How Far Apart to Space Pepper Plants & How to Prune?

[klancenet]

Ok, I just bought a habanero plant a few days ago and it's doing alright. Then today I bought a cayenne, tobasco and a thai hot pepper from lowes. The cayenne and the thai both look like there are two growing from the same spot, should I separate them? and if so when should I do it, the cayenne is about 7 inches tall and the thai is about 14 inches tall. Also the tobasco plant has a bunch of little plants growing around it, what should I do with those, I'm not sure if they are even tobasco plants.

As you can tell I'm new to gardening and I love hot peppers, so I decided to start a collection.

Oh another thing, the thai pepper plant is budding, should I let them grow or pluck them? I'm very new to all this, and what should I do to get them to grow strong?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[klancenet]

I wanted to take some pictures.

Here is the cayanne

Here is the hot thai pepper, I think their might even be 3 growing they are sprouting white flowers, about how long until they produce peppers?


Here is the tabasco plant, I think those are small tabasco plants around it but I can't tell


Here is a picture of all of them including the habanero:

[tiny1]

I'm no expert, but I love hot peppers, too. I wouldn't feel comfortable trying to separate them. I would just give them plenty of room.
Don't pinch anything off. If they don't pollinate, they will fall off. If they do, you'll have peppers.
I would get them planted, post haste. Those don't look like pepper plants around your tobasco, so I would weed 'em out. Hope this helps.

[eshenry]

are you going to plant them in larger pots soon?

[pepper4]

Hi! Plants look good but I would definately get them in larger pots as soon as possible. I agree with tiny1 I would weed out whatever is in with your tabasco. I have bought many of flowers and found other things growing in with them. I also wouldn't pinch off anything. The bloosoms are what produce the fruit. Some of mine have had flowers for a few weeks and I am just now seeing tiny peppers. As some wise people told me, "Be patient" and definately repot.

[klancenet]

So I shouldn't seperate the plants?

[rainbowgardener]

The little pots they are in are way too small for plants that size (and the plants are going to get bigger). The plants are likely very root bound. They need to be one plant each in at least gallon size pots, if they aren't going in the ground. When you are repotting, I would separate them. Put the little pot in a sink full of water and let it soak for a few minutes. At that point, it should not be difficult to loosen the roots up and gently separate them.

[klancenet]

ok so I should get gallon size pots for every plant? also when repotting what kind of soil should I buy and is their anything I can get for them to help them along?

[kylie77]

This is my first year growing peppers, but from what I've learned you need at least 3-4gal pot. 5 gal is even better. No point potting them into something smaller and them not doing well for you.

As for the mix to use in the pots, I'm sure someone else with more knowledge will come along. My pepper plants in containers are doing great (some better than the ones in the ground!) and the mix I've used was a mix of topsoil, mushroom manuer, peat moss, a little garden soil, and some bone meal, coffee grounds and eggshells mixed in. Also when I planted my plants I added more of the bone meal, coffee grounds and egg shells right into the hole. They started off slowly, but have really taken off now and I swear I can see growth everyday quite noticably! They're covered in buds so I'm hoping peppers won't be long! Good luck with yours, they look like lovely plants!

[klancenet]

I repotted all of them in just garden soil, is that alright

[rainbowgardener]

Well unless your garden soil is very rich and fertile, you are going to want to enrich it somehow, especially if they are in smallish containers. If you have compost you can mix some of that in, or store bought potting soil with Miracle grow, or various other amendments mentioned above. Fish emulsion is good stuff (you can get it at any garden soil). You need to feed your plants for them to feed you.... If you don't care about organic, you can buy little fertilizer spikes for containers, that are slow release.

[klancenet]

Can I mix the fish emulsion with water and water them with that? I just don't want to dig the plants up again to mix other stuff in.

[rainbowgardener]

yes re fish emulsion and water

[klancenet]

Ok I transplanted all of the peppers to containers a little bigger than 2 liters, except for the thai peppers, I couldn't separate them so I put them into a 5 gallon bucket.

Will that be bad for them, because there are 3 thai plants growing right next to each other, they were too close for me to separate, I didn't want to rip the roots off. What would be better, letting them grow together or snipping two of them and leaving the biggest?

I also couldn't separate the cayenne's.

I now have 5 (8 including the 2 other thais and 1 cayenne that I couldn't separate)pepper plants growing on my fire escape, so even if I do separate them I wont have enough room for them, I don't want it to get too crowded and them not get enough sun.

Thanks for all the advice so far, I'm going to go out and get some fish emulsion tomorrow, is their anything else I should get that I can mix in with water?

[Haesuse]

What would be better, letting them grow together or snipping two of them and leaving the biggest?

here's what i'd do. put 3 sticks of bamboo (or another comparable support) in the pot, at the very edges. then, train each of the 3 plants to 1 of the supports. throughout the growing season, then, just trim/prune/cutback some of each plant that tries to grow in the middle of the pot. I'm doing this right now, basically, with cayennes, and it's working amazingly well...