Peppers, chillies are a must

It is worth making space in the vegetable garden to grow chillies and sweet peppers. For fans of chillies there is nothing nicer than being able to cultivate varieties that suit your taste for heat or flavour.

Sweet peppers are worth growing too because they tend to be high-priced items in the supermarket. Chillies have a stronger root system that makes them more resistant to over-watering, nutrient deficiencies, damping off and deformed fruit, caused by viruses, which can plague sweet peppers.

Five tips for sweet peppers

Don’t over-water and make sure the soil drains well. The soil should almost dry out in-between watering. For strong, bushy plants that bear more fruit remove the early flowers on plants less than 40cm high.  Once the plant starts to develop fruit it stops growing.

Keep plants free of aphids and thrips which bring viruses that deform the fruit. To do this, have a preventative spraying programme with organic insecticides like Ludwig’s Insect Spray.

If peppers develop cork-like stems or leathery fruit they have a boron deficiency. Buy borax from a pharmacy and use half of a one millilitre measuring spoon for baking in five litres of water and apply as a soil drench.

Don’t over-fertilise peppers. Too much nitrogen causes them to drop flowers.

What chillies like

Provide space for chillies to develop strong roots by preparing the soil to a depth of 40cm with plenty of compost for fertility and good drainage. In cooler areas capsicums can be planted in full sun but in hot areas, including the highveld, they do best with morning sun and afternoon shade.

The area should be sheltered from wind so that flowers are not blown off. Practise the just in time watering principle – if the soil feels damp, delay watering by another day. However, when the plants start to flower watch more frequently so they don’t wilt.

Pot culture

Capsicums often do better in pots. Place pots where they receive morning sun and afternoon shade.

Full sun for more than six hours a day is too hot. Because pots dry out faster, water pot peppers and chillies every day so that they don’t wilt and drop their flowers (which mean no fruit).

Fertilise once a month with a liquid fertiliser as nutrients leach out of pots faster than in the ground. Pick fruit continuously so the plant keeps producing more.

New varieties

Candy Cane is a sweet pepper that starts with green and white stripes and ends up red. The flesh is thin, crispy and sweet. Chocolate Beauty is a shiny green bell pepper ripening to a chocolate
brown and is very sweet. Mad Hatter looks like a three-cornered hat and has a sweet citrus-like tang that only gets hot towards the seeds. Black Hungarian is an heirloom pepper that is mild with a good flavour.

• Plants are available through garden centres and selected builders/hardware stores.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.