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How many plants can you manage?

Captdiamond

Captdiamond

Hi Pepper People
 
This is my first topic I have made a post for. My question is how many plants do you grow? These plants all take time and special care to keep bugs off of them and keep them fed and happy. I caught pepper fever about a year ago and now have about 40 adults and another 25 smaller plants (about  6-14 inches).
I went out of town for a week and then again for a week and now im overwhelmed with pepper maintainance.
 
so...  how many plants can you effectively grow?
 
Thanks in advance for your insight
 
Jeremy
 
Hmmm, that's an interesting question. I'd say that by nothing other than sheer dumb luck, I ended planting a very manageable but still time-consuming number of plants this year. Between hot peppers, sweet peppers, tomatoes, and watermelons, I ended up with 52 total plants. But the management was made easy by a lot of nearly overwhelming ground work (see what I did there?).
 
I built raised beds and had a dump truck full of garden soil mix shipped to me from a local compost facility, and then filled said beds with said soil. I also covered the beds with weed barrier. All-in-all, it was a lot of money, blood, sweat, and tears upfront (especially when counting the investment in seed growing materials, lights, etc) - but now I have very little maintenance throughout the season, and the cost will basically be seeds and a few bags of compost next year.
 
So I'd say answers will depend on whether people are thinking overall work, or work throughout specific parts of the season.
 
Im thinking 15 plants would be a reasonable amount for me. Come home from work and go check them for 15 mins. Feed em on the weekends and check em for bugs.
 
Next season will be different.
 
I find if theirs no bugs/problems then its easy, if their are problems then thats were the time can be costly for a large number. I got 16 right now not including seedlings, should end up with just over twenty this year.
 
I imagine I can handle about 20 adult plants in my current situation (growing most of them away from where I live). I visit them twice/week and can have some form of automatic watering if the weather looks really hot.
 
It's currently more of a space management issue than an "ability" management issue. Just don't have much space to put large pots where they get good light. I'd probably estimate my hard limit being 40 plants requiring capsicum level of care.
 
automation and preventative maintenance go a long way.
i spend most time during transplant and cleanup.
the rest of the season i only spend maybe 2-4 hours a week on 200 plants.

watering, timer + drip system
feeding, injectors or slow release or soil maintenance in off season
weeding, ground cover
bugs, supporting / supplying natural predators

then there is extra stuff that you don't have to do like trellis, trimming / pruning / topping, foliar stuff, etc

then all you gotta do is set some time apart for harvesting when your peppers are actually ripe as that time is linear to the amount of plants you have.

so for a modern setup like mine i would say anyone could do 100+ plants easily.
i have contemplated going to ~1000 if i had the market. but then most of my time would be spent doing sales / marketing / delivery / packaging, not actual growing.
 
I've grown 100 plus a few years ago but now I try and stay around 2 dozen pepper plants. I also grow many other vegetables and fruit tree's as well. 
 
First year 6. Second year ~120. 3rd 15 favs but no pubes sadly. This year I only have a couple supers; sad days. But! I bought a property so I've sacrificed the gardening budget the last couple years in lieu of the new place and the mayhem about to ensue as I transform the yard. My home should be built by next year so I'm planning the yard for 40/yr but there will also be a full spread of veggies and herbs and fruit. Exciting times.
 
40 should do me. 10 jalaps for red rings which doesn't take much space. 5 aji pineapple and lemon for pickles. 7 pubescens for stuffing, a favourite dish. 15 chinense supers included. 3 new trys for various annuums, baccys, and fruts.
 
Really I'm capping at 40 with the anticipation of 50.
 
Management is enjoyable and cathartic for me, I love my time in the garden. That said, I will still be installing a drip system and if one of my pots is sick/buggy I usually put minimal effort into saving it....which may change when I have plant's that are a few years old.
 
 
 
Bottom line, figure out what you will actually use over a year and go from there. And go all out one year to figure out what you love and what are just mehs.
 
I have roughly 100 plants this year and will try to keep that as the average crop sizein the future, but I have grown as many as 350 in "15".
 
Here in South Hell Arizona, watering the damn things is a non-trivial undertaking.  I don't have a fenced yard, so much grow in tabletop containers, lest the javelina devour my plants. This means that each large plant needs watering every day.  The smaller ones can usually go two days.  With about 50 plants (I do hope to sell some of the damn things when they start bearing fruit) and it takes ~10 minutes to do them all. The 9 big, over-wintered guys are on a drip system that saves me hauling umpteen gallons back and forth. 
 
During spring and fall, I greatly enjoy pottering about and fiddling with the plants.  But when it's 1xx degrees outside, having anything to do with the peppers becomes a chore, particularly when you have to do it day after day after day....   I suppose I could 'do' about 30 full sized plants before I got real sick of it all.
 
 
 
I have 140 this year, was able to manage 200. But it does take time. Gets easier I think every year because of the lessons learned the previous year. I'm on my 10th year of peppers now with 40 varieties going.  
 
I have done about 40-50 in the past. This year I almost have 30. I'm less worried about caring for them (sometimes I spare no expense in giving them too much kindness) than I am about hitting the sweet - er, hot - spot for how many peppers will get me through the lean times of winter. It also depends on what else I'm planting in-ground. I have a pot problem, though - I have about 100-150 pots growing something: peppers, figs, herbs, eggplant...
 
I am a full time organic farmer.  This year, focused completely on peppers so it is a bunch.  Being in ground organic, most of my time is spent weeding and mulching.  What someone said about modern methods is dead on.  Growing in containers with sterile potting soil, drip irrigation, plastic over the ground and so on can let you grow huge amounts with much less effort.  Since I am at about my limit now but want to stay organic, am looking into aquaponics to expand.  Its all in how you grow that determans how much you can grow.
 
I have typically had between 30-50 plants for the last 8 seasons.  Last year I moved and bumped that up to 75.  This season I did a lot of work in the preseason and built 2 more raised beds and have 141 plants in the ground, another 24 in fabric pots and another 7 inside in Kratky containers.  It is a lot of work and I will get back down to a more manageable amount next season, maybe 100 max. This season I expanded as my hot sauce has gained some local fans and I wanted to explore other varieties that I am unfamiliar with.  
 
220 plants this year, planting in Spring was a lot of work but after the initial plant out its generally smooth sailing.  Maybe 30-60minutes a day on maintenance.   I find it relaxing taking care of the plants, and I get a real kick and overall excitment when they start to flower and set fruit.  The whole process from seedling to 40" high plants just generally makes me happy. 
 
I get an even bigger kick when I have guests over and they do a walk through of my pepper garden and that look of both awe and wondering if I am touched in the head,  lol  I also send them on there way with fresh cukes, tomato's, hot peppers, and fresh herbs if they want.
 
 
cheers
 
 
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