Due to the very fact that the pepper may be a warm weather vegetable crop and requires considerably more heat than cucumbers and tomatoes, growing bell peppers in pots may be a great idea if you reside during a cold climate.
How to Grow Bell Peppers in Containers
Growing bell pepper within the pot is straightforward. the primary thing you’ve got to try to do is to shop for the plant from a nursery or propagate it from seeds.
Choosing a Pot
Planting bell pepper in containers requires a pot that’s a minimum of 10-12 inches deep and wide and has sufficient drainage holes. you’ll get older to 2-3 plants (smaller varieties) in such a pot. Avoid using the black color container if you’re growing bell pepper during a tropical climate.
Propagation
Buy good quality seeds from an area garden store or buy them online. Also, buy a seed starting mix or make yourself. Fill small pots or seedling tray with the seed mix and plant two seeds in each pot, 2-3 cm deep.
Start seeds 6-10 weeks before last spring frost date. Usually, in subtropical and tropical climate, you’ll start seeds anytime except in harsh summer.
The seeds will germinate in 1 to three weeks counting on the weather and seed quality. After they germinate thin out and only keep one plant per pot. When seedlings have 2 true leaves they’re able to be transplanted into the specified containers.
Requirements for Growing Bell Pepper in Containers
Position
Peppers love the sun. the foremost productive pepper plants are grown in warmth and warmth. When you’re growing bell peppers in pots, keep them during a position that receives a minimum of 6 hours of sunlight daily. That place should be sheltered from strong wind.
Soil
Good soil is that the key to productive pepper plants. Buy the highest quality potting mix that’s well-drained, loose, and fertile, or make your own potting mix. The potting mix must be rich in organic matter. Add well-rotted manure or compost within the combination of peat moss/coco peat and vermiculite or perlite (alternatively, sand). you’ll also add 5-10 gm organic at the time of soil preparation, it’ll protect the young plant from soil-borne diseases and pests.
Watering
Growing bell peppers require regular watering to stay the soil slightly moist, soil should never dry out completely. In any case, avoid wetting the foliage, overhead watering may cause mycosis. Water at the foot of the plant. Also, pepper plants suffer from overwatering so take care that your plants don’t sit in water.
Temperature
Growing bell peppers require soil temperature above 60 F (15 C) for best growth. The optimum seed germination temperature is above 68 F (20 C). It can tolerate temperatures up to 95 F (35 C) and right down to 50 F (10 C) easily. the perfect growing temperature is between 70-90 F (21-32C).
Bell Pepper Care
Mulching
For your convenience and to scale back the evaporation of water, do mulching. Cover the bottom of the plant with organic matter like leaves, pine barks, straws, paper or whatever that’s readily available to you.
Fertilizer
Pepper plants like tomatoes are heavy feeders and you’ll get to fertilize the plant every 15 days approximately. When fertilizing, remember an excessive amount of nitrogen-rich fertilizer can promote foliage growth. you’ll also feed the plant with tomato fertilizer. Also, once a month feed the plant with compost or manure tea. Use of Epsom salt (2tsp/gallon water at the time of watering, you’ll also spray the plants with this solution) monthly improves the health and increases the yield of tomato and pepper plants so it must be applied too.
Pinching and Pruning
In the early stage, when the plant is young pinch growing tips regularly to form it bushier. Pruning isn’t necessary but is often administered if required.
Deadheading
If your pepper plant is flowering too early deadhead the flowers, it’s important. this may direct the plant’s energy into growing and becoming healthy. you’ll also stop the formation of the latest fruits if you would like to hurry up the maturation of pepper fruits that are already growing on the plant by pinching off emerging flowers.
Pollination
Pepper plants are self-fertile so you don’t get to care about pollination but to urge better fruits and to enhance productivity you’ll gently shake the plants when they’re in bloom.
Support
You may get to support the plants. For this, either uses tomato cages or just poke a stick near the most stem and tie the plant thereto.
Pests and Diseases
Growing bell peppers in pots require care from aphids as they’re the amount one enemy of pepper plants. In hot and dry weather you’ll also get to keep an eye fixed on spider mites.
Harvesting
Bell peppers are ready for harvesting in 60-90 days after transplanting. you’ll harvest them green once they reach full size and stand. If left to ripen, the color will become orange, yellow, or red.
With good soil, proper temperatures and a touch TLC, growing bell peppers may be a simple, satisfying garden project – albeit you’re planting your first garden. Learning a couple of pepper-growing basics is all it takes to experience the garden-to-table goodness of homegrown bells.
Choosing Pepper Varieties
When thinking of sweet bell peppers, supermarket standards may come to mind. Big, glossy, green bells are grocery staples, and bright, shiny red bells follow close behind. But once you grow your own peppers, the menu expands to many varieties. Most, but not all, start out green then mature in color and sweetness. Pepper varieties range from deep purple and chocolate-brown to creamy ivory, vivid yellow or fiery orange.
Color isn’t your only homegrown option. Plant and pepper sizes vary, too. Garden favorites like Arthur pepper grow 2 to three feet tall and wide, with thick-walled, blocky, green-to-red peppers at 4 inches square. Contrast that with the 1- to 2-inch, red mini-bells of Cupid or the golden minis of Sweet Golden Baby Belle. At but 2 feet tall and 1 foot wide, these compact plants are perfect for containers or small urban spaces.
Getting Peppers Started Right
Peppers are treated as annual vegetables in most gardens, but they’re actually tender perennial fruits, like their close relative’s tomatoes and eggplants. These tropical natives like hot temperatures and fertile soil. Plant during a location with well-drained soil and full, direct sun a minimum of six to eight hours every day. You’ll be rewarded with healthy plants and abundant fruit.
Peppers are very sensitive to cold; rush them outside in spring and you’ll regret it. altogether but the most well liked climates, you’ll got to start seeds indoors six to eight weeks before your area’s last anticipated spring frost or purchase small seedlings to transplant. Wait until all danger of frost has passed and nighttime temperatures stay consistently near 60 degrees Fahrenheit before you progress pepper plants outside.1
When choosing a site for your bell peppers, stick with garden spots where tomatoes, eggplants, other peppers or potatoes haven’t grown for a minimum of three years. These related plants are susceptible to an equivalent diseases, many of which may stay in soil. If you grow in planters or containers, replace the soil per annum if any diseases are present.
Cultivating Backyard Bell
Like most home garden crops, peppers generally need added nutrition. Phosphorus and calcium are keys to bountiful bell pepper growth. Soil testing reveals your soil pH (5.8 to 6.5 is superb for peppers1), and provides recommendations for soil amendments and feeding. When needed, amendments like lime increase soil pH. Gypsum leaves pH constant but adds calcium – critical for avoiding blossom end rot disease.
Avoid high-nitrogen fertilizers, which stimulate leafy growth rather than fueling sweet fruits. Products designed for tomatoes and vegetables, like Lilly Miller ® MORCROP Tomato & Vegetable Food 5-10-10, provide higher relative amounts of phosphorus and potassium within the nutrient balance peppers prefer.
Keep bell peppers well-watered, but never leave soil soggy. Water to moisten soil about 6 inches deep, then let it dry slightly. Watering is particularly important during fruit set, when tiny peppers take the place of blossoms, and because the bells mature. Consistent moisture helps keep peppers firm and healthy.
Managing Pests and Disease
Keeping pepper plants fed and watered well goes an extended way in preventing opportunistic diseases and bug pests, which may hit pepper crops fast and hard. Pepper pests vary by region, starting from common cutworms to flea beetles, pepper weevils et al. . Proven pesticides like the Sevin® brand, trusted by gardeners for quite 50 years, are an integral part of an efficient integrated pest management program for peppers.
Sevin® Insect Killer garden insecticides provide powerful protection against a broad range of pepper pests. As ready-to-use, concentrate and ready-to-spray liquids, these highly effective pesticides kill quite 500 insect pests on contact and keep protecting your garden for up to 3 months.
Always follow product label instructions for the specified time between pesticide application and harvest, referred to as pre-harvest intervals or PHI. With liquid Sevin® Insect Killer products, you’ll treat bell peppers right up to at least one day before harvest. If your preferred pesticide product is Sevin-5 Ready-To-Use 5% Dust, allow three days between treating peppers and harvesting their fruits.
Enjoying Your Pepper Harvest
Depending on your chosen varieties, peppers mature between two and three months from the time you transplant outdoors. If you’re within the mood for green bells, allow them to reach full size, form, and firmness before you choose. For mature, colored peppers, allow them to reach full color and ripeness on the vine, whenever possible. Then pick them promptly to encourage more pepper fruits to the line.
If weather cuts your season short, pick peppers early. Keep them warm and humid — between 68 F and 77 Ft, with 95 percent or higher humidity — and that they may color fully. However, they typically won’t grow any sweeter. Peppers start losing water as soon as they’re picked, so high humidity is vital . If you would like to store them for a time, refrigerate bells at 45 F and 95 percent humidity. Garden-fresh bell peppers should stay firm and flavorful for 3 to 5 weeks at those conditions.2