How To Grow Sweet Peppers In Pots (Bell Peppers, Banana Peppers)

hey there welcome back to Pepper geek in today's video I'll be showing you how to grow sweet peppers from seed in containers bell peppers and banana peppers are some of the most popular pepper varieties in the world and you can easily grow them in containers making it available for pretty much anyone to grow so in this video I'll share the entire process of growing sweet peppers in containers from seed all the way to harvest so let's step back a few months in time when we' planted our seeds potentially the most important factor is when you plant your pepper seeds so for sweet peppers we typically recommend planting four to 6 weeks before your last frost date The Only Exception is if you live in a very cold climate with a pretty short warm season you may want to plant a couple weeks before that so 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost date the biggest mistake people make is planting too early so make sure you don't do that okay so assuming you're ready to plant your sweet pepper seeds you need some supplies so first you're going to need some soil we're just going to start with normal potting soil that has nutrients added in you'll need some seed starting containers we start with smaller seed cells like this six cell tray but you can start your seeds in larger pots like this 3 and 1/2 in Nursery pot if you're planting fewer than I would say 10 plants and you don't have to worry about your plants taking up a lot of space indoors then go ahead and start in larger pots I'll be doing both today just to demonstrate you'll need a larger tray like this to hold all of your smaller pots along with a humidity Dome to cover it up once the seeds are planted you'll need a spritzer bottle filled with water and the last item is optional but highly recommended for growing peppers and tomatoes and that's a seed heating mat this keeps the soil warm while your seeds are germinating and it greatly reduces the time it takes for your seeds to sprout so the first step is to label your containers this is very important if you're growing multiple varieties label the containers before you even get started so that you don't mix up which is which next is to fill the containers with pre moistened potting soil so this is pre-moistened it's got a little bit of moisture in it it's not sopping wet but it's got some moisture to it so that it holds together fill your containers up get it to within about a/4 in of the surface and I like to just use my fingers to put a little bit of a divot into the soil where we'll plant the seeds so I recommend planting about a/4 in deep for most sweet peppers another rule of thumb is planting about twice as deep as the seed is thick so you can make a little divot into the surface of the soil about 1/4 in deep and I like to plant two seeds per cell making sure that at least one of them germinates and then just cover up the seeds with about a/4 inch of soil okay with all the seeds planted all that's left to do is moisten the surface of the soil to make sure that those seeds are damp nice and wet they need moisture to germinate and they need that that moisture throughout the germination process so it's going to be really important to make sure they never dry out so with the pepper seeds planted all that's left to do is get them into a warm location they'll Sprout best in temperatures between 80 and 90° F so that's pretty warm that's why we like to use a seed heating mat it's not required but expect your seeds to take at least a few days longer up to a week longer if you don't use one cover the seeds with a humidity Dome to prevent the seeds from drying out and make make sure to come back at least once a day open up the humidity Dome let some fresh air in there and Spritz the surface of any soil that looks dried out pepper seeds don't require light to germinate so don't worry about turning on grow lights or having them in a sunny window not until they sprout after about 4 to 7 days we typically start seeing our Sprouts emerging from the soil and at this point it's very important to get the seeds under some grow lights or into the sunniest window in your home we highly recommend using grow lights because you'll get better results and stronger growth early on between 14 and 16 hours of light every day is ideal we Ed an outlet timer to make sure that our grow lights turn on and turn off at the appropriate times there'll be some links down in the description for some grow lights that we recommend if you're interested and look out for any signs of stress like too much light if you have them too close to your grow light you might start to see some taco shelling or curling of those leaves or if they're too far from the light they may actually grow tall tall and leggy sort of reaching and searching for light then make any necessary adjustments since we used regular potting soil there's really no need to fertilize at this point just let the plants grow at their own rate they will grow slowly early on that's completely normal they'll do just fine at normal room temperatures right around 70 to 75° F is ideal the next step is to transplant your peppers so if you grew in these small six cell seedling trays you'll need to transplant them out after just a few weeks of growth so usually around week 2 or 3 it's a good time to transplant into larger pots this process is very simple you're just going to remove the seed plug from the seed cell and move that entire plant into a larger pot with some of the same potting soil that you used for planting seeds surround the root ball with more Soil and Water it in then replace them back under your grow lights or back into the sunny window to continue growing a couple weeks later the outside temperatures should be warming up and you want to start thinking about the hardening off process this is where we bring the plants outside to start adjusting them to the outdoor elements so it's very important to give a transitionary period of about 1 or 2 weeks to gradually increase exposure over that time so do this in the location where you plan on planting your plants permanently that way they'll be getting used to the actual location where they'll be living one of the biggest mistakes I see people make is planting their peppers outside too soon we usually start the hardening off process right around the last frost date on warmer days between 65 and 70° F however we don't move the plants outside permanently until the outdoor temperatures are not dropping below 55° F and this usually means about 2 or 3 weeks after our last frost date so don't jump the gun here don't rush it make sure that it is plenty warm for your peppers outside because they don't like cold temperatures and you will set them back so now that the plants are hardened off let's get them outside so when you pick a final container size I recommend 5 gallons or bigger for large pepper varieties this 5 Gall pot will work well for our bell pepper plant fill the pot with premoistened potting soil right up to the surface as it will settle a bit throughout the season and of course don't forget to label your pot next dig out a hole large enough to fit your plant's root ball for Bell Peppers I like to amend with a small handful of bone meal for each plant for added calcium and nitrogen but this is optional next loosen up the root ball by squeezing your pot and gently remove the plant the root should easily be reaching the bottom and sides of the soil like you see here pop the plant into your pre-dug hole keeping it vertical and backfill with the surrounding soil make sure the plant's stem is not buried for heavier peppers I highly recommend using a tomato cage to support the plants later on in the season without it your branches may break off as your peppers grow larger and finally give the plant a good drink of water and set it in a Sunny Spot over the first 3 to four weeks in their final pots I recommend removing flowers and early fruits from the plant we don't want the plants to try to produce Peppers just yet but instead want them to grow lots of new branches and leaves getting bigger in size before setting their fruits keep the plants evenly watered over the coming weeks to encourage a strong root system to form filling out the pot completely okay so it's Midsummer and it's a great time to check in so so far both of our sweet pepper plants that I have in front of me have not had any fertilizer whatsoever they've grown this far just on the potting soil that we've used which is Happy Frog from Fox Farm and they're just growing beautifully we did incur some damage from beetles but that doesn't happen every year and it doesn't happen in every location but regardless the plants are performing pretty well especially these banana peppers which as you can see are starting to really load up with fruits so a few things that I want to discuss at this point in the year I do like to supplement with fertilizer which I'll be doing in just a bit I'm going to use a liquid fertilizer that will feed the plants right away for larger sweet peppers like bell peppers this one here is our Majestic bell pepper and it's starting to try to produce fruits and there are some mediumsized bell peppers on it but what I've been doing so far is removing some of the extra bell peppers so that the plant doesn't try to produce too many peppers I like to get nice big sweet peppers Peppers off of my plants so limiting the plant to only a handful of peppers at a time Mak sure that the resulting fruits are as big as possible so I like to have between six and maybe 10 bell peppers forming at a time on each plant depending on the size of the plant of course and the size of the peppers that you would like to get another thing to keep in mind is it's very important to keep those Peppers shaded from the sun it's very common to get sun scalled on your peppers especially later in the day when the sun is hitting the plants at an angle where it might get through the canopy and hit those Peppers which can lead to sunscald what you'll start to see in that case is white lesions forming on the skin of your bell peppers and that's essentially just burning the peppers from direct sunlight so you want as Lush of a canopy as possible another way to prevent this sunscald is to group your plants closer together so you have your potted plants right next to one another and the canopies of each plant will help shade the plants from the side up to this this point watering has been pretty easy for us this year because it's been a very wet year and when you're growing in containers overwatering is pretty hard to do because potting soil naturally drains well but on drier years we're watering our potted pepper plants once a day during the hottest part of the year just want to make sure that that soil doesn't really ever dry out again overwatering is pretty hard to do with pots okay so like I said Midsummer once you start seeing fruits forming like we see here is a good time to supplement your potting soil with a little bit of extra fruit fertilizer and I like to use this Miracle Grow performance Organics water soluble fertilizer so it is in essence a liquid fertilizer now they recommend feeding every single week with this fertilizer but I find that just one or two applications Midsummer and maybe once again later in the season if you have a longer growing season is plenty for pepper plants so whatever fertilizer you're using just follow the instructions on your packaging and that's what I've done here it's two scoops of this into a gallon of water so these plants are already nice and saturated from the rainfall that we've been having and you want to make sure the soil is saturated before fertilizing because that way the liquid will get dispersed throughout the entire root system and feed the plant as best as possible so just a gentle watering you want to make sure that you start to see it flowing out of the bottom out of the drainage holes and I'll save the rest for our other potted plants but it's as simple as that I really like doing this because it makes sure that the plants don't become tired and burnt out before the next round of fruits so let's check back in when it's time to harvest some of our bell peppers these banana peppers are actually getting pretty close this one over here is pretty much ready but I want to share some guidelines for knowing when to pick your peppers so it's now late August and it's time to harvest some bell peppers as you can see one of them is starting to turn red but of course you can Harvest your sweet peppers at any time whether they're fully ripe or still green so I want to share some tips for when you're picking your peppers so if if you want to harvest ripe peppers like this red bell you should wait for them to start turning but you don't want them to be fully ripe before you pick them ideally they'll be just starting to change you may see them darken a bit in color red bell peppers kind of turn a brownish color before they brighten up to their final red and anytime in that window is a good time to get them off of the plant and indoors where they can continue to ripen when they're fully ripe like this on the plant they're pretty vulnerable to pests a lot of other animals and insects are looking at this bright red pepper with interest so by getting it off the plant a little bit earlier you're potentially saving it from harm it's a little bit trickier if you want to pick your peppers before they fully ripen but our general rule of thumb there is to wait for the peppers to fully mature in size and then give them another week or so after that point to start to mature so a green bell pepper will usually take anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks from first getting fertilized to reaching a full mature size and it can help to take pictures of your peppers every few days just to see that progress in growth the worst thing you can do is pick your sweet peppers before they've matured in size because you'll end up with an unpleasant bitter flavor and thinner walls to the pepper as well so I'll Harvest a couple of these Peppers of course that red one definitely needs to come off but there's another one or two green peppers on here that are perfectly ready for Harvest for bell peppers and other large varieties with thicker stems I like to use pruning shears to get them off of the plant because otherwise you risk damaging the plant in the process if you're yanking them off of the plant you can break branches off as well so pruning shears or scissors so it's really important to harvest your peppers as they become ready and as you're ready to use them because by getting these off of the plant that's going to reinvigorate this plant and hopefully we'll get some more flowers more peppers growing on the plant before the end of the season another harvesting tip is to check on your fruits regularly and if you notice any damage on the younger fruits that are developing maybe you see a hole in the pepper or you see a soft spot just get that off of the plant and make room for another healthier fruit to develop otherwise the plant is going to waste resources on developing that fruit that's damaged and it's going to end up going to waste anyway now if you want bigger bell peppers like these ones we have a video on our Channel all about how you can encourage larger fruit sets on your pepper plants I'll link that down below if you want our most detailed guide to growing peppers check out our ebook growing perfect peppers in the description below it goes through our entire process of growing peppers from seed to harvest with lots of pictures and detailed description so if you're interested check out the link in the description below I hope this video has helped you grow your sweet peppers in containers again it's just such an easy way to get started and to continue growing your peppers wherever you're located if you have any additional tips that you'd like to share please leave a comment below and thanks for watching pepper geek

Channel: Pepper Geek

Views: 90,879

Keywords: gardening, growing, peppers

Id: SQE5F_O0aJo

Length: 14min 51sec (891 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2023