Don't Prune Your Peppers!
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- Опубликовано: 7 июн 2024
- Finally, after 6 months, 72 plants, 4 raised beds, and 48 square feet of growing space, we can't finally put to rest whether or not every spring we should be pruning our pepper plants!
Previous Pepper Pruning Video: • Pruning Pepper Plants ...
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Part 2 Growth and Establishment: • Growing Peppers Part 2...
Part 3 Planting Outdoors: • Growing Peppers Part 3...
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Starting Pepper Seeds: • Growing Peppers Part 1...
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#gardening #peppers #howto
Time to Harvest your Garlic! The Complete Guide here: ruclips.net/video/A9qUN_FSCjg/видео.html
Good
Hi there i planted kashmir chillies this year(southern hemisphere new zealand)
I planted seeds in september and by feburary 5mnths later the bushes were 3 ft high with about 200 flowers. The chillies finally started in feb. And while the bushes were failing to grow the chillies bigger they kept on making flowers!!??
I was getting angry because the bushes were dicking round making new flowers while failing to finish what they started with the original berries. Its now march and im still waiting for them to ripen!?? The frosts are late and the bushes should have died and thyr still dicking round not ripening. I got 1 ripe chilie about a minth ago and the rest are green.
I picked at least 100 flowers off to stop it wasting its time as its not even dealing with what its got! What am i doing wrong?
I planted two plants in a 20 litre bag of soil and it seems to love it.
@@nathangrueber9834 yeah, all peppers will do that. They are perennial by nature and think they have all the time in the world. Picking fruit, lots of sun, and removing new flowers are the only things you can do really to speed it up
For your experiment I would suggest you try it with plants that have more soil for themselves.
A 20 liter pot per plant, 3 pots per group gives you a bit of a more controlled group.
Pepper plants are limited by nutrition and space. If you put them in big pots they will grow significantly bigger
Here in South Africa, we have a habit of picking off the first flowers preventing them to fruit until the plants have tripled in size, this makes the plants stronger and flower much more yielding a higher harvest. this is especially the case with any of the hot peppers and chilies.
proof or it didn't happen african fella...
@@briancockerham4731
Why? Rude fella, he’s not a fisherman he’s a gardener. My Bell Peppers here in Australia are more prolific but smaller than normal and i pruned them. Also the wall thickness is thinner and thus they get sunburnt easily. It’s horses for courses my friend! Happy Peppering 🫑🌶️.
@@kevdimo6459 proof or it didn't happen Australian fella
This is also the case for strawberries too (and their runners too). Interesting how that's goes back to peppers. I wonder if the first/first year cutting back production to EXACTLY "zero" contributes to other plants to be hardier and MUCH more productive later on.
@@liciernagadelanoche2337
Butt out fella!
I've been following your channel for awhile now, and would like to comment on the pruning of pepper plants. I've been gardening for over 45 years and not once have I pruned my pepper plants. I usually grow about 12 plants. Over the last winter I've wanted to get other gardeners thoughts on pruning. I decided that I would prune, like you, half of the pepper plants, and leave the other half not pruned. In all honestly I doubled my pepper production with the pruned plants then I did with the non-pruned plants, and the peppers were bigger then the non-pruned plants. I know there's a lot of controversy on the subject of pruning or not pruning but these were just my results. What I would like to do is, do this for 2-3 years and maybe I can get a better idea on which is the better for the plants. Thanks
Right on John, thanks for sharing!! For sure share your results in the coming seasons, its valuable information! :-)
John, like you, I massively increase yields by topping and continued pruning of my pepper plants. I’m here in Maine where more pepper folklore says it’s not worth growing peppers in the north. Lol! Wrong. It is 100% without question a benefit to both top and continue to prune pepper plants and unlike the video here, I way more than double my production. Last year I also did a side by side comparison and my results were completely opposite this guys.
Plant for plant I get an average of 4 bells per un-pruned plant and an average of 13 per pruned plants.
My suspicion about his experience is that he didn’t understand when to prune/top them and the plants were too delicate when planting out as a result.
The test is a farse. With ambiguous figures.
@@karlbutlerking whatever
There are so many variables to consider. Perhaps it wasn't that the plants that could only support a finite number of fruit but the medium it is grown in. Just my opinion that the depth of the planter seemed shallow. My plants generally grow in soil that is 12" deep or more.
In the past, I have pruned all of my peppers, but this year, my first in Florida, I forgot. I grew sweet bell peppers, jalapeños, lemon drops, hungarian finger peppers, and habaneros. They are now 7 feet tall, in pots, and overproducing like crazy. I have started to share them with neighbors and dehydrating the rest, we have so many. They outshone everything else in the garden.
Awesome! That's what I like to hear!
Hey that is so tall I was wondering if you could tell me how you fertilized them?
This is amazing! Could you please tell me what you used to feed your pepper plants and prepare the soil with? Thanks!
@@haneesh22 I feed my peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants the same. Blood meal, bone meal and grow them in coco plus perlite mix.
@@ABetterMeee Before I plant my seedlings, I prep the soil with worm castings, kelp meal and biochar.
I figured this out through experiment last year with Bell, Habanero, Jalapeño, and Giant Marconi… The pruned Bell and Giant Marconi peppers took longer to first fruit harvest and they were considerably smaller than those plants that weren’t pruned. However, the Jalapeños and Habaneros that were pruned produced more peppers of the same size as the unpruned plants, despite the first fruit harvest being delayed about 3 weeks compared to the unpruned plants! Conclusion: Definitely don’t prune Bell peppers or Giant Marconi peppers, and pruning jalapeños and Habaneros definitely helps to produce more fruit of equal size despite a delayed first harvest! Hope this is helpful…
Thanks for comments by variety. Well done.
Definitely. The smaller varieties can for sure benefit from a pruning! Agreed.
Yeah, I agree to that from my experience as well. Bell peppers is better to be left unpruned... Warm weather and rich compost is enough to give you a decent amount of large fruit...
I had the same experience with banana peppers and hot Nana peppers as well. I was curious about jalapeños & the Carolina Killers lol so thank you for your comment very much!! this year. The small army of peppers will be a force to be reckoned with lol planted 50 a week ago 🥵 half in natural light half in artificial lighting 😊 Carolina strong 💪🏽
Thanks for sharing your results. Helps us newbie veggie growers. : )
I have finally been able to grow peppers that look like those in the grocery store! FINALLY!!! I did not prune my peppers.
Right on Andi! Its definitely a good feeling..and tasty!
Kudos, Andi!
I'm glad to see someone talking about this and actually testing it out! I topped half mine this year as an experiment (only 20 plants) and their performance was much worse than the ones I left alone. It took too long for them to start fruiting. I was growing mostly small chilli peppers too. I'm in the UK with a short growing season for peppers (plus it doesn't get very hot here) and it's hard to get any kind to maturity. I certainly won't be doing it next year. I do wish people wouldn't give out blanket advise stating you 'must' do things as it doesn't take into account vastly different growing conditions.
did you change your fertilization strategy? They need more P and K when you prune them, otherwise you are expecting them to spread the same amount of resources to more flowers (leading to less nutrients per flower).
@@mking1982098 They got fed weekly, there just wasn't enough time (and heat) in our season for them to catch up to the unpruned ones.
You can always setup a small grow tent inside pretty affordable if you don't need fans with carbon filter to keep the smell inside..
I have noticed that some peppers like to topped and some do not. You have to experiment and see what likes what. Sometimes a different phenotype of the same type of pepper will respond well to topping while the original phenotype did not.
Jeff, Qualitatively? Quantitatively? Once again, you rock! Keep ‘em comin’.
Thanks so much buddy! Happy Wednesday to you friend!
Love this video. Everything about it is nice and concise. It's short, sweet, to the point, very informative, has good B-Roll, has good text graphics, and has nice production quality. Plus I learned a lot! I'm an apt. gardener and giving peppers a try from saved seed. They are doing very well! I know I'm a bit late but this year is more about experimenting and any harvests would be a bonus. Keep up the great work man!
I really appreciate how you make your videos. Not only are they extremely informative but they're also entertaining. Thank you for all your hard work and effort, and Much ❤️ from Nashville TN USA 🇺🇸 😀
Heck yeah!
Your video headline pulled me in! So glad you made this, thanks!
Cheers, thanks for watching!
Companion Planting.....employ the buddy system in your garden for insane results!: ruclips.net/video/FPpVNsB1VC4/видео.html
Wow, what a gem of a video. You speak clearly, at a perfect place, excellent explanations and details of the theory. You sir, are a joy to watch! Thanks for the great video!!
You always are truly a blessing! Great teacher! Thank you for your excellence!
Thanks for weeding this out for us Jeff! This is invaluable information. The one benefit of pruning not discussed though is pruned plants need less support. Mine have the tendency to flop over when laden with fruit. But I’ll gladly take the time to support them better to get better quality fruit.
You're so right Mike! These last 2 seasons, as my plants get bigger and better, I've had to stake them so much more diligently!
Probably one of the better examples of statistically significant results we'll find anywhere on RUclips. While this was not conducted in a lab, it's far better than most we'll see. Too many times people make claims based on an extremely low sample size. Thank you for the effort put into this!
N of 36 on each side of the data in his sample size is enough. I’d like to know how the plants were ordered in the garden, if they had the same soil, fertilizer, sun time/shade, water, etc.
I have three potted chili pepper plants. One was pruned early on. The other two weren't.
The two that weren't produce larger peppers that are a nice bright red color, while the pruned one produces smaller peppers that are more orange in color.
All the plants are doing well, but there's nothing like seeing those nice plump red peppers on the non-pruned plants! 🌶
Thanks for sharing! Glad its not just me seeing these results! :-)
I am planning out my next year pepper growing and was focused on pruning them as well. Thanks to your video that idea is totally off the table.
Never trimmed, didn't believe the idea, and after your teaching I will do as you tested and I've have grown many bells as stuff with brown rice and burger 5 days all summer is how much I love peppers and their foliage always so beautiful.
Thanks Jeff
Right on John, may you have a BOUNTY of peppers this season!
I super appreciate this video! I pruned my peppers this year because last year they were super leggy and spindly, but my crop was decimated by slugs so I'll be buying starts anyway. But this video will hopefully help infer my pepper planting decisions in the future!
Thanks Heidi, glad to help. Best of luck this year, you got this! :-)
I grew California wonders a couple years ago, unpruned, and they produced soooo many peppers I couldn't keep up with them. They produced right till frost. Thanks for this video. I won't be pruning them. Our growing season is too short to go meddling like that.
I appreciate all the work you put into this. Great job!
Love the work, results and caveats! Thanks for this contribution to the culture!
I learned my lesson last year. Not for the same reason, but in northern climate where the season is very short, the pruned peppers never had a chance to reproduce before the season was over. It was an experiment for me anyways 🤷♂️
Yup, that's a biggie! In shorter growing seasons, cutting the tops off can really set them back and then there isn't enough time to recover and produce. You're so right.
After having my kale for two seasons, 😲, i babied my last year’s bell pepper plant over winter and pruned it a little near spring…. This year it was flowering early, it doubled in size and produced huge peppers. Very exciting discovery.
Extremely thorough yet direct to the point. Great job and thanks for taking some of the grief out of this decision, this is the first year I'm growing a lot of peppers and they are looking great 2 weeks after transplant but I've always been torn on whether to top or not. I still might experiment with a few anyway but I'll take your advise and let those babies grow!
THANK YOU so so so much for this. All the other videos focus on small hot peppers. While I do grow some of these, the majority of peppers I love are sweet bell peppers. I'll eat them like apples when in full season. You've saved me so much worry and confusion! Bless you!
It's astounding that you can get so many peppers from such small petite pepper plants.
Heh heh....my goal is grow peppers......not leaves! 🙂
Been looking forward to seeing the results of this… very interesting & so much information!! Thank you Jeff for taking the time. Really appreciated 🙏🏻
so glad the no prune did better. That will make things easier next year 👏🏻🥰
Easier AND better results..what's not to like, right? Ha ha, cheers Jo! :-)
This is the best test I have seen so far. Good job!
A solid experiment with quality results. Thanks for the information.
So glad I saw this come up during a pepper research binge. First time growing them and I was concerned I missed the prune stage as my pepper plants are small but are already fruiting. The small varieties I have I think I could still prune and be fine. But I will leave the big varieties alone since they have fruits developing already and have a chance to be big and fabulous. Appreciate this video. Subscribed
Thanks T D! Yes, the smaller ones can definitely be pruned. Early on though. Usually at the 3rd or 4th set of true leaves. Beyond that, just let the plant grow and it'll do what it does. Best of luck on the season, let us know how it goes!! 🙂
Glad to see the follow up for this experiment! Thanks for taking eh time to test it
Cheers Dave.....I just couldn't leave it...its been eating at me since last year!
36 of each method made for an awesome study! I paused at the 4:21 mark to comment, and say I am really excited to see your results. The science is great, and I have new peppers growing! I'll determine what to do based on what your results show.
New to growing peppers and chilli plants here in Scotland (started in 2020). Great to see a vid where growing conditions look similar to what we experience here (snow). I have 'topped' plants last year and the previous year. Will 'top' some and let others grow naturally. Fingers, toes and eyes are crossed that one of the methods brings more fruit.
Jeff, very timely for those of us living down under, my first growing of peppers last year, did prune but terrified I was doing it wrong sat with ipad playing to ensure I did do as advised, super poor result from 6 plants, 3 died 3 survived total peppers 2 as developed way too late, and one I let keep going to see what happened over winter just picked it next spring! No I’ll leave well alone this year
Right on Tassie! Jealous that you are just coming into your spring season now! All the best! :-)
Discussed this a little over on IG with ya....definitely agree the bells are the peppers that would benefit least from topping and that smaller peppers absolutely love it. Curious if that’s as tall as your bells got this season? I’m in Portland which probably has a bit longer season (mid May to mid oct) but pretty similar climate and ours were close to 4’ tall with only a single application of worm tea all season... While I still grow bells as I like roasted green peppers for jambalaya, we have moved to giant marconi peppers as the ones we let go red...seem to ripen faster, are huge peppers and fruit wall thickness-wise are almost identical.
As for topping bigger peppers, I think a huge factor is when you top em. As I mentioned on IG, I start my peppers indoors early (mid feb to go out mid to late May) so they have time to fully recover from the stress of the topping before they undergo the stress of transplant. Sorry if I missed it in the video but how long did u wait after transplant to top the plants?
Love the approach, great way to quantify the hypothesis you are testing! Another well thought out video...
Right!? That's something that I also thought. If your growing season is too short then the plant won't have enough time to recover from the topping before its structures mature enough to maintain a high yield of peppers. Also a higher yield demands a higher nutrient intake, a higher foliage area and a higher light quantity for adequate fruit development. I couldn't see anywhere what the nutrient plan for this plants were but if he gave the same amount of sunlight and nutrients to both pruned and not pruned plants then of course fruit yield would suffer in the pruned plants as it has increased nutrient requirements. The plant knows and shows in its fruits and flowers when it is nutrient deficient, they drop flowers early and the fruit is smaller and simpler tasting. All in all I think that his conclusions came from a deficient nutrient approach and possibly short growing season specially for this big bell peppers which take longer than hot peppers to mature.
Edit: I don't think the author's conclusion was wrong, I believe that the correct conclusion would have been "Don't prune your peppers if your growing season is too short or if you're not going to apply extra fertilizer"
Yes the guy simply didn't do it quite right and the conditions are not perfect for high yields. Really annoys me reading all the comments. Kind of strange that all these amateurs who are very casually growing, unaware of all the factors and variables that go exist in this context, just happen to have zero success in pruning and with this one video they declare that they now "know" that pruning is bad. Many of them claim to appreciate the scientific approach to the video but this is not scientific and drawing conclusions in this manner is anti scientific
Thank you for taking the time to do this comparison
What an excellent video with a analysis to back up your results. Great job !
Wow I was so bummed that my peppers were small .Now I know why .Thank you so much
Cheers Rory, thanks for watching. :-)
Glad I viewed this video. I'm located in Ottawa Canada and, like you, I have a short growing season. My seedlings are actually starting to flower under my new LED lights this year and I was going to prune them now (mid-March) but after viewing your video I'll leave them to flourish and just raise the lights! Thanks for your down to earth, easy to follow videos.
Hey Marlene, that's some early flowering!! If you have the numbers, you could always prune a couple and maybe compare the differences? Only if you have enough though.... Cheers! :-)
@@TheRipeTomatoFarms only a handful of plants so won't be able to do a fair comparison. Used full spectrum lights from a box store and impressed with results. Enjoy your videos very much 😊
Pruning them produces better yield if you fertilize them properly (I'm also an Ontario resident). You need to give the pruned plants more K than you would with non-pruned plants. Of course the results are going to be weaker if you don't change your fertilization strategy, as the plant has to spread the same amount of resources to a larger number of flowers.
@@mking1982098 of your soil is saturated with nutrition to begin with, adding more NPK isn't going to do anything...
@@mking1982098 appreciate the tip...thanks
Great video! Love how you point out your short growing season and type of pepper grown for this summer experiment. Thanks!
Thanks Ronnie, appreciate that! Best of luck with all your pepper endeavours this season!
I was just debating pruning my peppers today and googles handy ai sent this post to my suggestions. Really appreciate your shared experiment on this topic! Good work 🌱❤️
Thank you this is very timely was just considering trimming my red and the green bell pepper plants I have in pots
Thanks for checking it out Kate! Best of luck with your peppers!
Thank you so much for this experiment. I have bell peppers growing now and have been on the fence if I should top them off or not. So glad I just watched this. I’m in Florida so these grow great in the fall.
I did top my cayenne plants though. They seem to grow better that way instead of being all lanky.
Thanks for watching! In Florida, with the longer growing season, I'd be tempted to try a couple... Just to see... But I still believe that the big pepper varieties cap out anyways. Either way, best of luck!
Thank you for your time in doing this trial.
Cheers Leslie, thanks so much for watching. :-)
Thank you! This video, and viewers' comments, were very helpful.
One less task for next year. Thanks Jeff love time saving, more time for more gardening
Exactly Bev... Less work for better results! Win-Win!
I needed this video. Keep up the good work! Thanks 🙂
Hey, thanks for watching! :-)
Great video! Thanks for taking the time to do this!
Just what I needed to know. Great job. Not TOO detailed, but a memorable story. Thanks for doing the research! Good job.
Really well thought out and executed video. Loved the comparison of even the pepper wall. New sub 👋
Hey, thanks for that! Appreciate the support! :-)
Can’t wait! ❤️
:-)
The way you make 80% of your sentences sound like questions, makes me smile. I like the way you talk. Every time the Juccuzi Remodel ad shows up on tv and the woman speaks, I think of you hahaha. No disrespect, it's pure joy. Also thanks for the Pepper pruning info last year.
Found your channel recently, and I love it. Appreciate all you do!
Hey, thanks for the support!
Really helpful info! I chose not to prune mine this year, and I’m getting a steady harvest here in FL.
Right on Robin, congrats on the harvests!
Your bell peppers look a lot better than many I've seen on RUclips.
Thanks Ron! :-)
Excellent Video , probably the best I've watched on the subject... I will share this in my gardening group on MeWe.... thanks !
Hey thanks, that's really kind of you RJ! :-)
Thank you so much for that video! The information that you gave was way above anecdotal. 👏👏👏
For any plant, if you prune or “top” them to create bifurcating nodes, you need to increase potassium and phosphorus to increase yield
Hmm, that’s good to know, makes sense, probably why my peppers didn’t do well last year after I pruned them and then everything got blight, last year was not a good garden year for me
Nitrogen first, for about the first 1/4 - 1/3 of the season, then heavy p/k for the next few months, right?
@@thagingerninjer5391 It depends on where each pepper is in development and what your goals are. It's way more complicated than do x during y part of the season. You wants plenty of nitrogen while the plant is growing. When you don't want it to grow anymore slow down on the nitrogen. When flowers come and fruit starts to set you want plenty of Phosphorus and little nitrogen. Phosphorus is key for fruiting because it helps transport all the crucial nutrients to the fruit.
That's pretty much exactly what I said, just with more words. Lol.
@@thagingerninjer5391 no, sorry but it's not. Not everyone lives in the same zone so "first 1/4 of the season" may not scale for everyone. Not everyone is growing from seeds either. Also it's important to understand *why* you are using a nutrient at this time versus that time. Only then can you know the right decision to make. If you guess and go by an arbitrary time frame rather than what you're circumstances actually require then you are more likely to make a mistake - that's just not how you professionals and serious growers approach things. This is science, chemistry, and biology there's a reason things work the way they do.
This is good to know for ornamental peppers. I'm glad I pruned my black pearl peppers and not my edible ones
Right you are Denny...most smaller ornamentals can definitely be pruned. Especially if growing indoors as a perennial.
Black pearl peppers taste great on pizza though lol
Well presented and nice to see a 'scientific' approach. Thank you.
This was super interesting!! Thanks so much for sharing!
Ty for this video, great tip 👍 I will experiment with a couple of mine in the Spring. I live in Indiana and this year my bell peppers just started growing peppers a week ago and I didn't prune them.
Its totally worth the experiment Tamara. It won't kill the plants and you'll STILL get peppers. Let me know the results!
Thank you!! 🌼
Cheers Michelle, thanks for watching! :-)
I click the like button to your posts even before I listen to them because I know they will always be top notch informative
Interesting, a good comparison on size and weight. I've been pruning mine for a couple of years, I think I'll try this experiment as well and check the results. Great video!
I had no idea how deep I could plant Pepper plants until your videos.
Awesome! Pretty cool they are just like tomatoes... Maybe not as crazy stem roots, but they still do. Cheers!
@@TheRipeTomatoFarms Oh I didn’t know this! I’m going to do this.
@@aquaseahorselove3939 It really helps to establish the young plants faster! :-)
I read that quick a second time and thought it said don't prune preppers 🤣
LOL, don't prune those either!!
@@TheRipeTomatoFarms Good to know 🤣
@@net4216 :-)
I did also 😂
Wish I had watched this one before last week when I pruned out the top of my pepper plants! Oh well, good to know for next year! Thanks for sharing the info!
I pruned all 12 of my Pretty 'n Sweet pepper seedlings in 2022 and had what I thought was a great harvest. However, they were smaller than I expected (1st time planting that variety) and after watching your video, they were probably smaller than they could have been had I NOT pruned. This year, I'm planting 40 plants (sweet and hot varieties) and will not prune. Keeping my fingers crossed for a bountiful harvest! As always, thanks for another informative video!
Pruning keeps the plants shorter and little staking is required. When frost arrives it is much easier to protect shorter plants, especially if windy c
it is supposed to make them stockier and stronger and i have noticed that. i have yet to find a reason to prune my peppers. yes i have tried several times and they have yet to produce as well as the others.
I watched this video again ... EXCELLENT analysis! Did you clip off the top just once only (when the peppers were young) during the life of the pepper plant? Love your gigantic red peppers!
Thanks Yanni! Yes, only one initial pruning, that was it. :-)
Great information!!! I loved this video in that you did an experiment! Keep them coming. Greetings from Nova Scotia!!
Thanks Janice! Coast-to-Coast! Hope everything is ok in your world after the storms! :-)
Those Red Peppers are Amazing!
So glad I watched this video,
I was going to actually prune my pepper plants later today.
Thanks Shonna! Happy growing this year! :-)
Excellent presentation. I wish you growth of your RUclips channel, Sir
Hey, thanks for that Steve, really means a lot. :-)
@@TheRipeTomatoFarms
Personally. I would like to see a video on fusarium and verticillium tomato wilts. How to tell the difference and how to deal with in current and next tomato plantings. Do some of the antifungal products work on these wilts? i.e. MycoStop, an innoculant of a plant-harmless root fungi that keep out fusarium fungus or some of the inorganic fungicide products?
Just a thought, perhaps a suggestion for some future episode. :)
@@summerbeemeadow 100% Steve... My problem is that I need to experience things before documenting. I've really tried hard to walk a straight line only talking about things I know of. If I can't give authentic advice, I simply won't give it. Having said that, wilts and fungal outbreaks are on my bucket list of video topics! Shoot, I purposefully didn't water a tomato bed just to get a video on tomato Leaf Curl and subsequently blossom end rot! So it's likely coming sooner than later, ha ha! Cheers man.
@@TheRipeTomatoFarms We had a very hot & humid week of weather here near Syracuse, NY. I planted my tomatoes too close to each other and had not yet pruned lower leafs as I was sick all week. When I checked on the garden, I had a circular area among several plants that looked like someone had dropped a fungal bomb right there. Plants sagged, wilted, leaves turned brown, and the plants collapsed in just several days, even as their fruits were still growing or ripening. and the infected zone got larger. Bummer, but I WILL beat this next year. I intend to kill it with science.
Lol. I planted mine too early and they flowered really small. I did an ISIS on them. Now sprouting everywhere. I still have a 6 month growing season so hopefully they'll come good.
Should be plenty enough time! Best of luck, excited to hear how it goes!
GREAT VIDEO! Professional and very informative. Thank you for this! Wonderful work
I have learned more about this subject since this video has come out. If you top your plants above the third set of true leaves and do it early enough for the plant to recuperate before planting you can mitigate the negative effects of topping the plants.
Sometimes it can be necessary to prune/top peppers depending on ones growing space/situation, type of pepper/genetics and nutrients to mitigate setbacks. You mentioned "unlimited harvests" in the intro, people who top/prune do not expect unlimited harvests lol but I guess you suggest they do further perpetuating a misconception many newbs have in the pepper world. Some types of pepper want to grow tall and lanky, some naturally short and bushy, some may cluster and some may sparsely produce. Your experiment only pertains to the type of bell pepper you hold in your hand, perhaps contrast it with a Chinense or Baccatum variety so that whatever theory you push may be more accurate, but newbs would be none the wiser. Great video and pretty Bells you have there, perhaps a controlled experiment with varieties to contrast would better bolster your theory or the opposite.
Those are beautiful bells! I never pruned my peppers as I feel they naturally branch out by themselves when they are ready. I only prune to shape the plants.
Exactly JT! They branch out so much on their own already! They don't need any extra!
This is a video I needed to see! Thank you for putting it together.
Hi Jeff! Gorgeous peppers! After seeing your attempt in the Spring, I tried this same experiment with Banana Peppers. Same results! Thanks for your video on the outcome!🏆 P.S. We should take more road trips!😉😁😎💞
Yes please waiting.
Thanks Holly, hope you like! :-)
One advantage of prune might be less likely to break limbs and lose fruit and blooms , something to consider
Thanks Staking also help prevent brakeage.
Lots of good points,I stake or into the tomato cages that doesn't work for tomato plants anyway
Thanks
For sure John... Prune for structure and stake for support.... No argument here! :-)
Here in UK and just about to transfer my peppers to my allotment from the greenhouse. Really glad I saw this vid and thanks for posting. Very informative.
Hey thanks for watching and best of luck with the transfer!
Hi Jeff. That's a really good video. I took notes (as always) Thank you so much for your knowledge. Take care
Thanks Donna, have a great weekend! :-)
I agree with you 100%, because I experimented on my pepper plants this year also, and had the worst harvest ever. At first, I was excited when I noticed the shoots popping out on all the nodes of the peppers, after a week of topping them. Then when I planted them in the ground, the plants stayed low and they took forever to produce fruit. I saw this method of planting peppers on RUclips and it seems to be productive and so I tried it. But to my big dismay, I ended up with way less harvest and smaller in size, compared to previews harvest. I was upset for listening to the youtuber who posted it. Lesson learned, do check on the reviews first before acting on it, lol. Next year, I'm going back to my normal method of planting. Thank you for sharing this video.
Exactly Mary....for the last 5 seasons I've been just that in limited capacity and pretty much every time, the same thing. So we're on the same page! :-)
If you are only growing bells your better of NOT topping. But topping is good for some annums but mostly for chinense, baccatums, pubescenses, frutescences, and some annum increases production by a lot. The one pepper you never ever too are bell peppers. And with topped peppers they need an extra 3-6 weeks indoors so start them earlier. The hotter the pepper, start em earlier. At first you think topping stunts them, and it does, but after that stunted phase they grow insane. The not topped peppers might produce sooner, but in the grand scheme of things, topped peppers will produce more. Some peppers you almost have to top em for good production like hot to super hot peppers and baccatum species pepper (baccatums are very prolific and the pods straight up taste like fruit) they are very vigorous plants so topping really helps. One thing with baccatums they like taken their time to ripen so again start early.
@@pineforpryo9118well, I live here in Buffalo and we only have 4 months of warm weather to grow veggies in the garden. The results of the pepper plants experiment won't probably be as bad, if the growing season is longer. Thank you for sharing your knowledge regarding the matter.
@@maries716gardenvlog6 New York? You live quite close to me I am in nj. You have a 168 day growing season free of frost. Nearly everyone has only 4 or 5 months of summer expect people in the mid to Deep South. You can plant peppers, tomatoes, and other warm loving crops staring mid may. Yeah I can transplant about a week or two earlier but that ain’t much difference. No reason not to top variety’s if they benefit greatly from it
I agree. Did the same experiment last year. I am officially ANTI pepper pruning.
Ha ha, we're on the same page!
Love your videos I watch them every year ! ❤️ awesome content!!
Thanks so much Sherry....it is VERY appreciated!! :-)
Ty for sharing the experience and the way you presented it so well, most of the video I've watched is incomplete and got bored quickly unlike yours had fun and learned at the same time.
Hey thanks for that, kind of you to say! :-)
Good to know!!!
:-)
From S Africa. Will definitely not prune and hope the results match. Thanks. Very good vid.
Right on Russel! Best of luck, keep us updated on the results!
Superb video. Thanks for doing a measured comparison. Very helpful. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Randy, appreciate that. :-)
Thanks for sharing your wisdom.
Cheers Leigh, thanks for watching! 🙂
Great I will watch it 🥰😍❤️🤩😎
Cheers! :-)
Hay from raining in Ohio and thanks for your help
Cheers John!
I'm getting ready to start my salsa indoor grow for a small business start up. I Just stumbled upon you and subscribed. Keep it going with all the great videos.
So awesome! Love it. Best of luck and let us know how the business goes!
Hi from Scotland- Thank you so much for such a detailed video on the subject the internet seems to be swamped with videos telling us all to top or fim !! Like you we have a short growing season and I'm growing hot chillie peppers under glass. Last year I did a similar experiment with cayenne and birdseye types one of each variety one fimmed the other specimen not , I kept vigorous notes, dates, fruits etc This year I shall not be fimming or pruning any of my plants as looking at the records I kept they ring true with yours !! I was surprised just how much fimming delayed fruit production and in the end the yield was not as good as the unfimmed plants. I contacted the lady who developed the Dorset Naga asking her opinion on pruning they have a longer growing season than i do she said they don't prune either.
Thanks once again for such a detailed look at pruning.
Thanks for sharing Stephen! It's good to know that you confirmed what I was seeing too, but in the smaller hot peppers. I'm going to give it one last go with jalapenos this season, but I suspect it'll be the same results. Cheers!
I have heard several gardeners say that you should pull the early blooms before the plant is mature enough to focus the energy into growing the plant first. The results seem to be better from what I've seen. I have about 60 pepper plants this year so I'm gonna try a few different ways to see which works best for my individual circumstances. No method is universal for everyone.
Yeah, if you have an elongated spring before really warm weather hits, eliminating those early blooms can for sure help. Like you said, everyone's growing conditions are different. If I lived in a warmer climate, I'd be pruning ALL my peppers and treating them as perennials.