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New pepper grower questions

C

chefben4

Brand new to the site and to growing peppers, let alone any fruit/vegatable!

I have 3 plants growing strong right now a Choc Bhut Jolokia (5in) tall, Trinadad Scorpion (7-8" tall) and a hot cherry pepper plant (5" tall).

I am a cruiser of the internet and sometimes take TOO much advice I read from different sites.

Can you experts give me some insight on fertilizer for the peppers. Mind you they are in containers and I used mircle gro potting mix. So far I use a diluted fish emulsion once after transplanting (it was rated 5-1-1). I have read a bunch of articles about spraying diluted epsom salt on the leaves, bone meal, blood meal, etc.

Also if these are outside should I hand germinate them to be safe? Or just HOPE the bugs do it for me?

I just dont want to get carried away I am just REALLY hoping for some fruit!

Here some pics for the heck of it! Im proud lol

Trinidad Scorpion
IMG00029-20100524-1827.jpg


Choc. Bhut Jolokia
IMG00028-20100524-1827.jpg
 
New to growing peppers too.

I've read that peppers plants will do well with almost any fertilizer.

I personally wouldnt use any and prefer going organic if possible.

I plan on using worm castings and worm tea, fish emulsion, and epsom salts.

There are more targeted fertilizers out there that cam be acquired such as chili focus and fertilizers that are targeted for tomatoes that are said to be great for peppers too since they are of the same family.

Hth
 
Oh man do I remember those days! Reading everything I could get my hands on including every label on every container of fertilizer I could find. First thing I would say is r-e-l-a-x. Your plants are looking good so you're on the right track. Peppers do pretty good without a lot of interference from us uber control freaks. franzb69 was on the money when he said most tomato ferts work well with peppers. Try to find one that has fairly equal NPK numbers. I use a water soluble fert made by Schultz that is 10-10-10. I use it at half strength. The key thing is to go easy. Keep reading folks grow threads and you'll find that there are a bunch of different opinions and that most of them work just fine.

Good luck chefben4.
 
Just be careful not to fertilize too often because you did say you are using miracle grow soil so take it light on the ferts and do the occasional foliar feeding with sprayer
 
Oh yeah i also wanna use used coffee grounds since it contains a lot of micronutrients and is high in nitrogen.

But i only plan on using them during times that the plants arent flowering or has no fruit as high nitrogen levels from what i've read causes flowers and fruits to drop.

A breakdown of the nutrients was made on the used grounds from starbucks.

Here is the link:

http://www.sunset.com/garden/earth-friendly/starbucks-coffee-compost-test-00400000016986/

I may not be much of a coffee drinker but starbucks give the stuff away. So i grab a bag whenever i'm there. (the bags of used grounds are way smaller here than in other countries for some reason).
 
One thing you might want to think about doing is remove the water tray from the bottom of your plants. That way if it rains your plants won't get water logged. Over watering will kill your plants faster then anything. I also think you meant to say pollinate and not germinate, germinate = what a seed does when planted. Lucky for you peppers are really good about pollinating by themselves as they are self fertile. They don't even need bugs to accomplish this, the wind will do it quite nicely.

Like I said before, the only thing more you might want to do is pick up a seaweed fertilizer to add some micro nutrients, but it's not required. The biggest thing to remember is do not over fertilize, your soil already contains a bunch of fertilizer and it would be easy to over do it. Good luck, it looks like you are off to a good start.
 
Thanks for all the tips everyone. I am a "control freak" and read way to much when the old job is slow. So GUILTY as charged! I will definitely heed the advice most of you have given. I have a fish emulsion which I am diluting fairly weak and I will pick up some kelp fertilizer. I'll try and keep some updates so guys can help me out wherever possible.

Pollinate..Germinate... One or the other. lol. Again, new to this. :lol:
 
ALL plants have a great survival gene in their DNA. Water when the leaves start to weep and fertilize every 4 to 6 weeks. There's no need to baby any plant
 
Just think about it THIS way...where do most of these hot peppers originate from? Hot, dry climates where the water is scarce. Not to mention the soil they grow in is sand-like. (Compared to OUR soil.) So the WORST thing you can do is OVER-do it. Like Patrick said, RELAX. These things seriously do just about take care of themselves.
 
Hot Pooper said:
Just think about it THIS way...where do most of these hot peppers originate from? Hot, dry climates where the water is scarce. Not to mention the soil they grow in is sand-like. (Compared to OUR soil.) So the WORST thing you can do is OVER-do it. Like Patrick said, RELAX. These things seriously do just about take care of themselves.
Click to expand...

Best advice ever +100!
 
I agree, that was very informative. This is not only just my second year growing peppers, it's really my first year growing anything...

I noticed that (at least some) of my plants have been wilting a decent amount the last few days, and it's been reaching the 80s. The garden is on the west side of the house, so they get full afternoon-through-twilight sun (especially around 3:00 PM), so that's probably the main reason.
 
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