Pepper N00B

[abulldog]

Ok here goes.

This year I decided to plant peppers in my garden. I found some at the local Home Depot. They ddin't have many left whenI got them but I took home what they had left. I was able to plant 2 Green Bell pepper plants, 2 Cayenne, 2 Jalopeno, 2 seranno chili, 2 Habaneros, 1 sweet bananna and 1 hot bananna. We planted them in our backyard garden along with yellow squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, watermelon, string beans, one stalk of corn and pumpkin. we tilled up about an 8ftx12ft section of our yard. We added about 5 bags of fresh garden soil (Miracle Grow brand) and some horse manure soil from my mother-in-law's house.

Now back to the peppers. The garden seems to be a little small for everything that we planted.

The yellow squash plants, cucumbers and pumpkin are growing like crazy. But my peppers are on the small side.

The Hot Bananna and Sweet Bananna seem to be doing well.

The cayennes are starting to ripen but the largest that i have picked so far has been only about 3 inches.

My 2 habanero plants are very short. not more than 15 inches tall. One of them is loaded with peppers the other only has about 3 or 4.

 

[abulldog]

My serrano's and Jalopenos are having the hardest time. The Yellow Squash plant in front of them is growing so big that the leaves keep blocking the plant.

Here is what I have picked so far. As you can see the Cayennes and jalopeno (which had fallen off the plant) are small.

Any ideas or suggestions will be warmly welcomed.

Thanks

 

[fineexampl]

my only suggestion would be to space the plants more. the viney plants are very intrusive. Being that you planted in a grassy area (that grass loves yer Miracle-Gro), you are kinda of sharing the nutrients with everything around the garden. You may have some weedy invaders stunting the growth is what i'm getting at.

Still, yours looks better than mine. Nice going.

 

[AlabamaJack]

great looking plants...If I had my plants in the ground, I would definitely weed the area around them....they are stealing your nutrients...

Not much you can do about the squash shading the Jap...unless you transplant the jap or trim the squash...

 

[willard3]

The other plants are stealing both the chile's nutrients and sun.

 

[915river]

Very nice only think next time plant the pepper far from rest of the plants & give the plants space so they can grow better that way they will give you better harvest.

 

[chilehunter]

ditto what everyone else said, weed the area & you planted to many plants too close to each other. other than that enjoy your harvest that you get from the garden this year & just plant the garden a little different next season or make the garden bigger.

BTW nice looking bulldog!

 

[abulldog]

Thanks for all the advice. I kinda figured everything else was stealing the nutrients from the peppers. I made it a point to go out and weed some this morning. I had to pull back the cucumber some it's tentacles were grabbing the Serrano plants.

Next year I think I am going to try and plant the peppers in pots. This way I can move them around the backyard. My wife already wants more string beans and squash next year so I think I am gonna be out of luck having room in there for peppers.

On the bright side the few small cayenne that I did pick didn't last long. I brought a few of them to my nieces birthday and between my mother and my friends they didn't stand a chance but they were very tasty.

 

[okie joe]

Yeppers I agree with the rest, you just have to pull up a few weeds and then stay with it. I think maybe next yrar you might be able to have a couple of trelis for the vine type plant to grow on that may give you more room Just keep at it

 

[mrmulcher]

my wife planted cumcumber seeds in my garden this year i told her if those plants get near my tomato or pepper plants they will be i trouble she just laughed well the other day i was out there and one of there many freaking runners attack a pepper plants so what did i do MACHETE took care of those vines i have since cut them back many times i told her a wabbitt was in the garden LOL she does not know and i will never tell dang things have put off enough cucumbers to feed the soliders in Iraq... i hate them they taste like ass to me, if ass taste like cucumbers.... but your plants seem to be getting all there nutrients taken away by the much bigger and dominate plants in your garden cut them back or move them some-how also it looks like you have alot of weeds in your garden area you might try pulling a few of them around your pepper plants i am not putting your garden down by any means just trying to give you some ideas...

 

[hixs]

Damn mulch,,,we have issues do we...hehehe damn wabbitt has some sharp claws!Happy foresting!

 

[hixs]

Damn mulch,,,we have issues do we...hehehe damn wabbitt has some sharp claws!Happy foresting!

 

[talas]

Damn fine garden there abulldog,just need to keep everything nicely seperated and keep those nutrient graping weeds out of your patch..nice start

 

[Chiliac]

I can only second what everybody else said, but the plants look very good and healthy despite their size and sport a lot of pods (especially for their size!).

 

[abulldog]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I cleaned up the weeds some especailly around the peppers. Alot of what looked like weeds in the 1st pic is actually my back lawn. The garden got so big I had to route some of the bigger plants out into the grass.

I picked the ripe cayennes and they are pretty hot even for their size. I picked the jalopeno and serrano that looked like they were ready. I read here something about "corking". I am assuming thats when they get light brown lines on their sides that look like cork. Those were the ones I picked. My habanero's havent began to change color yet. I bought them at Home Depot so I assume they are gonna turn orange. I was hoping one of them was ready today so I could give to my mother to see if she could handle them .
Anyway thanks again for the advice everyone.

Bull

 

[Skyjerk]

My habanero's havent began to change color yet. I bought them at Home Depot so I assume they are gonna turn orange. I was hoping one of them was ready today so I could give to my mother to see if she could handle them .

Word of warning. Habanero's seem to take a very long time to ripen after the pods reach full size. Its quite maddening.
The first of my Caribbean Red pods reached full size about 4 weeks ago and it just began to ripen a couple days ago.

Its a dark orange color now so still have a day or two to go...I'm quite excited actually

Be patient or you will end up snatching yourself bald.