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Call it blasphemy but I am scaling down next season

Proud Marine Dad

Proud Marine Dad

Next year I am scaling down my pepper plants drastically. It's not worth it from what I get out of them. Going to concentrate my efforts on other plants that interest me more.
Maybe 6 or 8 peppers still though.
 
Proud Marine Dad said:
Next year I am scaling down my pepper plants drastically. It's not worth it from what I get out of them. Going to concentrate my efforts on other plants that interest me more.
Maybe 6 or 8 peppers still though.
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No offense, but I just have to howl at all the effort and $$ you've put in to using the most perfectly organic soil amendments while castigating others who don't follow suit,only to have poor harvests in the end.  Might as well smoke. 
 
I scaled back - from 48 plants to 40. Consider that I am the only one in my house who really eats them - that's a lot of plants for one person. I tried to cut back more, really I did, but you know, those jalapeno plants at Lowes were just calling my name. And the….. you get the idea. 
 
On a more serious note, you may have been over-attending them. Plants do require our attention, no doubt about it, but I seem to recall seeing you post quite a bit about fertilizers, amendments or such. Consider this - I live next door to a retired couple. They have raised beds in their back yard (no fence between us), plants in pots and plants in the ground in their front yard. They are out there, tending their garden, for hours every day. And yet, every year they express jealousy over my container garden as well as my front bed. Here we are, mid-September, and their raised beds are about done - what's left at this point is rather scraggly. My plants look like it's mid-summer, all bushy and green. How much attention do my plants get? I work full-time, until a year ago was also taking college classes, and I work out and such. I make sure the plants have sufficient water and are periodically fertilized, but I'm not out there every day. Heck, it may be a week, at times, between trips to check out my plants. The one exception is when we have excessive rain, at which I haul them into the garage (and then back out when the rain stops.) But, overall I spend way less time on my plants than my neighbors do - I tell anyone who will listen that God takes better care of my plants than I do. 
 
All this to say "don't give up." Over-attention can be corrected - if that's the root cause of your plants' low productivity, they will do better when you relax more about them.
 
Roguejim said:
No offense, but I just have to howl at all the effort and $$ you've put in to using the most perfectly organic soil amendments while castigating others who don't follow suit,only to have poor harvests in the end.  Might as well smoke. 
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I will smoke as the Cannabis is 65" tall. Can't wait to try 45-65 gallon pots.
And all that soil I mixed can be reused over and over. It only gets better with age.
It was the weather not the soil anyway as all the vegetables including zucchini didn't do that well.  :high:

geeme said:
I scaled back - from 48 plants to 40. Consider that I am the only one in my house who really eats them - that's a lot of plants for one person. I tried to cut back more, really I did, but you know, those jalapeno plants at Lowes were just calling my name. And the….. you get the idea. 
 
On a more serious note, you may have been over-attending them. Plants do require our attention, no doubt about it, but I seem to recall seeing you post quite a bit about fertilizers, amendments or such. Consider this - I live next door to a retired couple. They have raised beds in their back yard (no fence between us), plants in pots and plants in the ground in their front yard. They are out there, tending their garden, for hours every day. And yet, every year they express jealousy over my container garden as well as my front bed. Here we are, mid-September, and their raised beds are about done - what's left at this point is rather scraggly. My plants look like it's mid-summer, all bushy and green. How much attention do my plants get? I work full-time, until a year ago was also taking college classes, and I work out and such. I make sure the plants have sufficient water and are periodically fertilized, but I'm not out there every day. Heck, it may be a week, at times, between trips to check out my plants. The one exception is when we have excessive rain, at which I haul them into the garage (and then back out when the rain stops.) But, overall I spend way less time on my plants than my neighbors do - I tell anyone who will listen that God takes better care of my plants than I do. 
 
All this to say "don't give up." Over-attention can be corrected - if that's the root cause of your plants' low productivity, they will do better when you relax more about them.
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I'm not giving up Geme I just don't have an interest in that many peppers growing any longer. Like I said, I want to concentrate on plants I enjoy more.

HopsNBarley said:
Maybe try a better soil next year.
I till the dirt, plant the plants and add water.
It's crazy, I know... But in a few months I pick peppers.
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You are welcome to come and try and till my soil.
You better bring a Cat excavator! :rofl:
 
I can understand wanting to scale down some. I'm doing the same myself next year as far as varieties go. Will be focusing on more sweet-hot peppers rather than supers. And I understand your push this season for organics, as I've been trying to go that way myself. I (personally) can't see how using pot specific soils only that you'd expect great results from peppers. Aren't they 2 totally different growth habits?
 
MeatHead1313 said:
I can understand wanting to scale down some. I'm doing the same myself next year as far as varieties go. Will be focusing on more sweet-hot peppers rather than supers. And I understand your push this season for organics, as I've been trying to go that way myself. I (personally) can't see how using pot specific soils only that you'd expect great results from peppers. Aren't they 2 totally different growth habits?
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They grow pretty similar actually. I know a few people who use the same soil mix for both. That is why the ingredients I used are not specialized things and are useful on many plants....alfalfa, kelp meal, neem cake, rock dust, Tomato tone, all good amendments for most plants.
 
Me too, growing fewer but larger pot, larger plant peppers and more crop plants besides peppers.  There's no way I could limit it to 8 plants though, I have more bells and pimentos than that, never mind the hot peppers.  Then again those two varieties are easy to eat a lot of if you plan meals around them stuffed.
 
Last year (my first year) I had four plants from Lowe's, this year I still had those four plants plus two dozen plants started from seeds.  I officially have more pods than I know what to do with them!  The seeds I started this year were six different varieties, and I grew out anywhere from two to four of each variety.  Like you, I figured I'd slow my roll a little next year...but then I saw all the great offers for seeds on here and just couldn't say no lol!  I think next year I will still have close to the same number of plants, but much more variety (my grow list for next year has ten different peppers, not to mention X of the ten varieties I have going this year that I will OW).  On top of all that I may even grow some tomatoes and peas and beans and such...my parents are going to kill me!
 
^  Just be sure you grow a few things they like to eat.  Beans I never got into because they're dirt cheap dried or canned.
 
Me too scaling down. Sort of.... I mean, I will grow no more any pepper I already have this year in my garden. Well, excepting those I have for the first time, and have no pods yet, because late start. Why I do this? Because got many new seeds and I want to try these for 2015. If I think better, this means will have MORE plants. So, the scaling down is sort of... scaling up??? :dance:
 
Hmm.
Scaling down?
Me too.
Well, maybe you could call it that.
 
I would call it "growing smart".
 
I have spent a considerable amout of cash to grow peppers in an inhospitable climate, so doing it a bit different next year.
 
The sprouting will start in Feb., as usual----66 spots, but only the pick of the litter gets to go into 4 big hydro spots and a load of smaller pots (semi-bonchi).
 
Those in the pots and hydro this year get planted in dirt as yearlings next spring.
 
I seem to have much better results planting established plants in my short, violent growing season.
 
And, I'll have fresh peppers all winter. At least I'll have Jigsaws, SB7J's, Aji Pineapples,and BG7's in "regular" size, and a load of others in "small" size.
 
Not even sure of next season's picks yet, except I am going to get a Galapagoense to sprout if it kills me, and maybe some clones if the BG7 and SB7J have the right pheno.
 
I plan to both scale up and scale down in a sense.  I want to use up my my collection of seeds as some of them are getting old.  This means that I will be planting more seeds than usual (up to 12 seeds of each of the 72 varieties I have. Currently the number of seeds to be sown sits @ 724.)  In this sense I will be scaling up.  However, in order to conserve space and to have more managable plants by Spring, I am going to sow the seeds later than usual (March instead of January) and they will be sown into 72 cell trays for a total of 10 trays.)   Also, the seedlings will stay in their tiny cell until it is warm enough for them to permanently stay outside, when they will be transplanted into 3.5 inch pots (for a few weeks before going into the ground), which will expand the space the plants occupy to 20 trays if I keep roughly half of the seedlings (assuming 100% germination).  This season I ran two grows side-by-side.... one crop was sown in January--the other was sown in late Feb.  Here at the end of the season, the plants that were nearly sown in March are actually more robust than the older plants.  I think it has to do with the amount of time they are root-bound.  And on that note... I am only doing it this way because I want to grow out all of my varieties at once to collect new seeds and make interesting crossess.  Each plant will recieve minimal resources once they are transplanted into the ground.  If one seeks to grow the bigger, healthier, more robust, and prolifically fruiting plants... then downscaling is exactly what is prescribed, because it is easier to provide fewer plants with adequate resources in that situation.... including potting them up as they run out of root space.
 
unless I can rid my yard of the gophers I might have to scale down and only use portable pots/bags for my peppers next year.
 
Gophers and moles are a social problem.  In reality, it provides an excuse to sit out in a lawn chair with a cooler full of beer and a shovel   Suddenly I'm not that neighbor obsessed with plants any longer, I HAVE PURPOSE. 
 
LOL.
 
Seriously, 3 out of the last 3 moles I took out, came from just sitting around with a shovel till I saw an opportunity to catch them in the act.
 
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