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Repotting

AlabamaJack said:
so what do I do if I have roots coming out the bottom of my 5 gallon containers?...I sure the devil and not going to go and buy 300 10 gallon containers to transplant them in...I would have to have another 20 yds of soil...where does it all end? Hopefully they will grow into the ground again like they did last year..
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AJ, I wonder if you dug a small cutout in the ground, maybe 3 inches deep, and placed the container down in the cutout. It would give it stability and maybe you could cut some holes in the side of the container's lower part so the roots could expand out sideways. I normally put 3 plants in those small depth 36" planters and all the roots go sideways to fill the whole thing up. You would have the mobility of a container to protect the plant until it's very well established and then maybe the extra growth expected from a larger container after it's placed on the ground. Especially if you tilled the soil around the cutout a little to promote root expansion. Might be a cool experiment. Hmm...
 
AlabamaJack said:
so what do I do if I have roots coming out the bottom of my 5 gallon containers?...I sure the devil and not going to go and buy 300 10 gallon containers to transplant them in...I would have to have another 20 yds of soil...where does it all end? Hopefully they will grow into the ground again like they did last year..
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I certainly didn't mean that you'd have to continuously pot up for the life of the plant to prevent the roots from poking out the bottom. I'm not sure how you even came to the conclusion that that was what I was saying. I'm talking about seedlings in 3" pots and the potential of having your plants grow larger and quicker rather than leaving them in the small pots until the roots poke out the bottom. Once you get them to your desired pot size stop potting up. I just found it interesting that I got as much extra growth from potting up early rather than waiting for the often prescribed 'roots out the bottom' method.
 
so is there any reason you gradually increase the pot sizes other than convenience purposed (maybe keeping them indoors as long as possible until they're too big to do so).....

roundabout way of asking, there's nothing bad that could happen with putting a seedling in a 5 gallon pot, right?
 
Blister said:
I certainly didn't mean that you'd have to continuously pot up for the life of the plant to prevent the roots from poking out the bottom. I'm not sure how you even came to the conclusion that that was what I was saying. I'm talking about seedlings in 3" pots and the potential of having your plants grow larger and quicker rather than leaving them in the small pots until the roots poke out the bottom. Once you get them to your desired pot size stop potting up. I just found it interesting that I got as much extra growth from potting up early rather than waiting for the often prescribed 'roots out the bottom' method.
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I didn't think that blister...my mind was running about 120 mph thinking about what I had experienced last year with many of my plants in 5 gallon containers. Most of them that I did not move around had roots close to 1/2" diameter that had grown out of the drain holes in the bottoms of the pots into the ground...and they were the largest, best producing plants I had and required less watering...

bigt - I have three tepins that made it thru the winter last year outside...two of them are wild and one is from Thompson and Morgan...I decided not to tansplant them and cut the bottoms of the containers out and like you suggested, buried them about 3" in the ground...evidently this is going to work because they are growing well and have a zillion small pods on them right now..

hotenough...it seems to me that gradually potting up increases the density of the root ball...that is of course if you wait until the roots are growing out the bottoms of the containers before transplanting...those plants I have potted up gradually have been better growers and producers than the ones I transplant straight to 5 gallon containers from 3" containers (which is the way most of my plants get treated)...
 
I always have my greatest success when I pot up gradually. Some of my biggest plants often go through a total of 8 different pots in a season. My thoughts are that if you go right to a big pot, it will hold too much soil and water and will not dry out quick enough, depleting oxygen. The more often you can water, the more often you can replenish oxygen as well as nutrients
 
I like the gradual thing too. I'm going to have to go bigger than 3 gal on some of mine and it's going to be a bitch move them to their new homes at this point. I went 9oz - 4" - 1 gal - 3 gal this year. Perhaps next time I'll go 3"+ - 1 gal - 5 gal for the ones that are gonna get real big.
 
All of mine get started in 3oz dixie cups then up to 20oz cups then into 3 gal and that's pretty much it. I would love to keep right on going to 5gal pots but the work involved for 75 plants is crazy! This is supposed to be a fun hobby for me, not a job. I'm willing to work and earn my booty but I don't know if there would be that much difference in the number of pods to make it worth while to go from 3 to 5. Only one way to tell I guess.
 
patrick said:
This is supposed to be a fun hobby, not a job.
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in 43.2 working days it WILL be my job Patrick...
 
AlabamaJack said:
in 43.2 working days it WILL be my job Patrick...
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You going to have a little celebration and kill your alarm clock?

"Pull!".............BANG! dead alarm clock.:cool:

Wish I could come down and celebrate it with you AJ. You and the Mrs got plans?
 
I know I couldn't deal with the amount of peppers you grow AJ. I was dealing with about 70 when they were in 3"ers, but I've picked over the best of the crop, kept 2 or 3 of each variety and have been able to give some away to friends. I'm looking at about 28 plants now, plus a few extra's still in 3" pots. Those should be gone pretty quick though.
 
The other thing I've noticed so far is that almost all of my peppers are doing better in pots than they are in the ground. I don't really understand why, but they are at this point in time. Maybe there will be a difference at the end of the year, I dunno. It's looking like I'll be growing all my plants in pots next year.
 
3620077788_f90feef99f.jpg

Needed to be re-potted a long time ago...
 
Blister said:
The other thing I've noticed so far is that almost all of my peppers are doing better in pots than they are in the ground. I don't really understand why, but they are at this point in time. Maybe there will be a difference at the end of the year, I dunno. It's looking like I'll be growing all my plants in pots next year.
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I wonder if it has to do with soil temperatures. The pots probably have warmed up whereas the soil is still probably somewhat cool.
 
Josh said:
I wonder if it has to do with soil temperatures. The pots probably have warmed up whereas the soil is still probably somewhat cool.
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That's kinda what I was thinking. I'm still curious to see what the differences are at the end of the year. Maybe the ones in the ground will catch up and pass the ones in the pots.
 
I don't even bother growing peppers in the ground anymore. With containers, you have control over so many factors and for me I need the extra soil warmth
 
Well, being considerably further north than you are, I can use all the extra warmth I can get out of the environment. We're still getting nights that dip down to 3C (37.4F) if you can believe that. Luckily it doesn't get that cold in the greenhouse otherwise I'd have to bring them in and out every night and would have probably lost a few plants by now.
 
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