Peppers too early to feed ??

I usually start tomato feed when the first fruits have set, others may disagree


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When you say set do you mean once they have first started to form ? And at this time of year should I be pinching the flowers off or should I leave them be ?


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You only really need to feed them when they require it, and that depends on whether they are in small pots or the open soil. As long as the foliage is dark green and they are making good growth, they are ok.

I plant mine in the greenhouse bed or the open soil and never need to feed them, though I do use a rich, well composted soil.

Unlike tomatoes that can make a huge flush of leafy foliage at the expense of the fruit if fed too much nitrogen, peppers need to grow into strong plants to produce large peppers. I always take off the very first early flowers but after that let them do their own thing. I am not sure if that really affects the growth habit which seems to be more determined by the temperature and watering.

I tend not to pinch out the growth points as I don't want a shrubby plant in the polytunnel and prefer a tall one I can tie into a cane or string. But out in the garden they would probably fare better as lower plants and less affected by the wind.

I wait until the first fruits are about half an inch long. I feed early as I grow 1 plant to a flower bucket and some of the peppers get quite large, the " peppadew" style ones top out at over 5 feet with up to 100 peppers per plant and run out of steam if not fed.I grow mine outside against the chook house which is south facing


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