Peppers in pots

[Farmer_Gyles]

i love peppers so going to grow lots of them this year
space is tight down the bottom of the garden
i've got a 6ft x 3ft patch full of tree roots - not easy to dig over or grow anything so thinking of putting some decking over this (couple of pallets)
i can grow the peppers in pots and stand them on the decking!
so what size pots should i use and how close together should i place the pots?

[Flummery]

I had mine in 10 - 12" pots last year. Very successful considering it was a rotten year. I had them in my cold greenhouse but in a good year you should do fine in a sheltered place.
They grew to anout 2ft tall but weren't very bushy. My pots were almost touching. However, with pots, at least you can move them. It probably depends on your pepper variety as much as anything.

[queen of the cobs]

ditto here, but I would say that actually I really didn't need the 12" pots, probably could have done as well with 9" and got more plants into the space. As flummery says, I had my pots touching, and they were absolutely fine. I saw someone with a pepper plant in a 4" pot and it was short, but bushy with lots of fruit, so it is possible.

I'm not sure when to pinch them out to make them quite bushy - any advice would be welcome.

[moggssue]

I had a decent crop (especially given the weather last year) from four peppers in a 12" pot last year - sorry, dont know the variety, just bought them on a whim from the GC! Give it a go, what have you got to lose?

[Farmer_Gyles]

cheers guys
last year i had quite a lot of pepper plants, mostly in 6" pots in the greenhouse - the plants grew to about 18" to 24" with one or two peppers per plant - but i know about pollination now so hopefully will do a lot better this year
i've got a big shopping list for the garden centre tomorrow - the list now has 9" pots as well
i've got about 30 pepper seedlings so far ......

[T-lady]

I also grew in 12" pots with good results.

I've been told that peppers hate having sun on their roots and, therefore, like a bit of shading to block roots from the sun. I guess growing them together really helps with this.

[veg4681]

I think you can get away with anywhere between 6" and 12" pot. From the last pepper thread, I did learn that a massive pot (e.g. dustbin) doesn't necessarily yield massive crop than say a standard garden pot because the plant will only waste its efforts spreading. The funny thing with fruiting vegetables is that a little bit of stress is good for them into thinking they're threatened that it may force them to produce higher crops. I think with 12" pot you can even get away with 2 plants but I think around 9" and 10" is neither small nor big. I shall be experimenting mine with 6", 7" and 9" pots.

Bear in mind that it's best to pot up gradually as they get bigger. I heard they don't like getting their feet wet as you get if the pot is too big. Be careful with the feeding (get the balance right), you don't want to encourage too much foliage growth at the expense of the fruits.

[farmerjim]

i have cayene, bell and jalapeno ina propergator at the minute. They shot up from seeds but seem to have 'stopped growing'. any ideas why this might be?

[Headfry]

How can I make my pepper plants bushy? have tried taking out growing tip, this just seems to hold them back so much.
Anyone tried growing them in open ground?

[Alison]

You do tend to get a bushier plant in open ground but I've found that I seem to get less fruits. This could be cos I can't molly coddle them quite so much so I'd be interested to see what other people say.

[Farmer_Gyles]

well i've got space for quite a lot of peppers - ideally i want to get as many peppers as i can so prefer not to experiment with pot sizes etc too much - but experiment might be the best way .......
what about using tomato compost out of growbags? is that better for peppers than normal compost?