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Square Foot Gardening...Peppers Plants?
- Thread starter Roguejim
- Start date
You can do either, look at my picture, all c.chinense and this year I have the 4 x 4 all Thai and the 8 x 4 all c.chinense - I love how large they get and had no real issue getting too many podsIslander said:
At the beginning of this thread is my 4 x 4, 16 plants. I put 32 in the 8 x 4. For me it is no big deal, I get far more pods than I need to make pounds of powders. I agree with mw, if you have the space give them space. I also have plants in the ground and they get much more space but the results are not often much better when it comes to yield.
Good luck either way!
Good luck either way!
Good topic! I grow in ground in rows. I usually have too many variety's (i.e. plants) for what space I have. Which means I have to cram stuff in to get it all in. Last year I had no problems with growth. It was the harvesting and trying to fit (slide) down the rows. I found that if I crawled under the foliage I fit better and could see the pods hanging down much better! LOL! I decided I needed a better idea. But I had all the superhots at one end of the garden and the sweets at the other for ease of picking so my 'ol lady knew what was what. I grow in paired rows which means there is a pair of rows close to each other with an isle on each side. This year I put in a row of sweets spaced at 18" apart down one of the paired rows and on the other half of the pair I have a superhot row spaced at 24" between plants. I should note the pairs are approx 18" between rows. I grow with an irrigation system using a 1/2" PVC header that each row feeds off of. So to change my row arrangement or row spacing I have to modify my header. No big deal. If this year doesn't make the 'working the fields" any easier I'll change again. I know this isn't SFG in the bed sense but it involves dense planting to maximize space.
This is something that is very interesting to me. In my experience with Peppers is as they drop off all the seeds are in one location just like in nature If this occurs then wouldn't all the plants also grow together. I've also found that when seeds are very close together they seem to compete for energy but do much better in rapid growth. Your plants look great and I think there is something to planting close together. The strong seem to do better!
Plant closer together and with more starts per a given area you get more sun catching for the first portion of the season. Once your plants start shading each other a lot then you get a higher stem to pod ratio than with further separated plants, BUT further separated plants need a larger grow area so you have to factor for whether your limitation is grow area, # of plants, dealing with pests (huge bushes can promote pests).
To put it another way the longer/better your growing season the further you ought to space them apart, although closely spaced plants also have the benefit of being more wind resistance by being intertwined together.
To put it another way the longer/better your growing season the further you ought to space them apart, although closely spaced plants also have the benefit of being more wind resistance by being intertwined together.