Bell Peppers in Earthboxes

[kygreg]

Info at the earthbox website says 6 bell pepper plants to a container. Has anyone tried this. Seem like it would be a little crowded. Thanks

[mvan]

I had two EarthBoxes with peppers last year--six plants each. They did fine, at least until they got foliage disease. But I sprayed them, and they survived. I also grew peppers in the ground at least as close together, if not closer, than in the EarthBoxes, and they did way better.

Matt

[Marko]

Peppers can be planted quite close to each other.

[tnpeppers]

Original instructions for Earth Box years ago called for EIGHT pepper plants per box, but customer feedback resulted in them changing the instructions to six. I followed those original instructions, and didn't have a problem. In fact; with hot peppers like habaneros planted eight per box; I wound up with a bumper crop. I have since scaled back to six per new instructions, and have had no problems whatsoever. I sed to think it was odd that an Earth Box could only accommodate TWO tomatoes, until I saw the final results years back...holy cow. Follow the instructions...they know what they are talking about...

Originally Posted by kygreg

Info at the earthbox website says 6 bell pepper plants to a container. Has anyone tried this. Seem like it would be a little crowded. Thanks

[kygreg]

Thanks for the information. From what you are saying they do well and have good production that close together.

[rnewste]

kygreg,

I staggered 4 Yolo Wonder pepper plants in my EarthBox last season and it worked out great. Can you get 6 plants in - yes, but I think the crowding will result in smaller developed peppers. Depends on what is important to you.

This Season, I am putting only two Joe E. Parker NuMex Peppers in my EarthBox, as I want these two plants to have as much sunlight and elbow-room as possible to develop really large chiles.

Raybo

[Katmary]

What size is the container first of all? I did 4 in boxes that were at least 18 gallon containers and they were the pride of my first season of using ETs, mainly because of some tomato problems from the person I bought them from (not being what they should be, diseases, planting after wetting and drowning the roots). My peppers were more than I ever got at once, and they were beauties! I did a big red bell pepper, miniature bells, banana peppers, and Golden Sunrise orange Bells. If I could fit in two more, I may do that instead of putting them in pots this year as I grew WAY too many tomatoes for my first time growing at home, and am trying to make as much room as possible!

[kygreg]

I used 3 of the "purchased" earthboxes which where given to me and 2 home made ones. They seem to be doing fine so far with 6 in each; will see as they get larger.

[CLETUS]

Originally Posted by kygreg

I used 3 of the "purchased" earthboxes which where given to me and 2 home made ones. They seem to be doing fine so far with 6 in each; will see as they get larger.

Very nice looking plants. I only put 4 in mine and wow did they get big fast!

[duckfan]

This is a combination of 6 different types of peppers but yes, 6 plants in an earthbox is fine

[kygreg]

duckfan, nice looking plants and nice set up; is that a delux earthbox of some sort?

[duckfan]

As far as I know it's a regular earthbox that had a trellis set-up. I didn't see a need for the trellis so I took it off. I found it on Craig's list and bought it for a few bucks. Sometimes you get lucky. I'm a little surprized in how fast it produced peppers. I planted them 5/22 and I've been getting edible peppers for 10 days now. My tomatoes are just starting to blush.

[Katmary]

Wow, that's great Duckfan!!! I did mine in the EarthTainer and could've fit two more looking back as it was a big container. The trellis I had behind it I ended up trailing cherry tomatoes on, so one of my bells became as tall as it trying to get more sun as an oak tree kind of blocked it off on the opposite side. It STILL managed to provide lots of peppers despite looking like I was growing a bell pepper tree! With the crazy weather, everything's a bit behind here, but I finally am getting all my real tall plants into containers and hope I have the same luck!

[duckfan]

Katmary,
Thanks. This is my first attempt with peppers in a SWC. The Bells I've grown in the past (in the dirt) have always been relatively small plants. What kind do you plant? The only pepper plants that get really large here are Jalapenos.(I'm not growing them this year.) Our weather has been a little off this year too. It's been really hot and dry. I think the extra sunlight and constant moisture may have contributed to the unusually large size of the plants in the Earthbox. From what I've heard, the weather may also turn my Bhut Jolokias into weapons grade hot peppers.

[Katmary]

My dirt-grown peppers weren't that big either. Like with you, it was the first time I actually had peppers in summer! Usually once the heat rises 90 and up here, they stop producing, so being in shade part-time helped with that and they did the best ever. As for last year, I grew CA Wonder, miniature bell (boy did they mean mini!), Golden Sunrise (orange), a variety one I'm blanking on, and a banana pepper. I'm trying to learn more about the medium peppers too, so this year I'm trying a lot more. I definitely got carried away with ordering seeds and buying!

This year I ended up getting a lot, and with the weird weather, I still don't have some stuff planted yet! I finally put my Cherry Bomb in with two tomato plants in an ET (hope it'll be ok, it's a 30 gallon so it hopefully will be), then for now I put 6 Ancho Poblanos in an 18 gallon non-ET container. I have two ETs left, and am debating what to do since the tomatoes I was saving for those are still pretty small, yet other tomatoes are real tall and I don't want to waste those. I have four of the larger ETs with two tomatoes each same as I do for the smaller water saver version, and will likely stick one or two in those.

I did a variety of bells (favorite is red) and hotter peppers this year. By the time I was finally buying, it was cheaper to get 6 packs vs. singles, plus I started ones late like Cayenne, Carnival, NuMex, and one other that was a variety mix. If you lived nearby, I'd bring over a bunch of plants for you! Valencia is an orange I decided to try. Those mini bells I mentioned were the size of a big cherry tomato, they'd be cute stuffed, but I thought they'd be a bit bigger than that!