This year I have 260 producing peppers and another 140 for sale plants. Outside of picking, I'm spending a good hour every day. I'm still doing everything manually. For me, watering is the most time consuming. For someone like you, I would set up some sort of automatic watering system, or if you don't want to get that set up, making automatic watering pots works really well. I'm using a wick in the pot, going into a reservoir type of set up. Nice to see you here! Tom
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How many plants can you manage?
- Thread starter Captdiamond
- Start date
This was my first year... I had 25 plants, most have been successful... the Serrano's produced like crazy... So did the Anaheim's (but not a very flavorful pepper... skin was hard too... not growing that again.
I had two plants that didn't produce any pepper the Ghost and the Guajillo. The Hot Portugal produced a beautiful pepper but only one. I just put down 25 starter pots of different varieties. I probably should've done that last month.
I had two plants that didn't produce any pepper the Ghost and the Guajillo. The Hot Portugal produced a beautiful pepper but only one. I just put down 25 starter pots of different varieties. I probably should've done that last month.
I average around 50 plants per year...I rotate new ones into the mix each year in an attempt to figure out which ones I really like, the ones that are ok, and the ones I do not enjoy. There are SOOOOOOO many varieties to try that I fear I may never get to the end state.
I try not to "over care" for them since most of the time peppers are pretty resilient and meddling just screws things up more.
I try not to "over care" for them since most of the time peppers are pretty resilient and meddling just screws things up more.
I think it really depends on your setup. If you can do raised beds or hills, have a lot of space, and can set up drip irrigation, I think 100-150 is reasonable as a hobby. If you're hand-watering and/or container growing without a drip system, I wouldn't go past about 50 for the time involved. I was doing about 30 plants in an indoor and balcony grow in 2012/2013 (containers, hand-watering). It was a LOT of work. After a break for a couple years, I am looking to go up to the 30-40 plant range again, but now I have outdoor space and am looking to build out a drip system; I think 30-40 will be a breeze with this setup.
I find that, like Maligator, I tend to 'over care' for my peppers and end up hurting them the more attention I give. My latest crop is what I consider 'fully neglected' as in: I didn't check on the pepper beds, weed them, or water them until we started hitting 85*F temps during the day. I weeded and mulched and I will pull off any yellowing leaves when I see them and I am harvesting peppers. I water about once a week or two even in 100*F temps, I just check the soil under the mulch and only water if it is pretty dry on top.
Maligator said:
I find that, like Maligator, I tend to 'over care' for my peppers and end up hurting them the more attention I give. My latest crop is what I consider 'fully neglected' as in: I didn't check on the pepper beds, weed them, or water them until we started hitting 85*F temps during the day. I weeded and mulched and I will pull off any yellowing leaves when I see them and I am harvesting peppers. I water about once a week or two even in 100*F temps, I just check the soil under the mulch and only water if it is pretty dry on top.
popeye304 said:
I missed your post the first time around. Congrats on a successful first year, but I think you should try the following:
1) Roast the anaheims on a grill, stove top, or in the oven until blackened and blistered
2) while still hot, place peppers into a bowl and cover with foil for a few minutes
3) Uncover peppers and slide the skin off
4) Make chiles rellenos (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/21148/chile-rellenos/)
5) Decide to grow anaheims again next year (or pasillas (chilaca), or poblanos)
Every time I think I have too much a little voice in my head says "just 1 more". 
Between weather and family emergencies this year I pretty much lost all 80+ of my peppers.
I still have a couple fataliis, choco habs, aji amarillo, peach habs but they barely survived and it shows.
I'm trying to be a little smarter this time around by using DIY self-watering buckets.
The plan I always start with is to begin with 10 each of whatever varieties I want in 1gallon pots and as they grow, pot up the best 5 of each into 5gallon containers.
My next round will be:
Aji amarillo
Bishops hat
Orange habanero
Red habanero
Chocolate habanero
Peach habanero
Yellow fatalii
White 7pod
Red naga brain
Orange scotch bonnet
Thats 100 starts which technically should drop down to 50 but there's always "1 more"
Between weather and family emergencies this year I pretty much lost all 80+ of my peppers.
I still have a couple fataliis, choco habs, aji amarillo, peach habs but they barely survived and it shows.
I'm trying to be a little smarter this time around by using DIY self-watering buckets.
The plan I always start with is to begin with 10 each of whatever varieties I want in 1gallon pots and as they grow, pot up the best 5 of each into 5gallon containers.
My next round will be:
Aji amarillo
Bishops hat
Orange habanero
Red habanero
Chocolate habanero
Peach habanero
Yellow fatalii
White 7pod
Red naga brain
Orange scotch bonnet
Thats 100 starts which technically should drop down to 50 but there's always "1 more"