out of curiosity, what is a "standard red chile pepper"? many types of peppers have entirely different growth patterns. I have a pepper half that size full of peppers, and a plant of a different type twice that size with nothing.

Salevane, very nice container and plant. I think you do not need to add more soil, it looks perfect to me.

I think there are so many varieties of "standard red chili peppers". According to the different variety the sizes of the plants are also different. Bigger container grow bigger plants and yield a lot of fruits. If the container is small the size of the plants usually compact. I have read 5 gallon is a good size for chilli but most of our chili enthusiasts here in DK use about 2 gallon, they are doing pretty good.

Some times my small container plants have early flowers and pods, when I re-potted to bigger containers they grow bigger/healthier and produced a lot of pods.

Some of our forum members may have better opinion, so just wait.

Good luck

Caelian

Judo and Peppers - To be honest, I don't know what a "standard" chile pepper is. All I can tell you is that I bought some seeds from a plant store and it just says (Chili Pepper) on the packaging. The chili's in the package look like the photo attached.

Chilliwin - thanks for the advice (and compliment!). It seems to be healthy, but I'm concerned that its not strong enough to support the pods that are coming (i could easily count 20!).

I will wait to see if I can get some advice from other experienced growers as well.

That plant should support that variety of peppers, no problem. Looks like a Chile de Arbol or a variety of cayenne.

You'll definitely want to cage it though. It produces numerous spindly branches that is best supported with a cage and not staking.

Looks like a 8-10 gallon container -- should do just fine.

Kevin