These are chocolate habaneros, they've started to fruit which is great but it's mid August and I have until latest October. So I think it's probably worth ripping flowers off soon?
Id like to get maximum production possible, any tips on how to do so? Remove small fruits? Prune flowers?
Even if I don't get many peppers I'm very happy with how it has went with limited space, light, knowledge and time. My 2nd year growing so can only improve.
by BeigestGenetics
9 Comments
Keep in smaller pots and feed with higher phosphorus and potassium fertilizer.
Are you able to bring them indoors at all?
You don’t think you’ll get any peppers from them by October?
I’m a bit ahead of you with Habs and ghosts just starting to show fruit- but October is likely the end for me as well.
They all look like healthy plants with dark green foliage and plenty of flowers, so for your second year growing, I would say you’ve done a great job.
I keep all my plants outside, in a small patch outside my apartment on the ground floor, since space is limited. As such, and as the growing season in London, UK, is usually over by mid-October, after my first year of growing in 2018, I stopped using pots larger than 10 litres in capacity.
In essence, the smaller the pot you leave a plant in, the quicker it will eventually flower and produce pods, in an attempt to reproduce. Chillies / hot peppers thrive on being transplanted up to larger pots incrementally as they grow, so if I plant my seeds early enough, I pot my plants up 3 times before leaving them in their final pot. A mistake some growers make is to transplant to the final sized pot too early, which means the plant will spend much of the season growing roots and leaves, at the expense of flowering.
For taller varieties like Jalapeño cultivars, I opt for 7.5 or 10 litre pots, but for most other varieties, 5 litre pots are sufficient and this year, I have several late bloomers in 3l pots, which is a compromise, but I know I will at the very least end up with ripe pods. Last year, I picked over 60 good sized Chocolate Devil’s Tongue pods from a plant in a 5l pot and over 300 ripe yellow Aribibi Gusano in a pot of the same size.
The minute pepper plants start flowering, give them a feed once a week to encourage pods to set and to promote more flowering. Tomato food works well for peppers; aubergines (eggplants); potatoes and other members of the Solanaceae plant family.
Lastly, at this time of year, it may not be worth picking off flowers. I don’t usually do it myself, as there seems to be no benefit in terms of the final yield, and flower drop is totally normal during the course of a season anyway. If you find the fruits aren’t ripening, pruning some leaves and picking off flowers should help to speed up the process.
I think you will be okay. Habenaros tend to ripen a bit quicker than superhots. That gives you about 45 days. While I generally give my superhots 60 days from bloom to picking, I have found 45 days plenty for the Habs. As far as growing in a smaller pot, while they may bloom earlier, you will be giving up some plant size and number of fruit. I keep picking mine until the first frost and find that as long as I am above freezing, it doesn’t effect the fruits on the plants.
Sex them yourself. Get a loose bristle paint brush and use it on all the flowers. You’re becoming the pollinator and it’ll help.
I just wanted to pop in here and say that those plants are real beauties. You’ve done amazingly well. The only thing you got wrong was your timing, and that’s the easy part to fix. Start them earlier next year and you’ll be rolling in peppers.
And you didn’t even really get the timing THAT wrong. A lot of people start some plants later on purpose. You can finish them off inside easily. You can also overwinter them in a window, or even let them go dormant in a dark room. You have lots of options to keep those plants going for next season. Basically, you started super early for next year!
We’re in the same position. It’s the middle of August that turning out to be cooler than normal in Zone B and all I have are a few flowers. Hope I can get some pods in this my first year of growing.
Push a rose and bloom for flower fertilizer like twice a week. You’ll be pushing pods sooner than you think