My seedlings are all 2-4" tall and have 1-3 sets of real leaves. I have left them outside for the past month and temps have been between 30's and 80's with a little heavy rain. They don't seem to be growing much (at all), but they are very green and don't seem to have any problems. Are my peppers going to grow up to be hella real or am is this going to hinder their future growth?
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Hardcore weather= hardcore peppers?
- Thread starter adnewr
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Seedlings often seem to stall out at some point, but usually what is happening is they're working on root formation rather than foilage formation. However, yes, cold temps will slow down growth. As long as you don't kill them in the process, they'll kick into gear once the weather is more consistently warmer.
I've always heard that the more extreme the temps and the less water they get will make for hotter peppers. To a point. You can't let it kill them obviously.
Pepperjack91 said:
Bingo.... it stresses them. Hotter temperatures and less water will make the peppers hotter, even if just slightly. Colder temperatures, not so much.... I don't think so, anyway. Cold will just slow the growth. As long as you aren't getting all-nighters below freezing, you should be okay. As far as the lush green goes, it just goes to show how much plants appreciate a good rain watering. My plants always look so much better after a good rain. If you have rather hot soil (nutrient rich), that will add to the vibrant appearance of the plants.
BTW.... beware extreme thunderstorms. My plants are in my small courtyard that's closed in on all sides by brick and/or 6' privacy fence.... the wind swirls around back there so much, it snapped my Naga plant in half the year before last.
Last year I planted over 120 outdoor ultrahots. Due to time constraints I did them in two batches - first half of the garden went in about 3 weeks before the second half of the garden. I mixed the cultivars up so that I had an equal representation of each on each half of the plot (I always try to divide them up somehow to stave off disaster wiping out an entire species..)
The first batch that went out had to get covered a couple of times due to frost warnings - plants were 12-16" tall at that point and I just used mop buckets / 5 gallon buckets / large pots / etc (anything I could find!)
The second batch went out mid-may and never experienced a single frigid night, or cold soil.
The first half of the garden (planted early) was stunted and didn't produce much - the second half of the garden grew plants 2x as large and produced massively. Watering, fertilizer, sunlight, spacing, all the same.
I'll nurture my pepper plants indoors longer this year and only put them out when I know soil temps are going to be high enough, to avoid repeating the mistake from last year.
By July 8th the second batch I'd planted were noticeably larger than the first batch, even though they'd been living in 3" paper cups indoors for 3 weeks longer.
(red is early plants, right is later planting; only pic I have of the thing and it's a little hard to tell. Eventually the ones in the green grew to over 5' tall, the ones in the red, only 2.5-3' tall)
The first batch that went out had to get covered a couple of times due to frost warnings - plants were 12-16" tall at that point and I just used mop buckets / 5 gallon buckets / large pots / etc (anything I could find!)
The second batch went out mid-may and never experienced a single frigid night, or cold soil.
The first half of the garden (planted early) was stunted and didn't produce much - the second half of the garden grew plants 2x as large and produced massively. Watering, fertilizer, sunlight, spacing, all the same.
I'll nurture my pepper plants indoors longer this year and only put them out when I know soil temps are going to be high enough, to avoid repeating the mistake from last year.
By July 8th the second batch I'd planted were noticeably larger than the first batch, even though they'd been living in 3" paper cups indoors for 3 weeks longer.
(red is early plants, right is later planting; only pic I have of the thing and it's a little hard to tell. Eventually the ones in the green grew to over 5' tall, the ones in the red, only 2.5-3' tall)
How cold did it end up getting when you had the early plants outside?TrentL said:Last year I planted over 120 outdoor ultrahots. Due to time constraints I did them in two batches - first half of the garden went in about 3 weeks before the second half of the garden. I mixed the cultivars up so that I had an equal representation of each on each half of the plot (I always try to divide them up somehow to stave off disaster wiping out an entire species..)
The first batch that went out had to get covered a couple of times due to frost warnings - plants were 12-16" tall at that point and I just used mop buckets / 5 gallon buckets / large pots / etc (anything I could find!)
The second batch went out mid-may and never experienced a single frigid night, or cold soil.
The first half of the garden (planted early) was stunted and didn't produce much - the second half of the garden grew plants 2x as large and produced massively. Watering, fertilizer, sunlight, spacing, all the same.
I'll nurture my pepper plants indoors longer this year and only put them out when I know soil temps are going to be high enough, to avoid repeating the mistake from last year.
By July 8th the second batch I'd planted were noticeably larger than the first batch, even though they'd been living in 3" paper cups indoors for 3 weeks longer.
(red is early plants, right is later planting; only pic I have of the thing and it's a little hard to tell. Eventually the ones in the green grew to over 5' tall, the ones in the red, only 2.5-3' tall)
Yeah I think part of the issue was cold soil temps - 50's and 60's for the first few weeks, combined with the leaf drop - without photosynthesis it can't grow. I lost most of the shade leaves almost immediately, which normally isn't a big deal. That opens up the stalk to light and causes nodes to pop new growth. But the new growth that formed was all twisted and wrong.
Later on in the year, when maintaining the garden or harvesting, branches would snap off FAR too easily; just by pulling at a pod, would lose an entire branch... The other half of the garden I could literally wade through without breaking stuff.
I'm also fairly sure I had weak root systems on those early plants - some thunderstorms and LOTS of heavy rain knocked over those plants early on, and continually through the year I was staking more, and more of them. By the end of the summer I had 22 plants on that side of the garden staked - zero plants on the other half needed staking.
So the difference was PROFOUND on plant health.
Oddly enough the production was pretty good on most of the ultra-hots.
By the very end of the year I had a pretty good harvest off the "early" side of the garden. They took longer to mature but in the end I pulled several hundred pods off that side of the garden, big, and HOT.
The other side of the garden I had two substantial harvests off of though, and the pods were (on average) larger.
Found another pic which shows the difference.
This is from last July, I still had about 30-40 ultrahots in 6" pots for sale.
Notice all the stakes in the garden behind them on the left?? And the difference in growth as you go to the later planted side on the right??
ONLY difference was WHEN I planted them.
This year I'm waiting for soil temps to hit 70F before I put them in the ground.
Later on in the year, when maintaining the garden or harvesting, branches would snap off FAR too easily; just by pulling at a pod, would lose an entire branch... The other half of the garden I could literally wade through without breaking stuff.
I'm also fairly sure I had weak root systems on those early plants - some thunderstorms and LOTS of heavy rain knocked over those plants early on, and continually through the year I was staking more, and more of them. By the end of the summer I had 22 plants on that side of the garden staked - zero plants on the other half needed staking.
So the difference was PROFOUND on plant health.
Oddly enough the production was pretty good on most of the ultra-hots.
By the very end of the year I had a pretty good harvest off the "early" side of the garden. They took longer to mature but in the end I pulled several hundred pods off that side of the garden, big, and HOT.
The other side of the garden I had two substantial harvests off of though, and the pods were (on average) larger.
Found another pic which shows the difference.
This is from last July, I still had about 30-40 ultrahots in 6" pots for sale.
Notice all the stakes in the garden behind them on the left?? And the difference in growth as you go to the later planted side on the right??
ONLY difference was WHEN I planted them.
This year I'm waiting for soil temps to hit 70F before I put them in the ground.
Are those potted peppers the ones you are just bringing outdoors?TrentL said:Yeah I think part of the issue was cold soil temps - 50's and 60's for the first few weeks, combined with the leaf drop - without photosynthesis it can't grow. I lost most of the shade leaves almost immediately, which normally isn't a big deal. That opens up the stalk to light and causes nodes to pop new growth. But the new growth that formed was all twisted and wrong.
Later on in the year, when maintaining the garden or harvesting, branches would snap off FAR too easily; just by pulling at a pod, would lose an entire branch... The other half of the garden I could literally wade through without breaking stuff.
I'm also fairly sure I had weak root systems on those early plants - some thunderstorms and LOTS of heavy rain knocked over those plants early on, and continually through the year I was staking more, and more of them. By the end of the summer I had 22 plants on that side of the garden staked - zero plants on the other half needed staking.
So the difference was PROFOUND on plant health.
Oddly enough the production was pretty good on most of the ultra-hots.
By the very end of the year I had a pretty good harvest off the "early" side of the garden. They took longer to mature but in the end I pulled several hundred pods off that side of the garden, big, and HOT.
The other side of the garden I had two substantial harvests off of though, and the pods were (on average) larger.
Found another pic which shows the difference.
This is from last July, I still had about 30-40 ultrahots in 6" pots for sale.
Notice all the stakes in the garden behind them on the left?? And the difference in growth as you go to the later planted side on the right??
ONLY difference was WHEN I planted them.
This year I'm waiting for soil temps to hit 70F before I put them in the ground.
adnewr said:
No, those were leftovers. I had them parked in the shade under the lilac tree.
I sold a few, but the rest ended up living underneath the lilac bush all summer (to the left in that picture). I kept them alive in those 6" pots until the end of the growing season, then transplanted them and brought them in as my overwinters.
Went through 36 cubic feet of potting soil in the process. Managed to keep all but 3 alive over the winter; so I'll have a heck of a head start this spring.
By the end of the summer they were somewhat decent sized (transplanted the healthiest ones in to 12-15" pots here).
Had to really watch them though, they were rootbound and needed constant fertilizer to keep them alive all summer in those little pots.
Interesting stuff, especially with the predicted last frost for my area being closer to May 15th than April 15th this year.