More peppers

I was reading in your blog this morning about the problem you are having with your peppers having too much plant and not enough fruit. I have found if you put three matches (I use plain book matches) in the hole before I set the plant in, it keeps the plant from taking up to much nitrogen. It won’t help this year, but it sure works for me.

Sandie
Siberia, Indiana

We’ll sure try your tip, Sandie. Our plants look like palm trees but there sure aren’t many peppers. Certainly not like last year. Bummer. Luckily, I canned up a trillion last fall. — Jackie

Planting saved seeds

I have saved this years seeds from beets, dill, chard, and carrots. Can I plant them right away for a fall harvest or do they have to hibernate till spring? Do any of these need to be frozen to germinate? By the way, our turkey is still laying an egg almost every day.

Gail Erman
Palisade, Colorado

No, these crops do not need to have their seed frozen or chilled to germinate. I don’t get a fall crop but I just harvest and dry the mature seeds and put them in containers until next spring. If you have time, go ahead and plant them if you want. News flash! Our one remaining hen sat on 10 eggs and came off the nest with eight poults! Hooray! — Jackie

4 COMMENTS

  1. Zelda,

    Thanks for the tips but in a month or two our peppers will be frozen in our hoop house. We have snow in October and below zero in November.

    Jackie

  2. Slightly withholding water will also often stress peppers and tomatoes enough that they produce food instead of leaves, especially good for ripening those last peppers and tomatoes in fall. The other thing that often works is to cut off the tops of the pepper plants just as you would top or prune a tomato. Prune just below the most lush top growth. If you are going to keep your peppers going in the hoop house, try pruning your peppers and see if in a month or two they produce some food for you.

  3. To get my peppers and tomatoes to set fruit, they need a little stress. I just walk down the rows and give each plant a pull not enough to pull them up just enough for them to think they are gonna die so they put more energy into reproducing.

  4. Hi Jackie-

    We were told by a local commercial farmer to spray the pepper plants with a water/Epsom salt solution of 1.5 tbsp per quart of water. The plan is that the magnesium in the salts helps to get the plants to bud; worked for us last year (or it was just a happy coincidence)!

    Good luck!

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