It was slow, tedious, and made a mess.
I’m going to switch back to Solo cups. With the plastic Solo cups, I can wash, sterilize, and reuse the cups until they fall apart. I can just as easily label them as the styrofoam cups. And, I’ve transplanted enough plants to where I’m able to be delicate enough that the transplants undergo very little transplant shock.
So solo cups it is.
By the way, I posted a recent picture of one of the purple peppers in my most recent garden update, #5. They’re really coming along nicely. I transplanted a few of them from 7″ pots into… uhh… maybe 3.5 gallon pots, and I’m expecting them to shoot up. One of them even has a couple of peppers on it– a green one and a purple one. Unfortunately, that particular plant did not grow true, and has no markings on the leaves, so I didn’t photograph it. If you’re interested, you can pickup the purple pepper seeds at Pepper Joe’s.
Thanks for commenting, and I hope you stop back sometime!
Mike
I have been growing Scoth Bonnets for about a year in South Florida and they have been doing great. Only thing is they get these white bugs on the underneath of the leaves and I have been spraying them with a fungus spray. I am trying to see if there is something natural I can use to kill them rather than pestisides. Any ideas? Teresa
Hi Teresa!
These bugs– are they aphids? That’s my bet.
We get aphids here every year. In the past, we’ve used harsh pesticides to kill them off, but I really don’t like putting chemicals on things I plan on eating. So for this year, we had to find something different.
I ended up finding this stuff at either Home Depot or Lowes, I forget which. It was about $8 for a pint, I think. It’s some sort of oil that you dilute with water and spray on the plants. Apparently, it suffocates the bugs by clogging them up, rather then killing them with toxicity. According to the manufacturer, you can apply it up to the day of harvest without any problem.
I’ve been spraying our plants once a week to once every two weeks with two tablespoons per gallon of water, and we have only had a couple of aphids this year. It’s been working great for us.
Some alternatives that also apparently work the same way is neem oil, as well as a mixture of a certain type of soap (I’m not sure which, so look it up) and water.
And last, you can always buy some ladybugs. Seriously. They’re $6 or $7 for a couple thousand, and eat aphids right up. Google for them and I’m sure you’ll find a number of places selling them.
Good luck!
Mike
I believe it is called “Neem Oil” Pretty plants
In reguards to the white bugs under the pepper leaves , i use 4 drops of Dawn Dishwashing liquid in a spray bottle mix with water and spray the leaves . It works awesome ,i grow scotch bonnet also in FT.Lauderdale Fl.
I would like to share this site: http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/AD109E/AD109E00.HTM
Growing Scotch Bonnet Pepper (capsicum Chinese Jacq.)
In Jamaica by Don McGlashan
Handbook sponsored by:
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Ministry of Agriculture Jamaica