Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
kylle221

Should I prune bell pepper plants.

kylle221
14 years ago

I am starting my fourth week (since transplanting seedlings into buckets),and I was curious if I needed to prune, or just let them keep growing? As you can see in the pic, the tops of the front two plants are overlaping leaves so close, that the bottom leaves that are fighting for the top are forming condensation where the leaves are touching. Hope that makes sense?

There are also a little over thirty flower pods on each one. Do any of these need to be pruned also?

Does anyone no why the leaves could be starting to cup upwards aournd the eadges (very slight)?

Thanks for any help.



Comments (4)

  • grizzman
    14 years ago

    I don't plan on pruning mine yet. Unless I have an over abundance of fruit set, I'll probably leave them all on the stem.
    BTW, mine are right at about 30 days since transplant too.
    Natural light vs HPS though. I'll put up pics when I've taken a few.

  • kylle221
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Grizzman, so are your plants outside, or were you saying you were doing both HPS vs natural? Looking foward to some pics.

    As for pruning fruit set, is it possible to have too many on one plant? Or will the plant compinsate and use more nutes? And as for foliage, is it ok to prune some leaves that seem to be in the way or am I just getting in the way of a natural process.
    Sorry for all the questions, I'm new to this.

  • grizzman
    14 years ago

    I only grow outside. I was saying my natural vs your HPS.
    The number of fruit set on each plant will generally influence final fruit size. the more fruit, the smaller each will be. for a plant whose fruit has a lot of waste, such as an apple, (not that we're growing them) or a lot of prep time ,like peeling potatoes, there is more benefit to fewer larger fruit compared to a tomato where you eat the whole thing and it requires as little as no prep work. (just pop it in your mouth) Of course a big giant tomato where one slice covers an entire slice of bread is a mighty fine thing indeed.
    As for pruning leaves, I don't think there's a problem with it unless you get carried away. I generally only prune to control plant growth.( i.e. top plants to make them shorter and bushier or pluck suckers to keep tomatoes from sprawling too much) though there was another thread on pruning the dickens out of tomato plants to make them fruit better.

  • joe.jr317
    14 years ago

    Some people remove fruits, but you'll notice the plant will also do some self pruning by dropping some.

    On the tomatoes, by the way, I'm noticing that the plants that have the dickens pruned out of them are experiencing more split fruit. I can't be sure if that is a coincidence or not, of course, but it wouldn't surprise me. The fruit are growing at a faster rate.