i grew peppers and tomatoes directly in the soil last year and couldn't believe how much bigger and stronger my plants were even compared to the ones that were in really big pots.

I planted my peppers to their final location Feb 22 - two days after my last frost date. I had a bunch of tomato cages that I found out last year are useless for tomatoes, but they worked great here. I used 1 gallon water jugs, with the bottoms cut out, as mini greenhouses and they worked perfectly. I've been getting peppers for the last 3 weeks - just a few but more are coming. I love y'all's channel. You have such great and relevant content. You have helped me a lot and I appreciate you.

I started hardening off all of my vegetable plants and accidentally brought in a yellow jacket and it stung my 20 month old baby girl and causes severe allergic reaction. So yes, always check your plants for pest and such before you bring them back in great thing to let people know.

This year's peppers have started off pretty sad. I sowed them before Easter and none of my plants are above maybe an inch and a half tall. Hoping May heat and watering finally kickstarts things.

I direct sow in the ground with all of my vegetables it thrives every year i get loads of it. My Jalapeños, Habanero, Bananas peppers and Thai hot peppers just to name few. Every Spring it comes back, all i do is pruned it after the last forst this is my 3rd year. As I'm speaking there's lots of fruits(huge) and flowers. One thing i never do is let the leaves get wet i avoide that part. I only underwater at the base of the roots. No diseases ever and it kept the leaves dark green and healthy. Zone 9 B Phx, Az

If I waited for 55° nights, I'd be planting in July. I plant in late May but honestly the peppers don't put on much growth until mid summer. I'm going to try more growing in containers and move them into garage or next to the house as needed

If I used the 55 degree marker my plants never would have gone in the ground last year. We had nights in the low to mid 50s all throughout summer. I've only been bringing my pepper starts in if the forecast is 40 or lower. Just started hardening them off about 5 days ago.

Another great video and perfect timing 👍🏻

I always use tomato cages on my pepper plants, I also lay long thin dowels over the tops of cages and use zip ties to connect the cages together in a grid pattern for extra stability. I use black plastic garbage bags on cages during cold nights so the grid will be added in a few weeks. I also want to let you know I watched your video on over wintering pepper plants indoors and I’m very happy to report I had great success. My habanero “tree” will be going back out into the garden AFTER the 55 deg min days are here to stay. Thanks for the great informative videos.

Thanks for a ton of good tips!

Love the cloche idea!

Great information. I did want to share something that I discovered about a unique way to germinate and grow peppers, Winter Sowing. I started using this technique a number of years ago with perennials and it worked perfectly. I then tried it with tomatoes and pepper, planting their seeds in mid winter just like the perennials. The tomatoes germinated perfectly in the milk jugs in the middle of winter, but eventually the cold snaps got them. I adjusted by planting the tomatoes and peppers in milk jugs using the winter sowing technique and they all grew perfectly. The tomatoes germinated earlier than the peppers, but by our last frost date here in PA, both were perfect, although short. I did not have to worry about hardening them off because they had been outside the entire time, going through many cold nights. I just had to take them out of the milk jugs, pulling their roots apart carefully, then planting them directly into the garden. Try it. It works. You will never go back to grow lights once you see how easy and cheap this method is.

This was helpful. Thanks

Such good editing and information.

I just started container gardening. I use metal dog crates to keep my young vegetables safe from critters

I have been using "tomato cages" for years for my peppers. Now add in Peony (ring) cages as well. Those fold down nicer and sometimes that's all the plant needs is that lower support. I always add a stick of some sort too right next to the plant soon as I plant it (so that the roots don't get damaged). That also helps support it using some of the same wrap I use with my tomatoes.

my 2nd season of planting peppers in AZ from seed. they look amazing

I use large soda bottles, cut off bottom , remove label. Push bottomless large bottles into ground. They remain sturdy. Water around plants. Any large clear tall plastic bottles work too.

I really enjoy your KZfaq channel and I've learned a lot. Here's what I've learned about seedlings. In nature what's the first thing they see when they come up to the dirt? Exactly the intensity of the Sun . Soon as my seeds pop and I have the first set of embryonic leaves, they go outside into the full sun and wind. They do return to artificial lighting. Put everyday I take them out and let them get wind-blown as I mist them. Doing this avoids all the babying that's unnecessary in hardening plants off. This works for all plants. In the early season when it's only warm for a couple hours during the middle of the day that's when they go out. So trust me do this and you'll never see sunscald on any of your plants. I like to use bamboo stakes also to support my plants should my experience having them extra long is better than having them short enough to bend down and poke your eye out

Great job

Thanks. Wait a couple weeks after transplanting outdoors to remove flowers. Good to know. Love your content.

Great tips! I always pick off the flowers and little fruits when I first plant out so they can get established. I feel like it really helps get them strong!

I simply buy live ladybugs and let them loose in my zipped up greenhouse at night for those aphids. Works great.

Bro love ur channel I got a cheap eBay greenhouse this year started hundreds of tom n peppers it got down to 28 degrees ferenhiet and 101 when I was sleeping my peppers got leave scorch and none died it been about two weeks now all have recovered 💯 so I started planting out at the end of April usually i don't start planting out till mother's day zone6a Ohio keep making great pepper videos

I fully agree about "tomato" cages. I mostly use them with peas that I grow in large pots starting in February, but I plan to try some for some of the larger pepper plants too. So far this year I'm having catastrophic success with both green beans and tomatoes, but only so-so with peppers and peas. One other pest I'd mention is slugs, in rainy weather. We had a couple crucial dry weeks in April but we are in the middle of a rainy stretch and the slugs damaged any smaller plants that were not elevated. Other years slugs have been much worse though -- every year is different.

Super helpful. First time trying to grow peppers and have been leaning on your channel a lot

We have the crappest weather for May in the UK, bloody cloudy ATM!

Love the channel, guys!!! Gardening is great, and efficient, and this channel is great for tips and tricks on Peppers!! I share these videos with my gardening groups all the time!!!

Excellent info. Thanks!

Great information I will definitely be using these tips

Thank you

Great advice and very timely - thank you! Been growing chillies for a few years now but each season has it's challenges and anything that refreshes good practices is really helpful.

Yep, all these things are definitely month of May things and are for sure some of the most important 👍

The tomato/pepper cages are the best. I joined a community garden last year and used them on my plot for my peppers (as I have always done.) I'm sure others wondered why initially, but I visited the garden today and noticed other gardeners are using them this year, I can only assume they saw mine and realized what a game changer they can be.

Love this channel! While indoors, fans help to strengthen the stems in preparation for the real wind outdoors.

Great informative video.

I usually harden off my peppers and other plants by opening the window theyre in when it gets a bit warmer. Then they get the wind going thru them and a chilly breeze. Leave it open an hour or two every other day

Would love to see and hear more about how the Kozy coats did with peppers & how early/how low nightly temps were after putting them in. I've had great success with those and planting tomatoes 4 weeks before our last frost date here in Colorado the past 2 years now. They put on significant growth & harden off inside the kozy coat so while a bit of a pain to fill it's worth it. Also, putting the empty oozy coat over a 5 gallon bucket while filling helps tremendously. Was already thinking about getting more for things like peppers & squash to try next spring and see if I could start those 3-4 weeks before I can usually plant them outside.

Glad I watched this.. i grew all from seed indoors.. so i will do and follow your directions

Two season's ago (our last garden year, we skipped last year) we encountered a pest problem that, in my almost 20 years of gardening, never experienced. We discovered via night garden cam racoons jumping our fence and stealing tomatoes. Bandits! I tried motion lights but before I could figure out what to do they pretty much wiped them out. This season, after just planting my starts yesterday I'm trying to figure out a good solution. My initial thought is to build a portable cage of some sort to surround the plants. Anyone have a good solution for raccoons-- besides a MacGyver sensor automated machine gun system? LOL

Mid 60s is a distant memory.. it's barely getting *down* into the 60s at night. My barn cat has been taking care of the vermin.. he's good at it. I picked a ladybug off the peas I picked this morning and put it with the tomatoes. I have a very late start with my peppers.. it took 3 times to get decent germination and none of my favorite, the heatles habs, germinated. My best germination has been the pimento's. I started them in very old, net-free peat pellets.. can't find them anywhere now. Everything has that dumb net. As soon as the seed shell comes off, they go into a 32 ounce yogurt cup until they're ready for a grow bag. The most leaves I have on one right now is 6.. and that's just the one.

i unfortunately wont have as many plants this year but i have a few and i might try a few of these tips :D

I Harden off my peppers by putting them in a greenhouse with 40% shade cloth on top. After a week, I take them out of the greenhouse and plant them where I want them, and I've never had an issue with Sun Scald

You should start them around January under grow lights. Mine are already producing peppers. You said the Buena mulatas didn’t do well for you. I have had excellent results from mine. I have grown 9 plants and they all have produced great results.

Great video. I'm going to start putting cages around all my heavier fruiting plants.

This is my first year using a cloche too, albeit for enemy squirrel protection. Interested to see if it extends your season!

Great information😊

I use old metal coffee or paint cans with the bottom cut off to protect young plants

I plan on fertilizing more often this year.

Healthy soil will greatly reduce insect damage. Feed you soil, not your plants. I also use insect frass by top dressing or making a tea. Chitin found in the frass repels insects.

Love it

I gave up on outdoor pepper growing lol. I'm sticking with my two favorite pepper varieties and just growing them year round indoors with hydroponics.

I use plastic gallon milk jugs with the bottom removed to protect my seedlings when they are first put out in the garden.

I Have 23 Different Pepper Plants Some Not Spicy Like The Sweet Poivrons All The Way Up To The 2nd Hottest In The World The Dragon's Breath Pepper I Hardened Them Off And They Are In The Ground, In My Garden So I Should Get Some Awesome Peppers!😁

Hello from East Texas! New Subscriber 🤗

I grow in felt pots only....i dont stake them when small...the wind makes them strong and able to support fruit...stake only when they start to bloom

It literally snowed today here in Utah. Happy Cinco de Mayo. I've never seen it snow in the Salt Lake valley in May. We always get a little snow in April but it doesn't really stick. May is very unusual.

I have a huge vole problem. This year I've planted root crops in bags or my 36" high beds. So far, they have left my peppers alone, but I'm using Molemax (castor bean) granules and peppermint oil. My Cairn Terrier would love to "help" rid the voles, but I'm keeping him out of the garden! My winter project is to empty my raised beds and put hardware cloth in the bottoms (yeah, I know it should have been done when we built the raised beds, but I was outvoted. Sigh). I have 37 peppers planted and they are looking great.

interesting how different this all is in different zones, here its been 90+ degrees F every say since may even started

If only our nightitme temps stayed above 55 in May here southeast of Seattle. This week it's going to range from 38 to 50. Yay. It's not until July our night temps are consistently at least 55. However, I plant in June and they perform Ok. I also use tomato cages or yes, pepper cages.

Do you have a blog post or video about pepper plants losing leaves? I have all my pepper seedlings under lights all getting the same water, same soil, same fertilizer, but two of them have lost most of their bottom leaves and only have two leaves on the top. I do have fungus gnats, but I'm not sure if that would be the cause. All of the other peppers are big and lush. The peppers are Aji Charapita and Puma.

All my super hots are WAY rootbound. Hopefully everything gets potted next weekend.

Thanks for the vids' you guys live in NJ? looks like it..was super easy to grow out there... I am now in AZ...love peppers!

I've used upside 5 gallon buckets with 6 1 inch holes and mounding soil around the bottom to prevent air flow , have temperature drops in 21 degrees, and had several inches of snow for a couple days and the tomatoes were fine Agree peppers don't like the 50s below Thanks

Exactly what I would have said. All are excellent tips. I have utilized all these methods to perfection.

I live in northern Norway, and grow chilli outside without protection. Here it is called the "Mountain zone" and it is the coldest and toughest weather. I see a good positive difference between plants I have taken seeds from grown myself, and seeds I have bought that can struggle in the first year. We rarely have temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius, most commonly 10-18 degrees. Here are about 90 grow days outside, but we have light all night in the summer, so we have many grow hours. Sow in January, and keept hem under grow lights until June. At the end of August it is too cold to have them outside. Does anyone have any tips other than Rocoto that thrives in colder climates? Love from Norway.

I have 6 over-wintered superhots in the ground. Have been since April 20th. They are growing very thick but not stretching out like id like to see. Any suggestions on how to get them to stretch a bit for easier harvest and checking for pests?

This may be an unusual question, but when your plants are getting up to 7 or 8 hours outside, should you still put them under grow lights when you bring them inside or get them used to less light in the evening?

thanks for this video, any thoughts on early pruning of peppers?

I agree, those are pepper cages…

During transition months, like May, air temperature swings can be quite erratic from day to day. Following your guidance on "avoid 55 deg F or less", I'd have to protect my peppers until early June in my area (Zone 7a), which is later than I'd like to transplant into the garden. I suspect a much better guide for "safely transplanting peppers" might be soil temperatures, which don't fluctuate nearly as much as air temperatures and actually behave like a heat pump, especially on the cooler end of the spectrum. In my area, the average soil temperature exceeds 55 deg by mid April. Did you look at soil temperatures as you've developed your thoughts regarding "when to safely transplant peppers into the garden?" Oh, I usually wait until mid-May to put my peppers out, and they've always done pretty well, imo, and air temps at night often dip below 55 deg here. Curious what your thoughts are...

Short 18" temporary fence you can reach over about a raised bed discourages rabbits to chickens... Moles or ground dweller tends to stay ground level... no foolproof but works well. Deer nibble through fence 9 x out 10... can jump a seven footer, ask an orchard farmer. Running start... Rudolf:🦌

I wanted to start some habaneros/ghost peppers from seed this year and just couldn't get them started earlier ☹ I'm in zone 6A, just above Pittsburgh, PA.... can I start them now and have any hope of getting a harvest??? Not looking for tons but enough to make a bottle or 2 of hot sauce....

Yeah, I just grow my peppers in large pots and always use a tomato cage for anything larger than, say, a Thai chili plant. Even helps with the deer somewhat. At least if they munch on them, they probably won't eat the whole plant. I put a rosemary plant next to the peppers, at least one rosemary for every two pepper pots, and this seems to really help with keeping the deer away. And man, do we have a lot of deer.

Deer love my pepper plants

lol, every year I tell my wife those dinky tomato “cages” stink!…but they are great on the peppers!

Hi guys on cross breeding pepper/chillies can you cross a pepper with a chillie or a tomato? Or are they to differeny genecticaly?

Is that culantro you have there? If it is, have you got a link for heirloom seeds please?

i love this channel but they ought to make their advice regional in that here in NC mid 60 was last month.

My wintered over peppers r loaded with fruits and blooms

Great content as usual. I have heard that some recommend 10 degrees Celsius for overnight temperatures but you actually recommended 13?

2:00 should you pick off the leaves with sunscald?

I over wintered my jalapeño, Serrano, and cayenne. I’m already getting peppers. Zone 10

does the hardening time include cloudy days?

Burpee Bodacious Hybrid Tomato, these can produce well over 30 lbs per plant per season. What's that have to do with peppers? Ever see a pomato plant? Tomatoes grafted onto potato root stock and the plant produces both, but yields of each tend to be less than non grafted versions since they compete for nutrients. However I'm not going to grow any tomatoes. Just the roots with peppers grafted onto them. I''ll experiment with direct approach side grafts and slowly whittle away the tomato and let the pepper keep its roots and have the tomato rootstock as a bonus and top grafts with the peppers growing entirely on the tomato root stock. Hey, the roots don't know it's Thai super hot peppers up top and try to grow 30 some pounds of tomatoes with it all going into the peppers. I once had a pot plant with 4 different types of rootstock and 2 types of bud and how I did it was planted all the seedlings in a tight bunch and light deprived them so they got lanky and braided they stems together with some gentle scraping they eventually fused into 1 plant. We called it the twisted fig and the police took it back to their station after showing up for a noise complaint. I never heard about it again. A normal plant and I would have been toast back then.

Two days intermittent rain, intense grow lights before, the third day partly cloudy, that was enough. Two fixed cats that like to hunt keep rodents away. We used crushed oyster shells normally used for chickens for extra minerals. We also made a lizard friendly place and we regularly see them patrolling the garden. The cats like them too, but enough stay around to survive. I think some surviving lizards learned to hide from the cats. We never use poisons so natural predators can keep a balance between pests insects and predators. The exception is peach trees, there is only one way to keep a harvest for them unless you know something we don’t.

I just put the seeds in cups with soil outside under shade cloth and have 50 pepper plants going now

What about soil temperature? If you transplant to soon?

FYI folks, remember that blood meal will attract bears, mountain lions, wolves, coyotes, dogs, foxes (as well as bone meal) if you, like me, live where these animals cohabitate with us. I have to use very tall fences electric line run around it at various heights (the bears will just quickly run through just an electric wire fence alone).

Do older mature plants need to be hardened off? eg, i have a 2-3 yr old habanero growing indoors perpetually that i'm thinking of moving out to the garden this season. (It's in an east facing window, and has ripe fruit currently.)

That temperature requirement isn't necessary. I transplanted my peppers at the end of March still lite frosts and I'm currently already harvesting bell peppers.

What is a good method for getting rid of Pill Bugs? They took out two starter plants so far and I dont want to keep replacing those plants.

Can I leave my pepper plants in a small tent type greenhouse if th temp goes down to 47 degrees? Or does it need the heat from the ground with the bucket method? I'm already hardening off my peppers, and I noticed next week we have 2 nights in the upper 40s.

Sweeeeeet ✊🏾😎🌶🫑🫑🫑🌶🌶

Pepper Geek, question: Can you lay a pepper branch along the ground when planting from a pot like some people do with tomatoes? To clarify, do pepper plants grow roots when their stems are along the ground? Thanks.

Insect netting is great but it can keep out pollinators, which is something that you don’t want. You can cover to protect the plants while they’re young but you want to uncover when they start to flower.

I stopped using tomato cages for my peppers. they provided a landing spot for small birds to perch on and eat my plants.

Yep, definitely harden off, especially if starting from seed. Ask me how I know.

I have orange spider mites everywhere

Some of my pepper plants are like 2 inches high but grows very big leafs. Anyone know why?