WORK IN PROGRESS – MUCH MORE TO COME

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Growing Chili Peppers can be fun and rewarding. Plants will produce very well if they’re taken care of. The tips and tricks below are from our families growing experiences and techniques. I don’t profess to know everything and my experience is from growing in Hawaii. Some of these tips will work in most areas but some may not due to different climates, conditions and bugs or pests. We grow everything organically and don’t use any chemical insecticides, fungicides or herbicides.

Germination: Do not use any potting soil or dirt. I personally use straight horse manure in seedling trays or directly in the planting beds. The enzymes and beneficial microorganisms help germinate the seed faster and gives it a good head start with all that natural organic fertilizer. Keep them at a temperature between 75-90º. Keep them moist, NOT SOAKING WET or they will rot.

Seedlings: Treat them well, they’re your little pepper babies. Only water as needed and do not overheat or they will wilt and die. No need to fertilize since they’re already growing it the stuff.

Secondary Leaves: At about 8 weeks old, time to transplant if you’re using seedling trays. When they reach about 2-3″ transplant them into your garden bed. Once they’re in the ground for the first 3 weeks feed them with fish emulsion then stop. We create our own compost/fish emulsion tea. The basic recipe is below, you can adjust as you see fit or what is available to you.

Once the plants have been transplanted and are established about 1 foot tall, trim all tips off. Even if it’s starting to flower, trim them off. Don’t worry this forces the plant to grow more branches and grow bushy so that there is more room for peppers.

All of the preventative/maintenance methods below are organic.

Spray once a week with:
Mix 1 Tbsp per gallon
Fungicide to kill the broad mites

Once flowering starts add this to your above mixture on that same once a week schedule:

1 Tbsp per gallon: Cedarcide (Kills the Pepper Weevil eggs that they lay inside of the flower. If there is any fruit that drops, it needs to be picked up, sealed and thrown away. This prevents any of the beetles to emerge from infected peppers.)

Compost Tea:

• Formulated tea coming soon.

How to grow: Hawaiian Chili Peppers, Thai Chili Peppers, Carolina Reaper Chili Peppers, Trinidad Moruga Scropion Peppers, Habanero Chili Peppers, Ghost Chili Peppers, Bhut Jolokia Chili Peppers, Datil Chili Peppers, Fish Chili Peppers, Jalapeno Chili Peppers, Sport Chili Peppers, Aleppo Chili Peppers