Hello, I'm new to the forum! I joined so that I could bounce ideas off people and get ideas/feedback while I grow this year. There a lot of knowledge here! Just about every time I google something about peppers a thread on this forum shows up.
This is my 4th year growing peppers and I thought I'd share some of my experiences for beginners who have no idea what they're doing right or wrong. Bottom line is that I don't think you'll ever know if you're doing things the correctly or "best" way, there are a million ways to grow peppers, and at the end of the day it's about enjoying the process and getting some fruit! As far as I'm concerned, if you are eating a pepper from your own plant, no matter how big, small, plentiful, or ugly it is, you've succeeded.
I love peppers. I love all types of gardening and plants, but in particular I love growing peppers. Four years ago when we moved into a house with a yard I decided to start a simple garden. I bought a couple of pepper plants from Lowes, I think they were Jalapeno and Banana, and put those suckers in the ground. The soil was nothing special, I had no idea what was grown there before, the garden was partially shaded during most of the day, and I got a late start planting them at the end of May. If you were to ask most people if that's a good way to grow peppers, they would probably say no. But sure enough, the hot Atlanta summer did it's work and by the end of July I was happily munching on my very own home grown peppers. I was hooked!
The next year I took it to the next level and started my own plants from seed. I bought several varieties from various stores, online retailers, etc., and even had some seeds I saved from a nice looking banana pepper I bought at the store. I rigged up a simple indoor grow box by attaching some fluorescent lights to a janky wooden frame and stringing it up over a plastic bin that I cut holes in. I bought some Miracle Gro potting soil at the store, filled up some solo cups with it, and planted my seeds. I figured the warmest place in my house was next to the water heater, so there the cups sat for a couple of weeks until they sprouted. After that they went in the grow box with the lights set on a timer. No fertilizer, no special soil mix, no fancy setup, and those suckers grew like crazy! I transplanted them the first weekend of May into a new raised bed that I made (one that got more sun and had better soil, with a bunch of perlite and pine bark mixed in) and had such a plentiful harvest that we had to dry all the peppers we couldn't eat!
Last year, following this great success, I attempted once again to start my peppers from seed. I figured that since they did so well starting in Miracle Gro potting soil, which everything I had read online warned against, the seed starting medium must not matter very much! I had some super cheap gardening soil laying around, mostly peat and bark, and I figured that would do the trick. I filled my solo cups once again, set them by the water heater, and waited. And waited. And waited. By the time the seeds started sprouting it was already almost April, and from there they just stunted and stopped growing with only two sets of leaves. My efforts were a failure. All of my grand plans went down the drain and I was reduced to buying my pepper seedlings from a nursery. While the whole experience was not ideal, it did teach me a valuable lesson that while seeds can be grown in just about any good soil, they definitely can't be grown in crappy soil. At the same time I also was able to discover a local nursery with an amazing selection and really knowledgeable people, and I got to try growing new varieties of peppers that I've never seen before. So I still ended up with a lot of great pepper plants last year, just none of my own unfortunately.
This year I'm back at it, starting about 20 plants the same way, next to the water heater, in 3oz plastic bathroom cups this time instead of big solo cups. Eventually I'll move them to solo cups, but I think it's better to start them in something smaller. I learned my lesson about soil, and am going with a 4/2/1 soil/vermiculite+perlite/sand mix to start them off (pasteurized in the oven as well). Maybe I'll stop by again and give the forum an update on how well they grow. Hopefully luck is on my side this year!
If not, I'll go back to the nursery and try to learn what I did wrong. I've seen peppers grow in some crazy ways, though. My buddy planted one of my extra seedlings in a simple clay pot and it grew almost as well as mine did in the garden. Last year one of my co-workers handed out a bunch of those "ghost peppers in a can" kits to everyone, where the seeds and soil (just vermiculite and styrofoam balls as far as I could tell) are all together in a soda can and all you're supposed to do is water it. I thought, "there's no way this could work", but sure enough my co-worker succeeded in growing a giant, ghost-pepper producing plant out of his can by just watering it and setting it in a south-facing window! Someone else I know grew an entire crop of super-hots indoors under grow lights, still living over a year later.
If you're new to growing peppers, just try a bunch of things and have fun with it. Buy them at the store, start them inside, in a window, outside, whatever you can think of! You'd be surprised how easy it can be. It can also be hard and you will probably kill a bunch of plants at some point. Just stay with it! If you don't want to spend money on seeds, and you don't plan on selling any of your crop, just save the seeds from the peppers you buy at the store. In my experience they produce the most peppers (since they are bred mainly to produce) and grow the fastest. The more you plant the better chance you have at success.
Cheers!
This is my 4th year growing peppers and I thought I'd share some of my experiences for beginners who have no idea what they're doing right or wrong. Bottom line is that I don't think you'll ever know if you're doing things the correctly or "best" way, there are a million ways to grow peppers, and at the end of the day it's about enjoying the process and getting some fruit! As far as I'm concerned, if you are eating a pepper from your own plant, no matter how big, small, plentiful, or ugly it is, you've succeeded.
I love peppers. I love all types of gardening and plants, but in particular I love growing peppers. Four years ago when we moved into a house with a yard I decided to start a simple garden. I bought a couple of pepper plants from Lowes, I think they were Jalapeno and Banana, and put those suckers in the ground. The soil was nothing special, I had no idea what was grown there before, the garden was partially shaded during most of the day, and I got a late start planting them at the end of May. If you were to ask most people if that's a good way to grow peppers, they would probably say no. But sure enough, the hot Atlanta summer did it's work and by the end of July I was happily munching on my very own home grown peppers. I was hooked!
The next year I took it to the next level and started my own plants from seed. I bought several varieties from various stores, online retailers, etc., and even had some seeds I saved from a nice looking banana pepper I bought at the store. I rigged up a simple indoor grow box by attaching some fluorescent lights to a janky wooden frame and stringing it up over a plastic bin that I cut holes in. I bought some Miracle Gro potting soil at the store, filled up some solo cups with it, and planted my seeds. I figured the warmest place in my house was next to the water heater, so there the cups sat for a couple of weeks until they sprouted. After that they went in the grow box with the lights set on a timer. No fertilizer, no special soil mix, no fancy setup, and those suckers grew like crazy! I transplanted them the first weekend of May into a new raised bed that I made (one that got more sun and had better soil, with a bunch of perlite and pine bark mixed in) and had such a plentiful harvest that we had to dry all the peppers we couldn't eat!
Last year, following this great success, I attempted once again to start my peppers from seed. I figured that since they did so well starting in Miracle Gro potting soil, which everything I had read online warned against, the seed starting medium must not matter very much! I had some super cheap gardening soil laying around, mostly peat and bark, and I figured that would do the trick. I filled my solo cups once again, set them by the water heater, and waited. And waited. And waited. By the time the seeds started sprouting it was already almost April, and from there they just stunted and stopped growing with only two sets of leaves. My efforts were a failure. All of my grand plans went down the drain and I was reduced to buying my pepper seedlings from a nursery. While the whole experience was not ideal, it did teach me a valuable lesson that while seeds can be grown in just about any good soil, they definitely can't be grown in crappy soil. At the same time I also was able to discover a local nursery with an amazing selection and really knowledgeable people, and I got to try growing new varieties of peppers that I've never seen before. So I still ended up with a lot of great pepper plants last year, just none of my own unfortunately.
This year I'm back at it, starting about 20 plants the same way, next to the water heater, in 3oz plastic bathroom cups this time instead of big solo cups. Eventually I'll move them to solo cups, but I think it's better to start them in something smaller. I learned my lesson about soil, and am going with a 4/2/1 soil/vermiculite+perlite/sand mix to start them off (pasteurized in the oven as well). Maybe I'll stop by again and give the forum an update on how well they grow. Hopefully luck is on my side this year!
If not, I'll go back to the nursery and try to learn what I did wrong. I've seen peppers grow in some crazy ways, though. My buddy planted one of my extra seedlings in a simple clay pot and it grew almost as well as mine did in the garden. Last year one of my co-workers handed out a bunch of those "ghost peppers in a can" kits to everyone, where the seeds and soil (just vermiculite and styrofoam balls as far as I could tell) are all together in a soda can and all you're supposed to do is water it. I thought, "there's no way this could work", but sure enough my co-worker succeeded in growing a giant, ghost-pepper producing plant out of his can by just watering it and setting it in a south-facing window! Someone else I know grew an entire crop of super-hots indoors under grow lights, still living over a year later.
If you're new to growing peppers, just try a bunch of things and have fun with it. Buy them at the store, start them inside, in a window, outside, whatever you can think of! You'd be surprised how easy it can be. It can also be hard and you will probably kill a bunch of plants at some point. Just stay with it! If you don't want to spend money on seeds, and you don't plan on selling any of your crop, just save the seeds from the peppers you buy at the store. In my experience they produce the most peppers (since they are bred mainly to produce) and grow the fastest. The more you plant the better chance you have at success.
Cheers!
