One of the most common vegetables to grow vertically are peppers. Peppers are one of our favorite summer crops because they are relatively easy to grow and really fun to watch ripen. Whether you enjoy growing sweet, mild or hot peppers this is post for you!
Bell pepper plants growing in a GreenStalk Vertical Planter
Thankfully, the GreenStalk Vertical Planter is soil-based so you don’t need anything special to start your garden. We use the same potting mix that we usually do with all of our crops, but we are sure to add in some fertilizer (like Tomato Tone) to get them off to a good start. Our favorite potting mix at the moment is Fox Farm’s Happy Frog, but you could certainly use your favorite potting mix instead. We grow our peppers from seed – one seed per pocket in the GreenStalk Vertical Garden! You could also grow from starter plant, but either way be sure to fill your soil mixture to the very top of the planter for best results.
Olympus F1 Sweet Pepper Growing in a GreenStalk Vertical Planter
Always keep up with watering – especially in the beginning. You may want to water with a watering wand or spray bottle to keep the seeds moist and well watered. Once they grow a couple of true leaves, go ahead and water from the top water reservoir. When the plants become established be mindful of watering. Peppers don’t like too much to too little water. Only water when the potting mix is dry to the touch. Oftentimes watering issues can cause cracking in the peppers.
Feher Ozon Sweet Peppers Growing in a GreenStalk Vertical Planter
We had an issue this year with over-watering which led to the peppers becoming stressed. The leaves were yellowing and the plants were also growing more leggy than usual. In our case, we took them off of our automated watering system and went back to hand watering thru the GreenStalk’s internal water distribution system and they bounced back nicely.
Feher Ozon Sweet Pepper Growing in a GreenStalk Vertical Planter
Be patient when growing peppers – it can often take weeks for many peppers to change color, but it’s worth it!
Harvest From Feher Ozon Sweet Pepper Plants Grown in a GreenStalk Vertical Planter
This year we grew a new pepper called the Feher Ozon Sweet Pepper and it has been one of our very favorites. The plants stay compact (which is great when growing vertically in containers) and they produce a LOT of peppers per plant. Of course, when you are growing in a GreenStalk Vertical Planter, you can select whichever varieties you want, but usually compact varieties do the best. We plant several towers of just peppers every year, but you could also mix and match peppers with other summer crops, like tomatoes and eggplant.
Happy Gardening!
Cody Catherine Thomas
Grow@GreenStalkGarden.com