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)
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.
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.
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?
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
@@lynnharris6877 It's something precious few UA-cam 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 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.
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!
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.
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.
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:)
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! ♥️
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.
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.
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’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!
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.
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.
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...
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.
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 UA-cam about doing it and they turned into bushy productive strong plants..but the earlier the better...
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
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
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.
First year gardener, here! Thanks to this Channel, I feel more confident then I did when I was buying bags of soil...what kind, how much, what is that for!? LOL If you are a new gardener, learn something new every day and think about this as a long term investment in your mental and physical health. Thanks so much!
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 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'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!
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! 🐸
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.
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 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.
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 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'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 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!
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.
We start our plants inside, January, February, top them in April, transplant outside after May 10th, sometimes after May 20th, and then we water with Apple cidar vinagar, water and epsom salts to concentrate on root growth, along with watering times to draw out roots, then we get huge plants and many fruit, we are NW Ohio, basically MI
What's the formula for the vinegar + water + epsom salts, and how often do you apply? Middle of Iowa here, so probably pretty close in climate to you guys. Strategy is lots of compost, and waiting til the heat breaks and partial shade from a maple tree as the sun moves lower in the sky. They seem to like sun, but like to take a break from it during the day. However the Jimmy Nardellos came in like gang busters late June. Nice to have something to munch on as you wait for the Belles & Jalapenos...
@@groussac one cup AC Vinagar, to 5 gal water, (2 Tbls. To 1 gallon). Epsom salts are applied at base of plant in granules, unless it's and emergency, can make a slurry, handful to a gallon, epsom salts won't hurt them to much, but just the same they won't use but whatever they want, so too much is a waste. Apply bi weekly after in ground, I keep vinagar in all my water, cause it helps with so much.
@@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.
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.
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.
Last year my jalapeños reached 16 inches and produced 2 peppers. I planted everything, including my jalapeños and so far we have harvested enough to pickle 24 16 oz jars. All my other pepper varieties and everything else I grow is booming as well… what I did different was remove early flowers and prune off old leaves to provide more air circulation… my jalapeños are right at 5 feet tall now and producing like crazy… I live in Georgia! Also I use a 4-18-38 fertilizer amended with calcium nitrate and Epsom salt(Magnesium Sulfate). Same with tomatoes! My tomatoes are right at 10 feet tall already…
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.
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.
Thanks! I really hate pruning but found out a couple years ago it worked when a deer ate my plants down to the stem in July. I had one of the best harvests ever! LOL Unbelievable - it made a believer out of me. I am using your seeds by the way and have dozens of plants tucked in everywhere.
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.
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.
I set my plants out in February just to see which ones r strong. Pruning the flowers is an excellent suggestion, thank u🙏 That's going to save me a whole lot of disappointments.
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 my first attempt at peppers and they aren't doing well. We have plenty of hot weather here in central Indiana. I really appreciate your tips and I'll go pull the peppers that are there and see what happens.
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
Nice vid. I'm in northern OH and grow peppers, from sweet bells and cubanelles to hot habaneros, jalapenos, and serranos. from seed starting in February in February, and plant them out in late May. They take forever to grow, so I grow a lot of plants. Sure, they take up space, a lot of work, and are a real pain, but they're worth it. Fresh peppers taste so much better than store-bought ones, plus I know no unhealthy pesticides were used.
@@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.
Whoohoo! I'm doing my peppers right. I pinched off the buds and flowers on my 6" pepper plants. I planted them, side-dressed them with feather meal, deep watered them, and mulched. I've been dealing with an unusually cold spring, covering them from frost, twice. They are doing fine and will probably take off when the temps hit the med 80s later this week. Thanks for the helpful video!
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.
Thanks for the Update. Good Information about Pruning Peppers. You Mentioned Regular Waterings but these Plants Look a Bit Stressed and Dry. I Try Adding Straw to my Pepper Beds around June 15th (Depending on the Heat). This does a Number of Things... Moderates the Soil Temp., Reduces Evaporation/Cuts down on the Need to Water So Often, Lessens the Spread of Soil Born Diseases, And it Looks Nice. At the End of the Season You can Dig it in thereby increasing Organic Matter. I do Like the Suggestion of Picking Any Fruit off at this Point (and will be doing that this afternoon. Keep Up the Great Work...
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!
Very helpful video. I have a pepper plant that was doing just as you said producing one pepper. Also it was quick to grow it. The other flowers just dried up. I took the pepper off and hopefully that will help. More watering I guess and fertilizing.
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.
Less than 2 minutes in and I'm already understanding the problem with my peppers. And feeling very hopeful of what will come when the weather heats up🌞🎉
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.
Bought a couple of bell pepper plants and they did exactly what you showed. Producing fruit and not foliage. I got em going now though. Here in Texas there's no problem growing peppers. Last year 10 jalapeño plants produced over 2,000 mediums. I water my buckets every morning due to the high heat here.
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
Luke I have carried my plants inside for the winter time only 2 pepper plants in pots and work with them that way it works for me I talk to them all the time . Also have lettuce & tomatoes plants in the house for the winter time cucumbers also it is grow able for a person and I make sure they get light and have the warmth at night!! Get a lot of vegs. for myself with the others that I have frozen in freezer!!!
That was very helpful thank you. Last year my peppers produced sooo much foliage and never produced fruit. I’m gathering that I need to add more phosphate and potassium
This was so helpful. My pepper plants have been in the grown about a month now and is barely 6 inches above ground. They’re all flowering and one is fruiting, with the plant barely able to hold it up lol
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.
Here in Oklahoma peppers thrive we do have a longer growing season and I do keep mine watered. Thank you so much for sharing! Love peppers. Have a blessed day! Wendy🦋🐞🌷🌸🌺
You can top pepper plants when they have 3 layers of leaves, before you even transplant. You don't have to wait until June. I live in Pa. and do it every year. My harvests are great, even with super hot peppers. You don't, however want to over-prune them. Once before transplanting is fine and should double your crop.
Exactly right. Here in MA zone 6 we had nights in June and first week of July that were in low 50s and even upper 40s a few times. My plants were just NOT growing. Now the hot weather is here and nights in the 60s and the plants have begun to grow and quickly. I like to use dried and ground up banana peels at planting time and Trifect+ every few weeks.
Really good break down on the facts. We all see these SoCal and AZ gardeners that have 7' plants because they can grow year round.... that just isn't the case for most of us.
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!
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 overwintered two pepper plants. Kept them pruned so they didn’t outgrow their pots. They are making so many flowers and peppers. While the ones I started from seed are still working on growing bigger.
New gardener here...can you overwinter any plant? Also, if they are starting to go to seed, does trimming that off prevent it and allow you to continue harvesting? Thank you in advance!
@@mrashley7777 They need a lot more light than you think, just beware. I imagine you can overwinter most plants, worst case it dies anyway. Fun experiment. :) Plants do often die after going to seed.
@@DAndyLord Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. That’s true, it will be a fun experiment, and no extra loss if it dies. Thank you for your advice! I wish I kept my spinach and arugula cooler, but lesson learned. Planning next year different! Did you use artificial light for your tomato plant then? Happy gardening!
@@mrashley7777 Yeah, I live in Canada and also grow citrus and cannabis. Both need a lot of light. Last year was my first year testing the gardening waters and i was so proud of my tomato, I didn't want to let her freeze to death so I made some space under my lights. I have a garden box and a bunch of potted plants too. Peanuts are really fun to grow too. Your spinach and arugula will def go to seed if you let them.
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’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.
Wow those peppers are big! For me that would be a success! Here in the UK i can't grow sweet bell peppers outdoors. Every year, just for fun i dry seeds from a store bought pepper and plant them in a pot and it sits on a window sill where it gets the best sunshine. We have just had a heatwave so i was able to put the pot outside. I weeded out some plants for friends too as i go ham on planting them (out first attempt failed). Our plants are about 18"/45 cm now and look stronger than some of our past yearly attempts as we used homemade compost, a bit of perlite and fish blood and bone. The spurt of hot weather made the plants shot up strong but because we neglected their growth due to outdoor plants they are a big windy. I have staked them and now they are growing straighter. I have also since bought some compost to top up the pot. Again, it's just for fun, it's free. If i get a tennis ball sized pepper i would be happy, just because it tried to fruit. It's good to know that i can use tomato fertilizer on it as i wasn't sure if it was too acidic for it. Also this year, i have a small wormery as well as the old composter. Amongst other veggie scraps i am feeding them banana peel. Does that mean the casting will retain the potassium? I am still learning about my worms. I collected some red wrigglers and tiger worms from the garden and they have been breeding loads since the warm weather! I have to now feed them weekly rather than every fortnight now. RIP to the brave earth worms who didn't like the wormery. The rest will stay happy in the clay soil doing it's thing for us. Will be interesting to see what kind of worms we dig up from the veggie bedding area come the end of season. I think for the worm casting i might try making worm tea. It's a small crate DIY wormery i am testing out as new to how important worms are. They get the best scraps and the composter the rest. Our food bin/trash is so low now as we don't like to waste food so just mainly bones, meat and non compostable stuff. I would love to know if anyone else in the UK has had any success with growing peppers outside and what their tips are? Also, would love an update video on how @MIgardener turned out. Did the little ones get bigger, did the bigger ones fruit? Did placement affect their growth or were they like at as seedlings?
I have spent 2 years here in the PNW trying to grow peppers with no luck. This year I am hoping it will be different. I have more than a dozen healthy happy plants and...fingers crossed...peppers.
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
Peppers love wood ash but not to much..i sprinkled some wood ash on the soil in my fabric pots that contained green pepper plants and what a diff in color and speed of growth and so many flowers shortly after doing this.. i got so many peppers last yr ..and i never got as many and green plants that thrived...
1 big key to growing bigger pepper plants and getting more fruit.... is always start from seedling. Most big box stores are selling clones of plants from last year. Or off a mother plant. Which if it came from a already grown and mature plant then they won't grow as big. Also they will start to set fruit alot sooner.
Everyone has a different method. Plant ready nutrients are a must. Compost is good an takes yrs. To break down producing a slow release. I germinate chili seeds well in sand and soil. Fertilize with moringa and aloe vera. 0 cost..all from my garden. Philippines here so i start germinating or air layering in March. By May i top my plants getting moderate sun due to many banana trees. Surprisingly fast growth. With long grow season im happy to fruit many pods. Love growing chilis. Great video.. Happy chili growing..
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)
Me too
Iv got rwo 5 year old peppers that have an inch and a half stem
I produce peppers all winter too. They are biannual plants.
@@leslieanne447 wow! they are perennials!
Green thumbs up to everyone growing a garden this year!!! Always something new to learn in the garden, never a dull moment. Thanks for the great tips.
Thats because food shortages are coming and we all know it’s how we will survive.
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.
Thank you! This was so helpful. Question, How often do you water? Or how moist should the soil be at all times?
@@paxromana1982 i just give them a little drink each week. Just enough to get a good drink but not completely moisten the soil.
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.
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.
Thanks for the hints. I've got 5 or 6 plants, 4". I'm going to pinch and plant them. Hoping to get some, and lots would be nice. 🤗
@@kaylab539 have you tried growing cucumbers upright, on a fence, kinda like grapes? Works really well!
One time I did to one of my plants and it died. I can’t remember what plant it was.
@@kaylab539 you don't have enough pollinators. You need to manually pollinate the females
@@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?
His hair works as a visor and I absolutely love it. Genius.
Yo that's so funny omg. Hes blessed with good hair cuz no way product is standing up to summer sweating
Hilarious.
Wished me all could be blessed like that.
😂😂😂
Man looks like Mr Beast but the garden variety.
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
Welcome to the greatest state in the country.😊😊
One of the most straight-to-the point videos I've seen from you. Thanks for not beating around the bush on this one.
Yeah! Maybe it's because it was focused on a very simple topic? Or 1 topic?
Get to the point how do you increase fruit production.
I agree. Get to the point sooner and avoid chatter.
@@lynnharris6877 It's something precious few UA-cam 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.
@@amythinks Thank you for the recommendation. Deleting this subscription.
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.
Lucky you!
I tried overwintering mine in my garage in Illinois. I lost all of mine.
@@D71219ONE California does not get as cold as Illinois. I don't think we had more than a few freeze days below 30.
I would imagine they would have to go into a pretty warm environment since peppers like heat, is that right? I heat my house max at 68
@@ritasenergyherbs3650 Not really because covered outside we get as low as 30 for short periods of time. I believe 68 is good.
@@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.
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 am also in az and never see videos that help our type of weather lol.
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.
@@CuriousinNY You're very kind to share and help others like be less discouraged and become a successful gardener. Thank you
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.
Lmao have me a laugh
In ground vs planters are different. I water everyday with my planters unless it’s an overcast.
He’s MI gardener :) you’re GA gardener 😎
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.
How do you enjoy them that long? Freeze, can, dry?
@@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.
@@JeanneKinland sounds good! I'm always looking for ways to preserve things better. Thanks
The fact that dwarfer plants gave fruits earlier is a result of genetic variation within the same species
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:)
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! ♥️
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!
Its true
Also, new plants are just babies!!! They need lotsa nutrients & water to develop properly!
You can also cut the peel and place under your rose bushes at the roots.
@@hazelbrungard1623 Cut what peel? I got lost there.
@@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.
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.
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.
That makes no sense. Topping the pepper plants sets you back by 6-8 weeks. Also, no professional farmer will recommend topping your peppers.
@@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???
@@truthtalker4038 That's very surprising, I'm going to experiment this method as nobody recommended to me, on the contrary. Thanks, buddy!
Topping my peppers 🌶 has yielded great results for me, too. The payoff is worth it.
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!
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.
They're usually nice to eat once they turn that forest green colour
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 what a great accidental experiment. Just goes to show that the gardening stores have been conning us for decades
@@melissadavis5954 better to bury them a bit to speed up decomposition and prevent flies
@@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.
Do you mean you actually covered up your plants?
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...
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.
I needed this video. I have a few pepper plants. It’s my first time with peppers
Luke, thank you for sharing your gardening knowledge with all of us. You are a wealth of information and inspiration. 🌱🌱
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.😁
Thank you for this tip! I went out to my garden and did this just now :)
@@alexisfelice it's to late now,she did it a month ago
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 UA-cam about doing it and they turned into bushy productive strong plants..but the earlier the better...
Excellent😜👌
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
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
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.
Having this exact issue right now. Bell pepper plant with one fruit that hasn’t grown much while the rest of the garden is going crazy. Great video.
First year gardener, here! Thanks to this Channel, I feel more confident then I did when I was buying bags of soil...what kind, how much, what is that for!? LOL If you are a new gardener, learn something new every day and think about this as a long term investment in your mental and physical health. Thanks so much!
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.
I have done this for a couple of years now.
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 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'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!
love your point about short growing seasons and not topping plants .
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! 🐸
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.
Appreciate the fertilizer advice and that you give alternatives to what you like. So hard for someone just beginning to understand how to substitute.
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 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.
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!
Growing big in Wisconsin!
Thanks for the tips on peppers. Going to pick a couple of peppers tomorrow morning based on your input. Thanks!
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'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 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!
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.
We start our plants inside, January, February, top them in April, transplant outside after May 10th, sometimes after May 20th, and then we water with Apple cidar vinagar, water and epsom salts to concentrate on root growth, along with watering times to draw out roots, then we get huge plants and many fruit, we are NW Ohio, basically MI
What's the formula for the vinegar + water + epsom salts, and how often do you apply? Middle of Iowa here, so probably pretty close in climate to you guys. Strategy is lots of compost, and waiting til the heat breaks and partial shade from a maple tree as the sun moves lower in the sky. They seem to like sun, but like to take a break from it during the day. However the Jimmy Nardellos came in like gang busters late June. Nice to have something to munch on as you wait for the Belles & Jalapenos...
@@groussac one cup AC Vinagar, to 5 gal water, (2 Tbls. To 1 gallon). Epsom salts are applied at base of plant in granules, unless it's and emergency, can make a slurry, handful to a gallon, epsom salts won't hurt them to much, but just the same they won't use but whatever they want, so too much is a waste. Apply bi weekly after in ground, I keep vinagar in all my water, cause it helps with so much.
Every year as soon as I water the pepper plants with compost tea they take off like crazy!!! IDK what's in there but they love it!
Whats compost tea?
@@ilovejackass8 It's compost mixed with water
@@ilovejackass8 if you own rabbits or know someone who does you can also soak their manure in water and use that
@@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.
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.
Thanks so much for the information! I'm having this problem right now. Those peppers are getting picked in the morning!
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.
Last year my jalapeños reached 16 inches and produced 2 peppers. I planted everything, including my jalapeños and so far we have harvested enough to pickle 24 16 oz jars. All my other pepper varieties and everything else I grow is booming as well… what I did different was remove early flowers and prune off old leaves to provide more air circulation… my jalapeños are right at 5 feet tall now and producing like crazy… I live in Georgia! Also I use a 4-18-38 fertilizer amended with calcium nitrate and Epsom salt(Magnesium Sulfate). Same with tomatoes! My tomatoes are right at 10 feet tall already…
@FE Gemini
What fertilizer brand and where did you purchase it, please?
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
Until you meet Li Ziqi. People from that province put hot pepper in everything. The kind that comes out 💩 burning the other end ... 😅
😂😂😂
@@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.
@@kevinayaz7805 You reap what you sow.
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.
Thanks! I really hate pruning but found out a couple years ago it worked when a deer ate my plants down to the stem in July. I had one of the best harvests ever! LOL Unbelievable - it made a believer out of me. I am using your seeds by the way and have dozens of plants tucked in everywhere.
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.
I think you saved my garden this season hear in Michigan with your helpful videos, Thank you! Subscribed
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.
Did you sure plant food also
@@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.
I set my plants out in February just to see which ones r strong. Pruning the flowers is an excellent suggestion, thank u🙏 That's going to save me a whole lot of disappointments.
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 my first attempt at peppers and they aren't doing well. We have plenty of hot weather here in central Indiana. I really appreciate your tips and I'll go pull the peppers that are there and see what happens.
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.
that's great advice, thanks for sharing 👍
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.
It's kinda like topping a cannabis plant. It sucks at first then it explodes with growth
I'm going to try this! Thank you
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
Nice vid. I'm in northern OH and grow peppers, from sweet bells and cubanelles to hot habaneros, jalapenos, and serranos. from seed starting in February in February, and plant them out in late May. They take forever to grow, so I grow a lot of plants. Sure, they take up space, a lot of work, and are a real pain, but they're worth it. Fresh peppers taste so much better than store-bought ones, plus I know no unhealthy pesticides were used.
This topping advice is incredibly valuable. Thank you for straightening this out.
I top them when they are very young and still in the greenhouse. But I stop once they are outside planted.
@@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.
@@bigflatsominxy9038 Me too
Whoohoo! I'm doing my peppers right. I pinched off the buds and flowers on my 6" pepper plants. I planted them, side-dressed them with feather meal, deep watered them, and mulched. I've been dealing with an unusually cold spring, covering them from frost, twice. They are doing fine and will probably take off when the temps hit the med 80s later this week. Thanks for the helpful video!
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.
Thanks for the Update. Good Information about Pruning Peppers. You Mentioned Regular Waterings but these Plants Look a Bit Stressed and Dry. I Try Adding Straw to my Pepper Beds around June 15th (Depending on the Heat). This does a Number of Things... Moderates the Soil Temp., Reduces Evaporation/Cuts down on the Need to Water So Often, Lessens the Spread of Soil Born Diseases, And it Looks Nice. At the End of the Season You can Dig it in thereby increasing Organic Matter. I do Like the Suggestion of Picking Any Fruit off at this Point (and will be doing that this afternoon. Keep Up the Great Work...
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!
Very helpful video. I have a pepper plant that was doing just as you said producing one pepper. Also it was quick to grow it. The other flowers just dried up. I took the pepper off and hopefully that will help. More watering I guess and fertilizing.
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.
Less than 2 minutes in and I'm already understanding the problem with my peppers. And feeling very hopeful of what will come when the weather heats up🌞🎉
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.
Bought a couple of bell pepper plants and they did exactly what you showed. Producing fruit and not foliage. I got em going now though. Here in Texas there's no problem growing peppers. Last year 10 jalapeño plants produced over 2,000 mediums. I water my buckets every morning due to the high heat here.
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
Luke I have carried my plants inside for the winter time only 2 pepper plants in pots and work with them that way it works for me I talk to them all the time . Also have lettuce & tomatoes plants in the house for the winter time cucumbers also it is grow able for a person and I make sure they get light and have the warmth at night!! Get a lot of vegs. for myself with the others that I have frozen in freezer!!!
I've used grass clippings in my tomato beds for years. Great results.
Add banana peels cut small, and finely crushed eggshells all around them, they love it.
addictive too great garden soil is coffee grounds along with crushed egg shells and bananas which I have been doing for years too add growing power
That was very helpful thank you. Last year my peppers produced sooo much foliage and never produced fruit. I’m gathering that I need to add more phosphate and potassium
This guy has a face of someone genuinely happy. I hope I'm not wrong.
This was so helpful. My pepper plants have been in the grown about a month now and is barely 6 inches above ground. They’re all flowering and one is fruiting, with the plant barely able to hold it up lol
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.
Here in Oklahoma peppers thrive we do have a longer growing season and I do keep mine watered. Thank you so much for sharing! Love peppers. Have a blessed day! Wendy🦋🐞🌷🌸🌺
Do you top your peppers? I am afraid to top them now since it is now almost June. Also from Oklahoma.
You can top pepper plants when they have 3 layers of leaves, before you even transplant. You don't have to wait until June. I live in Pa. and do it every year. My harvests are great, even with super hot peppers. You don't, however want to over-prune them. Once before transplanting is fine and should double your crop.
Exactly right. Here in MA zone 6 we had nights in June and first week of July that were in low 50s and even upper 40s a few times. My plants were just NOT growing. Now the hot weather is here and nights in the 60s and the plants have begun to grow and quickly. I like to use dried and ground up banana peels at planting time and Trifect+ every few weeks.
Thank you for the info…but I have to say it…the hair is looking spectacular! 😀
Really? I can't wait to get a haircut haha
Ha! I was thinking the same thing.
Yes! I was wondering if anyone else would comment on his gorgeous hair.
Me too! I was like wow I love what he’s doing with his hair!🤣🤣🤣
Was thinking the same thing!!
Really good break down on the facts. We all see these SoCal and AZ gardeners that have 7' plants because they can grow year round.... that just isn't the case for most of us.
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 just picked a full green pepper but, all the blooms fell off. This video is perfect. Thank you so much!
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!! :)
So glad it helped! Happy gardening :)
I love this channel. Everything is easier and explained
I overwintered two pepper plants. Kept them pruned so they didn’t outgrow their pots. They are making so many flowers and peppers. While the ones I started from seed are still working on growing bigger.
I overwintered a tomato, it sporadically produced fruit all winter. Now it's covered in flowers and has a one tomato that's almost ripe.
New gardener here...can you overwinter any plant?
Also, if they are starting to go to seed, does trimming that off prevent it and allow you to continue harvesting?
Thank you in advance!
@@mrashley7777 They need a lot more light than you think, just beware. I imagine you can overwinter most plants, worst case it dies anyway.
Fun experiment. :)
Plants do often die after going to seed.
@@DAndyLord Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. That’s true, it will be a fun experiment, and no extra loss if it dies.
Thank you for your advice!
I wish I kept my spinach and arugula cooler, but lesson learned. Planning next year different!
Did you use artificial light for your tomato plant then?
Happy gardening!
@@mrashley7777 Yeah, I live in Canada and also grow citrus and cannabis. Both need a lot of light. Last year was my first year testing the gardening waters and i was so proud of my tomato, I didn't want to let her freeze to death so I made some space under my lights.
I have a garden box and a bunch of potted plants too. Peanuts are really fun to grow too.
Your spinach and arugula will def go to seed if you let them.
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’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!
Thanks for the tip👍
Would you recommend early morning? I'm in Texas and the heat/direct sun is gnarly.
@@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!
Can i get the amount of dakeing soda per gallon please?
@@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.
Wow those peppers are big! For me that would be a success!
Here in the UK i can't grow sweet bell peppers outdoors. Every year, just for fun i dry seeds from a store bought pepper and plant them in a pot and it sits on a window sill where it gets the best sunshine. We have just had a heatwave so i was able to put the pot outside. I weeded out some plants for friends too as i go ham on planting them (out first attempt failed).
Our plants are about 18"/45 cm now and look stronger than some of our past yearly attempts as we used homemade compost, a bit of perlite and fish blood and bone. The spurt of hot weather made the plants shot up strong but because we neglected their growth due to outdoor plants they are a big windy. I have staked them and now they are growing straighter. I have also since bought some compost to top up the pot.
Again, it's just for fun, it's free. If i get a tennis ball sized pepper i would be happy, just because it tried to fruit. It's good to know that i can use tomato fertilizer on it as i wasn't sure if it was too acidic for it.
Also this year, i have a small wormery as well as the old composter. Amongst other veggie scraps i am feeding them banana peel. Does that mean the casting will retain the potassium? I am still learning about my worms. I collected some red wrigglers and tiger worms from the garden and they have been breeding loads since the warm weather! I have to now feed them weekly rather than every fortnight now. RIP to the brave earth worms who didn't like the wormery. The rest will stay happy in the clay soil doing it's thing for us. Will be interesting to see what kind of worms we dig up from the veggie bedding area come the end of season. I think for the worm casting i might try making worm tea. It's a small crate DIY wormery i am testing out as new to how important worms are. They get the best scraps and the composter the rest. Our food bin/trash is so low now as we don't like to waste food so just mainly bones, meat and non compostable stuff.
I would love to know if anyone else in the UK has had any success with growing peppers outside and what their tips are?
Also, would love an update video on how @MIgardener turned out. Did the little ones get bigger, did the bigger ones fruit? Did placement affect their growth or were they like at as seedlings?
2 words... Miracle Gro
(half tbs all purpose + half tbs bloom booster per gal) for all your veggies. Nj
I have spent 2 years here in the PNW trying to grow peppers with no luck. This year I am hoping it will be different. I have more than a dozen healthy happy plants and...fingers crossed...peppers.
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.
They turn red later…don’t give up yet!
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
Peppers love wood ash but not to much..i sprinkled some wood ash on the soil in my fabric pots that contained green pepper plants and what a diff in color and speed of growth and so many flowers shortly after doing this.. i got so many peppers last yr ..and i never got as many and green plants that thrived...
1 big key to growing bigger pepper plants and getting more fruit.... is always start from seedling. Most big box stores are selling clones of plants from last year. Or off a mother plant. Which if it came from a already grown and mature plant then they won't grow as big. Also they will start to set fruit alot sooner.
I never knew that but it makes total sense. Thanks !
Everyone has a different method.
Plant ready nutrients are a must.
Compost is good an takes yrs. To break down producing a slow release.
I germinate chili seeds well in sand and soil.
Fertilize with moringa and aloe vera.
0 cost..all from my garden.
Philippines here so i start germinating or air layering in March.
By May i top my plants getting moderate sun due to many banana trees.
Surprisingly fast growth.
With long grow season im happy to fruit many pods.
Love growing chilis.
Great video..
Happy chili growing..
Perfectly timed for me! I’m a Michgander too and a first time at growing bell peppers!
Thank you for great info!
~c
This is PERFECT timing!! My plants are just not growing (NC zone 7b.) Thank you for this video.