Pot Sizes

[OverWyreGrower]

Help please!

I've got tomatoes, chilli's, cucumbers and peppers in pots in the polytunnel (in a blowaway for added heat) until they are large enough to plant out, and the frost risk has passed.

However, I'm not sure my chillis and peppers are in the right size pots... They aren't growing very tall, and instead are getting very wide and leafy, they don't quite look right, IYSWIM...

My toms are quite tall, but the stems don't seem to be getting any wider either...

The chillis, peppers and toms are already starting to get flowers on (which I've been pinching out), and they are obviously not big enough to support any tupe of fruit...

Should they be in larger pots, to encourage growth (none of them are in pots any bigger than 6ins)? Should I just plant them out into the raised beds, and hope for the best?

[Dynamo]

Try taking the plants out of the pots gently and seeing if they are pot bound. If they aren't then they can stay as they are for the time being, but if they are, put them into bigger pots.

[rustylady]

Got any pictures? That would help with answering your query.

[Potstubsdustbins]

OWG. From the sounds of things your toms are leggie, when you eventually pot on plant them deep.

All the plants you mention require warmth for good growth and unless your tunnel is heated I think that may well be part of the problem. I would do as Dynamo suggest's or even just turn the pots over to check if any roots are coming out the bottom of the pots.

Colin

[WendyC]

I wish my pepper seedling s would grow at all. Germinated in heated propagator and now on south facing kitchen windowsill and doing just that - sitting! Need a stern talking to.

[horticultural_hobbit]

I'm not very good at potting on. Tend to do it only when roots are poking through the bottom. With chillies though there are lots of different schools of thought
About whether they should remain pot bound. I've certainly found that for me
They do better when they do and in some cases have planted two together in a pot.

I have gangly tomatoes too. Just waiting for roots to poke out the bottom.

[Vagetarian]

Roots usually appear at the drainage holes a very long time before a plant really requires potting up. Most people are way too eager.

Peppers like to sit in an almost dry soil, if you put them in a big pot you're going to have a hard time keeping that potting soil almost dry because it will take a small pepper plant a very long time to drink all of the water, don't pot them on early unless you're using a very large (like 50%) amount of perlite in the mix.

Peppers are generally very, very slow growing when compared with tomatoes so don't worry too much. It's a good thing that it's growing bushy, isn't it? I nipped the tops off some of mine because they're doing the opposite!

[Florence Fennel]

I treat my chillies mean, don't water until they're desperate and don't pot on until they're screaming at me.

[Bigmallly]

I treat my chillies mean, don't water until they're desperate and don't pot on until they're screaming at me.

Screaming Chillis...... I want some of those.....

[Chocolate8me]

About 50% of my peppers and chillis have germinated (some in the greenhouse & some in the airing cupboard) and I wasn't sure how much water or what size pots to put them in until I read this so thank you for the advice.

Most of my seedlings grew so fast to begin with but all have slowed considerably since the weather turned for the worse despite being in my greenhouse.

I put it down to their internal clocks though. Apparently we are getting nice weather again in a few weeks so things should start growing as they should again.