Known tricks to growing peppers

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Originally Posted by heirloomtomaguy

I grew 32 Carolina Reaper plants last year along with another 24 misc. super hots. All of these went in the ground for the first time. I usually grow in containers so here is what works best for me. In a container i like to prune all of the lower leaves that form on the main stem leaving only about the top 1/3 of the plant. When you notice the main stem starting to "Y" do not prune anymore. This will give your plant a nice tree style growth habit. When the plant starts to flower always pick the flower that is in the "Y" of the plant. Doing this will make the plant go into hyper drive. If that flower in the "Y" or split develops it will slow down production of your plants. I have no scientific evidence or explanation to why this works but i was told by a fellow chile head to do so and since i started doing it ive seen results. I also like to give them a foliar feeding of compost tea once a week when they start to flower and if you want even more flowers and potential chiles foliar spray them with earth juice bloom master. Believe me it works awesome. I usually grow my peppers in 5 gallon containers but for more production double the size. Now as far as making the peppers hotter i have not noticed a big difference when i let the plant wilt. However if you are looking for the hottest peppers on the plant i have noticed that the lower on the plant the pepper grows the hotter it is. So if you are trying to really burn someone who thinks they know chiles just give them the first peppers lowest to the ground off of the main stem. Also my Super hot plants usually reach 5-6 feet tall with the proper nutrients in the soil and with my pruning method. Good luck with your Carolina reaper plants!

I haven't heard of this method before. Thanks for sharing. I think I will give it a try and see what happens. What is your compost tea consist of, please? So many folks have different recipes they make and use.

You also mentioned earth juice bloom master. Is that something folks can buy locally?