Let me start saying I am growing peppers (Jalapeno varieties and Serranos) for at least 5 years now. I am just coming back from my green house (on the balcony), and I am....baffled.
Let me tell you what happened in the last few days:
2 days ago I decided I wanted to top all my (still very young!) plants since every single season, my Jalepenos are growing too tall and too lanky. This time, I want to put a stop to this by topping them early. I have about 12 Purple Jalapenos and 4 Serranos in small 2L pots in my greenhouse.
The plants had still been very small, about 6-8 inches max., at a point where I first hesitated to top as I thought the plants may be too small. But I have seen some Youtube vids where people topped seedlings, so I just went at it.
I topped all my plants so that they kept only maybe 4-6 leaves, with the plants on average only a height of 20cm (7-8"). There was nothing extraordinary about the plants, except that I I knew they are very young and flower will still be VERY far off. (The other day, I checked on my plants, and I saw that the remaining shoots are already starting grow.)
Yesterday (yes, yesterday, not even 24 hours ago, more like 16-18 hours ago) I notice that one of my cats peed onto a plant from the roof the greenhouse. So I grabbed my pressure sprayer, filled with 2L of water that I pHed down a little and generously "hosed off" my plants with the sprayer. (Otherwise I water/feed my plants every some days, depending, with GHE Flora trio, as always). About 2 hours later, as my peppers seemed thirsty and my spraying didn't really drench the soil, I also generously watered and fed them again. Eveyr day, I spend some time in my green house, and the plants didn't seem much different than when I topped them.
Just an hour or so ago TODAY, I went into the green house and my jaw drops: The plants had a HUGE growth boost in what must have been 10-15 hours max. All the side branches have grown massively, and the plants are now about 2x as tall as they had been just 2 days ago when I topped them. (The side branches have way overtaken the height where I cut the stems). They are also bushy and lush.
But here is the kicker: Not only have they grown insanely in a day, now there are also flowers! I already see the purple flowers from the Purple Jalapenos on several of the plants, on what have just been little sticks with a few leaves when I topped them two days ago. Unreal.
What triggered the massive growth..I have no idea. The spraying of the water?? Wouldn't make sense. I guess the plants are just at the point where they have fully developed nice roots, and the topping is now focusing all the energy into the side shoots. And then giving nutrients. (You know how plants are usually always growing only very slow until they have grown out their roots, and then they are really getting a massive boost from one day to the other). But I have never seen such growth basically over night and flowers where there wasn't a hint of flowers just the day before)
By the way, I am feeding 0,5ml (10 drops) each (Flora Micro, Flora Grow, Flora Bloom) per L. I am using these since I had bottles of these left that I bought years ago and these are the only GHE nutrients with unlimited shelf life. (GHE Floranova, Floraduo etc. might even be better, but they only keep a year or so).
Ok, Pics!!
Let me tell you what happened in the last few days:
2 days ago I decided I wanted to top all my (still very young!) plants since every single season, my Jalepenos are growing too tall and too lanky. This time, I want to put a stop to this by topping them early. I have about 12 Purple Jalapenos and 4 Serranos in small 2L pots in my greenhouse.
The plants had still been very small, about 6-8 inches max., at a point where I first hesitated to top as I thought the plants may be too small. But I have seen some Youtube vids where people topped seedlings, so I just went at it.
I topped all my plants so that they kept only maybe 4-6 leaves, with the plants on average only a height of 20cm (7-8"). There was nothing extraordinary about the plants, except that I I knew they are very young and flower will still be VERY far off. (The other day, I checked on my plants, and I saw that the remaining shoots are already starting grow.)
Yesterday (yes, yesterday, not even 24 hours ago, more like 16-18 hours ago) I notice that one of my cats peed onto a plant from the roof the greenhouse. So I grabbed my pressure sprayer, filled with 2L of water that I pHed down a little and generously "hosed off" my plants with the sprayer. (Otherwise I water/feed my plants every some days, depending, with GHE Flora trio, as always). About 2 hours later, as my peppers seemed thirsty and my spraying didn't really drench the soil, I also generously watered and fed them again. Eveyr day, I spend some time in my green house, and the plants didn't seem much different than when I topped them.
Just an hour or so ago TODAY, I went into the green house and my jaw drops: The plants had a HUGE growth boost in what must have been 10-15 hours max. All the side branches have grown massively, and the plants are now about 2x as tall as they had been just 2 days ago when I topped them. (The side branches have way overtaken the height where I cut the stems). They are also bushy and lush.
But here is the kicker: Not only have they grown insanely in a day, now there are also flowers! I already see the purple flowers from the Purple Jalapenos on several of the plants, on what have just been little sticks with a few leaves when I topped them two days ago. Unreal.
What triggered the massive growth..I have no idea. The spraying of the water?? Wouldn't make sense. I guess the plants are just at the point where they have fully developed nice roots, and the topping is now focusing all the energy into the side shoots. And then giving nutrients. (You know how plants are usually always growing only very slow until they have grown out their roots, and then they are really getting a massive boost from one day to the other). But I have never seen such growth basically over night and flowers where there wasn't a hint of flowers just the day before)
By the way, I am feeding 0,5ml (10 drops) each (Flora Micro, Flora Grow, Flora Bloom) per L. I am using these since I had bottles of these left that I bought years ago and these are the only GHE nutrients with unlimited shelf life. (GHE Floranova, Floraduo etc. might even be better, but they only keep a year or so).
Ok, Pics!!
Except they didn't look like that just 24 hours ago, basically they were small seedlings, about 7" tall with a cut stem and a bunch of leaves. Now they look like actual pepper plants WITH flowers already. Crazy. So the topping has sent a HUGE boost into those branches.
