Don't Prune Your Peppers!

Finally, after 6 months, 72 plants, 4 raised beds, and 48 square feet of growing space, we can't finally put to rest whether or not every spring we should be pruning our pepper plants!

3-Part Pepper Growing Guide For All Skill Levels:

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#gardening #peppers #howto

[mickeyvanaudenhaege]

Here in South Africa, we have a habit of picking off the first flowers preventing them to fruit until the plants have tripled in size, this makes the plants stronger and flower much more yielding a higher harvest. this is especially the case with any of the hot peppers and chilies.

[johnambrogio]

I've been following your channel for awhile now, and would like to comment on the pruning of pepper plants. I've been gardening for over 45 years and not once have I pruned my pepper plants. I usually grow about 12 plants. Over the last winter I've wanted to get other gardeners thoughts on pruning. I decided that I would prune, like you, half of the pepper plants, and leave the other half not pruned. In all honestly I doubled my pepper production with the pruned plants then I did with the non-pruned plants, and the peppers were bigger then the non-pruned plants. I know there's a lot of controversy on the subject of pruning or not pruning but these were just my results. What I would like to do is, do this for 2-3 years and maybe I can get a better idea on which is the better for the plants. Thanks

[rafika]

In the past, I have pruned all of my peppers, but this year, my first in Florida, I forgot. I grew sweet bell peppers, jalapeños, lemon drops, hungarian finger peppers, and habaneros. They are now 7 feet tall, in pots, and overproducing like crazy. I have started to share them with neighbors and dehydrating the rest, we have so many. They outshone everything else in the garden.

[SirSkippy]

I figured this out through experiment last year with Bell, Habanero, Jalapeño, and Giant Marconi… The pruned Bell and Giant Marconi peppers took longer to first fruit harvest and they were considerably smaller than those plants that weren’t pruned. However, the Jalapeños and Habaneros that were pruned produced more peppers of the same size as the unpruned plants, despite the first fruit harvest being delayed about 3 weeks compared to the unpruned plants! Conclusion: Definitely don’t prune Bell peppers or Giant Marconi peppers, and pruning jalapeños and Habaneros definitely helps to produce more fruit of equal size despite a delayed first harvest! Hope this is helpful…

[nenemaria-cornfieldsgarden]

I'm glad to see someone talking about this and actually testing it out! I topped half mine this year as an experiment (only 20 plants) and their performance was much worse than the ones I left alone. It took too long for them to start fruiting. I was growing mostly small chilli peppers too. I'm in the UK with a short growing season for peppers (plus it doesn't get very hot here) and it's hard to get any kind to maturity. I certainly won't be doing it next year. I do wish people wouldn't give out blanket advise stating you 'must' do things as it doesn't take into account vastly different growing conditions.

[jimmcdowell]

Jeff, Qualitatively? Quantitatively? Once again, you rock! Keep ‘em comin’.

[HomeStudioBasics]

Love this video. Everything about it is nice and concise. It's short, sweet, to the point, very informative, has good B-Roll, has good text graphics, and has nice production quality. Plus I learned a lot! I'm an apt. gardener and giving peppers a try from saved seed. They are doing very well! I know I'm a bit late but this year is more about experimenting and any harvests would be a bonus. Keep up the great work man!

[andielliott]

I have finally been able to grow peppers that look like those in the grocery store! FINALLY!!! I did not prune my peppers.

[chiya]

I learned my lesson last year. Not for the same reason, but in northern climate where the season is very short, the pruned peppers never had a chance to reproduce before the season was over. It was an experiment for me anyways 🤷‍♂️

[harvestenthusiast]

Your video headline pulled me in! So glad you made this, thanks!

[christicovington]

I really appreciate how you make your videos. Not only are they extremely informative but they're also entertaining. Thank you for all your hard work and effort, and Much ❤️ from Nashville TN USA 🇺🇸 😀

[tanyaratti]

After having my kale for two seasons, 😲, i babied my last year’s bell pepper plant over winter and pruned it a little near spring…. This year it was flowering early, it doubled in size and produced huge peppers. Very exciting discovery.

[Steve]

I have three potted chili pepper plants. One was pruned early on. The other two weren't.

The two that weren't produce larger peppers that are a nice bright red color, while the pruned one produces smaller peppers that are more orange in color.

All the plants are doing well, but there's nothing like seeing those nice plump red peppers on the non-pruned plants! 🌶

[greygoosegranny]

I grew California wonders a couple years ago, unpruned, and they produced soooo many peppers I couldn't keep up with them. They produced right till frost. Thanks for this video. I won't be pruning them. Our growing season is too short to go meddling like that.

[Don-sxxv]

I watched one of your videos on tomato growing recently, I thought right on, of all the videos I watched I thought this is the one for me. I became the master in so much of a way that I continued on and pruned all my peppers too...Oh well I will know better next year. Plus instead of getting to caught up in too many strategies I am going to make The Ripe Tomato my default gardening channel...thanks man.

[joj]

Been looking forward to seeing the results of this… very interesting & so much information!! Thank you Jeff for taking the time. Really appreciated 🙏🏻

so glad the no prune did better. That will make things easier next year 👏🏻🥰

[ScottRussell-jvyv]

Thank you for taking the time to do this comparison

[JoeAugustAcoustic]

Extremely thorough yet direct to the point. Great job and thanks for taking some of the grief out of this decision, this is the first year I'm growing a lot of peppers and they are looking great 2 weeks after transplant but I've always been torn on whether to top or not. I still might experiment with a few anyway but I'll take your advise and let those babies grow!

[MichaelRei]

Thanks for weeding this out for us Jeff! This is invaluable information. The one benefit of pruning not discussed though is pruned plants need less support. Mine have the tendency to flop over when laden with fruit. But I’ll gladly take the time to support them better to get better quality fruit.

[charlesrussell]

It's astounding that you can get so many peppers from such small petite pepper plants.