Growing Peppers Questions

ellejay

Hi,

I'm growing 8 "Marconi Rosso" Pepper Plants on my windowsill.

I repotted to pots that are about 3.5 inches high and 4.5 inches diameter.
They seem to be thriving, they're about 5 inches high with lovely green leaves.

Is it true I need to cut them in half?
It seems such a shame to cut them.

How many peppers would one plant produce please?

Thanks for any help.

buck8pe

Grew them last year in the gh (not that variety exactly). They're very sensitive to levels of heat & light, much more so than tomatoes. Also, they prefer less watering. What I found was that most of the small fruiting buds fell off and I think the reason was that I was caring for it too much. I learned later that clipping off leaves and leaving them somewhat dry stresses the plant and encourages fruit production.

Mind you, I haven't heard of cutting it in half. That sounds a bit drastic. I have heard of removing a good few of the lower leaves.

In the end, I got about 4 or 5 medium sized peppers from two plants that grew to about 3ft high. Not a great harvest, but I might have got more if I had removed the leaves and watered less.

ellejay

buck8pe wrote: »

Grew them last year in the gh (not that variety exactly). They're very sensitive to levels of heat & light, much more so than tomatoes. Also, they prefer less watering. What I found was that most of the small fruiting buds fell off and I think the reason was that I was caring for it too much. I learned later that clipping off leaves and leaving them somewhat dry stresses the plant and encourages fruit production.

Mind you, I haven't heard of cutting it in half. That sounds a bit drastic. I have heard of removing a good few of the lower leaves.

In the end, I got about 4 or 5 medium sized peppers from two plants that grew to about 3ft high. Not a great harvest, but I might have got more if I had removed the leaves and watered less.

thanks buck8pe
so to clarify, I should just snip off the lower level leaves when the plant starts to bud?

also i've just noticed some greenfly on some of the plants.
i've knocked them off but i imagine i haven't got rid of them.
did you have this problem and how did you solve it?

bit weird as the plants are inside on my windowsill in kitchen

Paulownia

My advice for what it is worth, Just nip out the growing tip to make them branch out and remove some of the lower leaves when they start to fruit. To get rid of greenfly put some washing up liquid foam on them.

buck8pe

Yeah, I forgot to mention that. I grew them alongside tomato plants and by the end of the season the peppers were infested with greenfly and spider mites. I managed to keep them under control with washing up liquid in water, but they came back. I didn't mind so much because they kept the bugs away from the tomato plants (which I valued more and which produced more fruit). I'm growing borage in more-or-less the same place this year and the greenfly have taken a real shine to it! Better ready the fairy liquid!