COLUMNIST: ELI APPLEBY-DONALD
In the last edition of the magazine, we concentrated on taking those little pepper seedlings from teeny tiny tots through to gangly teenagers by potting them up at various stages to encourage growth. Now it is time to talk about that final transplanting stage and what to expect afterwards - those teenagers are about to leave home.
Regardless of whether you were an early bird who sowed seeds back in January or February, to a patient soul who waited until March, from this point onwards we will all have the same experiences, and I guarantee that the little March sown plants will catch up in size, very quickly.
When should we move young plants to an unheated greenhouse or garden? Out of all the questions I am asked, this is the most common because we all get a bit over-excited in our seed sowing sometimes and end up with too many plants and not enough space!
I always say that the decision to put your plants out is a delicate balance of observation and intuition. Observation because you need to know what the plants will encounter when they are out there, will it be wet, cold, frosty, or dark? What do these plants need in terms of heat, light, space, or nutrition? Intuition because in Scotland, we can experience four seasons in one day. You need to be able to say that the weather is unlikely to take a turn back to the cold of early spring. So let me make this easy for you: pepper plants need warmth, warmer than you think, and light, they crave it. Without these, growth can be stunted.
Light is not so much an issue for us Scottish gardeners come April, believe it or not, we get a lot of light from now on, but temperature is our main battle. Pepper plants want 15℃ and above as their general temperature. In my greenhouse, I know it will be mid-May before I would be comfortably confident of those temperatures.
The garden, however, is a very different ball game. Outdoors I would be thinking June and even then, I would be looking for a good sheltered, sunny spot. So, it is not advisable to move plants out of the house before then. If you have sown your seeds in the greenhouse in March, your plants will be smaller and more acclimatised to their environment. They will stay small until things heat up out there, but they will cope admirably with the greenhouse environment with just a little bit of protection on those colder nights.
There is one stage that is all too often ignored in the excitement to move our plants out of the house or greenhouse, this is called hardening off. We need to get those little plant babies used to their new environment and everything it brings, because if you are too quick to move plants, you are at risk of giving them a bit of a shock, akin to having the duvet ripped from you first thing in the morning! Your plants will feel the same way if you evict them from their snug space, straight out into the greenhouse or garden, so we do this gently, and in stages over the space of a week or two. Take them outside a little bit every day, gradually building up the times and allowing the plant to develop a tolerance for the new temperatures, light conditions, and maybe even wind.
The idea is to let your little plants get used to things and strengthen up before they spend their first full day and night there. I always find this process interesting. If you pay attention, you will see your little plant change and develop, its leaves will become tougher and darker as it develops its protective coating from the sun’s UV rays and the stems will thicken and strengthen as the plant adapts to the unpredictable airflow and breeze.
Whether you are choosing to grow your plants in the ground, in pots, or even in grow bags, there are a few considerations to make before you choose their final home.
If you are trying your hand at outdoor pepper growing, pick a sheltered location for pepper plants in the warmest spot with plenty of light. A space near a south-facing wall would be perfect, where the plants will benefit from the heat which the wall has absorbed during the day.
Unlike chilli peppers, bell peppers and other sweet peppers are bigger plants which produce much larger fruit, and to do this they need space for their roots and for all of those fruit bearing branches to stretch out. So add lots of lovely fresh compost to the hole and think about adding some form of support at this point - a cane or string for a trellis will work well.
If you plan to continue growing in pots, consider something around 30cm (12”) wide in size. When you do pot up, remember to add lots of lovely nutritious compost. If you are using grow bags, consider stealing a trick from Beechgrove’s George Anderson and instead of growing with the bag flat, cut it in half and stand each half vertically, like a pot. That way there is a deeper run for the roots giving your plant more stability.
Regardless of whether you grow in the ground or in a pot, be sure to think about support. Those branches can get weighted down with those heavy fruits, so make sure to have a system in place to offer support to prevent branches from snapping under the weight of your hard-earned crop.
As our pepper plants mature and start producing flowers to gear up for pepper production, you must be conscious of their need for nutrition or this can cause problems further down the line.
If you are growing in containers, you will want to feed plants regularly with a high potash feed like tomato feed. For plants growing in the ground, this may not be as much of an issue, especially if you have kept on top of improving your soil. If you are worried at all, you can treat them as you would with plants grown in containers and give them a feed as you water.
One thing to remember with feeding your plants though is to follow the instructions for the food you use. Do not be tempted to make it stronger than the instructions say, your little plants will not thank you for it, in fact, you could do them harm, so stick to the dilution rates suggested on the bottle.
To bear fruit, those little flowers need to be pollinated. In the garden, this is done for you by all those lovely insects we encourage to visit our gardens. In a greenhouse, where natural pollinators might be a bit scarce, a little hand pollination can go a long way.
Often when someone tells me of their failure to harvest a successful crop, they also admit to not leaving the greenhouse door open very often and therefore see few potential pollinators in there. If this is the case, you can give nature a bit of a helping hand by grabbing a soft brush, or even your trusty fingertip, and gently transferring pollen from flower to flower.
There are a couple of potential issues with growing sweet peppers that I would like to draw to your attention and they are both about heat and sunshine.
I have already mentioned that peppers adore the sunshine and heat, I am about to contradict that by saying too much is not a good thing. As we know those plants like temperatures above 15℃ to thrive but it is worth noting that if it gets too hot, say over 30℃, then it can stop the plants from setting fruit.
To help regulate temperatures in a greenhouse you can make sure you have good ventilation by opening windows and doors on hot days. Misting the greenhouse with your garden hose is another good way to bring temperatures down. Shading helps too and it also combats another problem: sun scorch.
I must confess, this is one of the problems which is much more common with our neighbours south of the border, but I have experienced this with my ‘King of the North’ peppers who seem to be particularly susceptible. It is very similar to blossom end rot, in that it is an off-colour spot on the fruit which goes soft and ruins the pepper. It is usually white and usually on the side of the fruit where direct sunlight touches the plant.
As the name suggests, this is basically sunburn on your peppers, but you can avoid it with a bit of shading on super, sunny days. I have pull-down blinds in my greenhouse but simply adding some shade cloth to your growing area works a treat.
In the next issue, we will be talking about encouraging the fruits to ripen and harvesting your glorious peppers, and I will share some of my favourite recipes for using your bountiful crops. Until then, just remember, warmth (above 15℃), lots of light, and protection on those super sunny days, plus for your greenhouse plants, a little paintbrush can really make a difference to the harvest!
Eli Appleby-Donald, one half of 'In the Garden With Eli and Kate' tends an urban garden in East Lothian which she has made both 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.