How to Prune Giant Pepper Plants, Fight Fungus Gnats and Grow Room Tips Alberta Urban Garden

Tips, Tricks

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What a fun filled episode! Much like the rest of you eagerly awaiting warm enough weather to plant outside our grow rooms and grow lights are over crowded. I had to move some of my plants upstairs into a window. The sun is more more powerful then the best grow light so I hardened all of my plants off. I spent a few days slowly allowing the plants to get more and more light. It is important to note when picking a window you want to select a South or Southwest facing window that gets 8 or more hours of direct sunlight. I make sure to turn each plant 1/4 every few days and keep a fan on in the room. Even with all of the great planting tips you may end up with pests like fungus gnats. With out their normal predators outside they can take over your house quickly. This year I got fungus gnats and they were everywhere. Fungus gnats are not harmful to your plants... I think. They feed on the fungus that is left on top of your soil. I am fighting them quite successfully three ways. the first is a drop of dawn soap when watering. the soap helps kill their eggs and keeps working. Sticky yellow tape is the second followed up by 2cm of crushed glass from the greenhouse. the glass keeps the adults from getting to the soil to feed and reproduce. I have been so impressed with my pepper pruning experiment ! The monsters have to be at least 60 - 75cm tall (roughly 2 feet) that said I want to continue to work on the internal structure to hold huge weight and then the root system. I have lovingly called my garden the Alberta Urban Garden. This channel is dedicated to Gardening and Brewing from our harvest. Please join us and join the conversation! Check us out on YouTube: www.albertaurbangarden.ca Google +: google.com/+StephenLegaree Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlbertaUrbanGarden Twitter: https://twitter.com/northern1485

Comments

I've found that by using the wine bottle/ soda bottle submersible plugs for watering and fertilizing it cuts down on the gnat population. Since the top of the soil drys out it is less likely to harbor the larvae . I also have a few lady bugs that are a hold over from the summer i don't know if they consume the larvae but the population is much less then prior years. I also have the sticky strips to catch any matured pests.

Fungus gnats outside r checked by predators and jst being able to spread out. But indoors, they can completely infest a potted plant and reproduce mad. Pretty harmless to strong healthy plants as they (larvae) don't feed on healthy roots but decaying matter. The best thing that worked for me is allowing soil to dry out more and completely covering the top layer of the soil with sand to prevent the adults from laying eggs. Make sure to get the coarser sand tho.

I'm glad I can just use my window. Seedlings look ok so far.

So what size/type of grow light did you use to get these monster peppers?! Surely you used something stronger than a standard shop light, right?

Discovering in person that fungus gnats are DEADLY to anything other than plants under the heading of "houseplants"... I thought that any plant grown indoors could be considered a houseplant, but they are not. Anything fruit or vegetable or "garden plant" is susceptible to gnats, it's stuff like ferns, sanservia & spider plants that the gnats are harmless to.
So far, ALL of my heirloom tomato seedlings have died, and 2 out of 3 beautiful pepper plants that I grew from seed about a year ago ... all dead thanks to fungus gnat larvae feeding on the roots. I had a huge tray full of heirloom tomato seedlings about 6 weeks ago, as well as 3 tomatoes I had grown from cuttings I took in the fall ... ALL DEAD. I am at my wits end over it and ready to chuck everything. I have tried everything to save the peppers, to no avail. The last one is barely hanging on. :(

hello. I was wondering how long you can keep a pepper plant for? I have a jalapeno plant I kept from last summer and it has begun to grow again, it hasn't been under any lights just the light from my south window. It reaches about 4 feet when it is in the greenhouse in the summer time and I have not had to buy any jalapenos all winter :D Hopefully my pruning didn't hurt it. Also I have noticed those white bumps on some its leaves as well, I remove them leaves. No idea what it is. Thanks for the tips eh.

Did you get info on those white things under your leaves? I get the same sometimes, on my hot chilli plant that grows upward chillies, have not seen the same on the superhots, just the one plant had those white things under the leaves, chillies where ok, hotter than i expected though, used them for my own strawberry and chilli hotsauce, very nice with a splash of tobasco.

What has happened to the peppers?

Oh my, you are a genius. Peppers on steroids! Never knew they ever grew that tall!

is Dawn soap preferred over other brands of dish soap? Is there a difference?

Looking good. I would be one to try to root the pruned parts just to save it LOL
Nice Job
Tim

Easy Way To Grow Peppers Indoors from +Stephen Legaree!

Thank You for the quality information man, I really enjoy what you're doing and how you're doing it. How does the crushed glass compare to Perelite or Vermiculite in performance, do you know? Looks a little easier to work with for sure.

#IndoorGarden #GardeningTips #Peppers

Wow amazing plants you have already! Thank you very much for the tips, I'm fairly new at growing pepper plants! :)

Does the glass work a 100%? On my gnat video I've had so much "advice" but not much works. But sand or powder of somekind sounds good to me. Oh and gnats will eat new roots on sprouts :/ I noticed this in my sprouter lol oh and did you try bringing an outdoor pepper indoor in Fall? I did it one with a chili and it produced over 250 peppers before Spring.

Great how you pruned those pepper plants, I learned that technique as well from Ray back in the day and I still use it today. It is amazing how the plants will change when you cut them back. It is like magic. Thanks for the video.

Between you and +Praxxus55712 I am convinced about pruning pepper plants. I started way to late this year but I think I will I take +Rob Bob suggestion of overwintering a couple for next year.

For the fungus gnat issue: get some mosquito dunks and break one up into your water before watering your plants. It contains a beneficial bacteria which will get into the stomach of the larva. This kills them within a few days. Water once a week like this; 3 times should do the trick.

great vid Stephen Fungus gnats are everyones problem lol so any tips on how to control them is helpful

Peppers look good, Stephen! A little apple cider vinegar in a small container placed on the soil next to the plant works pretty good for fungus gnats as well. I just subbed your channel!

My peppers get the leaf oedema too