still no pepper!

[hotpepperlover]

Hello everybody, I am new in this nice informative forum and in gardening as well. For the first time I started a little gardening this year. I bought about 6 pepper plants (ghost, habanero and some other hot pepper), two tomato plants, one eggplant around first week of May. After observing about 4 weeks I pruned all the plants and started giving water soluble plant food since their growth was too slow. Till today I see very small blooming on pepper and tomato plants. the eggplant has five small flowers.
Its mid July here in Louisville, KY and we are getting frequent rainfall and cloudy weather most of the time. The plants are on 13 gal pod outside of my apt. They get around 7 hours of direct sunlight in full sunny day. But we barely having full sunny days this year.

I am wondering will I ever get enough pepper and tomato from my plants since they just started flowering.

[elisevmtw]

Flowers are great signs of what is to come! I live in Iowa and all of my plants are flowering right now. Some are producing actual fruit -though none that I can harvest yet. I think you are on the right track - just be patient. Your plants will give you signs if they aren't healthy - dry or yellow leaves, etc.

Welcome to gardening! It takes time.

[GardeningCook]

One question - why the pruning? Except for pinching off flowers & early peppers from slightly over-mature seedlings at planting time, I've never heard of pruning pepper &/or eggplants before.

[hotpepperlover]

I pruned because the plants were not growing fast and there were no branches. After pruning I am getting so many branches.

[applestar]

What does this mean?

The plants are on 13 gal pod outside of my apt

[GardeningCook]

I'm guessing 13-gallon "pots"?

[applestar]

But "pod" singular -- all of them?

[imafan26]

I usually don't prune peppers until they get very tall or they have produced so many peppers that the leaves start to get smaller and drop off.

I think your pruning put the plant into vegetative mode so it put all of the energy into making more leaves. Now, that the leaves have matured and your are starting to get blossoms, it should start to fruit for you . Peppers do need regular feedings but I only fertilize my peppers once every month or two. I don't use fertilizers with high numbers anymore. I use citrus food for almost all of my potted plants.

[pepperhead212]

Maybe all of the peppers are late varieties. Ghost and habaneros are notoriously late, which is why I started 3 different varieties on 2-7 this year, almost 2 months before my normal date. And I started getting ripe ones in the first few days of July, so they would have been coming around about 2 months after that, to give you an idea of how late they are. However, the peppers were forming well before, just not ripening.

I never trim peppers, either, unless they happen to have so many flowers it seems the plant will not be able to support it. Usually, however, some stress causes this, and they are pretty much care-free as a rule.

[imafan26]

My peppers average about 3 months from the time I plant to the first peppers. They are very slow to grow the first couple of months but they speed up tremendously once I transplant from the four inch pots to a gallon.

[rainbowgardener]

Wow, three months from seed to a pepper? That's pretty amazing. I figure 4.5 to 5 months from seed to a pepper. That is starting them from seed indoors. The first 2.5 months of that are indoors in cells then 4 in pots and still when I move them outside it is really colder than they like, so that may account for the difference.

[imafan26]

I am warmer than you are and that makes up for the shorter days. For peppers and eggplant it is all about the heat.
Peppers I planted in February had their first peppers in May and June. They were not ripe peppers, that takes another month. I pick most of my peppers in the green stage, leaving too many red peppers on the plant just invites the birds to take them and it stresses the plants more when the pepper load is too high.

But the hotter peppers like the habanero does take a little longer to set fruit. It is one of those peppers that does not like to set fruit until it has a full canopy.

[lexusnexus]

Hi Hotpepperlover. The only reason I would prune leaves is if they are dragging on the ground. I don't want to provide a disease path directly to the peppers. Agreed that pruning (early harvesting) peppers to balance the plant is a good thing. Otherwise, leave them alone.

Also, to save you having to say you location in each post I recommend that you put your location and/or hardiness zone in your profile.

[GardeningCook]

I agree. I never do any pepper pruning unless it's to remove fruit developing too early on overgrown not-yet-uppotted or in-ground planted seedlings, or to remove any leaves or branches that appear diseased.

[hotpepperlover]

so many reply! I am impressed. Thank you everybody for giving your opinion. 13 gal was a typo, it would be 13 Liters (around 3 and 1/2 gal)

[imafan26]

That should be big enough for some peppers. The annuum peppers like the bells don't live very long. However, I was surprised that a Jalapeno lasted about three years before I pulled it out. Bell peppers for the most part last only a few months because they do not have enough disease resistance.

In warm climates many of the peppers live for years and can become quite large plants. My tabasco gets over five feet but if left unpruned, I had one that got up to 8 ft. To be honest though, it was planted between two citrus trees and it had to grow taller to reach the sun. I keep the tabasco in 1 gallon pots the first 8 months or so then either they go into the ground or into large pots 14-20 inch pots. One of my bird peppers is probably 10 years old and I have had tabasco's
in a 16 inch pot for 8 years.