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Post by daylilydude on May 3, 2017 4:14:32 GMT -5
As you noticed I have a thread in the tomato section on the spacing of tomatoes, so I thought to have one on peppers also... do you have a spacing for peppers or do you just use the same method you have for your tomatoes?
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Post by paulf on May 3, 2017 7:29:04 GMT -5
For me, peppers are spaced at about 2' apart. I use the smaller cone shaped tomato cages as pepper cages. That limits the sprawl and peppers can grow up instead of out.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 3, 2017 10:43:21 GMT -5
I plant four peppers to an EB, or one per 5-gallon bucket. An EB is 28" long x 14" wide, so that works out to around a foot apart. The EB planting instructions show 6 peppers per box, but after experimenting, I found that's too close. I have a long growing season and my plants will get too big for that. I think Dave (pepperhead212) only puts two peppers per box. But he grows a bunch of super hot peppers that develop monster-sized plants. Though there have been a couple of varieties I have grown that turned out huge; in retrospect I should have only planted two per box! When planting in an EB, I stagger the peppers so they have optimum room. I don't plant peppers in-ground any more because nematodes get them every time. Here is a planting diagram (X = plant, O = fill tube, f = fertilizer band): _X____X___ fffffffffffffffff O__X____X_ I use a metal cage around each EB to contain the sprawl and keep heavy branches from breaking under the weight of the peppers. As it turns out, the pea fences from Gurney's ( www.gurneys.com/product/pea_fence; I only buy these when I have a half-off coupon) fold up to rectangles that exactly fit on an EB - they sit right on plastic lip as if they'd been designed for it. I drive a couple of stakes beside the box to tie the pea fence to (so it doesn't get bumped over by my clumsiness or blown over in high winds), and they are good to go. At the end of the season I can remove the ties and lift the cage straight up off the box to remove the plants and refresh the box for the next growing season. When I'm done, I just set the cage back down and re-tie it to the stakes. I have my boxes are really close together in the row, inches apart. So once the peppers get big their leaves are touching the peppers in the next box. Eventually, the pepper row becomes a 28" wide x 20' long solid mass of plants. There's no getting between the boxes, but since the boxes are only 28" wide I can reach in from the path on either side of the row and reach all of the peppers. Picking does become a real treasure hunt, though! I try to plant the boxes so that adjacent plants produce different sizes/shapes/colors of peppers. Otherwise I'd never know what kind of peppers I was picking. Peppers seem to like to have their leaves touching, and the extra shade from the dense foliage also helps to prevent sunscald on the fruit. If I space the peppers/boxes out more, sunscald ruins a lot of my fruit, particularly the bell peppers and other large sweets.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 3, 2017 13:54:59 GMT -5
Except for the chinense peppers, which grow very large, as a rule, I plant them about 16" apart, planting a double row, ziz zagged, with an irrigation line down the center, with emitters going to each plant. For a few larger ones, like anchos, I have a few emitters further apart, but most are 16". The chinense peppers I would plant 2' apart, but now I just plant them in Earthboxes, 2 per box.
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Post by paquebot on May 4, 2017 20:10:42 GMT -5
With less than a third root system than tomatoes, they don't need a lot of surface area. With some exceptions, spacing is 2' with 3' between rows. Due to the smaller root system, they benefit more from adding nutrients to the hole when planting.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by daylilydude on May 5, 2017 2:52:00 GMT -5
paulf, Laura_in_FL, pepperhead212, paquebot, I/we would love to see some pics of your pepper gardens if you have any? paquebot, what nutrients would you add to the planting hole, and does anyone else do this? I love asking about gardens as there are so many different opinions/ways that people garden...
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Post by paulf on May 5, 2017 5:58:15 GMT -5
Hopefully after this weekend all the tomatoes and peppers will be in the dirt. As for what I put in the planting hole, it's the plant and the dirt that was removed to make the hole and then a little water. Plants need to begin pulling needed nutrients from the surrounding area. They forget to look for food if it is all in the little space called the planting hole. It's a tough life to be plopped into the dirt but they need to become independent as quickly as possible and fend for themselves. If the whole garden is balanced nutritiently there will be no problem.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 5, 2017 9:50:30 GMT -5
daylilydude I throw a handful of worm castings, which this season I'll mix with some Iron Actinovate, that I had left from last season; usually I use the leftover actinovate powder mixed in, and get some new actinovate for the tomatoes each season. I figure that can't hurt for the tomatoes, EP, and peppers, though I haven't done a side by side test, to see if it helps. My main batch of peppers aren't quite ready to go in the ground, which is good, as it is still too cold. Monday night low is forecast at 40°, and none of the lows in the 7-day were 55° or higher. I do have some peppers in WOWs - one is poking through the top, so I may have to cover that one even more! I'll post some photos, once the rain stops!
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Post by paquebot on May 5, 2017 19:42:28 GMT -5
If the existing soil isn't very rich, each pepper plant gets about a gallon of my own compost. Past two years haven't been in a hole but tilled into rows at rate of about a half gallon per foot.\.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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