Which Chillis to plant in bigger pots + other issues.

[Chilli_Flashback]

Hi, basically first time grower.
 
As I stated in my intro post, I couldn't help but buy up any varieties of chilli plant I could see at the local hardware that were in maybe 75mm-100mm pots and ive replanted them into 200mm pots for the time being, which my neighbour had hundreds. I think they may be about 1.5 gallon size. I have about 5x 265-300mm pots which I think are 3-5 gallon size before I would have to go and buy some more.
 
I have the following in 200mm pots or roughly 1ish gallons.
 
Orange Habanero
Trinidad Scorpion yellow
Carolina Reaper
Anaheim
Mexibelle
Hungarian Yellow
Thai
Hoa Lat
Black Pearl
Salsa Red
Jalapeno.
 
Which varieties would you put into bigger pots as priority over the others?
 
Next issue, My Anaheim has 3 nice sized peppers on it but the leaves are curling up from the stem line, making a V shape.  Any ideas?  I think I was overwatering in general until a few days ago when I read this site and saw to hold back on daily watering. PH is 7 as I had a soil test kit lying around.
 
On PH, Ive planted 4 chilli plants in the soil around the side of the house, Caysan and Asian Siam, and whilst testing the soil of the Anaheim, I saw that the soil for that part came back as a PH of 8 indicating pretty strongly alkaline, which would make sense as its basically just sand.  I read that chilli prefer PH of about 5.5-6.5. but they seem to be doing OK, is this worth correcting? and if so, how would you do it?
 
My next question relates to pruning flowers and pods on tiny store bought plants.  I bought a few more varieties on the weekend and a couple of them have many small pods or lots of flowers even though the plant is very tiny.  Should i sacrifice these early flowers and pods to help grow a bigger plant so that there will be more pods in the long run.
 
I just cant bring myself to sacrifice a growing pod, but for example my hungarian yellow is tiny but is producing just 1 nice sized pod that would be a reasonable % of the plants total mass and maybe I should kill off for the greater good.
 
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

[austin87]

I'd say the reaper, yellow scorp, jalapeño should be moved into bigger pots first. Jalapeños jabe so many uses you will want a ton, and reapers and scorpions can get really big. I'm less familiar with some of the other varieties, but I would say the Thai could be one of the last moved into larger pots, as they do well in containers and as ornamentals.

 

[Chilli_Flashback]

I'd say the reaper, yellow scorp, jalapeño should be moved into bigger pots first. Jalapeños jabe so many uses you will want a ton, and reapers and scorpions can get really big. I'm less familiar with some of the other varieties, but I would say the Thai could be one of the last moved into larger pots, as they do well in containers and as ornamentals.

I didnt realize they got big. Mine did absolutely nothing much for a month except get yellowish or bubbly leaves until i put some miracle grow on them. They have grown a bit since and look much healthier now but still pretty small overall.

 

[Mitzi]

I'm not familiar with all your varieties but Black Pearl, Thai and Hoa Lat will definitely be fine in smaller pots.  I'd prioritise the first three (orange hab, scorpion and reaper) for larger pots.  Most chillis can be grown in small pots, as long as you feed them.  They will just be smaller and carry less fruit than if they had more room. 
 
With your flowering / fruiting small plants, it's really up to you: would you rather have a few pods early in the season on what may be a weak plant or can you bear to wait a few weeks longer for something better?  Personally I would remove them (although I'd also find it difficult to remove the one pod!)  But it could take a long time to ripen and the plant probably won't set any more fruit until it does, so you could be sacrificing a lot for that one pod.  Better to remove the flowers and fruit and let the plant grow more, then it should start flowering again and produce a better harvest for you.

 

[solid7]

You can put any plant you want in a big pot.  A plant will only get as big as the conditions provided for it, allow.  Are you going to overwinter, or can you grow year round? 

Chinense don't necessarily get bigger.  They are just the varieties that people tend to hold onto, longer - especially since they take longer to come good.
 
Big pots are great for the varieties that you know you like, and want to keep for awhile.  However, based on what you've asked - and taking note of the fact that you're "basically" a first time grower - I'd probably give you the advice to grow everything in the same size container the first year, and see what you have success with.  Then, figure out what you like.  Take note along the way of which plants require what type of care, and how easy the varieties are.  Keeping the same size container serves as a good baseline for this activity.  
 
My container of choice would be a #5 nursery pot (approximately 14.5L) for many different reasons.