To The South Window!

[Zeedman]

Steve, do you pinch your peppers? I do and it get so many more branches which in turn produce more peppers! But this just seems to make them take longer to grow well at least for a couple weeks and then they take off again!

Like @digitS' , my season is short (though not quite that short). Most of my peppers now usually ripen at least 25-50%; but since pinching back the tips would set my DTM back a week or two, I'd be afraid to try it without adjusting planting dates. With better lights, I could probably start the peppers 2-3 weeks earlier to compensate, and pot them up? Might try that as an experiment, since I am starting fewer plants now & have more space... but given that my normal planting time is now, starting early will have to wait until next year.

I start peppers in deep-cell 6-packs, and while they might look a little skinny when transplanted, they branch out quickly with no intervention on my part. I do often pinch off the first flowers though, to enable the plant to build up strength before peppers set - and those peppers nearly always ripen. Granted that those which flower early also probably have short DTMs to begin with; but maybe pinching the tips to delay flowering might work just as well? Maybe worth a try, for some of my shorter-DTM peppers... but I would probably need to pot up the wider plants from their 6-packs. Evaluating true DTM might be a little harder with pruned plants too, so I would only try that for known varieties.

 

[digitS']

would you consider buying it and moving there?

Nooo.

Unless ...

The garden space is separate from the home. (No way would I want that large of a house!) The 2 ± acre where we have used about 1/4 acre for years, is accessed through either their driveway or the neighbor's. If it was sold separately, I could build a new home out there buuttt it is a bit of a stretch for someone of my age. If the neighbor bought it, that would add to the acre ± they already have with only a garage sitting on it. They live elsewhere and have always welcomed our gardening and parking in their driveway rather than me driving the pickup down the owners' little road.

We continue to plan on having the garden there. There are no certainties in life and gardening is all about life.

Steve
@Zeedman , I make sure not to take anything out for transplanting that has a bloom on it. We probably have as early a garden start date as many do but a first frost can come in August, some years. In between, it's the Summertime 30°+ drops in temperature from afternoon to overnight that slows things like peppers, especially. DTM's for warm-season crops have little meaning. We don't have an Alpine Climate but it's a bit on that side of things.