Edible Pepper Garden. Rosalind Creasy
How do you proceed? First you choose a very sunny spot and prepare the soil. If you are one of the few gardeners on the planet with a vacant piece of beautifully loamy soil with good drainage, it’s a snap. You just mark out the rows, turn under a little compost, form the paths, and plant. If you’re like the rest of us mere mortals, however, you have to start from scratch. This means removing a piece of lawn or removing large rocks and weeds. If you’re taking up part of a lawn, the sod needs to be removed. If it is a small area, this can be done with a flat spade. Removing large sections, though, warrants renting a sod cutter, If the area is a weed patch, unfortunately, you will need to dig out any perennial weeds, especially perennial grasses. It’s a pain, but you really do need to sift and closely examine each shovelful of soil for every little piece of their roots, or they will regrow with a vengeance and crowd out your pepper plants. Once the lawn, rocks, and weeds are out, and when the soil is not too wet, you need to spade over the area. If your garden is large or the soil is very hard to work, you might rent a rototiller, When you put in a garden for the first time, a rototiller can be very helpful. However, research has shown that continued use of tillers, or regularly turning the soil over by hand, is hard on soil structure and quickly burns up valuable organic matter if done repeatedly.
Now it’s time to take note of what type of soil you have and how well it drains. Is it rich in organic matter and fertility? Is it so sandy that water drains too fast? Or is there a hardpan under your garden that prevents roots from penetrating the soil or water from draining? Hardpan is a fairly common problem in areas of heavy clay, especially in many parts of the Southwest with caliche soils—a very alkaline clay. You need answers to such basic questions before you proceed because peppers grow best with as little stress as possible and their roots are prone to root rot in waterlogged soil. If you are unsure how well a particular area in your garden drains, dig a hole there, about 10 inches deep and 10 inches across, and fill it with water. The next day fill it again. If it still has water in it 8 to 10 hours later, you need to find another place in the garden that will drain much faster, amend your soil with a lot of organic matter and mound it up at least 6 to 8 inches above ground level, or grow your peppers in containers. A very sandy soil, which drains too fast, also calls for the addition of copious amounts of organic matter.
Find out, too, what your soil pH is. Nurseries have kits to test your soil’s pH. (The most reliable soil tests are done by soil-testing labs. For recommendations, call your local university extension service or ask at the nursery. In addition to giving you the pH, they can also analyze your soil type and nutrient levels at quite a reasonable price. This will give you a much better idea of the amounts and kinds of nutrients it needs.) Peppers need a pH between 6.0 and 8.0 and grow best between 6.7 and 7.3. An acidic soil below 6.0 ties up phosphorus, potassium, and calcium, making them unavailable to plants; an alkaline soil tends to tie up iron and zinc. As a rule, rainy climates have acidic soil that needs the pH raised, usually by adding lime, and arid climates have fairly neutral or alkaline soil that needs extra organic matter to lower the pH.
Most soils need to be supplemented with organic matter and nutrients. The big-three nutrients are nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K)—the ones most frequently found in fertilizers. Calcium, magnesium, and sulfur are also important plant nutrients, and all plants need a number of trace minerals for healthy growth, among them iron, zinc, boron, copper, and manganese. Again, a soil test is the best way to see what your soil needs.
For peppers, most soils will benefit from an application of 4 or 5 inches of compost, 1 or 2 inches of well-aged manure, a phosphorus source such as rock phosphate or bone meal, and kelp meal to provide trace minerals and potassium. If you have done a soil test, you will know more precise amounts. (In future years, you will be able to decrease the amount of additives.) If a soil test indicates that your soil is too acidic, it’s necessary to “sweeten” your soil with applications of finely ground dolomitic limestone. (Avoid hydrated lime, quick lime, and slake lime.) To determine the amounts of phosphorus source, kelp meal, and lime, follow the directions on the packages. (If you wish to add fresh manure, it’s best to add it in the fall because it needs a few months to decompose. In that case, wait until spring to add any additional compost and fertilizers.) Add a few more inches of compost if you live in a hot, humid climate where heat burns the compost at an accelerated rate or if you have very alkaline, very sandy, or very heavy clay soil.
Good advance planning makes for a more productive and healthier pepper garden.
All vegetables need nitrogen for healthy growth. For peppers, how much nitrogen you add is tricky. Peppers grown in a soil overly rich in nitrogen give you lush leafy growth but not much, if any, fruit. On the other hand, with too little nitrogen, the leaves are small and pale, the plants produce few fruits, and those produced are subject to sunscald because the leaves are too small to cover them. According to the majority of gardening books now available, on most soils, aged manure supplies sufficient nitrogen to get peppers growing well. I would agree with that advice when it comes to planting small chilies like chiltepíns, serranos, or de árbols. But my experience with most of the big bells and most hybrids, in particular, has shown me that they need ample amounts of nitrogen. I always scratch into my already fairly rich soil, a handful of blood meal around each plant when I transplant them, and my plants produce a lot of large fruit and lush leaves. Since establishing this routine, I’ve spoken with a lot of seed people and professional growers on the West Coast and they all agree. They all give extra nitrogen to their big bells and hybrids to make sure the peppers get off to a strong start. (Maybe most of the pepper information comes from East Coast growers, and it’s different there.) If you have very sandy soil or one unusually low in nitrogen, I would certainly add an organic source of nitrogen such as fish meal, blood meal, or chicken manure when transplanting your peppers.
Once the plants are growing well and the first fruits are set, most growers agree that all peppers need a supplemental fertilizing with nitrogen to assure a continual supply of healthy leaves. (See “Maintaining Your Peppers,” on page 24.) Experiment in your own garden and see how much nitrogen your peppers need. If your soil is already a very rich loam or otherwise high in nitrogen, then nitrogen fertilizer may not be needed. All in all, in my experience, I have found peppers to need more nitrogen than their cousins the tomatoes, which are infamous for not fruiting when overfed. The goal is to give your peppers enough nitrogen to have a good covering of healthy green leaves but not so much that you grow pepper “trees” with little or no fruit. For an even more in-depth discussion of the pros and cons of nitrogen for peppers, see “Nutritional Deficiencies” in Appendix B, page 99.
Potassium, and especially phosphorus, fertilizers work best when incorporated into the root zone. When you add them, sprinkle them evenly over the soil and incorporate them thoroughly by turning the soil over with a spade, working them, and any mineral and organic amendments, into the top 6 to 10 inches. Nitrogen fertilizers, on the other hand, quickly leach out of the root zone and into underground water sources. They are best sprinkled over the soil just before or after planting and lightly scratched into the surface.
Once all the amendments have been incorporated, grade and rake the area. You are now ready to form the beds and paths. Because of all the added materials, the beds will now be elevated above the paths—which further helps drainage. Slope the sides of the beds so that loose soil is not easily washed onto the paths. Some gardeners add a brick or wood edging to outline the beds. In addition, some sort of gravel, brick, stone, or mulch is needed on the paths to forestall weed growth and prevent your feet from getting wet and muddy.
Starting from Seed
Peppers need a long growing season—up to 120 days from seed to maturity for some varieties. The seeds must have warm soil in which to germinate, and seedlings need warm temperatures for growth. It is imperative in most regions to start your plants indoors and move them out into the garden only after the weather has warmed. Starting seeds inside also gives seedlings a safe start away from slugs, birds, and cutworms.
Start your seeds, in clean flats, peat pots, or other containers with drainage holes, eight to ten weeks before you plan to set them out in the garden. You do not want to transplant them before the soil is reliably