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When growing pepper plants, there is nothing more satisfying than a high-yielding plant. It’s the best reward for a job well done.
If you want a season full of big colorful peppers, you’ll love these tips and tricks for increasing your pepper yield this year!
Read on below to learn all you need to know to maximize your harvest of peppers.
7 Tips and Tricks to Increase Your Pepper Yield
Discover the best tips and tricks to take your pepper yield to the next level:
1. Give Plants a Drink Every Day or Two
Watering your pepper plant every day or two will suffice unless it’s a heatwave out in your garden.
Extreme heat could stress your plants and cause several issues like sun scalding, yellow leaves, and stunted growth.
If the weather is too hot you have to keep your plants moist but not over-soaked.
2. Add Plenty of Mulch Around the Plant
Pepper plants grow best when you add mulch to the soil around them.
Mulch prevents weeds from growing around them, which would steal nutrients from the soil.
Adding plenty of much around the plant also helps moderate the soil temperature and hold in moisture.
3. Space Plants Properly and Plant Deeply
It’s important to space your pepper plants at least 18 inches apart, in rows at least 30 inches apart, so they’ll have room to grow, if they have space the root system will be larger.
With a large root system, the plant yields more peppers, which is what happens when you plant them at least 4 inches deep and add a proper organic potting mix in with the backfill.
Potential roots that look like tiny hairs on the stem will become large roots if planted at least 3 to 4 inches deep.
4. Apply Soil Amendments And Fertilize as Needed
Fertilizer provides the plants with essential nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium which help them grow well.
Apply soil amendments and fertilize before planting your peppers, and once lightly when they start to produce vegetables.
Keep in mind that higher nitrogen fertilizer, while the plants are growing, maximizes pepper yields.
5. Practice Organic Pest Control
The practice of organic pest control will help your plant stay healthy during the whole growing process.
For a homemade pesticide, you can mix a tablespoon of dish soap, a tablespoon of vegetable oil, and a bucket of tap water.
Once it’s all mixed you can spray and coat the whole plant, even the leaves undersides, where pests like to hide.
6. Plant them in Full Sun or Indoors Under Grow Lights
Pepper plants grow better in the sunlight, 10 to 12 hours of direct sunlight would be ideal.
Although it’s possible to get plenty of pepper with 6 hours of sunlight, you should know the number of hours of sunlight, affects directly on the pepper’s yield.
7. Talk to Your Plants or Play Them Music (If Growing Indoors)
Studies show that as plants adapt to their environment, they can hear what it’s happening around them.
For that reason, if you are growing your pepper plants inside, talking to them or playing them music will help them grow.
Suggested Reading: How to Grow Peppers: Gardening Guide
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