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10x4

I'm building a raised bed this winter: 10' x 4' x 28". How many pepper plants can I put in there? I have more seeds than I can grow right now.

List of my seeds:

Aribibi gusano
White bullet
Peruvian white
White bhut
Large White Hab
Poblano
Relleno hybrid
Guajillo
Pasilla
Jalapeno
Aji Lemon
Fatalii
Scarlet Lantern
Mustard Hab
Red Hab
Carribean Red
Yellow Devil's Tongue
Black Cobra-likely not viable; most are old, dry, and cracked
Kempsey Red
Takanotsume
Scotch Bonnet
Some pepper from the Supermarket called "Japanese hot chili"
2 C. pubescens seeds from a variety pack
 
You could probably get away with 5 rows of 3 plants, so 15 in total:
In the 10' length you would put the first plant 1' off the edge, then space them at 2' from eachother.
In the 4' length you would put the first plant 8" off the edge, then space them 16" from eachother.
getting to the middle plants could be difficult, but if you arent too large and a farily sure-footed you shouldnt have a problem.
 
Hey Steiner,
Looking at your list you do have a few plants which stay somewhat small 3ft or less....that's a good sign.
If you had the extra room (in ground) with no limitation on space you'd plant 2ft apart with wide rows. But in your case
you can sacrifice a bit by tighter spacing,. I'd recommend this type of spacing within your perameters.

7 Plants along the edge, 6 Plants staggered in the middle, and 7 Plants along the other edge.

Sure it looks tight and you'll give up a bit of your harvest, by lack of overall size of your plants. But if you can stake and prune you'll be fine. Tighter spacing also helps prevent sunscald , you just need enough full sun and air circulation to make it work. I also have an area that I use raised beds in. Mine are built from 2 x 12 cedar, doubled.....24" tall , 4ft wide x 12ft long.
Just a word of advice, be careful what type of wood product you use with your edibles. Treated pine nowadays is claimed to be safe to use around veg gardening and over hanging pool deck material.... :( ....I still wouldn't trust it for my me or my family.....ok for flower beds...

just my opinion,

Greg
 
Great grow list! Interesting and heat levels across the board.

The plants will probably adjust themselves to fit whether it be 15 or 20 plants. If you like the variety, go for 20 !

Just a side bar note, our weather in Boise is fairly similar to yours and they are projecting another damn La Nina winter. If it holds true, this means an extended cold Spring around these parts, not good for early pepper plant out. If you haven't done so, you might consider a row cover assembly to add as you construct: sunset mag bed

It should extend your season a couple of weeks on both ends, and easily removed when not needed. It really adds some function to the bed. Please disregard if already done.

Anyway, good luck.... :cool:
 
I haven't built it yet, & I've seen that PVC thing before. What do you drape over the top & how do you keep it from blowing away?
 
Nothing special, I used some drop cloth plastic doubled up, but I think there's better products out there. Some the hoop house guys talked about a double layer material with an air space on their big houses, might be worth checking on.

While no guarantee against frost, it appears to run at least 10-degrees warmer inside during the day. Should spur growth a bit on marginal Spring days.

bed%252520hoops%252520004.jpg



I use some spring clamps big enough to clamp the 1/2 pvc. Kind of ghetto, but holds up well. I scrunched up the excess plastic at the bottom and put some tape on the clamps to resist punctures. For your 10-ft bed, I recco at least 3 sets of hoops, and put them closer to the ends.

bed%252520hoops%252520002.jpg


Getting back to spacing your peppers, another reason to go tight is with your single bed, you won't have adjacent neighboring plants competing. The plants on the edge should benefit.

In my garden last year I went really tight and also deliberately shaded the peppers with companion plants to combat the full sun. Turned out to be a bad move with the continued La Nina weather. Plants could have used all the sun possible being so mild here.

Good luck.... :cool:
 
Nothing special, I used some drop cloth plastic doubled up, but I think there's better products out there. Some the hoop house guys talked about a double layer material with an air space on their big houses, might be worth checking on.

While no guarantee against frost, it appears to run at least 10-degrees warmer inside during the day. Should spur growth a bit on marginal Spring days.

bed%252520hoops%252520004.jpg



I use some spring clamps big enough to clamp the 1/2 pvc. Kind of ghetto, but holds up well. I scrunched up the excess plastic at the bottom and put some tape on the clamps to resist punctures. For your 10-ft bed, I recco at least 3 sets of hoops, and put them closer to the ends.

bed%252520hoops%252520002.jpg


Getting back to spacing your peppers, another reason to go tight is with your single bed, you won't have adjacent neighboring plants competing. The plants on the edge should benefit.

In my garden last year I went really tight and also deliberately shaded the peppers with companion plants to combat the full sun. Turned out to be a bad move with the continued La Nina weather. Plants could have used all the sun possible being so mild here.

Good luck.... :cool:


Nice set-up,
Our carpenters at work use fiber embedded 20 mil visqueen on the high rise construction projects. I've used it to protect my plants during the cold,rainey springtime weather. Its very durable, You need a sharp utility knife to cut it. I also use grip clamps...

Greg
 
... Our carpenters at work use fiber embedded 20 mil visqueen on the high rise construction projects. I've used it to protect my plants during the cold,rainey springtime weather. Its very durable, You need a sharp utility knife to cut it....
That sounds pretty stout and better than my fly-by-night outfit!

Here's another possiblity used by Tonly on his big hoop house: Greenhouse film He has two separate layers with an inflator to pressurize it, so the double layer method I was thinking of is not one product.

Anyway, even a single layer would be an improvement for me.
 





I built one of those Cloche things for my raised bed. It's probably more of a greenhouse because the PVC frame and plastic are going to be pretty permanent. I still have to finish it, that's what the lumber sitting in the middle is for, but we just got a bunch of snow and I'm going to have to wait for it to melt before I finish it.
 
Steiner, good follow up on building the cloche! It's a versatile structure, can be shaped to suit any space. I'm thinking of spanning two rows of framed raised beds similar to the one bed I posted above. Do you plan to have 'roll-up' plastic on both sides in the event of a wind storm, or is that not a problem in that spot?

Funny, when AJ posted his 'Conestoga wagon' frame on his glog, I was thinking about your link to the cloche structure and the similarities. Very cool... :cool:
 
It'll have roll up sides, I thought they were just to access the plants for harvesting and stuff, but now that you mentioned it, I'll be sure to raise them up for wind storms too. We keep getting more snow so my construction is on hiatus.
 
I'm almost done building the greenhouse/cloche. Now all I have to do is get a ton of soil and grow some peppers in it.

IMG_0224.jpg


IMG_0225.jpg
 
Siliman: thanks for the tip on the wind. Got windy today right after I completed construction so the sides came up. Everything's still together
 
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