Kitchen Garden Forum

My peppers, both sweet and chillies, are now about 10 inches tall and growing nicely in individual pots in the greenhouse. I wouldn't mind keeping them a bit bushier this year and am tempted to pinch out the tops. The latest KG mag says not to for chillies, because the side shoots will grow tall in any case. but presumably one could pinch those out as well (as one would for, say, fuchsias).

Any thoughts on that?

I accidentally pinched the tops of a pepper & chilli plants out by snapping off the top parts of the stem when repotting them.. The pepper (long Italian pointy variety) eventually grew sideshoots and was slightly more bushy than the others but fruit was much later forming. The chilli (Hungarian Wax variety) rather sulked but did also eventually grow sideshoots and bear fruit, but this isn't a very tall variety and I wouldn't do it by again by choice. I did very hard prune 3 chilli plants back after autumn fruiting to over-winter them indoors with part of the compost replaced and they all quickly grew new sideshoots & bore smaller fruits again in Spring.
You may find that pinching out sideshoots in your peppers means getting a slightly later crop.

I know it is sometimes advised to pinch out the tops of peppers, but I never have done. Almost invariably, I grow Gypsy, which I find very prolific. My experience with chillies is more limited. I grew one plant last year (hydroponically) and got more chillies than I knew what to do with. It bushed out very well without any pinching out.

Thanks, Primrose and Ken. I think I will leave them" un-pinched"!