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I am a newbie to container gardening and I had a few questions for all you experianced gardeners out there.
I planted 7-8 bell pepper seeds around the beginning of May.They sprouted and now it seems they stopped growing cold turkey. It is now the end of July and the seedlings have not grown since a bit after they first sprouted. I have stopped watering them and have also added crushed eggshells for calcium. Is there anything else I can do for them? They seem to be growing… | City Girl to Country Girl's Blog
I posted this question in the Tomatoville.com forum a week ago, but now it seems one of the moderators died and the blog is shut down. So far, I have no answer, and I am afraid to try and grow other things as well.
citygirl, I have absolutely no luck in growing green peppers and especially in pots. For some reason, they dont thrive. So, I dont know what to tell you. Anytime I get a pepper that is the size of an egg, it is very thin walled. This year, I was lucky if they got the size of a cherry. Blah ! on growing greeen peppers in the pot. They do sometimes get a little bigger in the ground but not much.
I am in Florida. My best efforts at pots are tomatoes, green beans and this year, I got a few cukes before the bugs took over.
From the looks of your peppers and the 'soil' in that pot (gah, what is that stuff?), they are very nutrient deprived.
Although peppers aren't really picky about good garden soil, a nice mix will certainly bring a better result.
It's probably too late to re-start pepper seeds now, but next year if you plant them in that pot again, dump that stuff out, wash the pot, and install some decent growing mix. That pot may be big enough for 2 mature pepper plants.
From the looks of your peppers and the 'soil' in that pot (gah, what is that stuff?), they are very nutrient deprived.
Although peppers aren't really picky about good garden soil, a nice mix will certainly bring a better result.
It's probably too late to re-start pepper seeds now, but next year if you plant them in that pot again, dump that stuff out, wash the pot, and install some decent growing mix. That pot may be big enough for 2 mature pepper plants.
That soil is Miracle Grow Seed Starting Potting Mix. LOL. Which I bought the day before planting the pepper seeds. At Orchard Supply Hardware. After the pics I added some crushed egg shells for calcium...still nothing.
I have raised bell peppers in both the ground and in containers. I have a problem with the fruit. They each have a large soft brown spot on them that I have no idea what is causing it. Except for this area, the rest of the pepper is good. Please help me with this problem.
I was looking for some info about my bell pepper plants and came across your question. I don't know if you've gotten your answer yet, but here's one for you. When I looked at your pictures it looked like you have all these pepper plants in one container. Big NO-NO.
I know the seed planting instructions on the seed packets say to plant several seed together then thin later. Well to me that's a good waste of a lot of seed/plants. This is my first year with a real garden (in ground and some container and some experimenting) but I understand marketing and this is a scam to get us to buy more seeds. A farmer doesn't go out and plant several seeds together and thin them later. If farmers did this we would have no food in the grocery stores.
My husband grow up on a farm and we had this discussion when I told him I wasn't going to plant the way the seed packets said to and he explained the about.
So here's what you do. You are going to have 1 container for each plant. Know I am trying two plants per contain to see if they will grow the same and the two plants are not growing as tall as the others. If you want 10 bell pepper plants you will need 10 containers. You plant one seed per container in the center. Make sure to plant at the depth the packets says. If you plant to deep they won't be able to sprout ( I don't think you have any problems there).
When a plant starts to grow the roots need space and nutrients. The more plants in one container the less of each for each plant. I have my peppers planted in 5 gal grow bags.
I prepared my own mix because this much potting soil would cost me a fortune. I got some cheap top soil, cow manure compost, 10/10/10 fertilizer (this was all I could find in our area). Mixed it up, about 1 gal compost to 4 gal of top soil, then put in my containers and planted.
Now seed packets have a time frame in which to plant, but in whats called succession planting you plant throughout the season. Look this up online to see how it works, very simple and I'm doing it right now. Depending on where you live and when your cold season starts depends on how long you can plant and harvest. I'm in the south so I have a very long season.
Since your plants are in containers, after a while watering causes the nutrients to wash out of your container. If they were planted in the ground the nutrients would just wash deeper and plant roots would grow deeper to get to its food. But either way you still need to fertilize during the growing season. Get some Miracle Grow for gardens (it will have vegetables on container) and use every 2 weeks. This way your plants have they food they need to give you the food you need.
Water everyday till they sprout and get bigger, then cut back to every 2-3 days. Check leaves for welting thats a sign of needing water. Don't spray water all over the plant to water it, just water near the plant stem. You only want to spray the plant when you are spraying for bugs, fungus, etc. Water early morning before it get too hot or early evening after it cools down.
Good Luck I hope this helps. Google just about anything concerning planting and you can find it. greatgardens
I have been growing bells for years, sometimes they are the size we get in the produce dept and are great foe stuffing, other years (like this year) they are just little things, but they taste the same and they have thinner, more tender skins. I really do not let this bother me too much.
Nita
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