POTAWIE: I have sort of noticed what you explained, how a plant has to be growing well to actually *want* the extra space. Some plants seemed to be happy to grow extra to take the extra space, while others were more hesitant. I guess maybe in my case there were just a few weaklings? Those same ones were kind of small in the first place, and I was wondering if they were stunted. If it wasn't so much extra trouble having to judge whether it needs something bigger or not and having to repeatedly pot-up and use more potting soil, it would definitely be something I would consider. I think for now though I'll just go the easy route and use one pot size for all (except the second-year overwintered ones)... it seemed to work adequately last year, IMO, it just later became obvious that the pots were too small. I might try gradual potting up on a few plants next year (or this year, if I get a few at local greenhouses) to see what happens.
megamoo: Nah, I did all the comparing between garden and pots last year, and pots it is. The garden was less maintenance (watering), while the pots were more healthy and easier to work with (though they required far more work and attention). The garden will be used for other things that make more sense to me, like pumpkins, watermelon, sunflowers and tomatoes. Bigger, more sprawling plants basically that need the extra room and sturdiness of the ground. The purpose of this thread is more to get ideas on how other container gardeners have got the best results, to get ideas on what would work well or not in terms of pot size, anchoring them down in the wind, fertilizing and maybe soil mixes.
Chili Monsta: Wow... those things are *huge*. Very nice looking plants. Looks like your cat likes them too.
mega: What's weird is that, although I didn't try growing any peppers in 12" or 14" pots yet, based on my experienced with the 9-10" pots, I was predicting those sizes to be about perfect for what I needed. I will probably still go for 12" though because, as you said, it would be a bit more compact and cheaper to fill with soil. On the other hand, a 14" pot might be less top-heavy by summer and slightly less likely to fall over. Unfortunately, I think it's best to side with cheapness instead of functionality here; I can't imagine it being that big of a difference. But one question though... what size seems to work best for C. chinense species? Just curious, as that is primarily what I will be growing. Currently, I only have plans to grow two jalapeno plants.
Thanks to everyone for the tips. Now, I just need to think about how I'm going to set my porch up, and hope that the plants grow big and tons of peppers, but not so big as to take up too much room later in the season. I'm thinking of getting a few cinderblocks and some long boards of wood (hopefully wide enough for two rows of plants throughout the season, but I'll see...) to act as tables and put plants all along the sides of the east section of the porch. I'm still considering whether I should use some sort of plastic as a windbreak and prevent rain storms from spreading disease, or if doing so would rob the plants of too much morning rays of sunlight (which is primarily what they will be receiving), or use rocks or sand to weigh the pots down. Man, so many things to consider.
With 30 plants (yes, it is a decent sized porch), I'm kind of wondering how it will turn out, but it does look like quite a few will fit if the other stuff is cleaned off the porch. If some plants cannot fit, I have a garden that I could use for backup, which will likely otherwise be used for pumpkins. If I had a picnic table or something, I could put it over (or beside) the garden and just put the pots on there, but I don't have one.
