I'd head over to the Container Gardening forum and look for threads posted by "tapla". I use Foliage Pro fertilizer as he recommends. Since I couldn't find it locally I ordered it from Amazon, and a small container has lasted me more than a year and will probably last another year or two.

As for size of containers, as long as your growing medium is well-draining enough for your climate and watering habits, you should give them as large of containers as possible, otherwise they won't grow to their full size. I have tried peppers in 6 inch pots as a test and they never got bigger than 6 inches (after a year), but the tomato I put in a 7 gallon pot got to 3 and a half feet before I decided to cut it back.

Here is a link that might be useful: Container Gardening

Thanks for the info! I hadn't thought to check the container gardening section.

I use a modified version of tapla's 5-1-1 -- turface instead of peat moss. I use MGro All -purpose 24-16-8 at half strength (weekly)throughout the season, but it doesn't have calcium. So, I add bone meal and gypsum at the time I make my soil mix. An occasional dose of epsom salts provides some Mg.

One thing I've noticed is that chinense varieties do better than annuums in smallish containers(5 gal and less). If I was to grow YOUR varieties(most of them are annuums), I would use something like oak barrels with 2-3 plants per barrel. With the chinense varieties, I use 10 gal containers(1 per pot) and they're as productive as my in-ground plants.

Kevin

Last year, my super hots used my entire 5 gallon containers but it didn't seem to limit their production at all. The annums didn't use nearly the whole container of soil. That was my experience. But I don't think you need any containers bigger than 5 gallons to get good production from almost any pepper variety. A well draining soil is key however. If you spend some time on the container forum, you will find answers to just about all your questions. Or just search all the forums for "container" or "container soil" or something like that.
Bruce

I am no expert but I grow Cayennes, pequins and a few others in vinyle growbags that cost me$10 for 10 with free shipping. So $1 a bag. They have all different sizes I got the 5Gal.

I think these are cool because #1 they worked great and cheap this past summer, and I still have the plants growing indooors in them. #2 If you don't want to put 5Gal of mix in, then just roll down the vinyle, and that is what I did. I also bought 5 (7) gallon black fabric bags for $20, but the cheaper ones seemed to perform better. I also grow Peppers in 5 gallon buckets and the Vinyl bags seemed to do better.

Anyway I put a link in here to show you what I bought. Oh yeah the mix was 5-1-1 from Tapla and I used MG Tomatoe water soluble for Fertilizer.

Here is a link that might be useful: White Vinyle Grow bags

Get 5gal paint buckets (usually $1-$3 tops per) from a hardware store (e.g., Lowes, Home Depot, etc). drill 7-10 1/2" holes in bottom. After germination just transplant to buckets.

No need to get all fancy