How to grow black pepper at home?

It is quite possible to grow such a popular spice as black peppercorns at home. Subject to all the requirements of the culture, it will be possible to harvest even several times per season.

Many varieties are suitable for self-cultivation of peppercorns. For example, early-ripening “Tellishers”, which takes 95-100 days to reach the fruiting stage. Lush bushes stretch to a height of 0,8 meters, covered with large, strongly smelling balls. Abundant fruiting can occur several times a year.

Variety “Malabarsky” it is also early ripe – you can shoot peppercorns 90-100 days after planting. Fruits, painted in dark cherry color, look slightly elongated. The bush actively bears fruit – about 50 grains are formed on one brush, and in general, the gardener manages to get about 3 kilograms of pepper from each specimen. “Malabar” is famous for its good immunity and ability to survive at low temperatures.

Fruit “Vietnamese” Peppers ripen about 120 days after planting. A large bush, which can be 1 meter high, is covered with clusters with 70 seeds each.

“Betel”, which is a hybrid, forms a sprawling bush up to 0,7 meters high, covered with a large number of leaves and small fruits. For full maturation, the latter require from 95 to 100 days. This variety is characterized by abundant flowering and the appearance of peas with a pleasant aroma and spicy taste.

Saravaku maturation takes 115 to 120 days. The bush, stretching to a height of up to 1 meter, is covered with rounded, clearly smelling peppers.

Hybrid Ceylon ripens early – already 100-110 days after sowing the grains. The height of the bush reaches 80 centimeters, and the mass of the brush covered with fruits does not exceed 90 grams.

“Lampong” is late-ripening – harvesting is possible no earlier than 130-140 days after sowing. The bush, stretching up to 1,5 m, is covered with small rounded peppers.

Planting seeds for seedlings is carried out at the end of March. It is allowed to transfer seedlings to open ground only when they reach two months of age, that is, not earlier than June. It is important to remember that a capricious plant dies, if the temperature drops below +10 degrees. Before planting, seedlings must be hardened off for a couple of weeks, being gradually left in the fresh air for an increasingly long time.

Proper preparation plays an important role in sowing seeds.

It is possible to successfully germinate both the material purchased in a specialized nursery, and the one that is collected independently or even bought in a grocery store. In any case, it is important that the date of collection and packaging does not go beyond 12 months. For planting, the largest and heaviest black peas, naturally dried, are used. The selected samples are filled with warm water for 24 hours. After a day, those balls that float up will need to be disposed of or eaten.

Drowned peas are treated with a stimulating drug and placed on a napkin or piece of paper towel. Next, the workpiece is transferred to a flat plate filled with calcined and moistened sand. Everything is covered with cling film and removed into a space where the temperature is maintained from +25 to +30 degrees. If everything is done correctly, then after a little over a week the seeds should germinate. All these days, planting material will have to be regularly ventilated and moistened.

For growing black pepper with peas, it is allowed to use purchased soil mixture for tropical vines or a variation for orchids, supplemented with humus. It is not forbidden to prepare the substrate yourself from nutrient turf, earth from deciduous forest, compost and alluvial sand. The components in this case are used in a ratio of 4: 2: 1: 1. Another option involves compounds in an equal ratio of earth, peat and humus. For greater nutritional value, about 0,5 liters of wood ash and a couple of matchboxes of superphosphate are added to them.

If there is no humus in the composition, it makes sense to ignite the selected mixture, and in all other cases it is allowed to simply spill it with hot water.

For planting a culture, a transparent orchid container or a wide and flat vessel is suitable. So that the soil mixture does not dry out, plastic containers should be preferred.. In principle, the use of peat cups will also be a good solution. At the bottom of the tank, a drainage layer is necessarily formed, for example, from fine expanded clay. The container is scalded with boiling water and filled with a substrate so that it does not reach the top edge by 1-1,5 centimeters, and is irrigated with high quality.

After germination of peas, they are planted in prepared containers. On the surface of the soil, with the help of a pencil, notches are carefully created with a depth of 1,5 to 2 centimeters. A grain is laid out in each tweezers. In order to avoid subsequent picking, you can immediately take a large flowerpot and place no more than a couple of peas inside. If one of the plants turns out to be weak, it can be transplanted or even eliminated.

The container is tightened with cling film and removed there, where the temperature regime is maintained from +25 to +30 degrees. If you plant a pepper at home, then we must not forget about the culture’s need for diffused lighting. It will be possible to expect shoots after 3-4 weeks.

Pepper picking is carried out when the seedlings get stronger and acquire several full-fledged leaves. When planting several plants in a single container, about 2-3 centimeters should be kept between them. We must not forget that the culture has a delicate root system, and therefore all work must be carried out with great care.

The formation of the first pair of leaves requires the application of fertilizers – as a rule, we are talking about an infusion of bird droppings, although a purchased preparation is also suitable. At the next stage, the culture is planted either in a larger pot or in a heated greenhouse. It must be clarified that in the open ground of a summer cottage, black pepper can only be grown as a non-fruitful ornamental annual.

Growing black peppercorns at home – in a greenhouse in the country or in a pot on the windowsill – requires certain conditions. Since the plant responds well to light, it will like south windows the most. However, such a solution will require additional organization of protection to obtain scattered light. The culture will react normally to the western and eastern ones, but it will quickly wither away in the northern ones. The length of daylight hours for a plant should be about 12 hours, so on cloudy and rainy days additional illumination with special lamps will be required.

It is easiest to grow peppercorns at a temperature of +25 degrees. A small deviation is not critical, but a drop below +15 degrees contributes to a slowdown in crop growth. The plant does not impose special requirements on air humidity, but once a week it should be sprayed with clean water from a spray bottle. By the way, in the summer months it is proposed to simply take containers with pepper to the balcony, providing them with protection from dry wind, precipitation and direct sunlight.

Irrigation of pepper should be carried out 2-3 times a week, and each container should take from 200 to 250 milliliters of settled liquid at room temperature. The easiest way to focus on the condition of the soil – its drying indicates the need for watering. As mentioned above, the first feeding is carried out when 2-3 leaves are formed on the seedling. An alternative to the infusion of bird droppings can be a mixture based on superphosphate. First of all, 10 grams of the drug are diluted in 30 liters of water, requiring daily infusion. Further, the fertilizer is supplemented with 10 grams of ammonium nitrate, 30 grams of calcium sulfate and 10 grams of urea. The mixture applied to the root part contributes to the active growth of green mass.

Pepper requires the following top dressing when transplanting to a permanent habitat. For this purpose, it is enough to dilute 10 grams of urea and 5 grams of superphosphate in a bucket of water. The third time fertilizers are applied during flowering – 1 teaspoon of potassium, the same amount of urea, 2 tablespoons of superphosphate and 10 liters of water. Each bush will need 1 liter of the resulting nutrient mixture. Finally, the last top dressing is activated when the pepper begins to bear fruit.

In winter, pepper irrigation will have to be reduced to 1-2 times a week, and spraying should be carried out using warm water. Humidity must remain at the required level. Containers must be moved away from heat sources, i.e. batteries, and also provided with additional lighting. It is best to use the lamps in the morning and in the evening for 2-3 hours. If it is decided to leave the plantings on the windowsill, under which the battery is mounted, then it is better to create a layer of foam between them, which prevents the roots of the culture from overheating. The temperature in winter should not go beyond +18 … 20 degrees.