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overwintering Overwintering seedlings in small pots?

Dr. Weird

Dr. Weird

Hi Pepper growers,
 
I am hoping for a huge increase in my pepper harvest next season and got a little bit over eager (maybe) and started a lot of seedlings already, months before they can get planted outside.
 
Currently, they are just in tiny little 4cm x 4cm pots but i plan to put them into 8.5cm x 8.5cm pots and grow them under fluorescent light through winter, my question is- will this work ok if i keep topping them to stay short and then prune the root ball prior to planting outside?
 
I will be doing the same with sweet peppers, unless some experienced growers think this is a bad idea....
 
Thanks for any advice.
 
Thanks for that link Doc. I'm in that predicament now, should I pot up or pinch,
I started them to early and now I have plants flowering like crazy with 3-4 weeks before its safe to go outside. I'm thinking I'll bite the bullet and spend some money on pots and soil and be done with it.
 
 
DanMcG said:
Thanks for that link Doc. I'm in that predicament now, should I pot up or pinch,
I started them to early and now I have plants flowering like crazy with 3-4 weeks before its safe to go outside. I'm thinking I'll bite the bullet and spend some money on pots and soil and be done with it.
 
Click to expand...
I'm going to keep these as small as possible until a few weeks before last expected frost then take cuttings.
Then the cuttings should have roots and  i'll trim the potted ones' root balls and plant them out together and see which grow faster.
 
I need some help guys.... i've planted out some plants that i overwintered but they refuse to grow normal branches with decent internodes.
All they do is put out too many flowers and whenever i pluck the flowers off it seems that they grow back with even more small flowers.
Does anyone understand this problem?
 
I mean, it's like when you pinch the top off a plant and then it grows 2 branches and if you pinch those 2 then you get 4 branches etc. but these small plants are trying to grow 100 tiny little branches with little flowers.... how can i reverse this problem, if at all?
 
*These are some hot peppers AND some sweet peppers.*
 
Thanks for any help.
 
I believe i have solved my problem, but only after what i consider a failure of a season.... but i guess it's only a failure if you don't learn something....
 
The simple solution (i think) is bottom heating.
 
The plants that i overwintered last year stayed green and where showing new growth but it was slow and not forming normal branching.... i thought once i planted them out they would take off.
But, i think i planted them out a little too early, when the soil was still too cold, and that may have stunted them even further.... because SOME of them started to look much happier about half way through summer- MONTHS after they had been planted out.
 
Now with some cooler weather happening, i have brought in some trimmed up plants that never really got going outside, that i wanted to keep because i don't have any seeds of those varieties left.... and this time i have bottom heating, and they love it.
 
After maybe 2 weeks of settling into the small pots they have started to shoot HEALTHY looking branches with normal internodes.
 
Dr. Weird said:
I believe i have solved my problem, but only after what i consider a failure of a season.... but i guess it's only a failure if you don't learn something....
 
The simple solution (i think) is bottom heating.
 
The plants that i overwintered last year stayed green and where showing new growth but it was slow and not forming normal branching.... i thought once i planted them out they would take off.
But, i think i planted them out a little too early, when the soil was still too cold, and that may have stunted them even further..The analogy I was given is "Peppers do not like cold feet.", and that soil temps should be above 10°C (And 15°C better.) along with warm air temps.. because SOME of them started to look much happier about half way through summer- MONTHS after they had been planted out. When I first started growing peppers 
 
Now with some cooler weather happening, i have brought in some trimmed up plants that never really got going outside, that i wanted to keep because i don't have any seeds of those varieties left.... and this time i have bottom heating, and they love it. That's great! Keep us updated...
 
After maybe 2 weeks of settling into the small pots they have started to shoot HEALTHY looking branches with normal internodes. 
Click to expand...
 
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