Hot pepper: outdoor cultivation, planting and care with photo and video

Growing hot peppers outdoors is not an easy task. A heat-loving plant requires a delicate approach and painfully reacts to any changes in climatic conditions. In addition, juicy and sweet hot pepper shoots are a favorite delicacy for various insects.

How to grow strong and beautiful shoots, and then harvest a decent harvest from them. Let's figure out what you need to know and how to properly care for hot peppers.

How to choose a variety

The process of selecting seeds for planting should be taken seriously. The main selection criteria are as follows.

1. Maturing time is the most important parameter. The vegetative period of most varieties is 4-5 months, and the duration of summer may not be enough for the development of the crop. You need to first obtain data on the duration of the summer period with a favorable average temperature for pepper in your area. Then correlate with the duration of maturation of a particular variety. Most likely, you will need to purchase an early ripe variety and plant it with seedlings.
2. Resistance to viruses, low light and temperature extremes is an important characteristic of the variety. The fact is that pepper does not tolerate a sharp change in temperature and may die. In addition, pests also love to feast on chili peppers, in particular, aphids love it. Plants with weak resistance will be weakened by constant attacks of parasites and will not be able to produce crops in the garden on time.
3. Degree of fruit bitterness and yield are consumer properties of the crop.The Scoville scale should be used to avoid poisoning by spicy inoculation. According to this parameter, the fruits vary from slightly burning to burning according to the presence of the substance capsaicin in them, which is responsible for the sharpness of taste. The yield allows you to plan the expected volume of product from the sown area.

If you correctly take into account the above parameters, you can choose the best variety for growing in the country.

Important! The duration of the growing season for most varieties of pepper is 4-5 months.

Suitable varieties

Despite the fact that there are many varieties of hot pepper, the following varieties are most popular with gardeners.

1. One of the most popular hybrids - Astrakhan 147. This variety is resistant to diseases and vagaries of the weather. Oriented to the southern regions, the growing season is 4 months. The bushes are medium in size, the yield is above average. Peppers have an attractive elongated shape and moderate heat.
2. Yellow Hungarian is one of the most sought after species in the world. The variety ripens in 4 months, resistant to diseases. Feature is resistance to top rot. The bushes are compact in size, look good both in the beds and in the flower beds. The fruits have a characteristic yellow color and an elongated shape. Tastes juicy with medium spiciness.
3. Danube hot pepper is grown outdoors and is widely known for its high yield. Stability allows him to fight both diseases and climate changes, drought. The growing season is 3.5 months, which allows you to get a crop even in a temperate climate. A feature of bitter pepper when grown is the height of the bushes, which is more than 1 meter.The fruits are large, elongated, red or green in color.
4. Impala variety is a hybrid specially created for difficult climatic conditions. It is distinguished by an extremely short ripening period, just over 2 months. Planting and caring for the variety is easier due to its high resistance to various diseases, including the tobacco mosaic virus. It is also distinguished by a balanced spicy taste and an elongated, elegant fruit shape.
5. Ukrainian chili is extremely popular with summer residents. It is highly resistant to most known diseases and viruses. The growing season is 4 months. The yield reaches 1.5 kg per 1 square meter of crops. Loves the sun, does not grow in the shade. Planted seedlings withstand a sharp change in temperature.

The choice when buying should not be limited to the given varieties. Knowing the criteria, you can independently choose good plants for your site.

How to plant correctly

Because chili peppers love warmth, in temperate climates they often do not have enough time to produce their crops. Therefore, it should be planted in open ground with the help of seedlings. The following steps are in progress.

1. First, the seeds must be germinated at a temperature of at least 25 degrees. To do this, they are wrapped in wet gauze and cleaned in heat for 7 days. This must be done no later than the beginning of March.
2. Next, you need to prepare boxes with soil filler, in which seedlings will then be grown. Below is a drainage mass, consisting of fragments of brick, expanded clay rock or polystyrene. The components are mixed. The next layer is a layer of turf with compost and the addition of sand. Before forming plantings, it is better to disinfect the soil. The surface needs to be leveled and tamped a little, fertilize.Then make indentations in it for planting seeds of about 1 cm. At what distance to plant is determined individually, but the distance is more than 5 cm.
3. Sprouted seeds are placed in the ground and irrigated with water. The containers must be covered with a transparent film and placed in a warm place so that the culture can form the first shoots. When sprouts begin to appear on the surface, the containers must be transferred to a well-lit place and the film removed from the surface.
4. When the plants have leaves on the stems, the shoots dive. To do this, carefully pull out the stems with a knife blade, trying to damage the root as little as possible. Then it is planted in peat pots. Plants can be watered with settled heated water.
5. Transplantation of pepper in open ground is carried out after 2 months of cultivation in peat pots. First you need to check if the pepper is ready for the street, for this you need to put a couple of bushes on the windowsill and see how they react to temperature.Then we plant the contents of the pots in the ground.

In order for the formation of bitter pepper to be successful, it must be constantly looked after. Culture requires frequent watering. It is also important to regularly loosen the soil at the roots and remove weeds. Before planting hot peppers, you need to feed the soil with fertilizers.

When planting sweet and bitter varieties of pepper close to each other, cross-pollination can occur, the taste of the fruit changes.

Caring for outdoor peppers

Proper care of hot peppers is the key to a good harvest. The following guidelines should be followed.

1. Monitor soil moisture. Ideally, it should be moderately moist.Caring for hot peppers includes careful watering. It is not recommended to overdry, but it is also impossible to fill in. Lack of moisture leads to degeneration of the size and shape of the fruit. The stems lose their flexibility, become brittle in the place where they were planted. Watering is preferably carried out with warm water.
2. Ensure good illumination of crops. Planting vegetables is best done on the south side of the site. It is important to ensure that the plants are well lit throughout the day and do not fall into the shade. In low light, the stems are stretched. The plant weakens, begins to lose side shoots.
3. Care in compliance with the temperature regime. It is important to understand that the development of a pepper culture stops at 13 degrees, and when the temperature drops to 0 degrees, the plant dies. In climatic zones, where temperature drops are tens of degrees in a short time, ovaries and buds often die off. Heat is also dangerous for crops Care in the open field at temperatures over 25 degrees suggests shading crops.In order to preserve the crop in conditions of unfavorable temperatures, crops must be covered with foil or special tunnels should be used.
4. As the chili grows, it stretches. To reduce the load on the trunk, garters are used. To do this, a stick is stuck into the soil along the height of the plant, to which the stem is tied with a rope.
5. Kopping allows you to ensure the correct proportions of the plant and increase the yield when growing hot peppers in the open field. Pinch the stem if it grows above 25 centimeters. Side shoots are also removed, leaving only the 5 strongest. In addition, the first flower should be cut off so that the plant spends energy on the formation of a bush, and not a fruit.

Proper cultivation and care of peppers is quite labor-intensive. But without this, you won’t get beautiful and juicy fruits that you can not only enjoy yourself, but also treat your friends.

Helpful tips

1. You can grow hot peppers if you listen to the recommendations of experienced gardeners. It is advisable to follow these steps to ensure good growth and yield.
2. It is important to feed the crop with the right fertilizers. Before flowering, preparations containing nitrogen are added to the soil. After the flowers appear, they are fed with phosphorus and potassium supplements.
3. A feature of the simultaneous planting of sweet and bitter peppers in one area is cross-pollination. So, if you plant two crops side by side, then the fruits of sweet pepper will become bitter in taste. In order to avoid this, crops are planted further. Additionally, other plants are planted between the beds. You can also plant sweet and hot peppers on different sides of the house.
4. Cultivation rules dictate that you need to collect not soft, but hardened peppers. Fruits with a soft texture are immature and are harvested for growing hot peppers, not for consumption.
5. Pick the fruits of chili peppers should be together with the stalk. Then they need to be stored in a dry place at a temperature of about 20 degrees. Then the pepper will ripen and its taste will improve significantly.

If you follow the above tips, you can both grow hot peppers for yourself and for sale, because the rules will help you avoid annoying mistakes that lead to crop loss.

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