The SFG journey-pepper plants growing beyond containment cage

Looking for ideas of containing peppers plants when they grow beyond the containment cage. Pictures are helpful. A storm came through breaking several stems.

is anyone else having this problem? Sanderson, you're harvesting many peppers, are you're plants extending way past the containment area?

has55 wrote:is anyone else having this problem? Sanderson, you're harvesting many peppers, are you're plants extending way past the containment area?

Every year!  I plant the Bell, Banana, and Jalapeno peppers at one per square. They proceed to grow 3' tall and 2' wide. I just let them grow...

My problem probably exist because I have a longer summer. My plants easily get 5-6 ft tall. As you can see they have surpass two feet and it just July 4th. I just been putting up with the breakage till this year and wanted to see what ideas are out there to address it. By the way Happy Independence Day.

has55 wrote: I just been putting up with the breakage till this year and wanted to see what ideas are out there to address it.

Breakage is one problem I seldom experience with the pepper plants.  When I transplant them to the garden, I pinch out the top of the plant to force them to branch out instead of growing straight up. Then with them planted so close in the one-per-square pattern, they grow into each other and support one another. I put a small fence around the outside of the bed to keep them from falling over the edge of the bed. The plants grow together so well that the high winds we get - typically 40 to 50 mph - during storms doesn't bother them very much.

has55, if in cages, I use a piece of wire to make a half loop with two hooks, so I can hook around an escaped branch and give it support. I hope you get the idea because this is where I am suppose to say, patent pending. I learned the hard way because the first time I grew peppers way back when, a younger brother had grown some before so I asked him if he stacked or caged his pepper plants. Oh no he said. Well, when the got laden with fruit the wind kicked up and knocked them all over breaking half the main stems just above ground level. When I told my brother, he said he didn't have a problem with wind because he had stockade fencing all around. Sometimes you learn the hard way and you don't always get the benefit of beginner's luck. If you can't picture the piece of wire bent with two hooks and half a loop, I will take a picture and post later. The two hooks just hook into one of the horizontal circular wires on the cage.

Dan, please post pictures when you can. Thank you.

OG, they don't break when they are touching each other. I'm having trouble when they extend pass the cages and are not touching the other plants for support.

has55 wrote:OG, they don't break when they are touching each other. I'm having trouble when they extend pass the cages and are not touching the other plants for support.

No, they intertwine leaves between the plants and support each other very well. As long as I pinch the tops out to force them to be bushy instead of tall, the stems are very strong and don't break easily.

OhioGardener wrote:

has55 wrote:OG, they don't break when they are touching each other. I'm having trouble when they extend pass the cages and are not touching the other plants for support.

No, they intertwine leaves between the plants and support each other very well. As long as I pinch the tops out to force them to be bushy instead of tall, the stems are very strong and don't break easily.

oh , that's the secret. should I take the leaf trimmer and top it off?

has55 wrote:

OhioGardener wrote:

has55 wrote:OG, they don't break when they are touching each other. I'm having trouble when they extend pass the cages and are not touching the other plants for support.

No, they intertwine leaves between the plants and support each other very well. As long as I pinch the tops out to force them to be bushy instead of tall, the stems are very strong and don't break easily.

oh , that's the secret. should I take the leaf trimmer and top it off?

Hmmmmmm...........  Probably not.  When the pepper plants are young, with 3 or 4 sets of true leaves I pinch the top out and force the plant to send out 2 new stems at the top leaf joints. While it is doing that, the main stem grows thicker and stronger. Then the new shoots begin the plant bushing out rather than going straight up.  This is much like picking suckers off tomato plants so it focuses on developing strong roots and setting fruit instead of all plant.

thank you, live and learn.

You mentioned your pruning tomatoes. can you mention a little bit more about how you do it? do you do it to the whole time it’s growing or do you stop at a certain time or do you start at a certain point?

has55 wrote:You mentioned your pruning tomatoes. can you mention a little bit more about how you do it? do you do it to the whole time it’s growing or do you stop at a certain time or do you start at a certain point?

I do a lot of pruning on tomatoes, starting from when they are transplanted into the garden. I begin by pruning off any of the bottom leaves that touch, or come close to touching the soil - this greatly reduces the plant picking up disease from the soil. I only grow indeterminate tomatoes, and I grow them in the Texas Tomato Cages which are 20" diameter and 8' tall.  I pick off all suckers as they develop until the plant starts the first bloom stems. Then I let the plant grow, and keep putting the growth inside the cage. The only pruning I do then is cutting off bottom leaves as they begin drying up in order to keep the airflow open.

has55, here are the pictures. The wire I used is quite heavy 10 gauge aluminum as we had a construction boom here around the turn of the millennium and Sunday mornings I would go dumpster diving with one or a couple of my brothers. Make you cry what got thrown away. Here are the  pictures. I hope my explanation makes sense now. Oh yeah, patent pending.

I think I got it. do you have any peppers using this process yet?

Clever invention.

The 2' x 7' pepper and eggplant bed as of today.  The plants are 4' tall and touching the shade cloth.  I need to add another paracord support to lift up the shade cloth.  It's hard to tell but there are some heavy eggplants bowing down the plants.