Container Questions

[dickiebird]

lol, do not take this seriously! 6 x 20' rows (in the ground, decent growing season) would cause a family of 6 to have okra coming out their ears, a freezer full, and still giving a lot of it away. It also means several hours a week picking it before it gets too large and developing nice shoulder muscles moving a ladder around if you don't top them.

If you say so!!!!

THANX DICK

 

[ChickenMomma91]

I rent and have a huge tree covering the backyard so i gotta put containers all over the yard where i know i get good sunlight. plus we hope to get chickens and the run will take up 75% of the backyard anyway

 

[ChickenMomma91]

Ok new question! What size pot/planter would be best for peppers. I know a 5 gallon is good for tomatoes would it be the same seeing as how they seem similar??

 

[Dave2000]

Generally speaking indeterminate tomatoes need a larger pot than peppers which need a slightly larger pot than determinate tomatoes IF all else is equal.

However with a good season you might find that 5 gallons stunts peppers, and indeterminate tomatoes even more.

That is the short simple answer. It becomes much more complex when variables are added.

 

[ChickenMomma91]

A pot size is the simple answer not a lecture on different tomatoes. i bought mine at walmart so they don't say determinate or indeterminate.

 

[Dave2000]

^ I'm sorry if you were offended as it was not my intention, but the type of tomato matters quite a bit when referencing peppers relative to tomatoes.

Realize that everyone has different growing conditions so a pot size that may work for one, may not work for another. As I started to suggest there are too many variables to give you a complete answer without complete information which is probably more than either of us want to cover.

We don't know your grow zone, nor whether you start with nursery peppers and how large, or seed and when if you do. All these things matter, peppers do not stop growing except from lack of sun or warmth. There is no limit to how large a pot can be, to beneficial in the right climate up to a point. 20 gallons is none too big in my region and I don't have a long grow season, though I start to have diminishing returns past 10 gallons.

The increase in pot size needed for a plant with 6 good months of growth instead of 5, is a larger increase than needed for 5 good months instead of 4, and for 4 good months instead of 3 and so on. Every additional month the growth accelerates more if you have a large enough pot and nutrients to handle it, and a long enough growing season.

If you want to use 5 gallons that will work too. The plants may not get as large but you can increase # of plants to make up the difference, or vice versa you could use 3 gallon pots but that's about the smallest I would bother with for a whole season, unless it has to live indoors on a window sill.

 

[thistlebloom]

Good information @Dave2000 .
There are so many different possible outcomes from the same plant variety grown in different climates and different soils. Growing in containers adds another layer of variables as you pointed out.
Sometimes the best thing is to just do it and take notes on what worked or didn't work.

 

[dickiebird]

I use 5 gal. buckets for most everything I grow in my greenhouse and on my back deck. leeks, onions, tomatoes, peppers, horse radish you name it.
I do know this that if these buckets stunt anything, it's not what I grow in them.
Often the buckets extend my season because they are out of reach of the deer!!!!

THANX RICH

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

Ok new question! What size pot/planter would be best for peppers. I know a 5 gallon is good for tomatoes would it be the same seeing as how they seem similar??

I grow my hot peppers in 1 gal cloth pots, and they do just fine.

This is one of my Vietnamese Black Dragons. About 2' high and TONS of peppers

 

[Dave2000]

Picture taken 4 months after sewing pepper seed indoors so plants about 3.5 mos. old at this point, in roughly ~20 gal. containers. Yield over 1000 pods each by end of season but pods were only (supposed to be, and were) the size of habaneros. I would tell you the type of pepper but I never named them, it's something I selectively bred from years of crosses.

I grew more of the same in ~ 6 gallon buckets in the row behind them and it took 5 buckets to equal as much foliage as the front 3, but fewer pods. My point is that given the same area for light, the fewer your plants the higher the pod to stem ratio because the ideal is to get them to fork as many times as possible since each fork potentially doubles the # of new pods that the last fork produced.

HOWEVER, a greater # of smaller plants closer together is more wind resistant. I have wind breakers mostly around them at a distance on 3 sides and still have to stake them up to survive wind, AND if you have a short growing season you may be better off with a greater # of plants to catch more sun at the beginning of the season through sheer numbers.