COLUMNIST: ELI APPLEBY-DONALD
I very much suspect we now have two distinct groups in our grow along camp, those who sowed seeds a little early in January or February, and those who waited and sowed their seeds in March. Other than the size of those seedlings as you read this article, there will be very little difference in how we look after them from now until our next catch-up in the June edition.
Those of us who sowed our pepper seeds in January or February will already have potted up the plants at least once (mine have been potted up twice at the point of writing this). Alternatively, if you sowed your seeds in March, then you will most likely be at the point of potting up your seedlings.
We generally sow pepper seeds as individuals or possibly two seeds into a small pot or module in a tray - the idea being that we are not trying to grow too many tiny plants in very little growing medium. It is common practice to sow two seeds, choosing the strongest of the two seedlings to be our chosen plant and then snipping out the weaker seedling at the soil level. This allows the stronger seedling to carry on growing without its sibling competing for moisture or nutrition.
By favouring smaller pots or modules, we ensure that our little plants are not sitting in a swamp of wet compost. As our little plant grows however, it may need to be given a new home once or twice to ensure it has the space and nutrition it needs.
Deciding when to pot on your seedlings is as much art as it is science. By carefully watching your little plant you will see how much it grows and how quickly those first true leaves come through after a few weeks. This stage is when I usually pot on my seedlings for the first time. That little plant is now focussing on growing big and strong, and to do that they will need more of that lovely nutritious compost from your potting mix.
Now obviously being in Scotland, it will be a while yet before our plants can go outside or even into a greenhouse to their forever home, so I will usually have to pot on a couple more times before then. In fact, I have potted on for the second time. This time around, my plants had grown so much, they had their third set of true leaves coming through and they were now so big that their roots were coming out of the bottom of the modules - a good sign that your little plants need some more space.
This time around, I have moved my little pepper plants into some pots as I do not have module trays big enough for those scrawny teenager plants. At each stage of potting up, I make the same decision based on how the plant is growing and if it needs more space, but I am also careful not to put it into too big a pot straight away. Enough new compost to give it space to grow, but not so much that the plant will not use up any moisture. A good rule of thumb is that you should only be able to get a finger or thumb between the pot wall and the plant root ball.
I told you in the last issue that peppers are a warm season plant, they like it warm and sunny. This is part of the reason so many of us choose to start seeds early because those warm sunny days that the plant needs to thrive are not as bountiful in Scotland, so we try to make the most of them. It does mean, however, that we will have little plants that need to be protected from the cold and given supplemental light in those early months. I do not recommend putting your early sown plants out into an unheated greenhouse until at least the end of April and certainly not outdoors in my East Lothian garden until the end of May or even beginning of June. So there is still a bit longer for us to be nurturing those little plants indoors.
If we can hold off our excitement and seed sowing until March, then we can sow and grow those little pepper plants in our unheated greenhouse with just a little bit of protection for the colder nights - a propagator lid or some fleece works great. Those March sown plants, in your greenhouse, will be slower growing, but they will be strong, healthy little plants which will need a lot less intensive care in those early months. By the end of April, when our temperatures begin to warm up, your plants will be ready to pot up and they will start growing quickly.
After all this talk about encouraging our little seedlings to grow and protecting them from anything that could harm them, like the cold, it does now seem strange that I am going to tell you about cutting the top off your plant or pulling off new flowers! Stay with me and I will explain what it is all about and why you might consider it.
The practice of ‘pinching out’ the growing tip of your plant, the very top where the newest and smallest leaves are located, is common with a lot of plants we grow, both vegetables and flowers. We do this to encourage the plant to grow new stems rather than keep growing taller on a single stem. The thought behind it is that this makes for a stockier, sturdier plant. Encouraging new side shoots will also give the plant the opportunity to produce more flowers and therefore fruit.
Pinching out the growing tip on your plant will retard growth a little. I find it usually slows the plant down by two to three weeks compared to a plant which has been allowed to grow naturally. The plant will catch up again, but just something to be aware of.
There is a similar practice with flowers, or rather with pinching off any early flowers when the plant is still small. Again, the idea being that you are directing the plant’s energy into a specific growing purpose. This time you pinch out those early flowers to stop the plant focusing on making fruit when it is young and instead focus on establishing itself with a strong root system.
Neither of these pinching out tasks are essential to the growth of your pepper plants, but now you know what is involved and why you might consider it.
At this stage in our little plant’s growth, all its nutritional needs will be met by the compost in the potting mix in which it is growing. Each time we pot up our plants into a larger pot with more compost, we are providing the nutrition the plant will need in its next stage of growth.
It is not until May or June, when we transplant them to their final home, that we need to consider how much and when to feed our growing plants, which at that point will have started to develop flowers to produce those lovely peppers. At this point consider feeding plants regularly with a high potash feed, basically a tomato feed. I grow my peppers in containers so I feed them weekly once they start to flower in the later spring months. That still seems some way away yet, so for now, let’s concentrate on getting those seedlings going! Good luck.
Eli Appleby-Donald, one half of 'In the Garden With Eli and Kate' tends an urban garden in East Lothian which she has managed to make beautiful and productive. She considers herself a perpetual learner gardener, and has spent the last 11 years learning by experience, success, and failure.
Eli is a digital education guru for a local university by day, and due to the lack of good information about growing in Scotland when she started gardening, she decided it was time to put those skills into action to correct this. She now regularly blogs and vlogs about gardening on YouTube where she has hundreds of videos all about her gardening journey and her top tips, as well as appearing as a guest on others worldwide.
You can find out more about Eli and all the fun of creating your own suburban garden paradise on either her YouTube channel, her website or Instagram.