www.containerseeds.com is a company that sells vegetable seeds made especially for containers.
you won't find tomato seeds that will grow 2 pound tomatoes but they have the 6 to 8 oz. size. the site even tells you what is the best size container for each variety. they also have seeds for a a variety of vegetables but alas, not very hot peppers. LOL
vegetable seeds for containers
I had searched their site but had reservations after reading the GardenWatchDog ~ http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/3676/
Sounds like you grow vegies in container... do you have any recommendations of cultivars?
thanks for informing me about this company.
i grow everything in five gallon containers with no problem. i run a soaker hose through each container at the top and then connect the hose to a timer. it works fine for me. only thing about containers is that what ever you grow is not as big or as plentiful as in the ground but thats o.k. with me.
this year i am switchng to 10 gallon containers to see if it will make a difference. i have grown tomatoes, eggplants, hot peppers, basil and a few others and they turned out fine. this year my 7 pot ultra hot peppers produced over 200 peppers which is a record for me.
i have grown heirloom tomatoes and hybrids, black and white eggplants, just about anything you cn grow in the ground cn be ggrown in a container with maybe the exceptin of vining plants.
herbie, when you run the soaker hose to the containers, do you splice the soaker to a section of regular hose in-between the containers? Or do you just allow the soaker to drip a bit in between? Hope the is understandable.
I didn't mean to discourage you from ordering... I have toyed with it too.
I've grown in containers for years but this past year I grew everything in them. That is why I asked about cultivar recommendations. I found some plants are far better suited to container living. For example, successes this past year were a dwarf Okra ~ Lee, a small eggplant Ravayya, Spacemaster cucumbers, a tiny pan squash Peter Pan and for me a smaller tomato ~ Porter. Now I realize that some of these cultivars may simply prefer our sweltering climate but my intention is to research more types to try next spring.
Thanks for sharing your information... pod
Baker Creek has a White Acorn Squash. In their catalog they say it is small and good for containers or a small garden. I bought it because I thought it sounded interesting. Well, the plants are really small but produce like crazy I don't know how big the fruit would get because I pick them when they are young. I highly recommend them but I'm still surprised that the plants are so small. They are really unique.
Lisa
Thanks for that suggestion Lisa... I am researching and shopping for seed now with an eye to next spring. If they did well in your zone, that will be a plus for me.
They should do fine in your area I'm actually in the same zone you are. I still look at those little plants and can't believe that they are producing and that they produced first of all the squash I planted at the same time. Just a word of warning, you may want to direct seed them. I transplanted some and for whatever reason they didn't make it. Some lived, but some died right after I transplanted them I have no idea why.
Lisa
This year was the first time I tried growing sweet bell peppers in containers.... worked like a charm... Did not use any soaker hoses, just a garden hose with nozzel in the summer. They gat hit with a freeze not to long ago and fortuneately I was up at the crack of dawn to hose them off and now the derned things are under my grow light in my laundry room. I event stuck some pansys in them to dolly them up a tad!
Still eating peppers today... dont know for how long, but we shall see. I can move them outdoors on the nice fall days and in at night.. if my back holds out!
I was at a nursery not too long ago that had tomatoes in containers in their greenhouse and they were 16 feet tall. The lady gave me some maters to ferment for seed to try and so I am anxious on those space savers. They will yeild 2 bushels per plant. You have to run a string line to the top of the GH. You trim the vine slender and tie it to the string and be sure to fertilize.
Here are my peppers....oh, which BTW, I did buy the plants in the spring and not start them by seed. I cant grow peppers in my garden to save my sould so this was rewarding and plan to grow a lot more next year in containers. Um, dont mind the snake....hes a vegitarian! LOL! One of those anaconda gourds!
Oops wrong pic here are the peppers! They are too big for my light on the counter so I have a ceiling light on them too. From base of pot to top of plant they are about 2-3 feet tall.
This message was edited Oct 20, 2009 9:11 AM
Here are the tomatoes at the GH. She did say they would grow outdoors too, so I am going to try them on my open hoop house and tie them direct to the hoops.
Here they are fermenting
The tomatoes are good size. Dont taste too bad. I have had sweeter in the big beef. But here they are in her GH. They are the big tall bushy things!
I also did cherry tomatoes in hanging baskets...that worked slick.
The cherry maters were volunteers from ones I had grown in my garden years back and do not have a name on, but anyway, some I put in conventional potting soil and some in straight horsemanure. Both did pretty good. Still had to fertilize them and they would have done better I think if I would have pinched them back to make them stool. I put three plants in a pot from plants that volunteered. They were very tasty and will hae them again next year. I did something like 40 baskets. I did not mind so much their legginess. They hung down eventually, but took a little while.
We also grow strawberries in old tractor tires for raised bed containers
and I am trying garlic in a smaller tire.
Here are the cherry maters....
Also did some strawberries in hanging baskets...did not start them by seed though!
Blossom I let my peppers die back to the ground with frost and water them occasionally through the winter. They stay dormant and pop back out in the spring. The older plants get off to a faster start than new ones. I grow them in pots too but can't let them freeze.
There's a sticky at the top of the tomato forum about fermenting seeds and you might find it easier and less messy to recover them. If I was going to do it like you're doing with whole fruit, I'd smash them into some soil in a pot, cover lightly and just water the pot when I was ready for them to germinate. You could leave the pot outside over winter and bring it in to start early plants. It's the same idea as winter sowing or like volunteers coming up in the garden.
Cant do peppers that way... its to dang cold here in the winter! Iam however curious as to how long they will last in the house. I am in the mid west.
As for fermenting the maters... there are several ways. The ones in the pan above I just leave in there until spring. The tray sits in my GH and they dry to paper and then will plant them.
I have taken the maters also and just dropped them on the ground and in the spring they will pop up. No fuss no mess either way.
Just oder if you do it in the GH. But sinc eI close my Gh in the winter I dont have to enjoy the smell of the rot down!
Twiggybuds, how long do your peppers live then? Or is that just a carry over to one year?
I am wondering now if I keep them in the house through the winter if they will keep going!? I would think at some point they are gonna want a dormant period. Now mind you these are at least 10 months old now. They have been in for a couple weeks and sho no signs of real hurt other than losing the smallest of teeny peppers when the frost hit. The larger fruits are fine!
Earlier I had to stake them!
Times like this I wish my GH was heated in the winter.
I just winter them in a dormant state. When the top dies back, I cut it to a nub and just barely water so it doesn't dry out completely.
I think it may be possible to keep them going just surviving with minimal top growth through the winter but I wouldn't expect any production or even attractive plants unless I had a very bright window. Ozark who is a member here, has had a pepper going for many years that he harvests from year round. He's in MO and it winters in his livingroom. They're perennial and don't need a dormant period. It may not be worth it for common ones but some of those exotic ones are slow to go from seeds.
Well, I know those ornamental ones are house plants, but I never dreamed the sweet bells could be.. so what the heck, they are here till they die!
I collected seed off them and so if they do, I can start more or get more at the nursery.
I notice mine are getting woody like a tree! Almost like a bark on their stems.
We had a great day so I set them outside for some sun and watered them and well, the smallest of the set peppers fell in transporting them around but the bigger ones are hanging on.
I dont know who well they will do under the lights but we shall see!
I use the oscomote pellets for fertilizer.
mary - i just run the soaker hose through all of them just like that. most of the time my containers are so close together that i get very little waste. if there is any waste at all its at the end of the soaker hose since it usually a foot or two longert than the containers.
Thanks Herbie43. I use lots of soaker hoses for the chili pepper plants and splicing in some non-soaker would keep the water where I want it. Just haven't got around to that yet.
Fun thread.
Good info on overwintering the pepper plant roots. That is worth a try.
I would have had great success on the Wonder bell peppers buuttttt... when they fruited, I "wondered" why they called them bells. They were long and red and hot, hot, hot. Apparently the party I got the seed from had let them cross with???
I did have and am still having excellent success with cherry belles and pimento peppers. They are tasty although smaller. May have to overwinter them and see....
I was nearly wiped out with aphids on the seedlings last spring and they don't cause nearly the problems on the stronger older plants. My main motivation this year is that I have a couple hybrids I really like and don't have any more seeds. I'd rather not have to place an order just for that and would end up spending a lot more on stuff I probably don't need.
I've heard that pepper cuttings will root easily and I might try that for insurance. My greenhouse is NOT heated. The weather has been so crazy this year that I wouldn't be surprised if hxll froze over. I've had mild winters long enough to be past due for a bad freeze.
Twiggy-your peppers actually come back? I have never heard of that I always dig up at least one of every variety I've grown the past season pot them up and bring them in to get through the freezes. I guess I could just leave them in the ground and mulch them like other shrubs?
Lisa
Twiggy when you cut them down do you mulch them or heat them during frosts? I want to try and save about 6 pepper plants in my raised bed... I also need to freeze these darn spider mites though...
They're not in the ground but grown all season in 3 gallon pots. Sorry for not being clear. Rat you might be able to winter yours in the ground with mulch. I think it depends on how cold and wet it gets. I know that combination can be deadly on some things that aren't actively growing.
Think about that first frost that takes out your annuals. Not just tip burn but really enough that they're done for. The leaves will fall off and half the stems might be mush. That's when I cut the woody main stem way back to an inch or 2 and just set the dead looking pot in the greenhouse. I water the pot about once a month and when I see new growth in the spring, it gets regular watering and feeding. They're tender perennials and really want to survive.
I don't see why you'd have to cut them back if you want to try to keep them as they are. I do it because the tops won't do anything but take up space, shade the other plants and possibly harbor insects. By keeping the big root system, they make an almost instant large plant as soon as it warms up some so the tops aren't really important. If the plant has fruit you want to save, I'd pick off the little ones so it could concentrate on the ones that have a chance.
I would think that if they overwinter in small pots they would over winter in the ground if the ground doesn't get too cold. Like I posted above I pot some of mine up forthe winter and bring them in on cold days (since it can be 80* one day and 40* the next) I have pepper plants that grow/produce all winter long but your method sounds much easier. Do you leave the pots outside?
Lisa
If you can get production all winter, you're doing much better than I am. I get 3 or 4 cold nights and repeated heavy frosts that would surely kill them if they were outside. I start seeds in the house but move them to the unheated greenhouse as soon as they germinate. They do fine so the big peppers certainly should. I might leave 6-8" of top this year to see how they do. The GH gets so crowded that I just try to keep things alive from December through February while I concentrate on growing the new seedlings.
One thing I can be certain of is that there's never enough space for everything I want to do in the winter. It drives me crazy trying to live by the weather liar's forecasts so I try to limit what I have to carry in and out.
twiggy, or anyone, do you think I should cut mine back? They are still looking great and have peppers on them. Since they are now indoors, I am wondering what would clue me in to cutting them back in a timely manner?
They did get frosted about 10 days ago, but again, we got to them before they got hurt, but if they would have been hurt they surely would have shown more damage by now. And so far so good and they have been indoors for 10 days. The "trunks" on some are actually sporting what looks to be new growth. They still have flowers too.
I would try to keep them happy as long as they're trying to ripen those fruits. You can always cut them back if or when they start looking ratty. They're obviously healthy and raring to keep going. Just enjoy your good fortune.
Will do, and thanks!.
I think I am gonna try some of those ornmental peppers... I have seed.. now if I can only find it! LOL!
Have a great day!