Siv
Extreme Member
This will be my first time seriously growing peppers so I need lots of advice! I have an metal fenced in lot in my garden which I plan on using since the fence will keep the deer away. Since we're in a semi-rural area and my house is in the open, there are plenty of other critters around - possums, rabbits, coyotes, feral pigs etc. The fence will keep the large animals out but won't stop smaller ones like these guys:
Do you think the bunnies will come seek out my peppers near the house or will they be happy with the loads of other vegetation in the surrounds? Will elevating my plants help? How high is safe?
Another thing I need to decide on is how to plant them. I'm thinking of making two or three 2' x 4' raised beds since I don't want to fill the whole space with them. I'll have several plants (12 varieties and 4 to 5 of each) so I was toying with the idea of doing one of each variety in raised beds, 7 gal grow bags and 5 gallon buckets, all with soil and periodic fertilization. I'll use a drip irrigation system for all as I've used water timers before and am comfortable with the setup. We're on a well so hose the water is generally cool.
I would like to try hydro but I don't think I'm experienced enough and it's likely we'll be away for an extended period of time in summer so may not be able to tend to it. We get occasional heavy rains so preventing dilution will be a problem and also it gets very hot (100F+) so drying out and too hot water may also be an issue. I may do some Kratky totes on the patio under some cover as an experiment.
Fundamentally, I'm not good at doing things regularly like watering etc so I would like to automate that. I'd be happy putting in a lot of effort at the start to set things up but I'd like it to tick over after that with minimal effort. So building raised beds etc will be fine provided that once I have the drip irrigation setup I don't have to keep messing with it.
So what do you advise? Bed/bucket/bag too complex or sensible redundancy? Would a self watering bucket be better? Maybe one set of buckets with soil and one set double bucket self watering? I've not idea which would be better...
Do you think the bunnies will come seek out my peppers near the house or will they be happy with the loads of other vegetation in the surrounds? Will elevating my plants help? How high is safe?
Another thing I need to decide on is how to plant them. I'm thinking of making two or three 2' x 4' raised beds since I don't want to fill the whole space with them. I'll have several plants (12 varieties and 4 to 5 of each) so I was toying with the idea of doing one of each variety in raised beds, 7 gal grow bags and 5 gallon buckets, all with soil and periodic fertilization. I'll use a drip irrigation system for all as I've used water timers before and am comfortable with the setup. We're on a well so hose the water is generally cool.
I would like to try hydro but I don't think I'm experienced enough and it's likely we'll be away for an extended period of time in summer so may not be able to tend to it. We get occasional heavy rains so preventing dilution will be a problem and also it gets very hot (100F+) so drying out and too hot water may also be an issue. I may do some Kratky totes on the patio under some cover as an experiment.
Fundamentally, I'm not good at doing things regularly like watering etc so I would like to automate that. I'd be happy putting in a lot of effort at the start to set things up but I'd like it to tick over after that with minimal effort. So building raised beds etc will be fine provided that once I have the drip irrigation setup I don't have to keep messing with it.
So what do you advise? Bed/bucket/bag too complex or sensible redundancy? Would a self watering bucket be better? Maybe one set of buckets with soil and one set double bucket self watering? I've not idea which would be better...