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Lots of support

the666bbq

the666bbq

well the noob in me discovered one of the gardening rules the hard way : plants (and so do peppers) need support.

Some of my pepper plants grew into plants to be proud of and than at some fine day would just tear into pieces even barely baring fruits yet. Some part of me says : what a dumb thing of nature to have a plant that cannot withstand its own weight (especially for a plant not even 3 feet/1m high), the rest of me is searching for the why's : not healthy enough ? too much/little water ? and diy's : what structure should I construct, would pruning have given better results ? ...

I would really appreciate your advice on how to keep single plants into one piece... the plants are too bushy to copy tomato-like support systems so I'm a bit 'off course' on this on
 
I use sticks that can be broken into a "Y" of roughly the right height to support branches that seem heavilly laden. Depending on the type of pepper plant, some respond well to twine wrapped around the entire plant a few inches above where the branches start.
And to perhaps answer the question of "WHY", a pepper is not designed to procreate by being pretty. If a branch is heavilly laden with fruit, it may be by design that the branch brakes off and places said fruit on the ground a foot or so from the parent plant. Cheers!
 
I would also use small stakes to support the plant. IGG had a pic of his smaller plants that were all staked to the max, I've never see it done this way but his reason makes sense to do this on certain types of chiles. you could rig up something like that.
 
Anything that will stick in the ground will work I had alot of arrows so in the ground they went





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Dale
 
I don't support very many plants but the one on the left here needed some help. I got the metal supports at the dollar store.
 
do you have an archery school next door thepodpiper?

that's a lot of big pods Potawie. I use supports in my pots but I try not to use too many bamboo/garden stakes as that story about gardeners bending over to tend their plants only to puncture their eyeball on the stake has really got me spooked.

I have an aunt who lost her eye as a child. she had a knot in her shoelace and tried to undo it using a fork (regular food type of fork). she poked the tine into the knot and then holding the handle pulled with all of her might, only to have the fork slide out of the knot. unfortunately she was sitting cross-legged and she was hunched over so she could get a good look at what she was doing. you guessed it - she drove that fork clean into her eyeball and burst it.
 
You can buy rubber/plastic ends for the bamboo to make them eyeball safe. I know I've knocked the lense out of my sunglasses once.
 
I generally find that this is caused by the plant growing too fast and then putting on fruit before the branches have gotten strong enough yet.
 
chilliman64 (& anyone else) - since you're affraid of poking your eye out on the stakes for the plants. instead of trying to find those little rubber end pieces & pay high dollar for them, in america theres another product thats sold in basically every hardware/grocery/gas station stores etc... its one of the greatest inventions its a mutli purpose tool & it can be made to fit any object, we call it DUCTTAPE! ;)

just tape that on the tips of the stakes, if you want it thicker & softer on the tip cut up some old clothes into small pieces & tape the cloth ball on the tip of the stake. now ,no more worries about poking your eye out & it only costed you about $5 ($10 for the really good ducttape)
 
yep hockey tape will work just as good, but I still think for the price & what you get for yardage of tape, ducttape would be a better option plus if you dont use it all it can then be used elsewhere.

as for wine corks, I dont know about that, if you used those on a metal stake thats about 1/8" if you fell on the cork it would be pushed down by your weight & the metal rod would push through the wine cork & into your body or eye. think about it, it'd be really easy to put a cork on a 1/8" metal rod so would you not think it'd be easy to have the metal rod push all the way through the cork if there was pressure pushing it down (that'd be you falling onto it)

I still think for this safety measure, some forum of cloth folded & placed on top of the tip of the stake & then taped (ducttape or hockey tape) would offer a safe solution.

I never gave any thought about this matter before, but with this thread it kinda makes you wonder if just a simple slip/trip (or ?) you could end up getting impaled. since I for one do have several potted plants close together w/ stakes for the plants.
I think for next season I might do this as a safety precaution. chilliman64 thank you for bringing this concern up


******add on*********************
potawie - those chile plants look great ;) what are they ? & what do you do with all those pods you get from the plants ? since you grow a bunch of plants & grow some pretty huge pod producing plants. just curious to know.
 
The one on the left is my mystery hab and on the right is a Chupetinha. I can only eat so many chupetinhas since they are very seedy but I have a friend who eats them by the handful. The habs and other hotties get dried, smoked, pickled, frozen, and made into sauces. I got a new smoker the other day so more chipotles on the way.:think:
 
A little late now but you can always use tomato cages I have one on a particularly taller plant which would have gone to the wayside if it were not there.
I think there is a smaller type available as well I needed the standard tomato cage
 
Staking/caging is a must here in the windy midwest where the winds ahead of a storm can flatten trees in seconds. Our potted chiles and tomatos get the round tomato cages and a few in the beds get the square ones, which can be stacked if the plant outgrows the cage. (grow up, not out)
We also tried this in a raised bed this year: plant chiles in straight rows, put in stakes every 4-6 feet or so, tie twine (like a clothesline) around both sides of plants as they grow up.
"Training up" the plants gave us 4 foot tall Sandias and Cherry Bombs that are producing like crazy, looks like grapevines.
Some people will use wooden tomato stakes and old panty hose (won't strangle the plants as they grow).
b
 
thepodpiper said:
Anything that will stick in the ground will work I had alot of arrows so in the ground they went





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Dale
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I sense another bowhunter like me. I use carbon arrows though. I wouldn't put those expensive things in the ground:lol::mouthonfire:. I used to have a ton of old aluminums. I through them out though. They were either bent or something else of that nature.
 
Staking/caging is a must here in the windy midwest where the winds ahead of a storm can flatten trees in seconds
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Well, it happened today, hellacious tornadic winds and pelting sideways rain ripped through here this afternoon, ripped branches offa trees, etc., but da chiles is fine! 2 top-heavy Scorps in pots got knocked over (they're ok), but the staking and cages held, only a few top branches and leaves lost. whew!
b
 
I know what i'm about to say might only pertain to some of you here, but if you grow alot of plants (chiles/tomatoes) & you like cages. to save some money & have cages that fit different sizes of plants.
you could go buy that concrete wire mesh & make your own cages at whatever size you need for certain plants also it has openings big enough to reach through to get the fruit.
 
go buy that concrete wire mesh & make your own cages at whatever size you need
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Now ya tell me!:lol:We're actually getting rid of most of the pots and therefore the round cages too, keep everything inside the beds. Might try it out next year on some okra, chiles, anything that climbs, etc. It looks so much easier to deal with and more can be added for extra late-season height.
:lol:
b
 
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