Topic: Peppers - trials and triumphs!

[Tenuse]

I'm growing five sweet pepper plants this year ("carnival" which i think is markting speak for "random selection"!). Three are outside in my mini-greenhouse in a double growbag, and two are inside on a sunny windowsill.

Trials - I have had a few - like all the flowers being nicely fertilised by me and my paintbrush, looking like they have set fruit, growing for a bit and then falling off when I wasn't looking. Outside I have had trouble with evil snails and had to resort to slug pellets which I dislike using. Anybody got any tips for helping to set fruit?

Triumphs - my two indoor plants have got a pepper growing on each one, almost four inches long now - it is so exciting! And it looks like I might finally have managed to get one flower to set fruit outside...... fingers crossed.

If anybody has had experience of growing peppers I would be grateful for your comments!

Ten x

[john_miller]

Have you been watering the outdoor ones?

[Tenuse]

Yes, I have been watering the outdoor ones, they are planted in a double-depth growbag. I try to give them a small drink (about 75cl per plant) every day so that the compost does not get waterlogged and I have not started to feed them yet.

Ten x

[john_miller]

It is very inadvisable to water by rote rather than waiting for the soil to become slightly dry (the most common cause of potted plant death is overwatering- gro-bags are basically ugly pots!) . Your watering regimen may be either resulting in waterlogged compost at the base of the bag (if you have no drainage holes) or you are washing out nutrients by such regular heavy watering (if you do).

[Tenuse]

Hmm, I do have drainage holes, but not right at the bottom of the bag. I've never watered so much that water runs out of the holes. It is however quite tricky for me to figure out whether the growbag is wet/dry/moist - I think I need to buy a moisture meter!

Next year I am going to grow them in large pots it is MUCH easier to tell whether or not they need any water in a pot.

Ten x

[tim]

Oooh, dear - I'm an offender!

Although I do do a frequent check with a meter, I do tend to have a standard routine, varied only by my assessment of the day's heat.

I purposely put my drainage holes a bit up from the base, so that water doesn't drain out before it is absorbed. = Tim

[gilgamesh]

I do the "drainage holes 2" up" bit on florist's black buckets which are deeper than they are wide, so that it acts as a reservoir (the bottom is filled with half straw & half compost / growing medium to act as a sponge) for the plants at mother-in-law's house which I only get to see at the weekends, but I wouldn't have thought it was such a good idea for bags.

[john_miller]

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't 75cl equivalent to a wine bottle? Tim, surely if you are assessing watering requirements before you water, are you then watering by rote? Not by the meaning of the word as I understand it!
Anyway, although I don't know the size of the plants, 75cl sounds like a lot of water to me, for a pepper. Ten may well be drowning the root hairs with such a relatively large amount of water applied so frequently.

[tim]

Disgusted to see my typing error above. Always thought I was a good proof reader!

 Great, John, to get an answer to something I've been querying for yonks. (Note that we are doing 1/2 bags on end, inside).

1. By 'rote' I mean that, by default, I give each plant - of similar development with, say, a couple of flower trusses - a timed/measured amount of water, taking into account the weather conditions & retrospective meter readings. This seems to give me an average requirement of 800ml/day to keep the centre of the bag 'moist'. Yes, down below it's a bit wetter! Reasoning being that fluctuations in regime can sometimes be as bad as excess?

2. Very difficult to assess when a bag is 'slightly dry' - without a meter - other than by waiting for a 'wilt'. I find that cucumbers are a good guide - they are the first to wilt when under stress.

3. My other guide, possibly misguidedly, is the appearance of the plant. If it looks fresh & healthy, I reckon I'm doing a good job. But, of course, you can still get BER, bad setting etc on a healthy looking plant. Can of worms!!
 
Thanks - tell us more?? = Tim

[Tenuse]

Hmm, maybe I am overestimating the amount of water I put in, cos it is certainly not a bottle of wine's worth. Maybe more like 250ml. My fault for "guesstimating".

I have found some instructions that say, to help the fruit set, to syringe the leaves with water every day. I have a plant mister, is this the same as syringing the leaves??

Still trying,

Ten x

[tim]

Probably - but then again, folk say don't wet leaves, or don't spray in the sunshine, when it best helps pollination. Use your intuition!!! =  Tim