Small Bell Pepper: 6 Powerful Ways To Grow Bigger Bell Pepper
Are your bell pepper plant producing smaller bell peppers? Are you unhappy with the size of fruit from your bell pepper plant? Do not worry. You’re not the only one experiencing this alone. Many things can cause bell pepper plants to produce smaller fruits, most of them are environmental factors that can easily be resolved with manure and proper care of your pepper plant.
So, in this article, I’ll share with you the major reasons why your bell peppers are small and how to grow bigger ones.
1. Letting Your Bell Pepper Plant Fruit Very Early
The number one reason why most bell pepper produces small fruit during harvest is because they are allowed to fruit at the wrong time. Once your bell peppers plants try to produce fruit while they are too small, the result is always small pepper fruits.
You see, a lot of gardeners and farmers are too excited to make a harvest; because of this, instead of pinching off flowers from their bell pepper plant which are still too small for fruiting, they allow them to continue flowering and fruiting.
Many bell pepper plant start flowering very early. Because of these, we always advise farmers and gardeners to pick early flowers off of young plants. This way, the young bell pepper plant gets to focus on growing larger, first.
Besides letting your young bell pepper plant focus on growth, picking off early flowers allows the young pepper plant to grow more leaves as well as nodes from where more fruits can be produced.
Here Are 7 Simple Tips to Stop Your Young Pepper Plant from Flowering Too Early and Producing Small Peppers:
- Transplant at the right time.
- Don’t grow your bell pepper plantin small containers.
- Use larger containers with more soil.
- Do not interrupt the root system of your bell pepper plant.
- Pluck early flower buds.
- Do not allow your young bell plantto flower while they are young.
- Remove the early flower buds and encourage more foliage growth
2. Too Much Bell Pepper Fruit On a Bell Pepper Plant
Too much pepper fruit on one bell pepper plant is another reason why your bell pepper fruits are so small. Many gardeners or farmers think because their bell pepper plant are large, allowing too many peppers to grow on the plant at one time is the right thing to do. But that’s the wrong way to think. Regardless of how big your bell pepper plant is; you should learn to cut down on the load as it can only support a small number of full-sized pepper fruits at any given time.
At most, a full-blown large bell pepper plant can carry 4 to 9 full-size bell peppers growing on them.So, once you achieve this number, you should work on cutting down the load by removing the extra bell pepper fruits.
Here Are 3 Simple Tips to Solve the Problem of Too Much Bell Pepper Fruit On a Bell Pepper Plant:
- Cut down the load of bell pepper fruit on your plant
- Allow only 4 to 9 full sized bell pepper fruit on per plant
- Stake or provide support your bell pepper plant to carry available load effortlessly
3. Lack of Manure or Nutrient
Bell Pepper plant requires a lot of manure and rich nutrients to perform optimally and also produce good fruits. Once you can provide a nutrient filled rich soil for your bell pepper plant, your problem is half solved. So, we advise you to enrich the soil during land preparation that is if you are growing into the soil directly. If you are using raised beds, plastics, grow bags or containers, you are also expected to fill them up with rich soils, maintain the nutrient by steadily applying manure and fertilizers where and when necessary as your bell pepper plant grows.
Towards the maturity stage of your bell peppers, it is advisable you apply more potassium and phosphorus filled fertilizers and plant food than nitrogen filled ones. This is important because at this stage, you bell pepper plant requires these two nutrient for better production of big sized bell pepper fruits. While the reduction in Nitrogen will always signal your bell pepper plant that it is time to stop growing and focus its energy and resources in flowering and bearing more fruits.
Here Are 6 Simple Tips to Solve the Problem of Lack of Manure or Nutrient:
- Start off your bell pepper seed on a rich soil
- Enrich your soil during land preparation
- Fill up your containers, raised bed and grow bags with nutrient rich soil
- Apply manure and fertilizer steadily at intervals as your pepper grows
- Towards maturity, reduce application of nitrogen filled manure or fertilizer
- Apply more of potassium and phosphorus filled fertilizers and plant food
4. Disease or Pest Problem among Bell Peppers
Peppers suffer from a lot of pest, diseases, fungi etc and bell pepper is not an exception. These pests, diseases and fungi can totally destroy your farmer if care is not taken. So, as a gardener or farmer, you should know these pests, diseases and fungi and most importantly you should know how to prevent or treat them once sighted in your farm or garden.
5 Tips to Solve the Problem of Disease or Pest among Bell Peppers:
- Pick a pest or disease resistant bell pepper variety. Check our store here.
- Detect pest or disease early
- Find the right pest control or solution
- Apply found solution to affected bell pepper plant
- Separate unaffected plant form the affected ones if you grew your pepper in sack or grow bag
5. Poor or Inconsistent Watering of Bell Pepper Plant
The importance of water in bell pepper farming and by extension other type of farming or gardening can never be over estimated. Water is an important factor in seed starting, growth and harvest. While proper watering of plant has become a popular gospel among farmers and gardeners many of them still over water and under water their crops.
In pepper farming, especially bell pepper farming, knowing the right amount of water to apply is important and doing it consistently is of utmost importance. Pepper plant do not like swampy, damps or water log soil. So, avoid getting them started as a seed in swampy areas or soil.
While on that, please do not also allow your bell pepper plant to dry out. Keep your soil moist and water at intervals.
Here Are 6 Simple Tips to Solve the Problem of Poor or Inconsistent Watering of Bell Pepper Plant:
- Keep your soil moist always
- Water appropriately
- Water your pepper consistently
- Avoid over watering
- Avoid under watering.
- Do not allow drought among your pepper before you water them
How Do I Know If My Peppers Need Water?
Pepper plants do not need much water to do well. They simply need moist soil to grow and thrive. So, once your soil is not moist or becomes dry, your pepper plant needs water. To determine the moistness of your soil, simply dip your index finger into the soil and if it feels dry, your pepper plant needs water.
Signs That Your Pepper Plant Suffers From Little Watering
Here are some signs you will see which can help you determine if your soil is suffering from lack of water. However, you must note that by the time you start seeing this signs, your bell pepper plant must have been greatly affected.
- Pepper leave start wilting
- Pepper leaves turns yellow
- Pepper leaves shrinks
- Pepper flowers start falling off
6. Change in Humidity and Temperature of Bell Pepper
Change in humidity or temperature doesn’t just affect the yield or size of your bell pepper it also affects it growth and can even lead to the death of your crop. So, to solve the problem of the size of your bell peppers, temperature is one thing you must pay attention to.
Warm weather are pepper most preferred weather or temperature. Cold weather always has a negative impact on peppers. Once they weather around your farm or peppers are often cold, it triggers your pepper plant to start flowering and bearing fruit without attending full growth and maturity.
Cold weather, if not well managed can also attract pest, diseases, and fungi which will likely lead to stunted growth, poor produce and probably death of your plant.
Final Thought:
If you can fully eliminate these causes of small size pepper from your farm or garden, I believe you will be able to grow and harvest big size bell pepper and not just that, you will experience a bountiful harvest than your previous planting season. Check out this article to learn 7 Simple tips to grow bell peppers in containers in 2024.
And also join our fast growing farmers community here: Brilliant Tech Farmers Hub.
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In 2018, I made a whole lot of mistake trying to grow bell peppers in containers from my home. This mistakes, led to the lost of many of my seeds and caused my seedling to die. Why did this happened? Very simple; it was because i had little knowlegde in growing pepper. I did not only lost money, I also lost time and effort. However, after experimenting for years, I have come to learn what works and what doesnt. These tips which I use, are what I will be sharing with you today.
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