Where do you grow your peppers?

[grenfell]

Let me just say this is an " out of curiosity " type of question rather than one seeking help.
I've done well with peppers this year. I think practically every seed i sowed germinated and all were started off in the house on south facing window cills . When they had started to grow some were left in the house , some transfered to the green house and some , largely because of space constraints , ended up outside. The ones in the house have performed really well and ihave peppers ranging from a very pale yellow through to purple . The outside ones have done decently too with some nice sized green peppers. Strangely the ones in the greenhouse have probably performed the worst with slower growth and smaller peppers. The ones in the open and the greenhouse have all been watered with rainwater. The indoor ones have had tap water ( running the hot tap and collecting the water before the heated water gets through a lot of the time) and also the dregs of the teapot.
Incidently how long do pepper plants last? I've one that started growing early last year , had a crop and then it flowered again so a second crop . I then chopped it off leaving something like a four inch stub and it regrew and cropped again. I trimmed it again and it's currently putting out new grow. Probably more of an experiment than anything else this one.

[jansman]

Glad you have had success. Down the years, I have had mixed results. I grow a few chillies to put in the freezer to last us the year. Ordinary peppers ( ‘Bell’ is too American), are not ( in my opinion) worth the effort and mollycoddling. My food garden is minimum effort, maximum return.

[Deeps]

We use peppers a fair bit but haven't grown them. Saying that, if they're cheap I buy them, dice them and dehydrate them, got a fair whack stuck away. We do grow chillies inside and they join their purchased amigos in the dehydrator when we have a suprlus, either through growing or buying the yellow labels.

[grenfell]

To be fair i don't tend to do much mollycoddling . Other than watering that's pretty much it , and the ones outside get even less as long as it rains every so often. It's one of the things i like about them , they pretty much look after themselves. Last year we pickled a fair few.

[D&DD]

I tend to grow mine in the greenhouse but had the same issue this year as many others with ripening! I did get a stonking good harvest though and my surplus which was left out to take its chances are still growing well so I will leave them be unless it gets really cold.
Some people actually overwinter theirs but I haven't the indoor space and I have so many seeds it hardly seems worth all the effort.
I tried the haircut method one year and did get much more manageable sized plants but I didn't really see an increase in yields.

[Arwen Thebard]

"The indoor ones have had tap water ( running the hot tap and collecting the water before the heated water gets through a lot of the time) and also the dregs of the teapot."

Now that is serious water saving measures grenfell, hats off to you mate.

Do you compost your tea bags or tea leaves?

[grenfell]

I will admit the one i pruned was the result of a comment on another forum . It's becoming an exercise to see just how long it can go on for. I have had three crops of it and it's shooting again now but i do tend to agree with you that it's hardly worth the effort . If every seed from even a small pepper germinated and cropped there'd be an awful !ot of peppers to eat.
I think what prompted the question was that the indoor and outdoor plants have done better than the greenhouse plants this year. One of those gardening odities i suppose.

[grenfell]

"The indoor ones have had tap water ( running the hot tap and collecting the water before the heated water gets through a lot of the time) and also the dregs of the teapot."

Now that is serious water saving measures grenfell, hats off to you mate.

Do you compost your tea bags or tea leaves?

Just to be even tighter the water or at least some of the water that goes down the kitchen plughole runs into a bucket ( it overflows down the drain) and i use that to flush the downstairs toilet , they're only about 8ft apart . On the flip side of that is that my wife was adamant that we were having a dishwasher when i did the kitchen so that's probably wiped out any good works although that is still in debate on the internet.
Yes i do compost the tea leaves when we use loose tea. With the bags i tend to dry them out and rip them open so just the tea goes on the compost . Reason for that is that tbe bags have a small plastic content and it just sort of irritated me picking it out of the ground each year. Hardly a big issue , just niggling to me. Of course drying out tea bags does lead to a certain amount of mickey taking from friends.

[jansman]

I got in touch with PG about their teabags. I was assured that they were replacing plastic ' formers' with corn starch. This year. I see no indication of that on the packaging,( if I were them ,I would be shouting from the rooftops).I am going to ask again...

[grenfell]

Be interesting to hear what they say . Musing of tea one thing that always makes me wonder is why loose tea is dearer than teabags . Is it better quality ? Do teabags get filled with the floor sweepings . Hmmm , sips his tea brewed with bags and wonders....