So, I am not a grower of peppers beyond the three potted plants on my porch. But I AM a breeder of insects.
To grow my insects I grow a greenhouse full of plants of different species. If I get a heavy load of pests, such as thrips and flies, my plants, which are not self pollinators, produce healthy seeds.
However, keeping a thriving population of pests can, well, suck.
So. What about intentionally stocking pollinating insects?? The Australians do it with their native sting-less bees and have good results. You can also use flies, which are super cheap and easy and my first choice for the beginner!! They are sold by scientific supply companies, preying mantis breeders, etc etc. Wards scientific or Carolina biological supply are good go-tos. Flies can be bought as a plastic cup of pupae, and as long as you don't have rotting stuff for them to lay eggs in, they'll die out in a couple weeks. Flies will need a dish with sugar water and paper towel (so they can't drown in it) to get the maximum out of them so they don't die while they figure out how to feed from flower nectar. You can buy all kinds of flies, too, depending on how small they need to be to get into a flower.
Moths can be small and cheap, but since they are night active there's a good chance your daytime flowers will not be at their peak when the moths are let out.
I primarily breed butterflies. If only for the sheer fun of it, buying a few hundred butterfly eggs is inexpensive and for the week or two of their adult life you get a wonderful show in your greenhouse. (Captive bred butterflies tend to be short lived species such as cabbage whites and painted ladies, The max ever for a painted lady in my care was 4 months, typically 1.5 weeks, but if well cared for about half will make it to 2 weeks and then a third to three.) The temperature determines how fast they grow. So if you grow some in your green house and some at room temp in your house, and some in your cool basement man-cave, you'll have a steady stream of butterflies for three weeks from one batch of eggs. Give them light from a lamp most of the day (14Hrs a day is good) to prevent them from trying to think it's winter, there's no sun. and they should go to sleep (diapause) for a few months, Painted ladys don't diapause but many other species do.
What you do is buy a vial of cabbage white eggs, or a strip depending on how they sell them. Don't buy from a breeder who sells 15 eggs for a dollar each -- a single butterfly can produce a hundred eggs, they are ripping you off. Then, buy a bag of Stonefly diet from Ward's scientific supply company. When you get the bag, pour some into jar and stick the rest in the freezer so it doesn't go bad.
So your butterflies turn out normal, steal some broccoli leaves from the broccoli heads at the supermarket. Rub them with your fingers under flowing water to get rid of surface pesticides. Put them in a jar of cold water and store them in the fridge. Make up the diet from the jar with water and vinegar like it says on the bag. Press a ball of the diet the size of a shooter marble on the side of a plastic cup with a plastic lid, like solo brand cups and let it dry out for a couple hours before putting the lid on. You can also rubber band a piece of tissue paper over the cup. The diet may dry out and need replacing, but it will never get moldy that way. You can use fast food cups that you rinse out, like tiny yogurt parfaits from subway. For each parfait cup place 8-15 eggs, (So 10 cups for a hundred butterflies. Expect some escapees and non-hatches.) Let the eggs hatch and the caterpillars will climb up toward light. Let them eat the diet and grow a bit. They will shed their skins and poof up in size every few days. Once they've shed, give them pieces of broccoli leaf from your stash, on the bottom of the cup AWAY from the diet. The leaf pieces are small so they dry out to hay instead of getting moldy. The caterpillars need the dark green leaves for normal vision and better growth. When the diet on the side of the cup turns brown or cracks from drying out, shake out the caterpillars onto a plate, rinse the cup, and add new diet that's been give a couple hour to dry on the counter before adding.
It's about an hour of work every three days. The butterflies will turn into pupae in the cup. Then, pull off the lid and they'll fly out when they are ready.
Peppers are in
Solanaceae, so the tobacco and tomato moths will try to lay eggs on them and probably you will get a caterpillar infestation. These moths are HUGE, widely available through scientific supply companies, and a HOOT to watch because they feed while flying at night, then visit you and have giant three inch tongues for probing flowers or in your ear. But, they are slow to grow and will have difficulty thriving on flowers that don't have pockets of nectar at then end of long tubes. However, since they're large, growing say, 10 tobacco horn worm moths will get you a lot of pollinator activity as their tongues explore every flower. You can buy them as food for frogs and other exotic pets, or from scientific supply companies These guys can go from a month lifecycle to five months if they don't get enough daylight. A short daylight cycle makes them stay as diapaused as a pupae for a long time.
ANYWAY. I have been using bugs for all kinds of stuff and it can be as easy as buying a pupae cup and letting the adults loose until they die a couple weeks later, or as complex as rearing insects for multiple months (large mantises take a LONG time to get to full size!)
