peppers gone mad!

[POTBOY]

hello,

this is my first post, i have been absorbing the wonderful help and information from this forum for a couple of months now and i find it brilliant!

i have recently moved into a new house and have finally the opportunity to grow stuff, which i have been itching to do for years.

Anyway, the garden is in a bit of a wild state, especially because the house has been empty for about 15 years and because of that most of my growing is done in my conservatory in pots and containers.

i'm growing all sorts of things but my question here is about some peppers that have gone mad, i'm growing a few varieties and because of my limited knowledge and lack of experience i only labelled them pepper or chilli instead of being more specific.

one variety i have has been growing about an inch a day for the last 3 weeks, ever since i potted into a larger pot, normally i'd think great but its like a plant possessed, it was about 6 inches when i put it into the pot now its at least 3 foot tall, i have 4 of them all competing with each other.

they are all in my conservatory and pretty much get light all day, there is around a 4-6 inch spacing between the leaves and they just look stretched.
i've replaced the stakes on them twice because they've outgrown them.

has anybody got any advice, is it normal, what should i do if anything?

thanks

[Alison]

They do sound rather leggy which is normally a problem with lack of light which I wouldn't have thought would be an issue in your conservatory. Although are they shading each other somewhat?

You can pinch out the growing tips to encourage side shoots which should help with keeping it more bushy but some types too grow taller and lankier than others so don't compare with some of the very neat ones that others may be posting pictures of.

[POTBOY]

hi alison,thanks for the quick reply.

my conservatory is east facing which isnt the best but still gets light, they're not shaded by anything else as they are the biggest thing i've got, i planted them from seed on the 28th March and now their monsters.
i've thought about pinching the growing tip out but i was worried that they wouldnt produce any flowers if i done that.

[FoxHillGardener]

I'd agree to pinch them out. You'll still get flowers but the plants won't get all tall and floppy. Sometimes just standing them too close together is enough to cause them to stretch up for light. Try spacing your pots a bit further apart. If you've too many plants and not enough space, you could harden some off and leave them outside now, or spread them round your windowsills and friends' houses

[POTBOY]

ok, so i pinched out the tops of 3 of the 4 plants i have, hopefully that will slow down their ambition of reaching the stars. the only thing is on 2 of the 3 i pinched there seemed to be a little cluster of potential flowers in the growing tip, i hope this doesnt hinder future flowering?
they were also there in the one i didnt pich out, lets see what happens.

i won't fail, i will only learn.

[Alison]

Even if you've pinched out some buds it won't stop more forming so don't worry - like your style though, keep one untouched for comparison!

[POTBOY]

ok, a bit of an update.

as mentioned previously, i pinched out 3 of the 4 plants i have and left 1 for comparison, i also spaced them out more, the 3 i pinched out have continued to stretch for the sky, so much so that i had to move them from their position because they were touching the conservatory roof! 2 of the 3 are now over 4 foot high!

strangley the one i didnt pinch has only grown up a little but has produced what looks like a healthy bunch of flower buds in a little cluster.

the only thing i can think to do is when i pot them up to bury them deeper that they currently are but because of the sheer size of them i'm not sure this will have much effect.