Kitchen Garden Forum

My peppers, reared to date on window sill are between two & three feet tall, and looking too lanky to withstand breezes without blowing over when I eventually put them outdoors against a house wall.

First flower buds starting to form but judging by experience in previous years I think the main stems are too spindly to take the weight of potential fruit.

Should I prune them back and hope they will grow more sturdy with side shoots? I,ve never done this before so don't know how successful a process it is.

I normally pinch the tip out at around 2 feet, so you may be ok to do that

I posted a very similar query a few years ago, Primrose, and was advised to nip out the top and give the side shoots a chance, though I think my peppers were not quite as tall as yours at the time. I followed the advice and the side shoots grew but they never produced much fruit. I have not 'decapitated' my peppers since then. Could you not stake them firmly?

One particular plant was just too lanky for supporting with a stick so have bitten the bullet, pruned it back drastically and have put the top part with emerging flower buds in water for w couple of days, prior to potting up in new compost, rather like one can do with sideshoots taken from a tomato plant.

I've done this successfully with tomato sideshoots previously to get a later cropping plant but have no idea whether it will work with peppers so always something new to try on the gardening front ! Has anybody tried this?

Never tried it Primrose but make sure you feed back your results! I believe it is mainly hairy stemmed veg plants, but you can do it with flowers who don't have hairy stems so worth a shot! Great if your successful - free plants!