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Let’s Grow Peppers
Peppers are plants that can be grown in a pot or in the garden, so you can do one or the other, or plant your pepper choices both ways.
Pepper plants like full sun and soil that’s been enriched with manure and compost. Peppers need to be planted in soil that will drain well. Peppers don’t like wet feet and if the soil becomes water logged the plants will probably rot.
After planting the peppers, sprinkle a light layer of Epsom salts around the base of each plant. This provides magnesium which helps the fruit to set. Placing pepper plants close together also helps in setting fruit. Another advantage to planting peppers closely together is the plants support each other and usually no staking or propping up of the plant is needed.
Pepper plants need to be kept moist after being set out in the garden and must be gently watered and not allowed to dry out as the new peppers begin to grow. When the plant begins to flower, adding a layer of organic fertilizer or compost is beneficial. To conserve water, always add mulch around the plants. Once the plants are established, an inch of water per week should suffice.
It depends upon the variety of pepper you choose to grow as to how long it will be to harvest time. This can vary from sixty to eighty days. Like Peter Piper, pick the peppers. The more you pick, the more will grow
When harvesting peppers, it’s best to cut the fruit from the plant with garden scissors or a knife. The plant and the peppers are fragile and can bruise. When harvesting hot peppers, gloves are highly recommended. The plants contain capsaicin, the active heat component that gives peppers their fire. The capsaicin in hot peppers gets on your hands and if you, for instance, touch your eyes, you’ll wish you hadn’t! I, foolishly, seeded some jalapeños without wearing gloves and got the stuff under my fingernails. It’s nearly impossible to wash under the fingernails and I suffered for three days before the burning stopped.
Peppers, both the hot and the sweet, will cross-pollinate. This won’t interfere with the plants you are growing, but if you save seeds from your plants to start next years crop, that sweet green bell pepper you bite into may give you a very fiery surprise.
