I can't agree with you more about not growing enough medium to low heat varieties. Last year those were the ones I used the most and we just didn't have enough of them. Definitely taking that into consideration this season! I will say that we grew a few normal Jalepenos and a few Mammoth Jalepenos. The normals didn't produce very well, but those mammoths seriously loaded up and most of our pickled jalepenos came from those plants. We loved them. I've made the same mistake with the neem oil in the bucket. The dish soap helped, but it still isn't a risk that i want to take again. Last year I didn't stake until they NEEDED it... and it was so difficult to get everything staked down, and I did lose a few branches and peppers when they toppled over from the weight of the peppers. Great video, tons of good info about mistakes a lot of people make but they don't really talk about!
Thanks for sharing, nice to know we're not alone in making those mistakes. Interesting about the Mammoth jalapeno. We'll be testing several varieties of jalapeno (plus banana pepper and cayenne) to see which we like best. Should be a fun year of growing
Im fairly new to this (only grown peppers for 2 years) but this year I did a small experiment. Grew my plants using garden tone and picking off every flower until the plants got as big as I wanted. Jalapeño plants got around 4 ft tall. Then I added bone meal to the soil around some of the plants. Those plants all had ridiculous amounts of peppers within a few weeks. Each of the Jalapeño plants gave me at least 100 peppers. Bell peppers had dozens on each plant. And I had more habaneros and ghost peppers than I cared to count. Going to try it again this year and see if it was a fluke.
Aphids were really bad in NH for 2021. Once I finally got rid of them my plants took off big-time ! I used a pump sprayer with about a teaspoon of dawn dish soap with 1 gallon of water. It took several treatments over 2 weeks
the cheap tomato cages work really well for holding up pepper plants. I use those most of the time now. Also, I make this mistake almost EVERY year....I place my pepper plants in between two tomato plants. Then all of a sudden the tomato plants grow way bigger than I anticipate, which shades the pepper plants out. Banana peppers don't seem to mind but some other pepper plants didn't grow that well after making this mistake (this year I did it with banana peppers and eggplant....the eggplant did not grow well but the banana peppers I had more than I could handle!).
Also made the staking mistake which cost me a large bhut jolokia plant that snapped at the base of the main stem after some heavy weather, tried to rescue it by trying to force it to make new roots off the main stem but to no avail.Luckily I went overboard with my superhots so got plenty anyway ;) For this season already got some more stakes to be ready! Love the channel last season was the first season for me growing peppers and thanks to you guys I managed to grow bhut jolokia and habaneros ( I live in Sweden). This season I will try a white bhut jolokia variety as well as a caramel trinidad moruga scorpion and 7 pot primo. Hooked on peppers and never going back!
Yep, staking is easy to skip, but is worth the extra effort, especially in windy places. Happy to hear you're on the pepper bandwagon, it is an amazing hobby
Big mistake I made for a long time was not caging heavy fruiting and sprawling varieties. By prime season push, they are snapping branches. Cages are a life saver.
In 2020, Daughter was very worried about what she saw in the news and she made a lot of new garden beds, took seeds from grocery store bell peppers and grew about 10 huge plants with the slowest growing peppers ever seen. But come Sept and Oct, we had about 30 peppers per plant. She did great! She even gotbeans from a 15 bean mix forgoten in the pantry and grew enough for chili. I included her in the planning this year and she had even better luck growing her own striped peppers, blue tomatoes and some sun flowers. All this to say that store bought produce seeds are a good entry level point for kids
Yes, the plants will definitely grow and it is a great way to teach kids how plants work. But, good to know that the results will vary. Glad your daughter had success!
I bought all new potting mix this year decided to do peppers in pots. We had tons of rain. I had diseases on peppers like I’ve never had before. Just when you think you do everything perfect
Where I live (not all that far from the Pepper Geeks) our rainiest year on record, by far, was 2018. My tomatoes and green beans, as well as many trees, had diseases that don't normally affect them, but my peppers were still quite successful. But, I do have good drainage thanks to hilly terrain. Pots and small containers are definitely tougher to manage in a rainy year, but it can be done with the right pots.
This was my 1st year gardening in 9b, and I learned that I should have grown more of everything. My new neighbors eyed my banana peppers, jalapeños and habaneros with desire, so I made lots of friends by giving them away, along with fresh tomatoes and eggplants. Then, they came back for more. I thought the plants would be knee high, but they quickly rose to 6 or 7 feet, especially my purple corn. Only the shishito remained compact, yet produced delicious peppers daily. I had no idea that gardening would expand from being a hobby into becoming a full-time job. The peppers resisted all pests and disease, do I'm inclined to increase the number and varieties next year. The bells were very slow to start, but now in January we are flush with them.
@@jamesthorpe2359 Feed peppers 🌶 the same as you would your tomatoes 🍅. Mine are always hungry and thirsty, so I give them kitchen scraps and tomato fertilizer every 2 weeks along with copious water 2 days per week. Invest in a small bottle 🍼 of cal-mag once they begin to flower 🌼 . Speak to them in dulcet tones and play some Bach or Keith Jarrett in the background.
I plant way too many peppers because I worry they won’t come up. When they do instead of just keeping a few of each variety I pot up (container gardener here), thinking they won’t survive the transplant, they do. Then I end up with too many containers (big and small) all over my deck and yard and grow more than I could ever eat or give away. I freeze bags of peppers and still never use them all
After eating, storing what you think you need through canning, dehydrating, freeze drawings, or if you don't feel like doing those extra things, the food bank will take your extras, just make sure they know which ones are hot.
You know what would be AWESOME for your site? A table of a bunch of popular and fun types of peppers, then the info for each, like scoville, pepper size, time to maturity, how big the plant gets, how many peppers you typically get, etc. I constantly find I need this info, but I have to search up multiple sources for every individual type of pepper, so I just don't bother most the time. A table like that would be amazing, and you've got the knowledge!
Great idea. We're working on writing articles about lots of different types, but a quick snippet of info all in the same place could be cool. Will keep in mind!
My MAJOR mistake was not waiting till after usual hail storm had come past to plant. Every single plant i grew from seed was brutalized and “topped off” by mother nature. This year I will keep the pepper and tomato plants inside or in the grow tent till AFTER the yearly hail storm 🌬💨 has past.
I discovered Pepper Geeks too late last year. My peppers were planted too close together and varieties were mixed so some crowded out other plants. Some individuals were in their own pots only to get too tall and be blown over by the wind until I put bricks in the pots. I will do better this year! :)
i tried to grow peppers from seed i saved from store bought peppers never got a single pepper from those plants,, i found that a heavy raw compost buried and covered by a couple inches of soil with a layer of finished compost on top of after staking the rows, i also found the more stress you put the pepper plants through the hotter the peppers,, thank you for the tips
My biggest mistake this year was starting my seeds too early. My seedlings were ready to plant outside but the weather was much too cold. Thanks for the video. Great tips for the upcoming season.
You maybe maybe growing them in a to small of a pot. I use 16oz plastic disposable drink cup. The plants get 20 inches and more without complaint. Yes they need stakes in those pots. Yes they are awkward to work with but not too bad.
Made the same mistake with number of hot plants. 14 screamers and 5 mild-medium ones. Dialing it wayyyy back this summer to a single Yellow Fever being my only hot plant and the rest will be mild-medium.
I grew orange cayenne plants last year. The pods were 2-3” in length and were incredibly flavourful. Not to mention that the plants were massively productive with between 300-400 pods per plant !! I’ll need to create an instagram account this year to document my progress. Last year I had 250+ plants (86 varieties) whereas this year I’ll have the same amount but about 45-50 varieties. All the best selecting your varieties for the ‘22 season. Stay safe.
That sounds amazing! Would love to know your source for those cayenne seeds as we want to try a few different cayenne varieties. Also, reach out on Instagram when you're on there, we'll follow your grow for sure.
I'm also curious what climate you're in and what type of soil and fertilizer you used. I often get several dozens of cayenne-style peppers per plant, but never your kind of yields.
Last year was my Very first year of growing peppers, i can not even count all of the mistakes i made. But this year i feel much more confidant and a couple of days ago i planeted almost 30 seeds, i had 6 plats last year so this is a big step up, wish you all the best of luck this year, ceep on growing fam!
Thanks for all the great videos, you really helped fuel my new pepper growing addiction this year. My Biggest mistake of this year was to not properly overwinter my plants. I didn't want the fun to stop when the weather got cold so I bought some lights and brought them inside. All the videos I watched were talking about just keeping your plants alive enough to survive the winter but I wanted them to keep producing and growing so I didn't cut them back or change out the soil and now I have a nice colony of fungus gnats. On the tail end of getting rid of them now but has really put things off to a slow start.
@@PepperGeek I started using a product called mosquito bits. On its own wasn't enough to control them completely but helped slow them down. The thing I found that has worked the best is putting an inch or two of sand in the top of the pots. Keeps the adults from getting to the soil to lay their eggs. This method has been about 90% effective, still have been seeing some larva feeding on newly formed pods and on underside of leaves. For those I have been spraying with water and half a drop of soap in a squirt bottle.
I think prevention up front would have been far better, but I have a few tips on controlling fungus gnats. 1) bottom watering, and as infrequent as your plants can tolerate. 2) for larger plants put an inch of sand on the top of the soil. 3) When transplanting, remove all the soil above the roots and put it at the bottom of the pot or better yet outdoors. 4) yellow sticky traps, they gradually reduce the number of gnats and are a good indicator of whether you have some. Overall, drier soil on the top => fewer fungus gnats.
Here's a post that's majority mistakes: I watched videos from 7 Pot Club, Pepper Geek and somehow managed to learn nothing. You guys are the best pepper RUclipsrs in my opinions. Maybe I haven't been doing everything I've learned... 😅 I'm about to enter my 3rd season. Season one I didn't transplant my plants into 5+ gallon pots and my wife was adamant that all my plants we dying because I was "transplanting them too often" over the entire time I was trying to grow them. (I only transplanted them twice as I learned from 7 Pot Club however I didn't have pots above 1-gallon.) I only got a single plant out of the 50 that grew to enough maturity to give me 4 ripe pods over the course of 6 months from the first pod. Season 2, this past year, I got 16 pods from a single plant where I had a larger pot (specifically the one my only moderately successfully plant from season 1 was in) while the other two 1+ year old plants only grew two full-sized pods or one stunted pod. This 3rd season I plan to expand my pots further from 4-gallon plastic pots to 7-gallon and 10-gallon fabric grow bags.
I primarily plant in the ground by May, but I find the more I transplant the better my peppers do. Maybe something to do with how much TLC they get in the process. That said, transplanting is messy and time-consuming, so I start bigger and jump farther with each up-potting now.
First time growing here and thanks for all the vids! This last week hit me pretty hard, I was hardening off some small plants (in pots) that were about to go into the ground and we had some heavy rain. I forgot that i had them out on afternoon and they say in a tray with no drainage and it looks like I severely damaged them. A tough lesson learnt. My hope is I will get at least a couple pods I can save some seeds from by the next couple months.
I’m in zone 7A, every year the sun gets filtered or blocked out due to wildfire smoke. Sometimes it’s a week, sometimes it’s months. The mistake I made was planting to close. When the smoke came in all the lower leaves on most of my peppers lost all their sun and fell off. If it wasn’t for the long summer I probably wouldn’t have had any rip spicy peppers.
Great and useful video, as usual! Thank you for sharing and starting a thread about mistakes. Learnings always include mistakes and are key to improve over time... I live in Ontario Canada and my biggest mistake in 2021 was to rely and take for granted that my watering system was working at all times. I grew around 100 jalapeño plants and I use a drip irrigation system in the garden (also on my other plants). I also plug the whole thing on a timer when I leave for more than 24-48hrs. Well I came back after a short 72hrs trip and found out that at least a third of my plants did not have sufficient water (most of them in 2' high raised beds = daily watering is necessary during hotter summer days, especially in growth & flowering stages). Anyway, I lost a ton of flowers... thousands fell down, just as many of my tears lol, not. In looking into the cause, I found out a bigger problem: my water was full of sediment and clogged my basic irrigation mesh filter AND over a third of my drip lines. In retrospect, not much I could have done to prevent or known before hand I guess... the issue is fixed now. In conclusion, if you use a watering system, make sure you have proper filtration, especially if your property is on well water, make sure there is proper filtration after the well even for your outdoor water use.
Thx for the info. My mistake was not planting flowering plants to attract pollinators. I grew Caribbean Red peppers, started in Jan and transplanted outside beginning of June (Zone 4a). They had lots of blooms but didn't produce fruit, instead just fell off. When they bloomed again I started to rub two flowers together to pollinate them, success. But my then it was end of July and the fruit didn't have time to fully mature. I did finish them on my window sill but not impressed. This year I'll just stick with Corno de Toro and Jalapeno which are super producers in my area.
In my experience peppers are really easy to get pollinated as they are self-fertile, so some breezes can be enough. If you are getting a lot of blossom drop I would expect temperature issues rather than lack of pollination, though I'm in 7a so perhaps things work differently here -- I usually start tentatively planting in the ground in late April.
Starting a variety of plants from seeds on porch in South Florida. Started between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hear your warning about house pets and young foliage. Denial or refusal won out and I have learned today.... Cat started with Papaya, stripping and uprooting them completely. Okay so they avoided the prized hot peppers. I thought I was safe because the cat must have intuitively sensed negative consequences of eating peppers. Two hours later 50% reduction in pepper crop. In process of developing an intervention strategy. Better to trust the Geeks.
Our mistake was trying to overwinter our two chili plants that had been on the balcony (7 floors up), thinking that maaaaybe it would be spared from pests being so high up... They were not. Took like a month or two before we noticed that there were thrips ever-y-where on the plants. Fingers crossed we ordered some beetles that feed on thrips, hoping they wouldn't spread to our other houseplants just a couple of meters away. The beetles did an admirable job, but by the time they had all died(?) the thrips were still there on some leafs. At least we gave it a shot! :P Tossed the plants out and will keep one or two plants indoor next summer to have over the winter, and some will be put on the balcony to be thrown out come autumn.
I think almost everyone makes staking mistakes. However I need to make sure if I use self watering buckets I need to stake them to the ground very well. I had issues with those massive trees. My biggest had a canopy of 7'. Also build a tall cage for the top that will last for a few decades. Hopefully anyway. It's so hard to do them all though 🤑 Also going entirely overboard in growing superhots as well. Last year I grew around 60 plants 40 varieties. It's so hard to limit varieties. Almost got to say can only grow once but there are still the staple varieties.
I had to rewind the video 3 times, to make sure I was hearing you correctly regarding the productivity of jalapeño plants. 🧐😆 1-2 dozen peppers total off one plant is the standard?? I had no clue. Guess I’ve been incredibly fortunate. Never had one taller than 3.5 feet, but even the 2 footers crank out an insane amount of jalapeños through October (6B). They put out so many jalapeños, I only planted two last season, and gave the rest of my starts away because I had way too many. This is so interesting to hear. I don’t top mine either, I just let them do their thing.
Nice, ours was crowded with 2 other varieties in the same container, and in a pretty poorly lit location as well, so definitely not ideal. We'll see how we do next year with more plants and a better setup 👍
I've grown Tahi Burapa for three years now, and I got nearly 200 pepers just from on plant (for rounds os peppers). With a decent amount of spice I might add. This 2022 it's time for Habaneros!
Thank you so much for making this video! Its always nice to learn from others' mistakes, and remember, its only truly a mistake if you don't learn anything from it! Keep moving forward!
I had one jalapeño plant last year, the peppers were much smaller than store ones but it was much more productive than what you suggested they do. I grew one through the Phoenix heat and easily got 2 big harvests of 20 peppers each. Must depend heavily on environment and variety
Peppers are hit or miss because of the temperatures and short growing season here. The soil doesn't get warm enough for them until mid June and the first frost can happen in early September. Varieties that have done well some years include Carmen, Sweet Banana and Hungarian Hot Wax. Other years they barely set fruit. No pepper plant has grown more that 30 inches tall in my garden.
Yep, we've all got to play by the rules of our climates. However, you could extend your season by growing in containers instead of in-ground. Start the seeds earlier and up-pot indoors until they can go outside
I've had way fewer pest problems with outdoor peppers than with tomatoes and brassicas (other than voracious deer which I keep away with fencing, tobacco hornworms, and an unidentified virus that cause small, dark, shiny, twisted leaves on the top of the plant). I think beneficial forest insects are a big reason for my peppers being healthy -- the moment I take them indoors I have to worry about aphids and fungus gnats. One of my biggest mistakes this year was bringing in potted plants that had been outdoors without going through thorough decontamination. I learned that trying to ripen up remaining peppers and overwintering are completely different and incompatible activities, especially when you are under the gun from early frost. I find that pepper plants most often have support issues when (1) they are about 6" tall and i'm transplanting them into the last pot before going into the ground, (2) they are getting quite tall and heavy weather comes, or (3) they are heavy with pods. But in each case it depends very much on the variety and how you've grown them. Some grow to 3'+ tall full of pods without needing any support, if they have strong woody stems and small to medium pods (like c. frutescens and crosses). Like the Pepper Geeks I have been shifting from a pretty hot mix of peppers to include more medium to mild peppers, as these are more useful more of the time. But I'm finding I like somewhat less common less-hot peppers a lot, they have a lot more taste and can be more productive than the usual grocery store varieties (I can't compete with huge factory farms with 100% sun and 800% inorganic fertilizer when it comes to growing huge bell peppers -- but I can grow something far tastier). Perhaps another good topic would be "what did you learn last year and you got right this year".
For your first point you mentioned that many of the sweet peppers aren't as productive as the hot; I would like to see your take on "Production Peppers" where you seek out varieties that focus on yield in the sweet to mild ranges (cooking peppers). I ran into the same thing last year; I had a ton of Thai hots but needed a ton of poblanos/bells for how we cook at home, and it killed me to drive to the grocery for peppers every week. So far my list for 2022 includes: Poblano, Jimmy Nardello, Murasaki Purple, Banana, Pimento, and King of the North for Zone 5, but I would love to see your take.
Next year will be many more sweet varieties and this will be a focus. Bells and other big, thick walled varieties are just not as productive, but I want to know if there is something out there that can be the best of both worlds. We’ll use weight as a measurement. Our ghost pepper produced over 2lbs of pods, but how many bell peppers does that equate to?
I never make mistakes. 😜 My biggest mistake is not having enough time to properly take care of my plants. I still get results that make it worth my time so for zero dollars invested every year and a bit of sweat when I do manage to get out there for more than 5 minutes, I am more than satisfied with what I get. I make my own compost, bone meal and bug spray (smells citrusy). One day I would like to set up a worm bin to take advantage of those but haven’t got around to that yet.
I'm in 7a CT probably near these guys- I ran an experiment with some Big Jim chilis last year where I topped half the plants to see if they would end up producing more. They ended up producing about the same but in different ways. The untopped peppers kept producing steadily at a slightly lower rate, but the topped peppers had this huge barren period while they recovered before putting out a bunch of fruit. I think we just don't have enough grow days for them to properly recover- had my season been longer I'm sure the topped peppers would out-produce the untopped ones. The topped peppers did grow to be more sturdy, but a stake would give the same result. I won't be topping them this year. Hopes this helps someone!
Nice! Thanks for sharing. We've experimented a bit too, but not nearly enough to be sure. Definitely seems to depend on the variety, but we don't really top our plants anymore. Doesn't seem to be worth it in our climate.
I just ordered a bunch of different pepper seeds, not knowing what to do with them. I was researching and found your channel and I'm so excited. I can't wait to grow these peppers and turn them into different sauces, relishes and jams.
Pretty solid information and I could probably speak for a week on mistakes I made. 2021 was a great season for me and other than catching covid right at peak harvest, everything went as planned. I search every year for milder/better tasting varieties that are more rare. The standards like jalapenos I just don't have room to grow, but a few strange low to medium heat varieties are a must, especially because my main goal in growing hot peppers is to collect seeds. The superhot game has been the majority of my grow for the last 6 seasons with me kind of specializing in unstable hybrids. You mentioned growing less superhots but in all reality if you want to find great phenotypes, one must plant more seeds to find the best phenos. Otherwise the mainstream rather unethical seed sellers just end up selling undesirable phenos that contaminate the chili community. Best of luck for a bountiful harvest in 2022!
Yikes, glad you got through that in 2021! On to better things in 2022. Good point on selecting your own phenos for seed saving. We save a lot of our own seeds, but with so many chinense plants side by side I do worry some about the cross pollination
I successfully overwintered about a dozen pepper plants from 2023 - 2024. I got a little heavy handed trimming the roots on some plants and those peppers didn’t survive. My adolescent peppers (2023 models) will get overwintered again this year and I will use the same process as last year. Prune, clean off all the existing soil, spray the entire plant roots and all with neem solution, replant in fresh soil, keep as cool as possible over the winter. I’m in zone 4/5. I got very good production with the 2 year old plants.
if only I could remember the mistakes I made haha..Thank you for sharing this. On our allotment website I added a think before your jump (into gardening) as on tv it all looks effortless and easy. we had lots of new members joining and leaving the same season. Once I put up the reality check less people signed up, now fully aware it takes them about 20-25 hours a week for the patch of dirt we had (10x15Metres sorry no idea of feet or yards, but 3x my tiny back garden). I have a north facing garden and tried to grow a pepper outdoors...or tomatoes, salads were fine, but the rest pfff sticking to my raspberries and blue berries and strawberries this year I think :-D or maybe something indoors once I can afford lights and such
Started growing in 2018 and up until this off season I didn't really have any knowledge about plants really. I just kind of winged it. Well I definitely know a lot of first hand "what not to do" because of that. I've had issues hardening off, getting sun scalding, but luckily I understand that very well now. Last year I had damping off issues because I overwatered(tried using peat nursery pots for the first time and they retained more water than expected).
This was my second season into growing peppers and my huge mistake this season was leaving the shade cloth up and over my plants outside for the majority of the summer. It seriously setback the development of my plants and they only even began flowering a month before the freeze hit. I had to bring the majority of my plants indoors and now they are taking up a quarter of my bedroom and now I'm having to run my T5 grow lights again already so my mistake is going to reflect upon my utility bill lol. This next season I will know it is unnecessary to have shade cloth if the plans have already hardened during the springtime. I had no problems the first season I grew as a beginner and little to no shade cloth was used.
I made the same mistake. Shade cloth too early in the season. It started as a screen for some hail storms, but I decided to leave it up. Lesson learned.
What percent shade cloth did you use? I heard if you use a 30% shade cloth throughout summer you get more fruits/peppers. Then again if you dont have intense heat waves in summer then you dont need the shade cloth.
I love the fact that you're growing Aji Amarillo. Its a Peruvian pepper, used a lot in ceviche, same with Rocoto. I honestly have been trying to grow them from store bought frozen bags (obviously no luck, but I'm still hopeful). I think i'll just need to take a 2-4$ loss (i'm cheap) just to get my hands on these pepper seeds. lol
Also the pronunciation of Amarillo is Ama-ree-yo. the "ri" makes the "ree" sound, like in breathe, reek, street. the "llo" makes the "yo" sound, Like yoyo. Cheers, mate!
Same. I'd grow maybe 2 different super hots and like 1 low and 2 medium hots for variety. Jalapeño gets used a lot in my family for Mexican dishes. Habanero is another good pepper Or even cherry or banana peppers for something low. But definitely a ghost and a reaper for an awesome sauce or to be daring and eat fresh 🤣
I definitely made the mistake of planting too many seedlings and not having anywhere to plant them. I gave dozens of plants away and had to compost some. I also have a tendency to try and harden my plants too quickly. Plant sunburn sucks!
I've had both these problems. In response I've been progressively increasing my useful (i.e. sunniest) places to grow peppers and tomatoes. I never had much trouble with sun scald until recently, when I started getting good at having seedlings ready to go outside before the big trees get their leaves. But for me sunscald was much worse on tomatoes than peppers (tomatoes need several times as long to get used to the sun).
I had a horrible aphid infestation in all my seedlings. It came from some cilantro plants I wanted to overwinter under my lights. No more overwintering cilantro!
Exact same thing happened to me last year. This year it's only seedlings in the plant room. Which means my overwintered rocotos may not make it. But the alternative is worse!
2nd year grower, my biggest mistake this year was germinating in hemp cups instead of black plastic cells. With the high heat needed for germination they dry out very quickly, and it's hard to keep them organized.
Ne t year defiantly growing poblano, Anaheim, serano,and some hotter like Arbol...right in my wheelhouse. Mind you...also growing Habanero and Cayenne. But also sweet peppers. Confession...this is the first year I've been able to grow a pepper to successful harvest and it's got me stoked. Have 16 varieties lined up for next year and look forward to the education I will get.
One of my biggest mistakes with peppers is I had a plant which was a maverick, on one seemed to know what it was, it had a pleasant smell, was long and semi-meaty, I decided to take a bite out of one (I'm very pepper resistant), THAT was a mistake.
The thing about grocery store peppers, they're cheap enough to buy and easily accessible. I pretty much grow stuff I can't find easily. Like a Choclate Habenearo, or a Red Habanero.
Thanks for the not so hot suggestions last video, ill try getting some in the future. I did already find MADHATTER and i hear its rated 500 Scoville units and I'm excited to try them this coming season.
and my BIGGEST mistake of 2021 was two fold. I had my starts in my tent, and I introduced plants bought from walmart into the tent. Along with that, my wifes plant room had a bug outbreak and I had been going back and fourth between rooms. Somewhere between those two things... all my plants got infested and there was no saving them. I had to order starts online to save my season. This year I will only have MY starts in my tent, and I won't be going from her plant room into mine.
This year I managed to overwinter a jalapeno and I got two harvests of about 12-15 peppers. My mistake was leaving the peppers on too long. The older the pepper the less heat it had
I had a bunch of healthy plants, and I wanted to cut them down to make Bonchis for gifts. I live near Boston, and I cut two of them down at the beginning of October, and they are doing amazingly well by the end of January. I cut the other 15 down on Halloween, and I think they are all dead. As much as timing is important at the start of the season, be mindful of timing if you have plans for your plants at the end of a season as well.
I am NOT good with plants, so take the following with a grain of salt, but I have to second the advice against growing seeds taken from store-bought peppers. I started the season with a number of healthy-looking bell, anaheim, and sweet pimento seedlings. By autumn, I had four scraggly, floppy plants that produced a *total* of five peppers between them, all half the size of the fruits I had originally purchased. I didn't even get to eat some of them due to mold. I brought the final two survivors to overwinter, but I think they're both dead. This year, I have seeds from some of your recommended shops, and I'm working on an indoor setup with a grow light instead of just a south-facing window. Wish me luck. :)
I absolutely love your channel, so much good information. I wish I could post pictures of my pepper plants. I’ve been growing them in the window. They have gotten pretty big and are at the flower stage but I’m pretty scared to pluck the flowers cause I don’t want to damage the plants.
Oh man I fried 10 strawberry plants by putting an oil on them. Sun scorched and gooed them up good. I also had a terrible luck trying to start the aloha pepper from a store pepper. I did however after two generations get some super productive tiny little bell peppers from those fiesta peppers
Always did the same mistake as soon as I spotted aphids panic what to do. But the past couple of years I have learnt to do nothing. The plants do get infested with aphids but after a couple of weeks the predators soon follow and there is no effect for the plants. So don’t panic as soon as you see aphids as nature soon catches up with them. From uk. Our top predators are the larvae of the ladybird, hover fly and lace wing and also parasitic wasps.
Zone 9: First, it is very difficult to grow well here. My best plants were Aji Rico (stake it), Aji Amarillo. Generally, any pepper plant having a tendency toward small leaves. The hardest plants to grow were bell peppers and hot cherries. Instead of growing bells, I would recommend growing Candy Cane peppers. They taste very much like a bell pepper, but they have more of an elongated and narrow shape. Candy Cane plants are also beautiful with two-tone, green and white striped leaves. Also, cayenne grows quite well. Shishitos grow amazingly well here in Zone 9. For tomatoes, I recommend Sungolds all the way. What great little plants! Keep everyone out of the afternoon sun when it’s hot, because they suffer. None the plants I mentioned need “full sun,” whatever that is supposed to be. Morning sun, spring through fall is enough in the Mojave Desert where I live. If you want the exercise, during the winter, you can carry your plants outside every morning and carry them back into your garage for the night. I have been doing this with my ~50 little guys (all in grow bags). All are still alive. The Ricos and Amarillos are still producing; albeit, the fruits are small.
First peppers I ever bought, I bought need oil extract and put it straight in a spray bottle. I also sprayed them early afternoon. Long story short, I fried the plant!
love the channel. I planted several jalapeno plants and tabasco peppers. I live in zone 9 b they just stop producing late nov in to dec. made cowboy candy, pickled peppers and pepper jelly. Going try a reper this year just to do it lol. thanks for all the info. P S. Made the strawberry jam and jalapeno recipe you put out. was a hit over the holidays.
Nice, everyone has to get the reaper plant out of their system at some point 😂 enjoy it, they're pretty fascinating plants. I'm glad you and the fam enjoyed the jam!
Flowers like marigolds for example, will bring in good insects that will kill your aphids. Also, a good preventative spray is Dr.zymes. I use it on multiple different plants and it works pretty darn good.
I always try and start my hot peppers super early (s.ontario) as we have a short grow season. My tent and LED is in my basement, this year I think it got too cold, even w heat mat set at 70c all my hots are stunted and almost dormant. I cranked up the heat mat to 75+ we will see if it saves them but they are far behind everything else Im growing and started 4 weeks prior!
I plan to try seeds next fall and grow an army of pepper plants of different types like cayenne, scotch bonnet and maybe something like a reaper or ghost pepper plant.
As a former Missouri resident I can attest to how wonderful your topsoil is. But I’m in Az and my jalapeños & serranos have been powerhouse producers too. They’re the first and last to fruit every year. Maybe our summers are warmer than theirs?
Thank you guys for the awesome videos! I am also growing fewer super hot chilis, since I still have a large shelf in the freezer full of them from last season! I also wanted to start my seeds earlier this year, but because of the holidays, it didnt happen, so Im just starting mid-January. In Florida we have until early July before disease and pest pressure take over, so hopefully I can lock in a harvest before then. I am also hoping to make a raised bed for them vs. pots this year. For me, they are too dependant in the pots and I need to be able to leave them for more than 24 hours, lol.
Beard looks good! I was thinking the same -- not enough medium hot. the purple ufo peppers I grew were great and I'm going to do more of those, and serrano and want to try pickling my own pepperoncini
The mistake I made was buying a small pepper plant bought from a store and placing it next to my other plants. I realised too late it was covered in spider mites which quickly infected all my other plants. I managed to remove the infestation but it took a lot of effort. The other mistake was not turning the plants so one side got more sun and the plants grew lopsided.
Zone 4 This year I'm giving up on trying to get ripe Bell peppers, even in the greenhouse they don't start ripening until September when the other varieties are ripening by the end of July.
I'm having a similar thing to mistake 3, but due to sun burn. My ghost pepper and now my seven pot chocolate is getting burned nearly bare. The ghost now has a very nice top and the entire stem is completely covered in new leaves. The same will probably happen to the rest since my grow light isn't very strong, so the jump from that to sunlight is very big even with hardening them off
Dude, grow Shishitos for mild eating! You get a zillion peppers, and they are dee-lish! I had several plants produce over 100 fruits, maybe more, this last year. Question though - I grew a 'Habenada' variety this year, thinking it would be low heat. It might have been a little milder than a regular Habenero, but if so, I couldn't really tell. If I really like the flavor of Habenaro, but want something a little more accessible for my family's kitchen, what variety should I grow? Zone 7b.
Hm, wonder where you got those seeds from. Our habanada last year had literally 0 heat to it, as it should be. Rareseeds is reliable and I believe they sell the variety if you want to try again with a different seed source. That is where our original seeds came from. Another option would be the Numex Suave varieties, very low heat, chinense flavor profile
@@PepperGeek You know I take that back. I believe I grew them from seedlings that were sold to me from Anderson's. I would have thought them pretty reputable but I guess you never know. I'll try the seed source you recommend and see how they come out this year. Would almost like a little bit of heat but I suppose zero is better than 100,000 or so
Well, my biggest mistake was to use osmosis water instead of normal water. The leaves turned yellow and I thought "here we go again" and used the fertilizer I was working with in the past. But the plants showed all signs of stress, even after the use of fertilizer. Some leaves pigmented their leaves, other plants showed misbuilded leaves, some plants developed leave necrosis very quickly, a fourth plant continued the yellowing and a fifth showed edema. I couldn't make sense of it, until I took a look at the fertilizers nutrient information.Turned out that my fertilizer was made for "hard" water aka normal water and not for "soft" water aka osmosis water. After the use of additional micro nutrients like magnesia and bor most of them recovered to a healthy status, but I had to cut all the leaves impacted by my mistake. That set back the plants for sure. So, bottom line for me: Before you change something make sure you thought it through and check all things possible, even if they sound stupid.
Hot Cayenne Pepper is a really good pepper for zone 8 - 10. It seems to take that full Sun in the heat or even with low Sun hours in the shade during the hot days. But all peppers do good. Hot Cayenne Peppers though seem to be that one pepper you can just plant anywhere compared to other pepper variety.
Agreed, we grew a standard cayenne (3-4" red pods) and it grew like a weed, producing at 3 flushes of dozens of peppers. Looking forward to trying more types this season!
I have a couple pepper plants im growing inside a grow tent with LED lights. Im learning when to feed my plants. I gave them fertilizer and they grew faster. Now one has yellow leaves, so I gave it more fertilizer. Have you made a video showing how fast you get fruit from a cutting vs starting from seed ?
I made the neem oil mistake myself except mine was worse. I sprayed them and 5 days later I put the plants outside to water. We had a spring time wind storm and the plants all got coated in dust and dirt. The combination of neem oil and dust clogged the plant pores and the majority of the leaves died.
Insecticidal soap is much better than neem oil for aphid dunking. Neem has two activities, one is just smothering eggs and larva which any oil will do, the other (if it is good quality and reasonably fresh) is that is has a chemical which interferes with the reproductive cycle of the bugs. The insecticidal soap works on soft body incects mostly by breaking their moisture barrier and letting them dehydrate. It is normally a potassium soap of specific fatty acids, the type of fatty acid will make it more insecticidal or more herbicidal. Although common soaps can have detergent properties they are not interchangable terms and both terms cover a very wide range of compounds with a wide range of properties and compatibility differences.
I can't agree with you more about not growing enough medium to low heat varieties. Last year those were the ones I used the most and we just didn't have enough of them. Definitely taking that into consideration this season!
I will say that we grew a few normal Jalepenos and a few Mammoth Jalepenos. The normals didn't produce very well, but those mammoths seriously loaded up and most of our pickled jalepenos came from those plants. We loved them.
I've made the same mistake with the neem oil in the bucket. The dish soap helped, but it still isn't a risk that i want to take again.
Last year I didn't stake until they NEEDED it... and it was so difficult to get everything staked down, and I did lose a few branches and peppers when they toppled over from the weight of the peppers.
Great video, tons of good info about mistakes a lot of people make but they don't really talk about!
Thanks for sharing, nice to know we're not alone in making those mistakes. Interesting about the Mammoth jalapeno. We'll be testing several varieties of jalapeno (plus banana pepper and cayenne) to see which we like best. Should be a fun year of growing
@@PepperGeek I’m excited to see what works best for you!
Im fairly new to this (only grown peppers for 2 years) but this year I did a small experiment. Grew my plants using garden tone and picking off every flower until the plants got as big as I wanted. Jalapeño plants got around 4 ft tall. Then I added bone meal to the soil around some of the plants. Those plants all had ridiculous amounts of peppers within a few weeks. Each of the Jalapeño plants gave me at least 100 peppers. Bell peppers had dozens on each plant. And I had more habaneros and ghost peppers than I cared to count. Going to try it again this year and see if it was a fluke.
What zone are you in
@@stevemiller5626 6B
@@MMFD76 I'm in 7b. I just screen shot that recipe lol
First mistake you mentioned I’m happy you did ! Too many get carried away with super hot and can’t even enjoy them lol
Yup, it's a common mistake for sure. The plants are just so fascinating it is hard to pick just a few to grow each year.
Loved the video. They say that an expert is a person that has already made all the mistakes. Cheers.
Aphids were really bad in NH for 2021. Once I finally got rid of them my plants took off big-time ! I used a pump sprayer with about a teaspoon of dawn dish soap with 1 gallon of water. It took several treatments over 2 weeks
the cheap tomato cages work really well for holding up pepper plants. I use those most of the time now. Also, I make this mistake almost EVERY year....I place my pepper plants in between two tomato plants. Then all of a sudden the tomato plants grow way bigger than I anticipate, which shades the pepper plants out. Banana peppers don't seem to mind but some other pepper plants didn't grow that well after making this mistake (this year I did it with banana peppers and eggplant....the eggplant did not grow well but the banana peppers I had more than I could handle!).
Also made the staking mistake which cost me a large bhut jolokia plant that snapped at the base of the main stem after some heavy weather, tried to rescue it by trying to force it to make new roots off the main stem but to no avail.Luckily I went overboard with my superhots so got plenty anyway ;) For this season already got some more stakes to be ready! Love the channel last season was the first season for me growing peppers and thanks to you guys I managed to grow bhut jolokia and habaneros ( I live in Sweden). This season I will try a white bhut jolokia variety as well as a caramel trinidad moruga scorpion and 7 pot primo. Hooked on peppers and never going back!
Yep, staking is easy to skip, but is worth the extra effort, especially in windy places. Happy to hear you're on the pepper bandwagon, it is an amazing hobby
Kul ju! Ska pröva habanero pink och många andra varianter nu i vår. Får vara noga så att sånt inte händer!
I need to buy stakes for my pepper plants this weekend!
Big mistake I made for a long time was not caging heavy fruiting and sprawling varieties. By prime season push, they are snapping branches. Cages are a life saver.
Stake and cage for best wind/storm protection.
In 2020, Daughter was very worried about what she saw in the news and she made a lot of new garden beds, took seeds from grocery store bell peppers and grew about 10 huge plants with the slowest growing peppers ever seen. But come Sept and Oct, we had about 30 peppers per plant. She did great! She even gotbeans from a 15 bean mix forgoten in the pantry and grew enough for chili.
I included her in the planning this year and she had even better luck growing her own striped peppers, blue tomatoes and some sun flowers.
All this to say that store bought produce seeds are a good entry level point for kids
Yes, the plants will definitely grow and it is a great way to teach kids how plants work. But, good to know that the results will vary. Glad your daughter had success!
I bought all new potting mix this year decided to do peppers in pots.
We had tons of rain. I had diseases on peppers like I’ve never had before.
Just when you think you do everything perfect
Same
Right, it was a wet year so drainage was super important. Hopefully more even rainfall in 2022
Where I live (not all that far from the Pepper Geeks) our rainiest year on record, by far, was 2018. My tomatoes and green beans, as well as many trees, had diseases that don't normally affect them, but my peppers were still quite successful. But, I do have good drainage thanks to hilly terrain. Pots and small containers are definitely tougher to manage in a rainy year, but it can be done with the right pots.
This was my 1st year gardening in 9b, and I learned that I should have grown more of everything. My new neighbors eyed my banana peppers, jalapeños and habaneros with desire, so I made lots of friends by giving them away, along with fresh tomatoes and eggplants. Then, they came back for more. I thought the plants would be knee high, but they quickly rose to 6 or 7 feet, especially my purple corn. Only the shishito remained compact, yet produced delicious peppers daily. I had no idea that gardening would expand from being a hobby into becoming a full-time job. The peppers resisted all pests and disease, do I'm inclined to increase the number and varieties next year. The bells were very slow to start, but now in January we are flush with them.
I’m in zone 9b as well and I am growing bell peppers and jalapeños for the first time and struggling to say the least lol got any tips?
@@jamesthorpe2359 Feed peppers 🌶 the same as you would your tomatoes 🍅. Mine are always hungry and thirsty, so I give them kitchen scraps and tomato fertilizer every 2 weeks along with copious water 2 days per week. Invest in a small bottle 🍼 of cal-mag once they begin to flower 🌼 . Speak to them in dulcet tones and play some Bach or Keith Jarrett in the background.
I plant way too many peppers because I worry they won’t come up. When they do instead of just keeping a few of each variety I pot up (container gardener here), thinking they won’t survive the transplant, they do. Then I end up with too many containers (big and small) all over my deck and yard and grow more than I could ever eat or give away. I freeze bags of peppers and still never use them all
Haha! You're not the only one. I think it may just be a lesson we have to learn first hand before we figure things out
Why not dry them? Grind some to powder to use in rubs! Make hot sauce as well. Eliminate so much freezer space. Give as gifts for holidays.
After eating, storing what you think you need through canning, dehydrating, freeze drawings, or if you don't feel like doing those extra things, the food bank will take your extras, just make sure they know which ones are hot.
You know what would be AWESOME for your site? A table of a bunch of popular and fun types of peppers, then the info for each, like scoville, pepper size, time to maturity, how big the plant gets, how many peppers you typically get, etc.
I constantly find I need this info, but I have to search up multiple sources for every individual type of pepper, so I just don't bother most the time. A table like that would be amazing, and you've got the knowledge!
Great idea. We're working on writing articles about lots of different types, but a quick snippet of info all in the same place could be cool. Will keep in mind!
@@PepperGeek With pictures and physical descriptions to help differentiate types! Would be very helpful!
My MAJOR mistake was not waiting till after usual hail storm had come past to plant. Every single plant i grew from seed was brutalized and “topped off” by mother nature. This year I will keep the pepper and tomato plants inside or in the grow tent till AFTER the yearly hail storm 🌬💨 has past.
I grew Black Pearl last year and was surprised by its ornamental quality. The prettiest I've seen.
I discovered Pepper Geeks too late last year. My peppers were planted too close together and varieties were mixed so some crowded out other plants. Some individuals were in their own pots only to get too tall and be blown over by the wind until I put bricks in the pots. I will do better this year! :)
Bricks in the pots is not a bad idea. Blown over pots was another issue we had at our new home
i tried to grow peppers from seed i saved from store bought peppers never got a single pepper from those plants,, i found that a heavy raw compost buried and covered by a couple inches of soil with a layer of finished compost on top of after staking the rows, i also found the more stress you put the pepper plants through the hotter the peppers,, thank you for the tips
My biggest mistake this year was starting my seeds too early. My seedlings were ready to plant outside but the weather was much too cold. Thanks for the video. Great tips for the upcoming season.
You maybe maybe growing them in a to small of a pot. I use 16oz plastic disposable drink cup. The plants get 20 inches and more without complaint. Yes they need stakes in those pots. Yes they are awkward to work with but not too bad.
Same. And when I moved them outside it took them some time to wake back up. Some of the plants I started during April outpaced the ones started in Feb
Made the same mistake with number of hot plants. 14 screamers and 5 mild-medium ones. Dialing it wayyyy back this summer to a single Yellow Fever being my only hot plant and the rest will be mild-medium.
Yup, good idea. I always justify it by saying "well what if one of them doesn't survive?" But we've almost never lost a superhot plant.
I grew orange cayenne plants last year. The pods were 2-3” in length and were incredibly flavourful. Not to mention that the plants were massively productive with between 300-400 pods per plant !! I’ll need to create an instagram account this year to document my progress. Last year I had 250+ plants (86 varieties) whereas this year I’ll have the same amount but about 45-50 varieties. All the best selecting your varieties for the ‘22 season. Stay safe.
That sounds amazing! Would love to know your source for those cayenne seeds as we want to try a few different cayenne varieties. Also, reach out on Instagram when you're on there, we'll follow your grow for sure.
I'm also curious what climate you're in and what type of soil and fertilizer you used. I often get several dozens of cayenne-style peppers per plant, but never your kind of yields.
I didn’t spin my pepper pots. The branches all grew on the sun side thus causing the containers to fall over easy.
That's an important point, Ethan. I turn my plants in containers 180 degrees every day. It makes a big difference.
Last year was my Very first year of growing peppers, i can not even count all of the mistakes i made. But this year i feel much more confidant and a couple of days ago i planeted almost 30 seeds, i had 6 plats last year so this is a big step up, wish you all the best of luck this year, ceep on growing fam!
That’s great to hear! Your plants are going to be awesome this year.
Thanks for all the great videos, you really helped fuel my new pepper growing addiction this year. My Biggest mistake of this year was to not properly overwinter my plants. I didn't want the fun to stop when the weather got cold so I bought some lights and brought them inside. All the videos I watched were talking about just keeping your plants alive enough to survive the winter but I wanted them to keep producing and growing so I didn't cut them back or change out the soil and now I have a nice colony of fungus gnats. On the tail end of getting rid of them now but has really put things off to a slow start.
Thanks for sharing - what did you do to deal with the gnats? Always helpful to know what has worked
@@PepperGeek I started using a product called mosquito bits. On its own wasn't enough to control them completely but helped slow them down. The thing I found that has worked the best is putting an inch or two of sand in the top of the pots. Keeps the adults from getting to the soil to lay their eggs. This method has been about 90% effective, still have been seeing some larva feeding on newly formed pods and on underside of leaves. For those I have been spraying with water and half a drop of soap in a squirt bottle.
I think prevention up front would have been far better, but I have a few tips on controlling fungus gnats. 1) bottom watering, and as infrequent as your plants can tolerate. 2) for larger plants put an inch of sand on the top of the soil. 3) When transplanting, remove all the soil above the roots and put it at the bottom of the pot or better yet outdoors. 4) yellow sticky traps, they gradually reduce the number of gnats and are a good indicator of whether you have some. Overall, drier soil on the top => fewer fungus gnats.
Here's a post that's majority mistakes:
I watched videos from 7 Pot Club, Pepper Geek and somehow managed to learn nothing. You guys are the best pepper RUclipsrs in my opinions.
Maybe I haven't been doing everything I've learned... 😅
I'm about to enter my 3rd season.
Season one I didn't transplant my plants into 5+ gallon pots and my wife was adamant that all my plants we dying because I was "transplanting them too often" over the entire time I was trying to grow them. (I only transplanted them twice as I learned from 7 Pot Club however I didn't have pots above 1-gallon.)
I only got a single plant out of the 50 that grew to enough maturity to give me 4 ripe pods over the course of 6 months from the first pod.
Season 2, this past year, I got 16 pods from a single plant where I had a larger pot (specifically the one my only moderately successfully plant from season 1 was in) while the other two 1+ year old plants only grew two full-sized pods or one stunted pod.
This 3rd season I plan to expand my pots further from 4-gallon plastic pots to 7-gallon and 10-gallon fabric grow bags.
I primarily plant in the ground by May, but I find the more I transplant the better my peppers do. Maybe something to do with how much TLC they get in the process. That said, transplanting is messy and time-consuming, so I start bigger and jump farther with each up-potting now.
This is a great channel
Many times you learn more from the mistakes than what went well! Thanks for sharing.
First time growing here and thanks for all the vids!
This last week hit me pretty hard, I was hardening off some small plants (in pots) that were about to go into the ground and we had some heavy rain. I forgot that i had them out on afternoon and they say in a tray with no drainage and it looks like I severely damaged them. A tough lesson learnt. My hope is I will get at least a couple pods I can save some seeds from by the next couple months.
I’m in zone 7A, every year the sun gets filtered or blocked out due to wildfire smoke. Sometimes it’s a week, sometimes it’s months. The mistake I made was planting to close. When the smoke came in all the lower leaves on most of my peppers lost all their sun and fell off. If it wasn’t for the long summer I probably wouldn’t have had any rip spicy peppers.
Great and useful video, as usual! Thank you for sharing and starting a thread about mistakes. Learnings always include mistakes and are key to improve over time... I live in Ontario Canada and my biggest mistake in 2021 was to rely and take for granted that my watering system was working at all times. I grew around 100 jalapeño plants and I use a drip irrigation system in the garden (also on my other plants). I also plug the whole thing on a timer when I leave for more than 24-48hrs. Well I came back after a short 72hrs trip and found out that at least a third of my plants did not have sufficient water (most of them in 2' high raised beds = daily watering is necessary during hotter summer days, especially in growth & flowering stages). Anyway, I lost a ton of flowers... thousands fell down, just as many of my tears lol, not. In looking into the cause, I found out a bigger problem: my water was full of sediment and clogged my basic irrigation mesh filter AND over a third of my drip lines. In retrospect, not much I could have done to prevent or known before hand I guess... the issue is fixed now. In conclusion, if you use a watering system, make sure you have proper filtration, especially if your property is on well water, make sure there is proper filtration after the well even for your outdoor water use.
I didn’t stake early as well and my leaves were stressed from heavy dirt. Thank you for sharing!
Thx for the info. My mistake was not planting flowering plants to attract pollinators. I grew Caribbean Red peppers, started in Jan and transplanted outside beginning of June (Zone 4a). They had lots of blooms but didn't produce fruit, instead just fell off. When they bloomed again I started to rub two flowers together to pollinate them, success. But my then it was end of July and the fruit didn't have time to fully mature. I did finish them on my window sill but not impressed. This year I'll just stick with Corno de Toro and Jalapeno which are super producers in my area.
I had the two you mentioned and Thai hybrid, few others. I am excited to add few more varieties for small 7 bed garden beds
In my experience peppers are really easy to get pollinated as they are self-fertile, so some breezes can be enough. If you are getting a lot of blossom drop I would expect temperature issues rather than lack of pollination, though I'm in 7a so perhaps things work differently here -- I usually start tentatively planting in the ground in late April.
So glad to know that even the pros make mistakes!
Starting a variety of plants from seeds on porch in South Florida. Started between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hear your warning about house pets and young foliage. Denial or refusal won out and I have learned today.... Cat started with Papaya, stripping and uprooting them completely. Okay so they avoided the prized hot peppers. I thought I was safe because the cat must have intuitively sensed negative consequences of eating peppers. Two hours later 50% reduction in pepper crop. In process of developing an intervention strategy. Better to trust the Geeks.
👍 Our cat doesn't even hesitate at the opportunity to destroy months of plant progress. Always have to keep them separated!
Our mistake was trying to overwinter our two chili plants that had been on the balcony (7 floors up), thinking that maaaaybe it would be spared from pests being so high up... They were not. Took like a month or two before we noticed that there were thrips ever-y-where on the plants. Fingers crossed we ordered some beetles that feed on thrips, hoping they wouldn't spread to our other houseplants just a couple of meters away. The beetles did an admirable job, but by the time they had all died(?) the thrips were still there on some leafs.
At least we gave it a shot! :P
Tossed the plants out and will keep one or two plants indoor next summer to have over the winter, and some will be put on the balcony to be thrown out come autumn.
I think almost everyone makes staking mistakes. However I need to make sure if I use self watering buckets I need to stake them to the ground very well. I had issues with those massive trees. My biggest had a canopy of 7'. Also build a tall cage for the top that will last for a few decades. Hopefully anyway. It's so hard to do them all though 🤑 Also going entirely overboard in growing superhots as well. Last year I grew around 60 plants 40 varieties. It's so hard to limit varieties. Almost got to say can only grow once but there are still the staple varieties.
I had to rewind the video 3 times, to make sure I was hearing you correctly regarding the productivity of jalapeño plants. 🧐😆 1-2 dozen peppers total off one plant is the standard?? I had no clue. Guess I’ve been incredibly fortunate. Never had one taller than 3.5 feet, but even the 2 footers crank out an insane amount of jalapeños through October (6B). They put out so many jalapeños, I only planted two last season, and gave the rest of my starts away because I had way too many. This is so interesting to hear. I don’t top mine either, I just let them do their thing.
I've grown jalafuego peppers for 2 years now, and they are super productive. Must have taken 100+ peppers and froze most of them.
Nice, ours was crowded with 2 other varieties in the same container, and in a pretty poorly lit location as well, so definitely not ideal. We'll see how we do next year with more plants and a better setup 👍
I've grown Tahi Burapa for three years now, and I got nearly 200 pepers just from on plant (for rounds os peppers). With a decent amount of spice I might add. This 2022 it's time for Habaneros!
Thank you so much for making this video! Its always nice to learn from others' mistakes, and remember, its only truly a mistake if you don't learn anything from it! Keep moving forward!
Well said!
I had one jalapeño plant last year, the peppers were much smaller than store ones but it was much more productive than what you suggested they do. I grew one through the Phoenix heat and easily got 2 big harvests of 20 peppers each. Must depend heavily on environment and variety
Peppers are hit or miss because of the temperatures and short growing season here. The soil doesn't get warm enough for them until mid June and the first frost can happen in early September. Varieties that have done well some years include Carmen, Sweet Banana and Hungarian Hot Wax. Other years they barely set fruit. No pepper plant has grown more that 30 inches tall in my garden.
Yep, we've all got to play by the rules of our climates. However, you could extend your season by growing in containers instead of in-ground. Start the seeds earlier and up-pot indoors until they can go outside
I live in zone 10b/11a perfect spot for growing peppers year round 😄
I've had way fewer pest problems with outdoor peppers than with tomatoes and brassicas (other than voracious deer which I keep away with fencing, tobacco hornworms, and an unidentified virus that cause small, dark, shiny, twisted leaves on the top of the plant). I think beneficial forest insects are a big reason for my peppers being healthy -- the moment I take them indoors I have to worry about aphids and fungus gnats. One of my biggest mistakes this year was bringing in potted plants that had been outdoors without going through thorough decontamination. I learned that trying to ripen up remaining peppers and overwintering are completely different and incompatible activities, especially when you are under the gun from early frost.
I find that pepper plants most often have support issues when (1) they are about 6" tall and i'm transplanting them into the last pot before going into the ground, (2) they are getting quite tall and heavy weather comes, or (3) they are heavy with pods. But in each case it depends very much on the variety and how you've grown them. Some grow to 3'+ tall full of pods without needing any support, if they have strong woody stems and small to medium pods (like c. frutescens and crosses).
Like the Pepper Geeks I have been shifting from a pretty hot mix of peppers to include more medium to mild peppers, as these are more useful more of the time. But I'm finding I like somewhat less common less-hot peppers a lot, they have a lot more taste and can be more productive than the usual grocery store varieties (I can't compete with huge factory farms with 100% sun and 800% inorganic fertilizer when it comes to growing huge bell peppers -- but I can grow something far tastier).
Perhaps another good topic would be "what did you learn last year and you got right this year".
For your first point you mentioned that many of the sweet peppers aren't as productive as the hot; I would like to see your take on "Production Peppers" where you seek out varieties that focus on yield in the sweet to mild ranges (cooking peppers).
I ran into the same thing last year; I had a ton of Thai hots but needed a ton of poblanos/bells for how we cook at home, and it killed me to drive to the grocery for peppers every week. So far my list for 2022 includes: Poblano, Jimmy Nardello, Murasaki Purple, Banana, Pimento, and King of the North for Zone 5, but I would love to see your take.
Next year will be many more sweet varieties and this will be a focus. Bells and other big, thick walled varieties are just not as productive, but I want to know if there is something out there that can be the best of both worlds. We’ll use weight as a measurement. Our ghost pepper produced over 2lbs of pods, but how many bell peppers does that equate to?
I never make mistakes. 😜
My biggest mistake is not having enough time to properly take care of my plants. I still get results that make it worth my time so for zero dollars invested every year and a bit of sweat when I do manage to get out there for more than 5 minutes, I am more than satisfied with what I get.
I make my own compost, bone meal and bug spray (smells citrusy). One day I would like to set up a worm bin to take advantage of those but haven’t got around to that yet.
I'm in 7a CT probably near these guys- I ran an experiment with some Big Jim chilis last year where I topped half the plants to see if they would end up producing more. They ended up producing about the same but in different ways. The untopped peppers kept producing steadily at a slightly lower rate, but the topped peppers had this huge barren period while they recovered before putting out a bunch of fruit. I think we just don't have enough grow days for them to properly recover- had my season been longer I'm sure the topped peppers would out-produce the untopped ones. The topped peppers did grow to be more sturdy, but a stake would give the same result. I won't be topping them this year. Hopes this helps someone!
Nice! Thanks for sharing. We've experimented a bit too, but not nearly enough to be sure. Definitely seems to depend on the variety, but we don't really top our plants anymore. Doesn't seem to be worth it in our climate.
I just ordered a bunch of different pepper seeds, not knowing what to do with them. I was researching and found your channel and I'm so excited. I can't wait to grow these peppers and turn them into different sauces, relishes and jams.
Heck yeah!
Pretty solid information and I could probably speak for a week on mistakes I made. 2021 was a great season for me and other than catching covid right at peak harvest, everything went as planned. I search every year for milder/better tasting varieties that are more rare. The standards like jalapenos I just don't have room to grow, but a few strange low to medium heat varieties are a must, especially because my main goal in growing hot peppers is to collect seeds. The superhot game has been the majority of my grow for the last 6 seasons with me kind of specializing in unstable hybrids. You mentioned growing less superhots but in all reality if you want to find great phenotypes, one must plant more seeds to find the best phenos. Otherwise the mainstream rather unethical seed sellers just end up selling undesirable phenos that contaminate the chili community. Best of luck for a bountiful harvest in 2022!
Yikes, glad you got through that in 2021! On to better things in 2022. Good point on selecting your own phenos for seed saving. We save a lot of our own seeds, but with so many chinense plants side by side I do worry some about the cross pollination
I successfully overwintered about a dozen pepper plants from 2023 - 2024. I got a little heavy handed trimming the roots on some plants and those peppers didn’t survive. My adolescent peppers (2023 models) will get overwintered again this year and I will use the same process as last year. Prune, clean off all the existing soil, spray the entire plant roots and all with neem solution, replant in fresh soil, keep as cool as possible over the winter. I’m in zone 4/5. I got very good production with the 2 year old plants.
if only I could remember the mistakes I made haha..Thank you for sharing this. On our allotment website I added a think before your jump (into gardening) as on tv it all looks effortless and easy. we had lots of new members joining and leaving the same season. Once I put up the reality check less people signed up, now fully aware it takes them about 20-25 hours a week for the patch of dirt we had (10x15Metres sorry no idea of feet or yards, but 3x my tiny back garden). I have a north facing garden and tried to grow a pepper outdoors...or tomatoes, salads were fine, but the rest pfff sticking to my raspberries and blue berries and strawberries this year I think :-D or maybe something indoors once I can afford lights and such
Started growing in 2018 and up until this off season I didn't really have any knowledge about plants really. I just kind of winged it. Well I definitely know a lot of first hand "what not to do" because of that. I've had issues hardening off, getting sun scalding, but luckily I understand that very well now. Last year I had damping off issues because I overwatered(tried using peat nursery pots for the first time and they retained more water than expected).
This was my second season into growing peppers and my huge mistake this season was leaving the shade cloth up and over my plants outside for the majority of the summer. It seriously setback the development of my plants and they only even began flowering a month before the freeze hit. I had to bring the majority of my plants indoors and now they are taking up a quarter of my bedroom and now I'm having to run my T5 grow lights again already so my mistake is going to reflect upon my utility bill lol. This next season I will know it is unnecessary to have shade cloth if the plans have already hardened during the springtime. I had no problems the first season I grew as a beginner and little to no shade cloth was used.
I made the same mistake. Shade cloth too early in the season. It started as a screen for some hail storms, but I decided to leave it up. Lesson learned.
What percent shade cloth did you use? I heard if you use a 30% shade cloth throughout summer you get more fruits/peppers.
Then again if you dont have intense heat waves in summer then you dont need the shade cloth.
Great video. Following from Scotland where our growing window is pretty short, even with a greenhouse!
I love the fact that you're growing Aji Amarillo. Its a Peruvian pepper, used a lot in ceviche, same with Rocoto.
I honestly have been trying to grow them from store bought frozen bags (obviously no luck, but I'm still hopeful).
I think i'll just need to take a 2-4$ loss (i'm cheap) just to get my hands on these pepper seeds. lol
Also the pronunciation of Amarillo is Ama-ree-yo.
the "ri" makes the "ree" sound, like in breathe, reek, street.
the "llo" makes the "yo" sound, Like yoyo.
Cheers, mate!
Haha! Yes, I remember that double L sound from Spanish class ☺️
Just want to say "me too" on the growing to many super hots. Def going to grow lesser spice majority. Maybe 1 or 2 super hots for sauce.
Same. I'd grow maybe 2 different super hots and like 1 low and 2 medium hots for variety.
Jalapeño gets used a lot in my family for Mexican dishes.
Habanero is another good pepper
Or even cherry or banana peppers for something low.
But definitely a ghost and a reaper for an awesome sauce or to be daring and eat fresh 🤣
@@TheMoistDonuts yes!! Me too!! Trying to still decide what to grow this upcoming season in Ohio.
Keep up your videos Pepper Geek, you got some amazing knowledge to share!!!
I definitely made the mistake of planting too many seedlings and not having anywhere to plant them. I gave dozens of plants away and had to compost some. I also have a tendency to try and harden my plants too quickly. Plant sunburn sucks!
I've had both these problems. In response I've been progressively increasing my useful (i.e. sunniest) places to grow peppers and tomatoes.
I never had much trouble with sun scald until recently, when I started getting good at having seedlings ready to go outside before the big trees get their leaves. But for me sunscald was much worse on tomatoes than peppers (tomatoes need several times as long to get used to the sun).
I had a horrible aphid infestation in all my seedlings. It came from some cilantro plants I wanted to overwinter under my lights. No more overwintering cilantro!
Exact same thing happened to me last year. This year it's only seedlings in the plant room. Which means my overwintered rocotos may not make it. But the alternative is worse!
2nd year grower, my biggest mistake this year was germinating in hemp cups instead of black plastic cells. With the high heat needed for germination they dry out very quickly, and it's hard to keep them organized.
I've had such great success with Tabascos on my balcony (apartment life)so I plan on having as many as I can fit
Ne t year defiantly growing poblano, Anaheim, serano,and some hotter like Arbol...right in my wheelhouse. Mind you...also growing Habanero and Cayenne. But also sweet peppers. Confession...this is the first year I've been able to grow a pepper to successful harvest and it's got me stoked. Have 16 varieties lined up for next year and look forward to the education I will get.
Good info. I get heavy handed with the neem oil too lol.
😂 thanks for that
One of my biggest mistakes with peppers is I had a plant which was a maverick, on one seemed to know what it was, it had a pleasant smell, was long and semi-meaty, I decided to take a bite out of one (I'm very pepper resistant), THAT was a mistake.
The thing about grocery store peppers, they're cheap enough to buy and easily accessible. I pretty much grow stuff I can't find easily. Like a Choclate Habenearo, or a Red Habanero.
Great video. Still trying to grow a Carolina reaper and ghost pepper both dies last year . Coast of Ca Salinas 9b
Thanks for the not so hot suggestions last video, ill try getting some in the future. I did already find MADHATTER and i hear its rated 500 Scoville units and I'm excited to try them this coming season.
Definitely a great variety. Baccatum species typically need a longer season, so be sure to account for that
and my BIGGEST mistake of 2021 was two fold. I had my starts in my tent, and I introduced plants bought from walmart into the tent. Along with that, my wifes plant room had a bug outbreak and I had been going back and fourth between rooms. Somewhere between those two things... all my plants got infested and there was no saving them. I had to order starts online to save my season.
This year I will only have MY starts in my tent, and I won't be going from her plant room into mine.
This year I managed to overwinter a jalapeno and I got two harvests of about 12-15 peppers. My mistake was leaving the peppers on too long. The older the pepper the less heat it had
I had a bunch of healthy plants, and I wanted to cut them down to make Bonchis for gifts. I live near Boston, and I cut two of them down at the beginning of October, and they are doing amazingly well by the end of January. I cut the other 15 down on Halloween, and I think they are all dead. As much as timing is important at the start of the season, be mindful of timing if you have plans for your plants at the end of a season as well.
Growing too many plants can be a mistake. Only grow what you can take care of.
I am NOT good with plants, so take the following with a grain of salt, but I have to second the advice against growing seeds taken from store-bought peppers. I started the season with a number of healthy-looking bell, anaheim, and sweet pimento seedlings. By autumn, I had four scraggly, floppy plants that produced a *total* of five peppers between them, all half the size of the fruits I had originally purchased. I didn't even get to eat some of them due to mold. I brought the final two survivors to overwinter, but I think they're both dead.
This year, I have seeds from some of your recommended shops, and I'm working on an indoor setup with a grow light instead of just a south-facing window. Wish me luck. :)
Thanks for sharing, best of luck with the new seeds!
I absolutely love your channel, so much good information. I wish I could post pictures of my pepper plants. I’ve been growing them in the window. They have gotten pretty big and are at the flower stage but I’m pretty scared to pluck the flowers cause I don’t want to damage the plants.
Thank you! If your plants are flowering then let them flower! If you are planning to put them into a larger pot, now is probably the time
Oh man I fried 10 strawberry plants by putting an oil on them. Sun scorched and gooed them up good. I also had a terrible luck trying to start the aloha pepper from a store pepper. I did however after two generations get some super productive tiny little bell peppers from those fiesta peppers
Always did the same mistake as soon as I spotted aphids panic what to do. But the past couple of years I have learnt to do nothing. The plants do get infested with aphids but after a couple of weeks the predators soon follow and there is no effect for the plants. So don’t panic as soon as you see aphids as nature soon catches up with them. From uk. Our top predators are the larvae of the ladybird, hover fly and lace wing and also parasitic wasps.
Is it weird that now I'm also tuning in for beard progress? lol.
Zone 9:
First, it is very difficult to grow well here. My best plants were Aji Rico (stake it), Aji Amarillo. Generally, any pepper plant having a tendency toward small leaves. The hardest plants to grow were bell peppers and hot cherries. Instead of growing bells, I would recommend growing Candy Cane peppers. They taste very much like a bell pepper, but they have more of an elongated and narrow shape. Candy Cane plants are also beautiful with two-tone, green and white striped leaves. Also, cayenne grows quite well. Shishitos grow amazingly well here in Zone 9. For tomatoes, I recommend Sungolds all the way. What great little plants! Keep everyone out of the afternoon sun when it’s hot, because they suffer. None the plants I mentioned need “full sun,” whatever that is supposed to be. Morning sun, spring through fall is enough in the Mojave Desert where I live. If you want the exercise, during the winter, you can carry your plants outside every morning and carry them back into your garage for the night. I have been doing this with my ~50 little guys (all in grow bags). All are still alive. The Ricos and Amarillos are still producing; albeit, the fruits are small.
First peppers I ever bought, I bought need oil extract and put it straight in a spray bottle. I also sprayed them early afternoon. Long story short, I fried the plant!
love the channel. I planted several jalapeno plants and tabasco peppers. I live in zone 9 b they just stop producing late nov in to dec. made cowboy candy, pickled peppers and pepper jelly. Going try a reper this year just to do it lol. thanks for all the info. P S. Made the strawberry jam and jalapeno recipe you put out. was a hit over the holidays.
Nice, everyone has to get the reaper plant out of their system at some point 😂 enjoy it, they're pretty fascinating plants. I'm glad you and the fam enjoyed the jam!
Flowers like marigolds for example, will bring in good insects that will kill your aphids. Also, a good preventative spray is Dr.zymes. I use it on multiple different plants and it works pretty darn good.
I always try and start my hot peppers super early (s.ontario) as we have a short grow season. My tent and LED is in my basement, this year I think it got too cold, even w heat mat set at 70c all my hots are stunted and almost dormant. I cranked up the heat mat to 75+ we will see if it saves them but they are far behind everything else Im growing and started 4 weeks prior!
I plan to try seeds next fall and grow an army of pepper plants of different types like cayenne, scotch bonnet and maybe something like a reaper or ghost pepper plant.
Every time I've grown jalapenos I've gotten a TON. Must be that Missouri top soil lol
As a former Missouri resident I can attest to how wonderful your topsoil is. But I’m in Az and my jalapeños & serranos have been powerhouse producers too. They’re the first and last to fruit every year. Maybe our summers are warmer than theirs?
@@tucsonurbangardening2701 possibly. I don't ask too many questions when things are going well lol.
I plan at bell peppers poblano's red sweet peppers banana peppers along with several varieties of super hots
Thank you guys for the awesome videos! I am also growing fewer super hot chilis, since I still have a large shelf in the freezer full of them from last season! I also wanted to start my seeds earlier this year, but because of the holidays, it didnt happen, so Im just starting mid-January. In Florida we have until early July before disease and pest pressure take over, so hopefully I can lock in a harvest before then. I am also hoping to make a raised bed for them vs. pots this year. For me, they are too dependant in the pots and I need to be able to leave them for more than 24 hours, lol.
Beard looks good! I was thinking the same -- not enough medium hot. the purple ufo peppers I grew were great and I'm going to do more of those, and serrano and want to try pickling my own pepperoncini
Thanks ☺️. Yes, the purple UFO is a great middle ground with reasonable heat, but also a cool color factor in the garden
can you do a video on transplanting mature pepper plants from a nursery to larger pots and how to deal with transplant shock and solutions?
The mistake I made was buying a small pepper plant bought from a store and placing it next to my other plants. I realised too late it was covered in spider mites which quickly infected all my other plants. I managed to remove the infestation but it took a lot of effort.
The other mistake was not turning the plants so one side got more sun and the plants grew lopsided.
I planted too close together... I believe it stunted the growth and overall I ended up with less peppers than if I had planted 1/2 the plants...
Zone 4 This year I'm giving up on trying to get ripe Bell peppers, even in the greenhouse they don't start ripening until September when the other varieties are ripening by the end of July.
Great tips. Thank you.
In relation to going too heavy handed - I tend to do that with nutrients. Not fun to kill a plant by nutrient burn...
Definitely - so easy to assume that 1/4 tsp isn't enough....
mine was using garden soil in containers and not using vitamin B1 for transplanting peppers and also too much sun for hot peppers!
I'm having a similar thing to mistake 3, but due to sun burn. My ghost pepper and now my seven pot chocolate is getting burned nearly bare. The ghost now has a very nice top and the entire stem is completely covered in new leaves. The same will probably happen to the rest since my grow light isn't very strong, so the jump from that to sunlight is very big even with hardening them off
Dude, grow Shishitos for mild eating! You get a zillion peppers, and they are dee-lish! I had several plants produce over 100 fruits, maybe more, this last year. Question though - I grew a 'Habenada' variety this year, thinking it would be low heat. It might have been a little milder than a regular Habenero, but if so, I couldn't really tell. If I really like the flavor of Habenaro, but want something a little more accessible for my family's kitchen, what variety should I grow? Zone 7b.
Hm, wonder where you got those seeds from. Our habanada last year had literally 0 heat to it, as it should be. Rareseeds is reliable and I believe they sell the variety if you want to try again with a different seed source. That is where our original seeds came from. Another option would be the Numex Suave varieties, very low heat, chinense flavor profile
@@PepperGeek You know I take that back. I believe I grew them from seedlings that were sold to me from Anderson's. I would have thought them pretty reputable but I guess you never know. I'll try the seed source you recommend and see how they come out this year. Would almost like a little bit of heat but I suppose zero is better than 100,000 or so
Well, my biggest mistake was to use osmosis water instead of normal water. The leaves turned yellow and I thought "here we go again" and used the fertilizer I was working with in the past. But the plants showed all signs of stress, even after the use of fertilizer. Some leaves pigmented their leaves, other plants showed misbuilded leaves, some plants developed leave necrosis very quickly, a fourth plant continued the yellowing and a fifth showed edema. I couldn't make sense of it, until I took a look at the fertilizers nutrient information.Turned out that my fertilizer was made for "hard" water aka normal water and not for "soft" water aka osmosis water. After the use of additional micro nutrients like magnesia and bor most of them recovered to a healthy status, but I had to cut all the leaves impacted by my mistake. That set back the plants for sure. So, bottom line for me: Before you change something make sure you thought it through and check all things possible, even if they sound stupid.
As far as Jalapeño production, try the Lemon Spice Jalapeño. They produce an abundance of peppers.
Hot Cayenne Pepper is a really good pepper for zone 8 - 10. It seems to take that full Sun in the heat or even with low Sun hours in the shade during the hot days. But all peppers do good. Hot Cayenne Peppers though seem to be that one pepper you can just plant anywhere compared to other pepper variety.
Agreed, we grew a standard cayenne (3-4" red pods) and it grew like a weed, producing at 3 flushes of dozens of peppers. Looking forward to trying more types this season!
My jales were awesome in production only had 2 plants
I have a couple pepper plants im growing inside a grow tent with LED lights. Im learning when to feed my plants. I gave them fertilizer and they grew faster. Now one has yellow leaves, so I gave it more fertilizer. Have you made a video showing how fast you get fruit from a cutting vs starting from seed ?
We have not made a video about that. We'll definitely cover propagation at some point, just not sure exactly when
I made the neem oil mistake myself except mine was worse. I sprayed them and 5 days later I put the plants outside to water. We had a spring time wind storm and the plants all got coated in dust and dirt. The combination of neem oil and dust clogged the plant pores and the majority of the leaves died.
Insecticidal soap is much better than neem oil for aphid dunking. Neem has two activities, one is just smothering eggs and larva which any oil will do, the other (if it is good quality and reasonably fresh) is that is has a chemical which interferes with the reproductive cycle of the bugs.
The insecticidal soap works on soft body incects mostly by breaking their moisture barrier and letting them dehydrate. It is normally a potassium soap of specific fatty acids, the type of fatty acid will make it more insecticidal or more herbicidal. Although common soaps can have detergent properties they are not interchangable terms and both terms cover a very wide range of compounds with a wide range of properties and compatibility differences.