Chili pepper: growing at home on a windowsill or balcony

Hot chili pepper is not just a spice that is often used during the preparation of meat dishes, but also quite a beautiful plant. Many vegetable growers are engaged in planting it. Most often they try to grow hot peppers on the windowsill. Some carry out the cultivation of pepper on the balcony. It is not so easy to grow bell pepper at home on your own. Therefore, it is recommended that you familiarize yourself in advance with how to grow hot peppers on the windowsill and how to care for chili peppers.

The best varieties for home

Before you grow hot peppers from seeds at home, you need to decide on the best peppers for this. There are several low-growing varieties that are ideal for growing chili at home in a pot.

Treasure Island

Most often it is bought for growing at home on the window. It has an average fruit ripening time. The first crop of the variety can be harvested 110 days after planting the seeds in pots. Grown fruits are heart-shaped and red in color with an orange tint. They are not very big as their average weight is 60-80 grams.

gift from Moldova

Many vegetable growers grow this chili at home. It will not suit lovers of an early harvest, since the first peppers will begin to sing only 140 days after planting. During the cultivation of the variety on the bushes, rather large fruits of a dark red color are formed. The mass of each of them is approximately 80-100 grams. Their distinctive feature is the taste, in which there is bitterness mixed with a slight sweetness.

Watercolor

This sweet pepper grows well on the windowsill or on the balcony. The fruits of the variety will fully ripen 110 days after sowing the seeds. They are distinguished by a cone-shaped shape and a scarlet color of the peel. The size of the watercolor fruit is very small, as the weight of each of them rarely exceeds 30 grams.

Dwarf

Quite often, a variety is purchased to grow chili peppers on a windowsill. A distinctive feature of the variety can be considered its fruits. They are cone-shaped and very fleshy. The dwarf belongs to the mid-season varieties of peppers and ripens 100 days after the appearance of the first shoots.

Siberian firstborn

This red pepper grows well not only on the balcony, but also on the street. The fruits of the variety differ in their size and weight. Each pepper weighs at least 100 grams. All ripe fruits are bright red.

Preparation of seeds

Growing bell pepper at home begins with the preliminary preparation of planting material. Only pre-prepared seeds can give a good harvest.

Calibration

To correctly select the highest quality seeds, you should do their calibration. First, all seeds must be spread out on a flat surface and small seeds should be discarded. Medium sized seeds are recommended.

During the calibration, you will have to use saline solution. Chili pepper seeds should not be empty and therefore they should be dipped for 5-10 minutes in a solution made from 40 grams of s alt and a liter of heated water. Well-growing seeds will remain at the bottom of the container, and defective seeds will immediately rise to the surface.

Decontamination

Before growing chili peppers in an apartment, it is recommended to disinfect all seed. If this is not done, then the probability of infection of the plant with a particular disease increases several times. For the treatment of seeds, a solution prepared from manganese is often used.

Seeds are placed in a container with a solution for 20-40 minutes, after which they will need to be washed with warm water and dried thoroughly.

Also, hot peppers can be treated with phytosporin. To prepare the solution, no more than four drops of the drug are added to a glass of water. In such a liquid, the seeds should be soaked for no more than 20 minutes.

Preparing the soil

Growing hot peppers at home should be carried out in pre-prepared soil.Therefore, before planting a plant, you should familiarize yourself with the basic recommendations for preparing planting soil. It is recommended to plant peppers in special purchased soil, which is best suited for growing sweet peppers on a windowsill. Such soil contains the necessary amount of trace elements that pepper bushes need.

Many inexperienced vegetable growers are wondering if it is possible to prepare the soil for growing on their own. It is definitely possible, and some gardeners prefer to prepare it on their own. To do this, you can use ordinary garden soil. However, it will have to be soaked in advance with a manganese solution and poured with heated water. After that, you can start preparing the planting soil mixture. For this you will need:

• two pieces of sod land;
• a piece of finely sifted sand;
• part of the humus.

Growing hot pepper is best done in soddy soil, which is taken from the place where meadow clover was grown. Also, during the preparation of the soil mixture, you can add a few tablespoons of ash to it. Often it is used to lower the level of acidity of the earth. Sometimes special hydrogels are added to the soil. They are used to make the soil more airy and loose.

Planting

To figure out how to grow pepper on a balcony, you definitely need to familiarize yourself with the features of its planting. At home on the windowsill, cultivation should be carried out in small peat pots. Prepared planting soil is added to the container in advance. Then small holes are made in it for planting seeds.

At the same time, the distance between plantings should be at least 5 cm.

No more than two seeds sit in each pot.In order for the seeds to grow better, the grown pepper is covered with a polyethylene film and transferred to a warm room. Growing from seed is a rather lengthy process, as seedlings begin to appear only after a few weeks. When the bell pepper begins to sprout on the balcony, several holes will have to be made in the film. Over time, it will be possible to get rid of it.

Picking

Before you grow a sweet pepper, you have to pick it. This procedure is carried out when young seedlings become cramped in small peat pots. Indeed, over time, the root system begins to actively develop and for this it will need more free space. After picking, the roots hold the soil ball better and become several times stronger. Also, this process has a positive effect on productivity.

Step by step picking is performed as follows:

• one day before the procedure, the ground in containers will need to be filled with warm water;
• in the container for transplantation, you need to make a small indentation in the very center in advance;
• a few hours before picking, the soil near the sprouts is wetted with water;
• pull out young seedlings from peat pots very carefully so as not to damage the root system;
• when the plant is removed from the pot, the root will have to be shortened by a third;
• seedlings are carefully placed in a new pot so that their leaves are above the ground and the roots do not bend;
• after transplanting, compact the soil around the seedlings;
• transplanted bushes should be watered with heated water.

Features of care

Growing sweet peppers at home must be accompanied by proper care.

Pollination

To get a good harvest, you need to know how to pollinate peppers at home. Pollination is recommended to be done when the petals of the plant are lowered down. If they are not curved, then pollination is not worth it.

Peppers are pollinated in various ways. Quite often this is done with a regular dentifrice brush. It must be brought very close to the inflorescence and touch it a little. This will be enough for pollination to occur.

Irrigation

Young bushes need regular moistening of the earth and therefore it is worth watering them periodically so that the pepper is not very bitter. It is worth seriously watering a week after transplanting the grown seedlings.If the bushes are grown in the loggia, then they will have to be watered at least once a week. In the summer, you will have to do this more often, as the air temperature will rise and the soil will dry out faster. In this case, you will have to do this 2-3 times a week.

During watering, do not use too cold water, as it can damage the bushes. Therefore, it is recommended to preheat it on a gas stove or in the sun.

Feeding

During cultivation, bushes may pick up certain mineral elements. Therefore, you need to periodically feed the soil. To understand what exactly the seedlings are missing, it is recommended to carefully monitor the condition of their leaves:

• a dry crust appears on the edges of the leaves, and they begin to curl - insufficient amount of potassium (a little potassium nitrate or potassium sulfate should be added to the soil);
• the color of the leaves becomes dull - this indicates an insufficient amount of nitrogen (ammonium nitrate is added to the ground, which is a third of nitrogen);
• leaves begin to stretch upwards, and their color turns purple - lack of phosphorus (phosphoric acid will have to be added to the soil);
• the crown of the leaves becomes marble - insufficient amount of magnesium (to solve the problem, the soil is fed with magnesium sulfate).

During fertilizing, it is not recommended to add potassium chloride or potassium s alt to the ground. Their use can adversely affect the he alth of the root system.

Conclusion

Everyone can grow chili peppers at home. To do this, you will have to familiarize yourself with some recommendations for planting this plant in advance. You can also search for a video that will describe in detail the cultivation and care of bell peppers at home.

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