Kitchen Garden Forum

My chilli and sweet pepper seedlings have grown too lanky for my liking. Now they are ready for potting on individually, could I plant them very low in the potting compost as one would for tomatoes? They are the same family after all. I have no spares, so I don't want to lose any.

I'd give it a try Monika especially as it's too late to resow and start again. I did this one year in the past and planted in slightly deeper pots the usual to make up. The other thing I did, because I had rather more plants thanusual and could afford to experiment, was to wait until there were some lower leaves forming, and with my heart in my mouth, I snapped off the top of the main shoot and hoped that some lower shoots would start developing.
This eventually happened and I did get a reasonable crop although rather later than usual. You may find you have to put some sticks in the pots to support some of the side "branches".

Dear Monika,
wait until they are about 5 inches tall and then pinch them out. It does no harm and will increase yield.
Regards Sally Wright

Hi,

Sally, I've always wondered about pinching them out - but always been a bit scared. May be I could try this on a couple. Do you just take out the top couple of leaves from the main stalk? Can you do this with all types?

Thanks

Pawty

Dear Pawty,
I grow about 6-8 varieties of sweet pepper (usually all pointed types), I also grow between 12-15 types of chilli and it works for all of those. I usually try to make sure that there is about 5 inches of stem left with several good sized leaves on it. It is not an exact science and "thereabouts" is usually good enough for me. Generally you will end up with a shorter overall height plant (less staking needed) and any variation will make the cropping time vary so there will not be quite so much of a glut. I plant early so I can do this.
Regards Sally Wright.

Thanks for that advice. I will plant them slightly deeper (as advised by Primrose) and later pinch the tops out (as advised by Sally). That should do the trick!

I followed Primrose and Sally's advice - planted the seedlings slightly deeper than usual and later pinched out the tops and, hey presto, they are all lovely strong plants, about 12" high now, and with lots of sideshoots. Just thought, you might like to have an update.

Thanks for your update Monika. It's good to know that the solution worked for you. One always hesitates if you think a drastic action will ruin or destroy a plant, but having done it once one learns by the experience and can do something again with more confidence if you find things are not going quite according to plan.

Do leave chillies under glass all the time, or will they benefit from being outside on a nice day(then put back inside at night)?

Once summer arrives I put my chillies outdoors up against a house wall and leave them there day and night. They have always seemed fairly resilient but our summer temperatures are probably warmer than yours. Last year I had plants both outdoors and in my mini plastic greenhouse and they all fared equally well, but chilliest do seem to enjoy warmer temperatures.
I'm sure your chillies will enjoy some fresh air but if your nighttime temperatures are more extreme than down here in the south I,d pop them back under cover at night.

Incidentally I would have thought that slugs and snails might have been deterred from nibbling at the developing fruits because of their heat but not a bit of it so beware of them if you leave them out at night !

Thanks for that Primrose

I know we are far further south than you are, tigerburnie, but we are fairly high up and very exposed to winds from west and east, so I leave chillies, sweet peppers and tomatoes in the greenhouse all the time. But all the flaps (two top, two bottom) and the door are wide open during the day and a crack open at night during the summer.

My first year growing chillies, only got the Cayenne to germinate, so very much a learning curve this year, I do see signs of flower buds. I have 4 so I could experiment with some in all the time and some not I guess, one is sown direct in the soil, so that will be staying put lol.

Tiger, don't be dispirited if your first early flowers go brown and drop off without developing fruit. I've found it often seems to happen with chillies and peppers. Incidentally one year when I had surplus seedlings of chillies and peppers I planted some out in a border. They performed patheticalLy compared with the plants in pots and although they bore some fruit they were so small as to be not really worth bothering with.

I suspect that was partly due to soil quality. I always mix in a few chicken manure pellets with the compost in my pots to avoid the risk of plants runnfing low in nutrients after a while. I didn,t do that with the plants in the border and they were also more exposed than the outdoor plants in pots located against a warm sunny house wall which I suspect also made a difference.

Mine are inside all the time. Read an article that they do better in pots or rings than beds as the soil is warmer, tried it last year and got excellent peppers (chilli and sweet) and aubergines grown in rings on a polytunnel bed so am doing it again this year. Also seeing if it helps tomatoes, some in rings some in the bed.
Don't believe the heat stops predators. Two years ago we lost a load to voles; went down one morning and they had nipped the chillis off, stripped them open and eaten the seeds.