End of Harvest Pepper Lessons

Yesterday I harvested the last of my pepper plants, and it was truly the best harvest I have ever had of peppers.

Lessons:

First, I added a ton of the MiracleGro soil to each bed. When we started these raised beds, we felt very constrained financially, and purchased large dump truck loads of "planter's mix" from Pioneer. This was cheaper, but the soil has never been that great. Conversely, when we lived in Stetson Hills, we filled those beds with the MIracleGro and lots of sheep and peat, and after 8 years, it was black black black, and very fertile. This year I decided that our initial substrate purchase was the problem, and I will amend it heavily. So I did, and will continue to do so in the future because the results this year were PHENOMENAL. Previously, I had added a scoop of Jobe's Organic fertilizer, and I did this year as well. Conclusion: START WITH GREAT SOIL.

One thing that went poorly this year is the temperature. I planted my seedlings in May, because the temperature was never consistently warm before that. Even then, I had to run the heaters at night. So the growing season was short, and so so many of the peppers I planted were not ripe, and only a few had recently ripened. I need to start heating the greenhouses at the end of March and get the peppers going early!

Pollination is another piece I need to work on next year. The bees were very drawn to the tomatillo plant in the small greenhouse, but I rarely found them in the large greenhouse where the sweet peppers live. So I need some yellow high-nectar annuals to bring the bees further into the greenhouse and pollinate the peppers and tomatoes more effectively.

Back to heating, at the year's old recommendation of space heating expert Scott Keith, I am going to switch to infrared space heaters because they heat the objects in the space, which, in turn heats the air. This follows my theory of using the soil as a sponge for water and heat, to slowly leach water and heat into the plants. It definitely worked well at our place in Stetson Hills.