What are chili peppers and how to grow them?

Chili pepper is a vegetable that can be easily grown both on the site and at home on the windowsill. The plant needs to be properly cared for, then it will produce many beautiful and healthy fruits. In today’s article, we will learn what chili peppers are and how to properly grow them.

The chili pepper is a plant that has been given many different names. This vegetable is also called capsicum, hot, Mexican pepper, paprika. The ancestors of chili, as modern gardeners know it, come from Novaya Zemlya, where the Aztecs and Mayans were still engaged in growing the crop. Currently, hot pepper is very popular because it can be used in different areas of life. A spicy green or red vegetable is used not only in cooking, but also in medicine. In addition, sweet or hot pepper looks quite attractive, so it can serve as a decorative addition to different settings.

In cooking, the sharp taste of this useful and at the same time decorative plant is especially in demand. The vegetable can be used raw and fresh or dried. Pepper is added to a huge number of different dishes, and its pods are often ground or dried on purpose. From the product in question, chic sauces are obtained, for example, spicy-sweet Thai sauce. Chili pepper is enriched with vitamins C and A, as well as P, B. The product contains special essential oils and even ascorbic acid.

The pods of the plant are characterized by a bright and saturated color, can have a diverse structure.

Most often, the shape of chili peppers is straight or curved, but rounded and cone-shaped varieties can also be found. The sizes also vary. Fruits can develop both small and quite large. A little less often you can see peppers that have a structure in the form of a pumpkin or a bell. The color of the pods is not always only red. They often display other colors, such as orange, green, yellow, purple, and even the original black.

There are bushes of ornamental chili peppers. They are often used as houseplants and placed in a suitable pot on a windowsill. Ornamental plants are characterized by compact size, have small height parameters. Usually they develop branched, having small leaves of green color. The standard height of the considered small plants usually reaches 15-50 cm. The fruits can grow both singly and in the form of small bunches. In total, one bush can contain from 20 to 100 fruits.

Hot, or bitter, chile pepper is a perennial plant. In comfortable and ideal conditions, the culture can easily survive the winter season, despite the fact that the homeland of the spice is the tropics. With proper care and good conditions, chili can bear fruit for 2-3 years, and sometimes 5 years.

Like any other plant, chili must be planted in accordance with all the rules.

• Pepper cultivation begins with sowing seeds for seedlings. The ideal period for this is February or March, when it comes to cool areas. If the region is warm, then it is better to carry out such operations in January-February. A mixture of soil for culture is recommended to be purchased at a specialized store. You can prepare a suitable mixture yourself from humus, river sand, peat.

• Chili pepper seedlings will need to be properly prepared for planting. To do this, they are first immersed in a weak solution based on potassium permanganate. After the planting material is carefully placed in a piece of moistened tissue. In this case, the temperature should not be lower than 25 degrees Celsius. It is necessary to wait until the seedlings begin to hatch. After this point, the seeds should be planted with the utmost care in a moist soil mixture. It is necessary to act carefully so as not to accidentally damage or break the planting material. The depth of immersion in the soil mixture is 5-10 mm. Leave at least 5 cm between seeds.

• Seeds are recommended to be sown in special boxes or small peat pots. The containers must then be covered with film material or glass. Seedlings are kept like this until the first shoots appear. It is advisable to choose a warm place for keeping seedlings.

• The seeds of different chili varieties develop at different rates. As soon as the starting seedlings hatch, the crops should be immediately rearranged into the light. If the culture lacks lighting, then it will be possible to place an ultraviolet bulb above it at a height of 25-30 cm. Another lighting device will do. Light day should last for chili peppers at least 18 hours. If this condition is not met, then the seedlings will begin to rapidly stretch. In addition, the substrate must be kept slightly moist. Too much moisture should not be allowed. At times, between seedlings, you will need to loosen the soil mixture.

• It is permissible to transplant plants into open ground at the time when seedlings show starter buds.. Another prerequisite is the setting of an average temperature of 15-17 degrees Celsius during the day. A couple of weeks before planting, spice seedlings will need to be properly hardened off by daily “walking” in open air conditions. It is advisable to start with 15-20 minutes of “walking”, and then this time is “stretched out”.

• Before planting a pepper in open ground, you need to consider which substrate is best for it. None of the varieties of pepper is able to endure heavy and cold soil mixtures. If the soil on the site is clayey in nature, then it must be dug up to the depth of a couple of bayonets of a shovel, and then add peat and humus. If the soil is light and permeable, then it will need to be fertilized from the autumn period with the help of rotted manure.

• In order to plant and subsequently grow seedlings without problems, you will need to make small holes in the soil, while leaving a distance of 30-40 cm. The row spacing should be 60 cm. It is acceptable to plant pepper by the nest method in accordance with the 50×50 cm scheme. At the same time, a pair of seedlings is placed in each hole. The depth of the dug out sectors should be such that the seedling sinks into them up to the neck of the roots. In each dug hole, lay out a spoonful of mineral fertilizers.

• Next, the seedling of the plant will very carefully need to be removed from the container and, together with a clod of earth, transferred to the prepared hole. The latter is sprinkled with earth by 50% or a little more. Pour a third of a bucket of water. As soon as all the liquid is saturated, the hole is filled with earth to the upper sections.

• After completing the planting procedures, it is advisable to mulch the bed with peat. If this is necessary, the bushes of the plant must be tied to the supporting bases. If at night the temperature values ​​u13buXNUMXbgo down below XNUMX degrees Celsius, then it is recommended to additionally cover the bed with a special non-woven material. This material should be thrown over previously dug-in arcs.

Chili peppers grow very well and produce high-quality pods if they are provided with competent and regular care. Find out how to properly water and feed this plant on the site.

Pepper is a moisture-loving crop, which especially needs moisture at the time of its fruiting and flowering. The soil in which the plant grows should never be in a dry state. So, in the summer, planting should be watered almost daily. Warm liquid should be used.

To prepare the watering liquid, you can take a capacious tank, fill it with water, and then expose it to the sun in the garden. Throughout the day, the liquid will have time to warm up and infuse. After completing the watering of the plants, it is advisable to loosen the soil layer between individual plantings and remove all weeds.

At the start of the growing season, chili pepper needs magnesium and phosphorus to the maximum. Before the moment of fruit ripening comes, it is necessary to reduce the amount of nitrogen supplements added. In general, the crop in question can be fertilized without a doubt with the same compounds that are used for tomatoes. Application times are about the same.

Chili peppers can suffer from various diseases, as well as attacks from insect pests. Aphids, as well as spider mites, Colorado potato beetles, whiteflies, bears, and slugs, are very dangerous for the plant in question. It should be noted that These parasites most often affect nightshade crops. Fortunately, pepper is affected by insects less often than the same tomato.

As for the common diseases that chili peppers are susceptible to, these are the same ailments that most often affect tomatoes or eggplants. We are talking about white, brown and black spotting, as well as black leg, mosaic, phytosporosis. Often, the plant in question is affected by cancer of a bacterial nature.

If the plant has been affected by fungal ailments, then it is advisable to treat it with fungicides. The most popular are such drugs as “Abiga-peak”, “Bayleton”, “Maxim”, “Gamair”. You can also use copper sulfate.

Chili peppers can also suffer from serious diseases of a bacterial or viral nature. In such cases, any treatment is useless, since such ailments are not cured. As for the fight against insect pests, here insecticides and acaricides are optimal and effective. Among them, the most popular and frequently used are:

• “Akarin”;
• Carbophos;
• “Kleschevit”;
• “Aktelik”.

Chili peppers are required not only to be planted and grown correctly, but also to be collected and stored correctly. For example, red hot pepper is allowed to be used both at the stage of incomplete maturity and at the end of its final ripening. Due to this feature, if necessary, you can remove the pods as soon as they are formed.

If the plans include sending the crop for long-term storage, then it is advisable to wait until the moment of full ripening of the fruit comes. If you do not follow this rule, then the spice will not be well and properly stored.

Before picking pepper fruits, you need to figure out how to determine the degree of their formation.

• Ripe pepper is characterized by a bright color. It can be red, yellow, orange or something else.
• The leaf blades of a fully ripe chili pepper turn yellow. The same leaves that are located in the lower half of the bush inevitably dry out.
• If you gently rub your hand with a pepper fruit, you may feel a slight burning sensation.

As a rule, the fruits of chili peppers begin to be harvested in the last days of September. Pods are very easy to prepare for further storage. To do this, peppers are immersed for several minutes in a bowl filled with warm liquid. The fruits are thoroughly washed from dust and all contaminants, rinsed in cold water. After that, the pods are wiped with a towel and dried.

There are many methods for storing chili peppers. The choice of a particular option depends on how the spice will be used in the future. You can hold the fruit by hanging it by the stem on a rope. In this case, the pods should not touch each other. Completely dried fruits are collected in dense woven bags or in glass jars. The containers are covered with parchment and kept in a dry place.

It is allowed to dry the chili pepper by laying it out on parchment laid on the windowsill. If you turn the fruits regularly, they will be able to dry 100% within three weeks.

It is also possible to grind the pepper with a blender / meat grinder. The finished mass is spread on a baking sheet and dried in the oven at 50 degrees. When the fruits have cooled, they can be easily transferred to a bag. Sometimes housewives prefer to dry the fruits in a whole state in the oven. At the same time, the temperature is set at the same 50 degrees, only the whole procedure takes about 2 hours. The baking sheet needs to be covered with paper. Peppers will need to be turned over periodically.

Another valid option – Preservation of fruits in sunflower oil. For this purpose, thoroughly washed and seeded pods are laid out in a sterilized glass jar. Then they are filled with oil, salted. At the last stage, the hostesses roll up the containers with a sterile lid. Products are stored in this state in a dark and dry place for 2-3 months.