5 Mistakes You Must NEVER Make When Growing Peppers

In this video, I share the top 5 mistakes you must never make when growing peppers. Pepper plants are tough, versatile and fun to grow, making them the perfect addition to any garden, but the internet has taught gardeners to do terrible things that harm them. Avoid these traps! This video will teach you how to work with your pepper plants and give them everything they need for success, while dispelling much of the bad pepper growing advice that has become common. Consider this your personal Pepper Growing Master Class!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Introduction
1:06 Mistake #1: Transplanting Peppers Incorrectly
5:33 Mistake #2: Fertilizing Peppers Incorrectly
14:32 The Perfect Pepper Fertilizing Schedule
16:47 Mistake #3: The ‘Full Sun’ Myth
22:35 Mistake #4: Pruning Peppers Incorrectly
25:21 Mistake #5: Harvesting Peppers Incorrectly
28:57 Adventures With Dale

If you have any questions about avoiding these pepper growing mistakes, how to grow peppers in your backyard garden, growing fruit trees or want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!

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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B

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#gardening #garden #peppers #pepperplants #vegetablegardening

Peppers are the very first crop that I learned how to grow in my vegetable garden as a young gardener. Everything you see around me is a result of my mastery of the humble pepper plant. Pepper plants belong in everyone’s vegetable garden. They are heat tolerant, disease and pest resistant. There is an enormous variety to choose from and they will produce all the way until frost if you treat them right. And I am going to show you all exactly how to do that. On today’s video, I am going to share with you five pepper growing mistakes that I would never make again in hopes that I can share these mistakes with you so you won’t have to learn them the hard way. If you’re new to the channel, please subscribe, hit the bell for notifications, and check out my Amazon store and Spreadshop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom apparel and gear. As a point of reference, I live on the southeastern coast of North Carolina, just outside of the Wilmington area in zone 8b. But to be clear, hardiness zones do not matter for annual vegetable gardens. They are for perennials only. So my zone does not matter. And the tips and mistakes that I am outlining in this video apply to all gardeners, no matter where you are located. Mistake number one is improper transplanting. For whatever reason, there is a lot of confusion when it comes to transplanting peppers properly. And I think we actually have the tomato plant to blame for this. Tomatoes and peppers are both in the nightshade family, so they are closely related. However, while they are basically cousins, they are also entirely different species. So, while a lot of the same rules apply, there are some distinct differences, and transplanting is one of those differences. It has become common practice when transplanting tomatoes to dig our holes extra deep and bury a portion of the stem. And while it is hotly debated if this is actually necessary, it’s definitely not a bad practice because tomatoes have the very unique ability to root all up and along the stems of the plant. So the theory is if we bury our tomato plants deeply, they will form a larger root system. And you can actually see this in action in this tomato plant right here. Just the natural humidity in the air is actually causing root nodes to form all along that tomato stem. So if I were to bury this tomato plant right up to here, all of these little white bumps that you see, well, once in contact with consistent moisture in the soil, they would rapidly root and form full-size roots. So, because tomato plants do so well when you embed the stem and soil, a lot of people do the same thing to their pepper plants, thinking, “Well, they’re in the same family, so they should do the same thing.” But that is actually not the case. Your pepper plants do not readily root along the stem like a tomato does. Now, it is true that if you were to bury the pepper plants, you may get a couple of additional roots that form at the leaf nodes. So, where you see my finger right here and right here, it is possible that a few roots could sprout, but generally speaking, it’s not going to give you that big of an advantage. So, while burying the stems of your pepper plants deeply probably won’t hurt the plant, in most cases, there isn’t a real reason to do it. It’s just wasted time and effort. So, just dig your planting hole and embed the root ball so the top of the root ball is flush with the top of the soil. That is really all you have to do unless you’re in the situation where you started your pepper transplants so early or maybe you didn’t give them intense enough light inside if you started them under grow lights and they became tall and lanky and you’re worried that they will actually take wind damage. If that is the case, you can pinch off some of the lower leaves and bury some of the stem and tie it up to a steak so it is less prone to wind damage. But if your pepper plants are stout and healthy, there is no real reason to bury them deeply. That being said, the one thing you always want to do to all of your pepper transplants is to remove the first few sets of leaves. You see these lower leaves right here on a pepper plant? Well, the only purpose of those lower leaves is to push through the soil layer after germination. And the next few sets, the only purpose of those leaves are to provide the initial photosynthesis for your plant to get big and tall. But once your pepper plant becomes large like this, these lower leaves become nothing but a magnet for disease. Most diseases that attack pepper plants will be fungal diseases that occur from soil splashing. So either over irrigation or rainwater will splash soil from the ground to underneath the lowest leaves. And those lower leaves will be the start of the fungal diseases. So we want to get rid of these. pinch these off because at this point the pepper plant is so large that they don’t serve any purpose anymore and you want to increase the buffer of soil splashing. So now when we get rainfall or if I water too hard the likelihood of soil splashing underneath the leaves become a lot less. But please one word of caution. I see so many gardeners that correctly pinch off the lower leaves of their pepper plants but they do it at the exact moment of transplanting. So what they do is they pinch off the leaves and then they create these open wounds in the stems of their plants which are entry points for bacterial and fungal diseases. What you want to do is you want to pinch off these leaves at least a day or two prior to transplanting. That way the stems can fully heal over in an indoor controlled environment where it is low humidity and there is no water splashing anywhere. That way, you will no longer have open entry wounds into your plants once you put them inside your garden soil. Mistake number two I see so many gardeners making is inadequate fertilizing. There’s this idea that pepper plants are light feeders because we think of pepper plants as these little 1 or two foot tall plants, but in reality, pepper plants can grow easily 3 to 4 feet in one single summer. and they can produce big heavy crops practically weighing them down all the way until frost. You need to feed them generously if you want them to keep producing for you all the way until the fall. Now, when it comes to fertilizing your pepper plants, there are three ingredients that I consider mandatory and two ingredients that I consider optional. And just as a point of reference, while you don’t have to use these exact ingredients that I am using, if you do want the exact ingredients that I am using, I will place links to them down in the video description for your convenience to make your life easy. I fertilize all of the fruing vegetables in my annual vegetable garden the exact same way. So, this fertilizing routine holds true for tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, zucchini, and other squashes, melons, and the like. I don’t do anything differently. So, this is a great all-purpose fertilizing routine. Mandatory product number one is what I consider to be the most important component, and that is a balanced all-purpose granular organic fertilizer. Something around a 555 NPK, 444 NPK, where all three NPK numbers are close together and well represented. So, two great examples of fertilizers that I have on hand is Espoma Plant Tone, which is a 533 NPK, and Garden Tone, which is a 344 NPK. All of the numbers are close together and well represented. These are just fine. You can use a different brand or product as long as all three of the NPK numbers are close together and well represented. Now, these organic fertilizers are made out of usually leftover things from the meat industry. So, it’s feather meal, bone meal, manure, things like that. So, they are chalk full of all of the nutrients your plants need to grow. But what you need to understand about these fertilizers is in their raw form, they are precursors. They don’t feed the plant the moment you put them down on your soil. You have to put it down on your soil, mix it into that top inch, add some water, and then the soil microbiome, the fungi and the bacteria in the soil need to decompose these. So what this is is it’s basically rapid compost. It will compost very quickly and within a couple of weeks to a month it will feed your plants. So this is not a solution that’s going to happen the moment you put it down. It’s going to slowly trickle feed your plants over a long period of time. The nice thing about these organic fertilizers is they will feed your soil as well as the plants. So when you place this on top of your soil, your microbiome of bacteria and fungi are going to grow. So you will increase the microbial life of your soil. So you are not only creating healthier, richer soil over time, but you are also feeding your plants a very powerful fertilizer. Mandatory ingredient number two is bone meal. And bone meal, like the name implies, is made out of bone. Bone is one of the most nutrientdense things out there. So when you put bone meal in your soil, you are adding all of the macro and micronutrients that are inside bone. Now, if you were to put, say, raw bones or dried bones inside your garden soil, they would take months, maybe years to break down. But bone meal has been specifically dehydrated and powdered into a very fine powder, so your soil microbiome can break it down more quickly. Again, this is a precursor to fertilizer. It does not feed your plants the moment you work it into the soil. But after you apply water and you give that microbiology time to decompose it, then it will feed your plants over a long period of time. Most importantly, it is a rich source of phosphorus and calcium. Phosphorus helps boost the blooming and fruing cycle of your plants. So, this will increase the blooming of your tomatoes, your peppers, your eggplants, your squashes, and your cucumbers. anything that flowers and fruits. It’s awesome for your fruit trees, etc. And that phosphorus also helps build stronger, larger roots. So, even if you’re growing nonfruiting plants like lettuce or brassacas or something, you will get stronger roots if you add bone meal. And the added calcium content also helps prevent blossom and rot on things like tomatoes, peppers, and other fruits. It is true that blossom and rot is predominantly caused by infrequent or irregular watering where you let your soil get too dry, but at the end of the day, you also need to have adequate calcium in your soil. So, if you’re adding bone meal and you are also irrigating with drip irrigation, you’re mulching frequently, and you’re keeping even soil moisture, your tomatoes and your peppers and your other fruing plants are going to be highly resistant to any blossom and rot. And mandatory product number three is my favorite organic water soluble fertilizer and that is Alaska fish fertilizer. This is made out of effectively concentrated ground up old fish parts. Now what is nice about your fish fertilizer is the bulk of the nutrition in here. It’s already been broken down by natural means by heat processing and by fermentation. So when you water the plant area, it can immediately uptake a lot of the micronutrients, the nitrogen, and the things like that. This is my secret weapon for healthy, beautiful, dark green plants. It has an NPK of 511, so it is very rich in nitrogen. Now, let’s get into the optional ingredients. Optional ingredient number one is something that I use in my garden, and that is crab and lobster shell meal. This is rich in a nutrient called kiten. And kitan is great at repelling nematodes. And crab and lobster shell meal is notable for suppressing root not nematodes, which is a problem I have in my native sandy soil here in the southeast. So when I transplant my tomatoes and peppers, I always make sure to sprinkle a small handful of this crab and lobster shell meal in the planting hole. If you are not affected by rootnut nematodes or other pathogenic nematodes, you don’t necessarily have to use this. This would just be an added expense. But if nematodes are a problem, consider using this. And finally, the most controversial ingredient of all is going to be a synthesized water- soluble fertilizer. Now, when it comes to a synthesized water-soluble fertilizer, I use Jack’s 2020 2020. I don’t use the Miracle Grow product, but I didn’t feel like carrying my big 25 lb bag out here. And this is far more readily available in the store. So, if you just needed to grab something off the shelf, uh you can just grab Miracle Grow Tomato, which is an 1818 1821 NPK. Now, there are a lot of myths out there that say water-soluble fertilizers like these are bad. And that is not true. As long as you use them as directed and you don’t abuse them, they don’t harm your soil microbiology. They don’t harm your soil. They don’t make your fruits or plants unsafe to eat. Nothing like that. That is all outright bogus lies. But these also shouldn’t be the foundation of your fertilizing because they don’t necessarily do anything to help build up your soil either. You would use these in a targeted application for a number of different reasons. If you are growing in a container garden, for example, your container garden is not going to do well if you grow it 100% organically because the soil microbiome is insufficient to break down all of these various organic fertilizers. You won’t get great results if all you use is bone meal and an all-purpose granular or organic in a container garden. Things like this will help boost the growth of your plants. These are also highly useful to correct nutrient deficiencies. So, if you had really really heavy rain that washed out your soil and your plants are showing yellow leaves and you need to correct a nutrient deficiency, if you mix this in a watering can at the concentrations directed and pour over the roots, because these are a processed fertilizer, all of the nutrients are immediately bioavailable and it can correct nutrient deficiencies within a couple of days. The other thing these fertilizers are good for is boosting the production of your plants. So, this Alaska fish fertilizer, this is a 511 NPK. Because it’s so heavy in nitrogen, it’s actually not great when your plants start blooming. If you give them too much nitrogen, you may get big bushy plants that don’t give you a lot of flowers and fruit. Well, if you add a little bit of a balanced water- soluble fertilizer like this to the watering can in with the fish fertilizer to help balance out that NPK and get it closer to a 1:1 ratio. That will help prevent your plants from growing too much excess vegetation and getting too dark green. And it’ll help redirect the energy appropriately into the proper blooming and fruing cycle. So, you don’t want to go too heavy on the nitrogen. What about fertilizer frequency? Well, I recommend you follow this fertilizer routine at transplanting time and then every 2 weeks all throughout the lifespan of the plants. That’s twice a month. So, what you’ll want to do is you’ll want to take your granular organic fertilizers like your all-purpose granular, your bone meal, and your crab and lobster shell meal if you choose to use that. You’ll mix that together. You’ll put about half a tablespoon to a tablespoon of each inside the planting hole. And then you will cover up the root ball of the pepper plant. And then you will water that plant in with 2 to three tablespoons per gallon of Alaska fish fertilizer in your watering can. You’ll repeat that process every 2 weeks. So, you’ll drop a little bit of granular organic and a little bit of bone meal around the root area of your plants. You’ll work it in with your fingertips into the top inch of soil. And then you’ll again water that area in with a watering can full of 2 to three tablespoons per gallon concentration of the Alaska fish fertilizer or whatever brand of fish fertilizer you choose to do. Now, as for how much fish fertilizer to give your plants, you should be able to water about four to six plants per gallon. So, if you’re using a two- gallon watering can, that should be enough to water anywhere from 8 to 12 plants until eventually they get so large that maybe you’ll only be able to water about 3 to four plants per gallon. And that is, in my opinion, the ideal way to fertilize your peppers and other things like tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. all throughout the growing season. Now, the routine I gave you is almost entirely organic except for the Miracle Grower Jacks 2020 2020. It’s up to you if you want to use that. But I urge you just do the best you can. If you can’t afford to or store all of these different products, then again, just do the best you can. I recommend the granular organics as the foundation of your fertilizing routine. The second most important is probably the fish fertilizer because that gives instantaneous results since it’s water soluble. then the bone meal, then the crab and lobster shell meal. The least important is going to be your synthesized fertilizers like your jacks or your Miracle Grow. But I do find applied strategically or in containers, they really can help correct nutrient deficiencies and also boost the production of your plants. Mistake number three that I see so many gardeners make is planting their pepper plants out in an area that gets full uninterrupted summer sun. There’s this idea that because pepper plants like warm days and warm nights that they also like being blasted by the full summer sun, and that just isn’t true. Take a look at all of the tall trees in my backyard growing behind my fence. These are what you call a pioneer species. These various trees make up the canopy layer of the native forests around here. And as a result, they are well adapted to grow in full sun because they are so tall. They tower above everything else. So whether it is winter or summer, they are in full sun up top all the time. Peppers obviously are not a pioneer species. You are never going to see some natural forest somewhere where the tallest thing growing in them is a pepper plant. These are a little shrub, a little weed that grows along the bottoms of forest floors. These adapted to grow in dappled light conditions. They didn’t adapt to the full summer sun. It’s way too much for them. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you talking about? I went to my local big box store and they had peppers growing on the rack and they had a tag inside those pepper plants and it said full sun. Every nursery says plant peppers in full sun. See, that’s where a lot of our problems growing these things originate. Peppers come from the subtropics. In their native habitat, they don’t have to worry about frost and freeze. They have all the time in the world to grow in the dappled light of forests, become well-rooted, slowly chug along, put on growth, flower, fruit, and complete their life cycle. We don’t have that luxury here where we live in the United States because almost everybody deals with frost and freeze. So we have to jam the entire life cycle of a pepper plant which can grow for years as a perennial in their native habitat into what 5 to seven months. So as a result it has us put this poor little pepper plant in a very unnatural situation. We need to get as much growth on this plant as possible in the spring. So, we plant the plant out in full sun in the springtime because when the sun is weak during the spring and the days are still fairly short and the temperatures are cool, well, if we planted this in dappled light in April or May, it would grow so slowly that by the time summer rolls around, it would be way behind and we would get a lousy harvest. So, when we plant our peppers out in the spring in full sun, when the temperatures are still pretty mild and the sun is fairly gentle, it seems like a good idea. But then what happens? July rolls around, the UV index hits 10, 11, 12, and our pepper plants start wilting in the afternoon because they adapted to dappled light. They can’t take that full sun in the middle of summer. The plants start to suffer and then production shuts down and then August rolls around and our peppers, they’re suffering and they just aren’t producing anymore. There are many techniques we can use to mitigate this problem. For example, we can plant our peppers in a place that gets immediate morning sunrise and afternoon shade. For many of us, that is going to be an eastern exposure because the sun rises in the east. So, your pepper plants will get sun around 7 8:00 a.m. when the sun rises and it’s still gentle. And then you want it in such an exposure where around 1 to 2:00 p.m. they start becoming cast in shade. that will get them 5 to 6 hours of the direct morning sun and then that really harsh afternoon sun. Well, it won’t touch them. So, you won’t have that wilting problem that they get in the middle of summer when it starts getting really hot and the sun gets really intense. For gardeners that have very long growing seasons, say you live in the deep south in Florida on the West Coast where your growing season is 300 days or longer, well, a technique that you can use is to simply plant your peppers from the get-go underneath a shade tree in dappled light because that more closely emulates their native habitat. And since your growing season is so long, you don’t have to rush them along when you first plant them. They can take their time because you have all the time in the world for them to bloom and fruit for you. Another technique you can use is to plant your peppers in containers and just move the containers. You can start them in full sun in spring and then when the sun gets too hot and the UV index is too intense, you can just pick up your container garden and you can move it into an area that gets more shade. That’s one of the benefits of container gardening. It is mobile and you can change its orientation with the change in the seasons. But my favorite technique by far is to protect your pepper plants with shade cloth in the middle of summer. This allows us to plant our pepper plants out in full sun in the spring when the sun is still gentle so they get maximum growth at that time of the year. And then at some point in June when the sun gets too intense and that UV index skyrockets, you just drop some 40% shade cloth over them. And that emulates the dappled light condition that they were able to adapt to in the subtropics. So, underneath this bed right here, I like installing these PVC hoops on my raised beds. I’ll link to a video both above and down in the video description that will show you how to do this. And then I just drop the shade cloth when it gets really hot in the middle of summer. I also use this as a season extension method for my brassacas. I still have some old brassacas that I planted in the late fall in here that are reaching maturity. Shade cloth has been an absolute gamecher for me in my summer garden. I use it to protect all of my tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, all the stuff I grow in my garden in the middle of summer, and the results have been incredible. I’ll link to a video both above and down in the video description that will show you how to use it, and I’ll also place direct links to my favorite shade cloth down in the video description. It’s very affordable and it comes in all different sizes. Mistake number four I see so many gardeners make is one that I truly don’t understand, and that is hard pruning your peppers at transplant. I’ve seen this thing online where people are recommending that you cut your pepper plants back really low, almost like you would stump a firstear fruit tree. So, you would have very low branching and your plants would be bushier. But, I think this is an absolutely terrible idea for most. Most of us are not transplanting our peppers out into our garden until April or May and then most of us have frost at some point in October or November. So, our pepper growing season is already pretty truncated. We’re trying to get our harvests in only a 5 to 6 month window. Well, if you hard prune back your pepper plants, if you stump them, well, that’s going to set them back another 3 or 4 weeks, maybe even longer. So, you’re already operating in this narrow window where you can actually get a harvest. Why would you want to set your plants back another month? Peppers in their native habitat are actually a perennial. So, they will in fact grow indeterminately for many years if you let them. So, as long as you don’t expose them to frost and freeze, they will keep fruing on you. For example, this pepper plant right here is over two years old. I’ve overwintered it over two winters, and as you can see, it is still a very productive jalapeno plant. So, for those reasons, I only recommend that you prune your peppers under very strict circumstances. So, first, when you transplant them, you want to remove those lower leaves. That’s okay. You can also remove any diseased leaves. if you see some kind of fungal disease that starts to spread during the year. Another time you can prune them is like I just showed you if you’re overwintering your pepper plants or you want to rejuvenation prune them or if you have a very long growing season with a very hot summer like I do. I have had issues where my pepper plants have gotten very tired in late July and really beaten up by heat and I want a fall harvest all the way until my mid- November frost that I get here in North Carolina. So in late July, early August, sometimes I will cut back my pepper plants if they are wilting and suffering and then I’ll give them a very strong fertilizer like water-soluble jacks 20 2020 and then let them regrow throughout August and they will usually start flowering and fruiting for me again in early September and I can harvest them in late September, October all the way to frost until November. So, for rejuvenation pruning, if you have a long summer growing season and your plants get beaten up, or you want to overwinter a plant for years in containers, or at transplant, if you just want to remove those lower leaves or prune off some disease, as it appears, all good reasons to prune your peppers, but don’t do it at transplant to stump them and get them to be bushy because you probably have a limited growing season to begin with. Don’t take a month of growth off your plants. And mistake number five I see so many gardeners make growing peppers is they are not harvesting their peppers often enough. A pepper plant is one of those plants where the more you harvest, the more fruit you get. You want to keep your pepper plant in a constant state of blooming. So as you pick the fruits off, there are new flowers and new baby fruits forming. So there are always some peppers on that plant at all times. But the problem is plants only have so much energy to go around. Your pepper plants at all times are trying to put on new branches and leaves, put on new flowers, ripen the crop that they already have of mature peppers on the plants and grow new roots. So, if you let your pepper plants load up with big peppers, and you never pick them off, they will be in a constant state of drawing energy from that plant, and you’re basically robbing energy from that plant that it would have to otherwise flower. So, you want to pick your plants as often as you possibly can. That way you relieve the plants of the stress of carrying those fruits so they have more energy left over to produce new blooms and new fruits. So how do you know when the ideal time to pick your pepper is? Well, you want to pick your fruits when they are the most vibrant. So for example, this right here is a mature green jalapeno and it’s a very vibrant green. So if you want a mature green jalapeno, this is perfect right here. If you want your jalapenos to turn red, this is also a very vibrantly colored jalapeno. So, that one is ready as well. But if you don’t pick your peppers often enough, they will eventually get to the point where they will start to shrivel and become dull on the plant. So, all this is doing right here, that shriveled up, that shriveled up pepper, that’s doing nothing but robbing energy from the plant. So all of these red peppers, they really need to be picked off because the plant having to carry all of these fruits and ripen them is inhibiting the flowering and blooming cycle that you see up here. So remember to frequently check your pepper plants and pick them as often as possible to maximize your harvest. As soon as they reach the desired shade of color that you want and the colors are still nice and bright and vibrant, pull them off to reserve more energy to start a new flowering and blooming cycle. Just please remember all of this harvest, it comes at a cost. You’ll need to fertilize them adequately or else you will deplete the soil and the pepper plants will languish and they won’t perform so well. So, make sure that you give them adequate fertilizer. Follow the fertilizing routine that I outlined earlier in this video. And that right there are five mistakes that I would never make again growing peppers. I have been growing peppers in some capacity for about 20 years. And believe me when I tell you, I have made every single one of these mistakes. So, I’m really excited to share them with you and hopefully I can give you some of this wisdom and you can cut the line and you won’t have to learn all these hard mistakes and lessons over two decades like I did. So, everybody, I sure hope you found this video helpful. If you did, please make sure to hit that like button, subscribe to the channel, and please ring that notification bell so you’re notified when I release more videos like these. If you’re curious about any of the products that I featured in this video, I will place direct links down to them in the video description for your convenience. For everything else I use in real life in my garden, I have that all linked in my Amazon storefront in the video description. So, expand the video description, click on the Amazon storefront link, and you’ll see everything I use in real life. While you’re down there, please consider checking out my spreadshop for custom merch. If you want to support the channel, if you have any questions about growing peppers, please ask them down in the comments below and I will do my best to address them. Thank you all so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video and I hope to see all of you again on the next one. All right, I’ll give this a try. Walk. Well, that was fast. Whoa. You want to go for a walk, buddy? Dale, can you hit your button? Hit your button and let me know for sure. Oh, very good, buddy. Okay, let’s go for a walk. It’s a really nice day out. We’ll get Dale’s harness and his leash, and it’s time to take Mr. Wagon Tails for a walk. Yes, we waited all day for this. I can’t even keep him in for Amy.