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Help a Newbie Grower Get Started, Please...

rooze

rooze

OK, I've been into hot peppers for years, but only last year was I "settled" enough to attempt to grow them. I bought several seedlings from the nursery around Memorial Day 2010, let them stay indoors for a week or so, until any chance of a frost had passed, then planted them out with some decent compost/soil and a reasonable amount of care and attention.
Unfortunately I live in WI, so the outdoor season is only from late May through mid October. Also, my house is surrounded by trees so any planting area is limited to around 2-3 hours of sun each day, after which they're in broken shade. Temps are typically 70's to 80's and as low as 60 at nights.

So last year I couldn't get anything to bear fruit. I had a tabasco that grew a nice pod but it never really ripened, I just ran out of season and I rather foolishly left it in the ground.

So this year I started from seed, around May, kept them in pots then moved them outside in the same fairly large pots around the end of May. Leaving them in pots I can move them around a little bit to try and follow the sun....at least that was the theory.

They really don't look any more advanced than last seasons attempt, and I'm doubtful that they'll bear any fruit, again. (I have a variety, orange habs, thai, tabasco, etc - no super hots)

After looking through Justaguy's entire thread ad seeing how he nurtured his babies through gestation, seedlings, planting out etc, then dealt admirably with all the little ailments along the way, I've decided that I just don't have the "personality" to do that :( I just have too many other things competing for time.

So my question - can I grow as I have done from seed, then bring them indoors mid October and somehow continue to nurture them to the point of growing fruit? - or will they only grow/ripen outside in the sun and at July/August temps?

Also, could I plant seed indoor now, and take it outdoors for just a few weeks in late August / September, then complete the growing cycle indoors in the fall/winter? - (reason - I don't have any superhots planted, and I'd like to get something going asap).

I'm guessing that the answer is not going to be what I want to hear, but if there's an outside chance, and one that involves minimal 'fuss' I'd love to give it a shot.

Cheers for any ideas/suggestions.

Rooze
 
Hi Rooze,

There are much bigger experts around than I am, but I can attempt to give you an answer or two until the big guns come out. You can easily pot your pepper plants up and bring them indoors for the winter. I live in Canada and have a similar growing season to yours. I have brought favorite plants in many times. If you have a nice sunny window you can leave them in it and the plants will thrive. The second year they will produce insanely for you. Pepper plants can go on year after year. If you want to try growing from seed you should really start them in mid January or February. I started my seeds February 9th. They were huge by the time I could get them outside safely, early June. They're covered in peppers and flowers now.

Hope this helps.
 
Oh lord my season has not been a good guide although my harvest hopefully will be nice. I have read inside light setups can produce pods, but I also have read bugs like being inside where other bugs won't eat them. Many here do the indoor thing and I am sure for the newest TD crown holder they will speak up and help.
 
Unfortunately, all of us spend more time working on our plants than we would like. But, if anyone else is like ME, then they LOVE it! I guess it all boils down to how much time you really WANT to put into your plants.
I have heard of people getting fruit from their plants while indoors, but have also heard that bugs LOVE the inside plants, just like JAG said. Either way, you are going to have your challenges with both ways. You just need to decide exactly how you want to go about it.
Hell, some people on here dont really grow hot peppers, and will just buy some from people that DO.
 
Thanks guys....

@ Hot pooper - I understand what you're saying about buying them versus trying to grow, but I love to grow! Last year I turned over two plots of around 250 s.f combined. This was in ground surrounded by aged trees, so I had to hack through roots, remove rocks etc, it was a real toil. But it yielded some nice produce, fresh herbs, tomatoes, spring mix greens, carrots etc. The problem with peppers is the lack of sunlight and the short season here in WI. I'm limited with what I can do indoors. I don't have a basement, I work from home so my "spare room" is a fully equipped shipping room for my mail order business. When I look at what JAG did with the setup in his basement, there's just no way I'd have time/space to do it. So I love to grow, I just have certain limitations. Lining plants around window ledges - No Problemo!

But this gives me hope "I have heard of people getting fruit from their plants while indoors" and your comment about bugs is extremely useful. I'll keep researching and probably make a nuisance of myself some more around here!!

Cheers

Rooze
 
I have two genetic dwarf cultivars (maybe 3) that'll fruit indoors in winter without artificial light (usually).
They are small, but better than nothing....and super super easy to grow inside.

Is there any way you can increase the outside sunlight..up to at least 6 hours? I've had good fruiting with as little as 6 hours sun. All the culivars you mentioned should easily fruit where you are....your season is actually a little longer than mine.
I'll have seeds of the above mentioned cultivars available this fall if you're interested.

~Dig
 
PrairieChilihead said:
Hi Rooze,

There are much bigger experts around than I am, but I can attempt to give you an answer or two until the big guns come out. You can easily pot your pepper plants up and bring them indoors for the winter. I live in Canada and have a similar growing season to yours. I have brought favorite plants in many times. If you have a nice sunny window you can leave them in it and the plants will thrive. The second year they will produce insanely for you. Pepper plants can go on year after year. If you want to try growing from seed you should really start them in mid January or February. I started my seeds February 9th. They were huge by the time I could get them outside safely, early June. They're covered in peppers and flowers now.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...


I would give the same advice!!
I started mine in late February and they're thriving now. If there is a way to clear out an area, thus increasing sunlight exposure the peppers would benefit tremendously.
 
DiggingDogFarm said:
I should have added.
They're both quite early....I started the seed about May 1st and they have buds already.


~Dig
Click to expand...

That's impressive....I started not long after you but mine are nowhere near showing pods. I'd certainly be interested in buying some seeds from you, in fact anything that's been shown to give results indoors/late season.

@SuperHot - I'll try harder to move them during the day, to follow the sun. I think if I moved them only twice a day I could almost double their sun exposure.

Cheers guys :)
 
Have you given any thought to potting up your plants while outside? Container gardens can be nice and then you can shift the pots around to sunny corners of your yard and lengthen the growing day. Just a suggestion.
 
Rooze also keep in mind I attempted to start 216 plants and in the end have 162 plants going between the 3 gardens/beds(lost one to a cat and one shriveled up and died while surrounded by fellow plants of the same type and care), you can easily grow many less and have a great little harvest throughout the season for yourself and family/friends. Window sill is a possibility. I just dove in head first on indoor starting and learned a lot here.
 
PrairieChilihead said:
Have you given any thought to potting up your plants while outside? Container gardens can be nice and then you can shift the pots around to sunny corners of your yard and lengthen the growing day. Just a suggestion.
Click to expand...
Hi PrairieC - yep, I have everything in pots this year. Last year I seeded indoors and planted out, it was a disaster, nothing made it to fruit other than one crappy tabasco. So I'm going to get better at moving them around this year.


Thanks Dig, that's very generous!

Rooze also keep in mind I attempted to start 216 plants and in the end have 162 plants going between the 3 gardens/beds(lost one to a cat and one shriveled up and died while surrounded by fellow plants of the same type and care), you can easily grow many less and have a great little harvest throughout the season for yourself and family/friends. Window sill is a possibility. I just dove in head first on indoor starting and learned a lot here.

Justaguy, it's amazing what you've done and the care and attention you've given to your babies! - It's no wonder your sauces taste so good (I cracked open the Piney Hab last night and it's delicious too!!)....you're right, I don't need that much yield. If I could pull 30 or 40 pods in a season I'd be happy for starters. Last year when I started out I didn't know about this great website, so hopefully I'll have more success with all the information and help from yoo's great guys!

Cheers
 
I'm in Zone 5B, you're 5A...so not much difference. You should have plenty of growing season to grow any type of pepper there. I have about ~120 plants and most of them are loaded with pods with over 2 months of growing season left. I've harvested about 10 ripe pods so far and have hundreds more that are full size, just waiting for them to change colors. Spicy Chicken lives in Wisconsin too and he grows a ridiculous number of peppers. I think your problem is lack of light more than anything, 2-3 hours a day just isn't enough for peppers.

I misjudged the amount of shade on one end of the plot for the in ground peppers and as a result 3 or 4 of them only get a few hours of direct light a day. There is a giant walnut tree there and once the foliage filled out it really blocked out almost all the light. The few plants shade by the tree are fairly small, grow very slowly, and only have one or two peppers on them. I also had some tomatoes there and they grew to about 6 feet but were leggy and barely produced any flowers and wouldn't set any fruit. I dug them up, trimmed about half the leaves (since they lost a lot of roots), and moved them to a new spot with more sun, and within a couple weeks they had grown back to 6 feet and all had tomatoes on them.

Is there anything you can do to get them more light? Chop down some trees or something? :D Start your seeds early and get them more light and you should be able to get tons of pods before winter comes.
 
Avon Barksdale said:
I also had some tomatoes there and they grew to about 6 feet but were leggy and barely produced any flowers and wouldn't set any fruit. I dug them up, trimmed about half the leaves (since they lost a lot of roots), and moved them to a new spot with more sun, and within a couple weeks they had grown back to 6 feet and all had tomatoes on them.
Click to expand...
My ex-mother-in-law has tomatoes that always died until she realized it was her walnut tree killing them. Gases released by the tree=bad, wilted tomato plants over night and no yield. I believe it is a black walnut and don't know anything else then that which is what she told me. Next time I go over there I can get more details.

I know it is off point for this thread but thought you might like to know.
 
Avon Barksdale said:
I'm in Zone 5B, you're 5A...so not much difference. You should have plenty of growing season to grow any type of pepper there. I have about ~120 plants and most of them are loaded with pods with over 2 months of growing season left. I've harvested about 10 ripe pods so far and have hundreds more that are full size, just waiting for them to change colors. Spicy Chicken lives in Wisconsin too and he grows a ridiculous number of peppers. I think your problem is lack of light more than anything, 2-3 hours a day just isn't enough for peppers.

I misjudged the amount of shade on one end of the plot for the in ground peppers and as a result 3 or 4 of them only get a few hours of direct light a day. There is a giant walnut tree there and once the foliage filled out it really blocked out almost all the light. The few plants shade by the tree are fairly small, grow very slowly, and only have one or two peppers on them. I also had some tomatoes there and they grew to about 6 feet but were leggy and barely produced any flowers and wouldn't set any fruit. I dug them up, trimmed about half the leaves (since they lost a lot of roots), and moved them to a new spot with more sun, and within a couple weeks they had grown back to 6 feet and all had tomatoes on them.

Is there anything you can do to get them more light? Chop down some trees or something? :D Start your seeds early and get them more light and you should be able to get tons of pods before winter comes.
Click to expand...


Yeah that's a big issue. If I plant out front of the house I'd get an extra hour of total sunlight, but it would be morning and late afternoon sun, so I opted for less hours, but from noon to around 2.30pm, where I thought the sun would be more "useful" ? (wrong term but you know what I mean).

So the only real viable option is to keep them in pots and try to get into the habit of moving them around. Of course today it's a moot point 'cos it's cloudy and rainy!!

That's interesting about the tree/gas JAG. I wasn't aware of that....it's kinda ironic that peppers cause gas, then get affected by trees giving off....gas! - My garden plot has trees in close proximity, but no black walnut, so hopefully that's not an issue.

It may be coming round to the earlier recommendation of buying my superhots from the guys around here (and gals)....and just focus on what I know I can grow, like basic produce etc.....hmmm....but I hate to admit defeat :(
 
Justaguy said:
My ex-mother-in-law has tomatoes that always died until she realized it was her walnut tree killing them. Gases released by the tree=bad, wilted tomato plants over night and no yield. I believe it is a black walnut and don't know anything else then that which is what she told me. Next time I go over there I can get more details.

I know it is off point for this thread but thought you might like to know.
Click to expand...

I remember reading about that in Biology class...they produce a chemical called juglone in the roots, foliage, hulls, etc. I had forgotten all about it until you said something though. I never noticed any signs of toxicity though, they grew just fine, except for being a little lanky, they just wouldn't fruit at all because of a complete lack of light. I did leave two tomato plants kind of on the border of canopy, where they get probably 4-5 hours of light but still get a lot of shade, and I noticed one day about 1/3 of each plants just suddenly wilted and died, and I couldn't find any pest or reason. They've recovered since and look fine, but maybe that was the reason.
 
yep that is what her's do/did. Rooze just tomatoes not peppers are affected from what I have been told. Called her and she said they always came back but production gets stunted.

Rooze Last year I had 18 Caribbean Red Habaneros and harvested 2000 good pods throughout out the season. Tossed maybe 300 more that got buggy or burnt. So 1 should give you 50 to 100 pods in the a season. Really you could grow 1 or 3 of 4 different plants started in a window sill and worked outside and have a great harvest for personal use. Also, do you happen to have a balcony or access to a flat roof spot. Higher up probably would net more unblocked sunlight. Just a thought.:D
 
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