Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Growing in Greenhouses & Polytunnels => Topic started by: adri123 on February 26, 2014, 13:45
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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
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I use cheap multi-purpose.
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I treat them as I do tomatoes, multi-purpose compost and then feed them with tomato feed as soon as the flowers start setting ;)
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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
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yup that's what I use. Once the flowers have set I feed weekly with comfrey tea.
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On a YouTube vid I saw the guy pinching off the first 3 flowers to encourage heavier cropping. Anyone else do this?
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If you don't pinch the first few flowers off, they tend to set one or two fruit and stop growing :(
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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. :)
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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