• Do you need help identifying a 🌶?
    Is your plant suffering from an unknown issue? 🤧
    Then ask in Identification and Diagnosis.

container Raising peppers for more than one year in containers?

I

I_love_peppers

Hi all,

I plan to overwinter my chile plants, which are all growing in 5-gallon containers. I'm hoping to have my plants for a few years or more. Do I need to replace the potting mix at some point, or is providing regular fertilizer sufficient? If I need to replace the soil, at what point would I do this?

Also, I'm not going to take my plants inside to winterize because we don't have many freezing temperature days here (northern cal.) and I don't have an available indoor area anyway. For the people who winterize outside, what do you do to keep peppers warmer when the colder days come?

Thanks for any replies.
 
I'm in northern OH, so I have to bring my plants in to winterize. So I can't say anything about NOT bringing them in. However, here's my two cents, having grown and winterized in containers here.

Wait until the "colder" days come, then yes, replace the potting mix. In fact, take the plants out of the mix they're in now, prune the stems and roots back to about the same distance from the base, WASH them carefully, then repot. Get rid of all the leaves in your pruning process. When you cut back, be sure not to cut so low that you don't have at least 4 or 5 growth nodes (more is fine, just not less.) Your goal in all this is to reduce or eliminate any aphids which may be otherwise hatching from the soil. Water the plants less frequently until spring arrives - keep the soil damp, but not wet and not bone-dry.

The thing to keep in mind is that peppers don't like their roots to get below 50F. When they're in containers, they don't have the benefit of ground heat, so they're at higher risk of getting too cold. I'd suggest coming up with a plan to bring them indoors or even wrap an electric blanket around the pots when it gets too cold (assuming they're in a covered area.)

Best wishes with it!
 
geeme said:
I'm in northern OH, so I have to bring my plants in to winterize. So I can't say anything about NOT bringing them in. However, here's my two cents, having grown and winterized in containers here.

Wait until the "colder" days come, then yes, replace the potting mix. In fact, take the plants out of the mix they're in now, prune the stems and roots back to about the same distance from the base, WASH them carefully, then repot. Get rid of all the leaves in your pruning process. When you cut back, be sure not to cut so low that you don't have at least 4 or 5 growth nodes (more is fine, just not less.) Your goal in all this is to reduce or eliminate any aphids which may be otherwise hatching from the soil. Water the plants less frequently until spring arrives - keep the soil damp, but not wet and not bone-dry.

The thing to keep in mind is that peppers don't like their roots to get below 50F. When they're in containers, they don't have the benefit of ground heat, so they're at higher risk of getting too cold. I'd suggest coming up with a plan to bring them indoors or even wrap an electric blanket around the pots when it gets too cold (assuming they're in a covered area.)

Best wishes with it!
Click to expand...

Thanks, geeme! Okay, so it sounds like I need to replace the soil once every year when the winter comes, even if I don't bring them inside. Is that right?

I really like the electric blanket idea and have access to a nearby outlet so that would work.

Thanks again!
 
Yes, I would recommend replacing the soil/mix every year. Keep in mind that if you use the blanket, you will want to monitor the temp for a few days to understand how hot it gets - you don't want your plants to get too hot, either!
 
geeme said:
Yes, I would recommend replacing the soil/mix every year. Keep in mind that if you use the blanket, you will want to monitor the temp for a few days to understand how hot it gets - you don't want your plants to get too hot, either!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the temperature tip. So many things to remember! I sure hope my plants do well. Best of luck to your peppers too!
 
Potting soil starts to get exhausted after awhile, I'll repot all of my house plants in the spring before I fertilize them, not necessarly potting them up but revivng the plants with fresh P.S.
It kind of gives them the "Gatorade" ..kick
Same thing with overwintering peppers.....start out fresh
 
PIC 1 said:
Potting soil starts to get exhausted after awhile, I'll repot all of my house plants in the spring before I fertilize them, not necessarly potting them up but revivng the plants with fresh P.S.
It kind of gives them the "Gatorade" ..kick
Same thing with overwintering peppers.....start out fresh
Click to expand...

+1
 
After a couple of years of using soils with ferts and other items in it I decided to go with a inert soil and never looked back. I don't add any ferts or compost or anything to the soil at all and just fert during the grow season as needed. Because of this I have a few plants that are going on their 3rd year and use the same soil and it seems like they produce more fruit every year. I do however fert often during peek season and I also foliar feed with worm tea so it's an aggressive fertilizing schedule.
 
Thanks for the good info folks....
I've got plans to overwinter around 10 of my 86 "bucket peppers".I already overwinter banana trees and pluneria plants indoors, but have not done so with peppers before.
Plus....I was not sure if I needed to totally replace the soil-less mix I used(metro mix)...but it sounds like I might be able to use it again next year.(that'll save me a few hundred dollars)
 
PIC 1 said:
Potting soil starts to get exhausted after awhile, I'll repot all of my house plants in the spring before I fertilize them, not necessarly potting them up but revivng the plants with fresh P.S.
It kind of gives them the "Gatorade" ..kick
Same thing with overwintering peppers.....start out fresh
Click to expand...

That makes sense. I'm glad I asked!
 
Chili Monsta said:
I was not sure if I needed to totally replace the soil-less mix I used(metro mix)...but it sounds like I might be able to use it again next year.(that'll save me a few hundred dollars)
Click to expand...

Save the money and just use it for ferts. Soils don't really "hold" nutes anyway. People don't realize that 60-80% of all ferts applied through the soil get washed through soil and out the bottom and are never absorbed by the plant. That's why people use ferts as high as 10 on the NPK scale and don't burn the plant when all you need for peppers is something around 3 on the NPK scale.

Not to mention all the good established cultures of Mycorrhiza fungi established on the roots and in the soil that will be simply thrown away.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top