Me too! I'm hoping to move next year before starting the garden. :-)

It doesn't have to be full sun all day. As long as you have several hours of full sun (or mostly full) you should be ok.

I've expanded as far as I can and still get reasonable amount of full / dappled sun (about 5 hours during the Summer). Neighbors' trees really put a dent in my available space. Just a few feet in any direction results in nearly full shade with some dappling.

Rocoto and other c. pubescens peppers seem to do better with partial shade better than the other varieties I've grown.

Best solution to suitable space problems is containers. You can place them anywhere the sun is sufficient. Apartments and such may not have any available at all but generally, even a small city lot has some 3/4 to full sun areas. Containers can be placed on a deck, walkway, middle of the yard, driveway, or wherever they can get some good sun. I always thought that if I had a really small area to grow plants, i would build a shelf system kind of like bleachers in a stadium. You can put the containers along each row of "bleachers" and maximize your space while still providing as much sun as possible to all the plants.

If you just dont have anything available, then the partial shade varieties are the best bet aside from finding an alternate plot of land.
Bruce

chiltipin like partial shade mine is on the north side of my house and only gets a couple hours in the am and a couple in the pm and does great it's over a year old and survived a summer and a winter here in phoeinx

There's never enough space.

This year I'm expanding my grow area by enlisting family, friends and neighbors yards. Not optimal but you got to do what to do ;-)

me too... Got 216 peppers started and don`t think they`ll all get space in the garden. Luck for friends and family I guess.

Thanks for the tips..

I literally dreamed last night of planting my peppers!! Looked good(in my dream!) so I will be expermenting with containers--something I've never down before.

Thanks again..Laura

Lorabell: If you are new to container gardening, then check this other forum out. It will have the answers to virtually all your questions.

Bruce

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Web - Container Gardening

(tagging onto Bruce's post)

....but be prepared, the cost of those answers is a million new questions (and answers). :-) I've spent days over there recently. It's quite interesting, actually.

Yep, answers a ton of questions but generates a dozen times that. It is a whole new world in growing peppers. But well worth the time and effort if you think it might be something you would like to look into.
Bruce

10 hours of reading container gardening later...

WEW! And here I thought I only had to buy a few pots and fill with my raised garden compose!

Gotta say, a few of the posts over in container gardening were um.. 'intense',
But with that said, the topic from AL on container soils-water movement and retention was an awesome read...I even took notes! I problably undersood about 25 % of what he said which makes me smart enough to give it a try!

I DO have 2 more 'little' questions..

For real, what size pots does one use. Everyone seemed to disagree ..somewhere between 3 and 15 gallons. Is it the bigger, the better, or is it the type of pepper that's planted?

And last, I use fish fertilizer on my raised garden..(I'm almost immune to the smell!) Is it better to use a control release fertilizer(what brand/type is recommended) or a weekly dose of my fish stuff.

Or should I do some of each and fiqure it out for myself!HA

Thanks again for your help..I appreciate it greatly. Laura

I use 7 gallon pots. I think 5 is OK, even 3-4 but the bigger, generally the better up to a point. Most peppers are not going to do much better in anything over 7 gallon imo.

Fertilizer can better be addressed by other list members.

Bruce

There's a companion thread over there about fertilizer programs for containers. I haven't read it yet, but, once I finish the water movement one, it's next on my list. :-)

From the sounds of it, you can use a time release fertilizer (I've heard osmocote or whatever it is mentioned a few times) but, I'm not sure if you use that if you should still fertilize with watering. For regular feeding, it seems like Foliage Pro 9-3-6 makes things really simple since you don't have to worry separately about micro-nutrients. At least that's how I understand it. Like I said, I still have some reading to do.

I use 5 gal. buckets with holes drilled in the bottom. Not big on beauty but functional. I even know of some people who use different colored buckets to color code their plants. More so when they are dealing with larger quantities and grouping same types together.

one other idea, is to raise the raised bed. I get a lot more sun the higher I go. I want to get a greenhouse, and if I do will have 2' raised bed then build the glass on top of that, otherwise - 0 sun in winter....so what's the point?

Bruce: Interesting you mentioned the "stadium" seating for containers. I did just that last year. It's really just a wide freestanding stairway, but is great for viewing plants, and easy to water, and maintain, and harvest while conserving space. Will definitely use again this year.

I ran several pot sizes last year from 1.5 to 7 gallon. I didn't see much change in size or yield above 3 gallons in 5-1-1 mix, zone 5a. I suspect longer seasons would benefit more from larger pots.