"Paul" wrote in message
...
for the first time this year I am trying red peppers in the green house,
main questions are-
should I stagger the sowing of seeds to provide a crop over several weeks,
or do the plants keep reproducing peppers throughout the summer?
will the plants be ok in growbags, not sure how tall they will grow?

paul.


Sow them all at once. They crop in succession, sort-of.
They all start off green, and take another 3 or 4 weeks to
colour up - going through an intermediate grey/brown stage.

If you pick some at the green stage that will bring the others on.
The geeen are just as palatable only slightly less sweet to the
taste, and reputedly with less vitamin C

The only limitation on the cropping period is temperature and
maybe light levels. The leaves start deteriorating as the
temperature drops and the fruit don't increase in size
although they will continue to change colour. It's then a
toss up between waiting for them to change colour, and getting
hit by mildew as moisture condenses on the fruits overnight.
That and attacks from earwigs and other insects.

Capsicums are perennials and if you had the facilities,
heat and light, you could crop them all year round.
You can even train them up strings. In the UK with
no artificial lighting, about 3 feet is probably the
most you can expect.

A flower stalk will grow every time the stem divides -
after about the fourth divison from planting. Which each
resulting sub-stem will continue to do. That's how they grow.
Elementary maths shows that the plant can't support every
flower, so many flower stems will drop off quite naturally.
Mist the flowers with a fine spray of warm water if the
humidity is low.

Sliced caps are a doddle for freezing, as nothing is lost
by way of taste at all, certainly not if used for cooking
to add flavour and colour.


michael adams

....