So this is my first time I’ve ever committed to actually taking care of plants and I’ve hit a roadblock with it. In April I picked up a jalapeño plant and Banana pepper plant from Home Depot with no knowledge of what’s next other than water it in give it sun. New leaves would come and I read somewhere prune under the first break which I did. However it never really got any taller it just kept growing little flowers which would then become peppers and then fall off (as you can see in the picture). Until this one pepper came and it began to actually grow. Super excited I kept it not knowing if it was too soon or anything but I was just happy to see it growing. But fast forward to now I just have the one pepper that has been the same size (slightly larger than in the picture – about the size of my palm) and same color for weeks. I repotted it into a 5gal bucket 3 weeks ago, I fertilize it every week. Hell I’ve been catching rain water because I read plants prefer it. On the other hand my banana pepper plant that wasn’t growing anything up until a week ago has taken off. It’s tall and healthy and growing multiple peppers. Im looking for advice – do I keep waiting for this pepper to ripen or do I cut it off and hope the plant will grow tall and be able to foster more peppers and potentially grow them faster?
by Temporary_Ad4378
7 Comments
How big is the planter? I’d pick this jalapeño soon and repot!
I’ve found that too much water will cause stagnation on peppers when young, if still not growing in the 5gal bucket try watering less, make sure it gets lots of sunlight (direct), and drill big drain holes at the bottom of the bucket
Hi OP.
Every year I take my new hybrids and early Gen peppers and put them into 3/5g fabric pots. I only let them get so big and let them grow two peppers each.
When I cut off the pepper for tasting, I then let the plant grow if it is worth keeping. During that time I pluck flowers until it grows into the size I want.
The main problem you have is a very tiny plant with a full sized fruit on it. That little plant is giving everything it has, which isn’t much, to the fruit. The point of the plant is to reproduce, thus the energy shift.
Can you explain your soil mixture, fertilizer types and schedule, and watering schedule?
Let’s get a solution so your only problem is “I have too many peppers”!
Your plant is too small to be properly producing fruits that size. The flowers are dying because the plant isn’t ready to produce fruits yet. I would suggest picking all the flowers for the next week or two. There should be a noticeable difference in plant growth.
Get that pepper off there and the plant will accelerate fast. Just happened to me with my banana pepper plant. I was excited for the one pepper and wanted it to grow but the rest of the plant was stagnant. One I harvested the one pepper, the plant took off
What type of soil did you use? Did you add any perlite? If you didn’t amend your soil with something like perlite to help aeration and drainage, it’s possibly that your soil is choking out the roots too.
It’s okay to let it dry out completely and water only as needed. That helps mine tremendously