They may go a little bit longer two weeks maybe but I would think about repotting, you could keep them longer but it will require more frequent watering especially outdoors, keeping them in those pots plants will be root-bound as well as stunted growth. As for the twin peppers in the same pot, they will compete for nutrients and growing space and one may crowed out the other, that said I did that once and it affected pepper production not as many per plant as those by themselves.

Mark

I'm a habanero lover too. :)

I don't know whether your plants would be rootbound from the photos you posted. But I would say that they look plenty big enough for transplanting. You don't want then to become root bound first. I would probably transplant them soon.

There is contradictory advice about putting two habaneros in the same space. The photo below is a pair of habaneros that I grew last year in the same pot. They were perfectly happy and they were productive. They produced larger peppers than my other plants, but the other plants were bigger and produced a greater number of them. I find that spacing them so that as adults their upper leaves will touch works best for me. As the saying goes, "peppers like to hold hands."

As far as soil goes, the secret seems to be drainage. As another saying goes, "peppers don't like to get their feet wet." Peppers like soil with SOME sand in it, but the drawback to soil with lots of sand is that sandy soil tends to not hold nutrients well. I do normally put the heads of about 8-10 matches (to provide sulfur) and about a teaspoon of crushed egg shells that have been boiled (to provide calcium). Enjoy!

Angie

I know its difficult to hear... but snip the smaller pepper plant in the container. You will get greater 'economies of scale' from one larger pepper plant than 2 small pepper plants.

To answer the rootbound question, have you knocked the plant out of the pot to see how the roots look? Simply done, and if you don't see a mass of roots just put the plant back in the pot and let it carry on.

Regarding the twins, pepper-rancher's advice is the conventional answer, but because I can't bear to sacrifice a plant, I tease the two root systems apart using a couple of table forks and repot separately. I rarely lose a plant doing this. Maybe it sets the plants' growth back a little, but not noticeably so. Depends whether you want an extra plant or not.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Easy enough to slide one out of those cubes. I'll try that to check the roots if I have to go much longer.

As for the twins I think I will just find a nice spot around the house and put them in together as a decorative plant :-) anything it yields would just be a bonus.

Don't ya love it when your friendly cat lady neighbor puts out salt licks for deer? Dont get me wrong, I like cats, they take care of a lot of pests. Enough is enough already!
Off to dig fencepost holes... yeah!! grmbl grmbl.

dj

This post was edited by djoy on Thu, May 15, 14 at 13:49

I don't have a deer problem in my neighborhood, but your post makes me wonder whether the deer would try eating the leaves of a pepper plant. Once they grow the peppers, I'm sure the deer won't touch them! But would they eat the leaves without eating the peppers?

Angie