Need help with growing a chile plant indoors

High Cheese

Saucier
I have this chile plant, Georgian Flame for the DW since she's from Georgia, anyway I bought a pack of seeds but can't grow them for squat! They grow so slow I only get one or two most deliscious chiles and that's it. So this year I dug it up and brought it indoors. I have a grow bulb on it like 12 hours a day and water it with some plant food.

Nothing, just stays green.
 

SilverSage

Resident Crone
What part of the country are you in? Maybe you can leave the pot outside in the summer, and bring it inside each winter. Closer to simulating a southern climate.
 

High Cheese

Saucier
I'm in Jersey. I grow the plant initially outdoors, but it grows so slow that by October I only have 2 peppers. So I brought it inside this year (potted) to try to keep it going. I've been trying for 3 years now.

IDK, maybe I need to PHD my soil or whatever. :unsure:
 

High Cheese

Saucier
Oh, it doesn't like "potting soil" so when I dug it up I potted it with dirt from my garden in hopes that it would like it.
 

QSis

Grill Master
Staff member
Gold Site Supporter
Well, if the plant flowers, you will have to pollinate them yourself, right? Not sure how to do that. I think it involves Q-tips.

Can you start the seeds indoors a lot earlier next year?

Lee
 

ChowderMan

Pizza Chef
Super Site Supporter
hc -

there's something amiss. Georgia Flame is cited as 90 days to maturity and also noted as a heavy producer.....

pepper don't have any extraordinary requirements - constant even moisture (heavy mulch helps with that) - if your tomatoes are okay, peppers should also do well.

this year was a bummer - I got large plants, lots of blossoms, but with the heat wave not many flowers pollinated - our yield was spectacularly unimpressive....

indoor growing: will probably require a _lot_ more light/sun than a "grow bulb" for success.
 

High Cheese

Saucier
Yeah, tomatoes are fine in my garden. Bell peppers not so good and chile peppers are so-so depending on species.

I've tried for 3 years with no luck on these. Maybe a bagged treated soil?
 

Leni

New member
You can buy soil test kits at your local nursery. Rather than a grow bulb, do you have a nice sunny window that you can put the plant in? Use a plant stand if necessary. How often are you fertilizing the pepper? What kind of fertilizer are you using? Check the analysis on the container. You do not want high nitrogen because you'll get lots of leaves but no fruit. That's the first number. The second number is for flowers and fruit. You want that number to be high. The third one is for roots and stems.

Since the plant is indoors you'll need to hand pollinate the flowers. I use a small paint brush and touch each flowers stamens. This is best done in the morning when the pollen is fresh. By the way, I have found that the peppers that grow here during the winter do not have the heat nor quite the flavor that they do during the hot summer.
 

High Cheese

Saucier
Great info! I didn't know about the numbers. If I transplant it into a smaller container I could leave it on my counter in the kitchen. There's a big window that gets southern exposure.

The plant is just not growing at all. Maybe a teeny bit since I've been moving it in and out because of the nice weather. I forget the fertilizer brand, comes in a green container that looks like it's for maple syrup. I'll post it later.
 

bigjim

Mess Cook
Super Site Supporter
My experience with chili peppers is that the best ones come from soil that is dry and sandy. I would guess that the plant doesn't like wet feet. You might try mixing half sand and with potting soil. I would not overdo the fertilizer or the water.
 

Leni

New member
Any time that you are growing a plant it helps to know where it originally came from and what the conditions are there.

If you put the pepper into a smaller pot you may have to trim the roots a bit. If so then be sure to trim the plant itself to keep the roots and leaves in balance. If you don't trim the plant after triming the root ball the plant will wilt because there is not enough root to support the leaves. It may not bloom or set fruit until things are back in balance.
 

High Cheese

Saucier
I'm getting a couple blossoms on it now. The food I'm using is Bonnie herb & vegetable plant food.

How do you pollinate it?
 

Leni

New member
I use an artists paint brush but a Q tip will also work. For that matter your finger will also transfer the pollon. Just touch the tips of the stamens and go back and forth a few times. I'm not familar with that brand of fertilizer but it sounds good since it's formulated for vegetables. Is this the first time that you've had flowers when the plant has been indoors?

Plants like to 'eat' on a regular basis just like we do. Personally I use a quarter strength solution of fertilizer each time I water my house plants.
 

High Cheese

Saucier
What do I do with the Q-tip? The numbers on the plant food is 8-4-4. Yes, first time for flowers indoors. Is it becoming aclimated?
 

Leni

New member
Just touch the tip of the Q tip to the stamens and touch each flowers stamens back and forth. The idea is to exchange the pollen between the flowers. You are doing what a bee would do if the plant was outside.
 

Leni

New member
I'd touch each flower, first one then another. The older flowers should already be pollinated but it never hurts to be sure. Just be gentle. You don't want to damage the flower or the stamens. The stamens carry the pollen down to the ovaries which will then produce the pepper.
 

BamsBBQ

Ni pedo
Site Supporter
peppers are self pollinating so you really dont need to play with the plant.if your worried about them pollinating, just let a fan blow across them gently.

peppers can be kept for several years and will keep producing fruit.

what kind of light do you have?

growing indoors is tricky, for the vegetative state i would use a metal halide light or fluorescent daytime bulb.

for flowering & fruiting i switch to an HPS(high pressure sodium)

look up at your city street light, if its white thats a metal halide light, if its orange thats HPS..

you can do a whole grow on HPS though. Metal Halide

http://www.growing-peppers.com/growing_peppers_indoors.html

heres where i usually go for all my pepper info needed

http://www.thehotpepper.com/
 

Leni

New member
The thought went through my head that they might be self pollenating but I didn't look it up. That's for the info and the website.
 

High Cheese

Saucier
There's 2 blossoms on there, one was dusty with pollen and the other was clean. I did the q-tip thing.

Can I just add regular play sand to the soil? Can I add it now or should I wait?
 

High Cheese

Saucier
ok...I've been getting some blossoms and some have just fallen off. I also noticed something was eating the leaves. So today I brought it outside and found some sort of aphid? I trimmed off all the majorly damaged foliage, some had liitle specks underneath and one had some sort of cocoon.

Sucks.......

Aphid.jpg
 

Leni

New member
I'm not familiar with that bug. You can just wash the leaves with warm water and a gentle soap. Check the underside of the leaves carefully because that's where they like to hide. Your local nursery probably has something that you can use to get ride of the pests. Just be sure to specify that the plant is indoors and is a pepper plant.
 

Mr. Green Jeans

New member
If I can weigh in here Cheese:
First if you have a window with a good unobstructed southern exposure, that would be a better location for your pepper plant than any artificial light. If not, then the grow light will have to do but you do not get the foot candles that even occur on a cloudy winter day. Once we get into February, start increasing the day length to greater than 12 hours. Long days stimulate flowering. Go easy with fertilizer applications to any plants indoors for the winter as they are in a very reduced rate of growth and really do not need much. Same goes for watering, most indoor plants are killed due to over watering.
 

Leni

New member
Boy, that aphid sure looks different from the ones I see here. They don't have all those projections.

Whenever you bring a plant indoors you really do need to give it a very carful going over. You're not just looking for bugs but also their eggs.
 

High Cheese

Saucier
Thanks everyone.

I sprayed it with some of that hotsauce/soap mixture yesterday. Therre's 3 blossoms on there that I q-tipped. There were about 7 blossoms but like I said, they just fell off.
 

Leni

New member
An aphid is a sucking insect. They would not be putting holes in the leaves. Hopefully the spray will take care of everything but you still might want to look for another insect or caterpiller.
 
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