Planting in pots

[gvittman]

I have a question for those guy that grow their peppers in pots, and the question is, what pot size do you standardly use, and how many plants do you put per pot?

I plant them both in solid ground and in pots, and I have never asked myself any questions, have never seen any problems, but from last year, I had a Bhut Jolokia that grew a whole 5 inches tall. Why I don't know, but before Winter I took the plant inside. I was planning to trash it, but when I took the pot off I was very surprised to see that the 12 inch pot was crowded with roots. So, I took the majority of roots off and repotted it in a peatmoss/perlite mix. The plant picked up growing immediately and has now, after 2 weeks, already reached about 8 inches.

 

[logchief]

I use recycled 5 gal. pots I pick up cheap from the nurserys. Most of the folks I've seen here do about the same, with some variations of course

 

[AlabamaJack]

ditto what lc does...but I have to buy mine...hard to ask a nursery for 100 free 5 gallon heavy duty containers...

I plant one plant per pot...period...will be going to 10 gallon pots for some overwintered Scorpions...the big chinense (TS, Bhut, 7 Pot) get 6' tall in the 5 gallon containers...

 

[patrick]

I consider a five gallon pot the minimum size and I prefer nothing smaller than a seven gallon. The larger the pot the better chance you have of growing a larger plant. There are always exceptions though.

 

[POTAWIE]

It all depends on when you start the plants and how well they grow. C. chinenses that I start good and early usually end up in 6 or 10+ gallon containers but some later started and slower growing ones only need 3 gallon pots. Personally I find it best to pot up incrementally as needed, although I realize not everyone has tonnes of different pots to work with

 

[buddy]

i use either 5 gallon pots/buckets or homemade grow boxes for the larger chinense (plant 2-3 in the growboxes). smaller pots (3 gallon) for the smaller varieties. 1 plant per pot/bucket.

 

[gvittman]

Wow, I am impressed with the size of pots you guys use. I use about 3 gallons, and depending on the peper I often put 3 peer pot. and at the end of season, I have never seen that the roots were crowded. And, the harvest has always been excellent. When putting mutiple plants per pot, I do feed them with a liquid fertilizer once a week. 6-6-6 during the growing season, and 4-8-8 when flowers appear.
Well, I think that this year I will do a test. One pepper in a 3 gallon pot and one of the same type in a 5 gallon one. I am interested to know what the difference will be.
For the plants that I put in solidd ground, I do see a big difference. They get twice the size, and carry many more pods. Question is however, is it the bigger space, the quality of the soil, or the pretty constant soil temperature compared to pots, which is doing this.