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Question about pots size in relationship with season duration and transplant strategy

R

rick_bender

Hi guys,
 
I'm wondering what pot size I sould use for my pepper season. I leave in south west of France.
 
Typically, summers are quite hot here : many weeks from 86°F to 100 or even 102 spikes, peppers here can produce until mid november (full potential until october, but some still ripen in november). I have a good exposure on my balcony (actually sometimes the sun can bake my plants if I do not shade them) and a diverse range of pots : right now my peppers are in 3gal fabric pots.
I have also 7 and 12 gallon pots that I do not use atm. I'd really like to have the biggest plants i can but I don't want to waste soilmix by planting in pots that would be too big for my season.
 
So my question here would be : what do you guys recommend for transplanting strategy ? Should i gradually up to 12 gallon or is my season too short for that ?
 
Also, is it really beneficial to gradually increase the pot size or is it the same to jump from small to big pots ?
 
I hope this is not a redundant question...I made a research in the forum but didn't find any satisfying information. Thanks !
 
i'm surprised you're using gallons being in france :P 
 
i would advise to keep them in a variety of pots this year so you have experience in each one for your setup. 
 
your season is pretty average. i wouldn't worry about having time.
that is if you started your plants indoors early?
 
i have not noticied a need to go gradually. i go from 1L to 100L pots without issue.
 
Hi Juanitos ! Yeah I'm kinda used to discuss gardening and all on 420 forums and reddit so I gave up on liters and celsius degrees lol...
 
 
juanitos said:
that is if you started your plants indoors early?
 
Click to expand...
 
Actually yes I forgot to tell that I started the plants indoors a month ago.
 
 
juanitos said:
i have not noticied a need to go gradually. i go from 1L to 100L pots without issue.
Click to expand...
Okay, because I've read somewhere that it can make the plant to "vegetate" more and produce less.
 
rick_bender said:
Hi guys,
 
I'm wondering what pot size I sould use for my pepper season. I leave in south west of France.
 
Typically, summers are quite hot here : many weeks from 86°F to 100 or even 102 spikes, peppers here can produce until mid november (full potential until october, but some still ripen in november). I have a good exposure on my balcony (actually sometimes the sun can bake my plants if I do not shade them) and a diverse range of pots : right now my peppers are in 3gal fabric pots.
I have also 7 and 12 gallon pots that I do not use atm. I'd really like to have the biggest plants i can but I don't want to waste soilmix by planting in pots that would be too big for my season.
 
So my question here would be : what do you guys recommend for transplanting strategy ? Should i gradually up to 12 gallon or is my season too short for that ?
 
Also, is it really beneficial to gradually increase the pot size or is it the same to jump from small to big pots ?
 
I hope this is not a redundant question...I made a research in the forum but didn't find any satisfying information. Thanks !
Click to expand...
 
I start my seeds in coir pellets and then pot them twice:
 
First pot is 2.5 liters, for inside growing until it's warm enough outside.
 
Second pot is either 12 or 30 litres, depending on the variety, as soon as they go outside. This pot lasts for the entire season.
 
Annuums go into 12 liters
Chinense go into 30 liters
Baccattum go into either 12 or 30 litres, depending on the variety
Pubescens go into either 12 or 30 litres, depending on the variety
 
 
No need to be any more complicated than that.
 
podz said:
 
I start my seeds in coir pellets and then pot them twice:
 
First pot is 2.5 liters, for inside growing until it's warm enough outside.
 
Second pot is either 12 or 30 litres, depending on the variety, as soon as they go outside. This pot lasts for the entire season.
 
Annuums go into 12 liters
Chinense go into 30 liters
Baccattum go into either 12 or 30 litres, depending on the variety
Pubescens go into either 12 or 30 litres, depending on the variety
 
 
No need to be any more complicated than that.
Click to expand...
That's interesting, thanks Podz !
 
rick_bender said:
 can make the plant to "vegetate" more and produce less.
Click to expand...
Not sure about "vegetate", but it makes watering correctly much harder. That can stunt a plant and/or cause other problems...
 
A large container with a small plant is hard to water right because once all the media is soaked it takes a long long time to dry out as the small plant can not use that much water quickly. Making it easy/tempting to over water. And if you water just a little around the plant, the media absorbs it evenly thru out the container and quickly gets to dry around the plant.
 
Don't get me wrong, it can be done, it just takes some thinking and restraint to water correctly with a small plant in a large container.
 
jmo
 
Just keep in mind: If you use big pots for small plants, it will take more time for them to grow. By experience, I start them in very small pot, then move them to 20cm pots and finally 30cm pots. Sometimes I move them directly into the 30cm pots ... but as I said it will require a bit of more time for them to grow. You can do it if you are running out of time.
At least that is my experience for growing peppers in Alsace.
 
acs1 said:
Not sure about "vegetate", but it makes watering correctly much harder. That can stunt a plant and/or cause other problems...
 
A large container with a small plant is hard to water right because once all the media is soaked it takes a long long time to dry out as the small plant can not use that much water quickly. Making it easy/tempting to over water. And if you water just a little around the plant, the media absorbs it evenly thru out the container and quickly gets to dry around the plant.
 
Don't get me wrong, it can be done, it just takes some thinking and restraint to water correctly with a small plant in a large container.
 
jmo
Click to expand...
Yeah I encoutered this problem actually with my indoor grow (on a smaller scale), watering is more manageable in small pots when the plant is also small. That is true.
 
 
Raputin said:
Just keep in mind: If you use big pots for small plants, it will take more time for them to grow. By experience, I start them in very small pot, then move them to 20cm pots and finally 30cm pots. Sometimes I move them directly into the 30cm pots ... but as I said it will require a bit of more time for them to grow. You can do it if you are running out of time.
At least that is my experience for growing peppers in Alsace.
Click to expand...
That's what I noticed also : I made once made the mistake of planting a small pepper plant in a big grow bag and it didn't grow so much (but that may also be because I didn't took much care of it at that time). Do peppers grow well in Alsace ? Salutations, j'habite en Gironde !
 
Plenty of good advice here, but I'll add that the "watering correctly" thing is critical in my opinion if you're going to go straight to big containers.  And in order to water correctly, you really need to have good media composition for your environment/conditions.  If you're not confident in your media porosity/drainage and such, and that you won't have any issues with water retention or compaction, I'd suggest a step-up approach.  Otherwise you're likely to get the biggest plants (but perhaps slower initial production) by giving the roots free rein to run.
 
CaneDog said:
you're likely to get the biggest plants
Click to expand...
That's what I'm aiming for !  :P  I love big and beautiful pepper plants.
 
Also, my media has, I think, good drainage and a good balance between retaining moisture and oxygen. It is a mix of good quality compost, coco coir, perlite and worm castings. I incorporate a handful of manure at the bottom of the pot also but not too much. It works very well with my other plants.
Thank you for the advice, I appreciate.
 
what i notice is that since they are in bigger pots. the roots spend more time growing (finding the bottom / edges of pot) roots yes.
but it will make up for it because the whole root system is established quicker than transplanting multiple times.
 
if your media is fast draining enough then can water as much as you want. 
 
rick_bender said:
That's what I noticed also : I made once made the mistake of planting a small pepper plant in a big grow bag and it didn't grow so much (but that may also be because I didn't took much care of it at that time). Do peppers grow well in Alsace ? Salutations, j'habite en Gironde !
Click to expand...
Cayenne and Fatalii did very well last year. This year I'm trying more varieties (carolina reaper and trinidad scorpion, never tried to grow super hot pepper before so let's see).
 
You should consider the shape of the container as well. The shape has more to say about how much water is available than the volume does. A little plant in a big pot is hard to keep alive without experience. But I wouldn't transplant the plant more than you have to.

I personally use a variety of sizes and I'm phasing all of the ones smaller than 7 gallons out. I'm also using fabric grow bags now instead of buckets.
 
podz said:
 
 
How is that different than putting a plant into the ground?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I asked myself the same question, especially for big pots like 15 gallon or so. This seems pretty close to "in ground" conditions
 
It's not. The soil in the container is very different from the soil in the ground. There are many other factors that make it different. Soil compaction can change a lot of things. But I've honestly never seen any "ground" that looks remotely anything like what I have in my containers. Just being honest
 
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