[adri123]

Hi

I'm going to be growing some of my peppers in flower buckets gleaned from the local coop.  After a few crocks for drainage has anyone any recommendations for a suitable compost/soil/etc mix for growing chillis/peppers in?

TIA

Adri

[crh75]

I use cheap multi-purpose.

[mumofstig]

I treat them as I do tomatoes, multi-purpose compost and then feed them with tomato feed as soon as the flowers start setting 

[adri123]

Thx for replies. 

Can you substitute comfrey tea for tomato feed?  I'd rather not use chemicals if I can make my own from comfrey freely available down the road.

Adri

[Eightball]

yup that's what I use. Once the flowers have set I feed weekly with comfrey tea.

[adri123]

On a YouTube vid I saw the guy pinching off the first 3 flowers to encourage heavier cropping.  Anyone else do this?

[mumofstig]

If you don't pinch the first few flowers off, they tend to set one or two fruit and stop growing 

[Lardman]

If you don't pinch the first few flowers off, they tend to set one or two fruit and stop growing 

Normally there's a good deal of flower drop at the start anyway, I don't pinch out the flowers or the plant but I do take the first couple of peppers off if the plant looks to be struggling.

... has anyone any recommendations for a suitable compost/soil/etc mix for growing chillis/peppers in?

You can grow them in just about anything ... but soil will give you a more compact plant than compost.  The best results I've had (most productive) was new shop bought top soil, with a perlite and vermiculite mix in a black builders bucket.  I don't bother going to all that hassle anymore though, chucking the seed in multi purp gives more than adequate results. 

[adri123]

Just bought  some £1.29 grow bags from Aldi.  I'm thinking 40% mpc with 10% vermiculite and 50% grow bag contents for the nutrients.

It'll all work out in the end but I'm just too excited with it being the first proper attempt at pepper/chilli plants in the PT.

Adri