container Stunted growth from last year's (heavily pruned) peppers

[kizonis]

I recently posted about this year's plants, and I am now seeking advice on last year's peppers.
I live in Crete, Greece, and temperatures are currently around 70-75F (20-23C) during the day and 53-59F (12-15C) during the night.

I heavily pruned my plants during the winter but left them on the terrace since we didn't have extreme temperatures (and I had nowhere to put them).
They seemed to be rebounding fast, but now I see very short shoots, a ton of leaves, and an impressive amount of flowers on some of them.
I successfully fought an aphid breakout, added a bit of fresh soil at the top, and have been fertilizing with just some Fish Mix (5-1-3) for the last three weeks or so.

I am not sure if I should:

1. Pinch the flowers to help the plants develop and keep using the Fish Mix
2. Let them be, and switch to a 2-7-4 fertilizer to encourage even more flowering
3. Just switch to the 7-3-12 I had planned to start using in May
4. Any mix of the above

Here are some pics, the two Jalapenos are the ones that look the best and don't have a ton of flowers yet, the scotch bonnet looks like an olive bonsai (: and the others have turned into tiny bushes (although the scorpion has developed some thick shoots that look like a lot of thinner shoots grouped together).

 

[NJChilehead]

@kizonis how long has it been since they leafed out?

 

[kizonis]

tbh, I wasn't paying much attention since I pruned them, so I can't say for sure. It's been at least 2-3 months, because leaves were developed (and the plants infested with aphids) more than a month ago.

 

[NJChilehead]

@kizonis it sounds like you're dialed in with fertilizer types but I am curious about how much sun, water, etc. the plants have been getting for the past few weeks. One reason why I say this is because you mention that the jalapeno is doing the best, and it looks like the jalapeno is the only one with full sun on it at the time of the pic. I know that sun angles change throughout the day, but thought I'd bring it up for discussion. Another consideration is that jalapenos are C. annuum and the others are C. chinense, and annuums tend to grow faster than chinenses do.

Other folks on here have more experience than I do with overwintering and the rate of growth after leaf-out and may have different advice than me, but what my gut is telling me to tell you to do for the next 3-4 weeks:

Stop fertilizing
Make sure the plants are in full sun all day (transition/harden them off to it if necessary)
Water deeply but infrequently (i.e. don't over or under-water).

Then take another pic 3-4 weeks from now to compare.

Let me know your thoughts on this approach?

 

[kizonis]

Thanks for the advice! I have been moving the pots around, and the Jalapenos have probably spent the least amount of time under the sun in total (I had them where the Bhut and the Habanero are now for the longest amount of time). The species thing sure makes a lot of sense, but I just don't see the others heading in a growing direction when it comes to shoots.

I am very hesitant to stop fertilizing, especially since I haven't changed the soil, and it sure needs some boosting. The fish mix I am using is pretty mild; in fact, I may be underfertilizing them.

I am wondering if what's happening may even be considered desirable when it comes to production. It's not easy to see from the pics, but excluding the Jalapenos, everything else has a ton of flowers. My instinct tells me to pinch the flowers to allow them to concentrate more into growing, but there is a chance that I'll need to do the exact opposite.

 

[NJChilehead]

@kizonis your call on the fertilization. Just my opinion, I wouldn't pinch off flowers but that's just from my anecdotal experience, and again I've not overwintered peppers before. I still think it might not be a bad idea to take weekly pics just to track growth and take some notes on what you do on a week-by-week basis. Good luck!