subject: How to Grow Green Peppers Successfully Indoors [print this page] How to Grow Green Peppers Successfully Indoors
How Does One Bring The Outdoor Environment Indoors? - It is not really that difficult as long as you supply the proper lighting and yet there are certain keys to the success of growing particular vegetables indoors. I will walk through my personal experiences growing sweet peppers from start to end. To begin you need seed that were prepared for that particular growing season. If you use prior year seed preparation you will not get the best results. Your germination rate will fall short of the norm which is not 100% for even the freshest seed batch. As far as the potting soil it is always best to purchase sterilized and never soil found around your yard unless you bake it in your oven for a half hour or so at 250 degrees to kill all larvae, bacteria, etc.
It is probably wiser to just use a four inch planting pot and after filling the pot with soil 3/4 inches to the brim, plant several seed 1/4 inch below the surface. Cover by simply tapping the edges of the pot. The fine topsoil will cover the seed. Spray a fine mist of water over the soils surface. Press the soil with a small cover to reduce air pockets. This will hasten germination.
The Lighting For Your Greenhouse
Many indoor gardeners simply purchase one or two Grow Lights. At least that's what I call them. I chose to design my own using CFL's. I chose this approach for simplicity and very reasonable cost. I simply mounted four 60 Watt lamps[equivalent to 60 Watt incandescent light bulbs] to a 4" wide pine board of about 3 foot in length. I then mounted this board to two vertical pine boards attached to both sides of a 3' wide table using simple "C" clamps. This would enable the raising and lowering the 4 CFL light assembly very easily.
Once I completed the wiring of the CFL's to the board I plugged them into a 24-hour timer I purchased for $6.00 at a hardware store. I just set the timer for 12 hours on and 12 hours off to simulate the solar day. I placed the seeded pot or pots about 12" beneath the lights and made sure I gave them some water. In a few days your seed should be germinated. As the plants begin to reach a few inches you should add fertilizer, preferably of the organic variety and when the blooms begin to appear I mix some fish emulsion which will help produce the fruit and sprinkle and mix in some blood meal over the top which will aid leaf growth. I even use organic seed, but that is your preference. When the pepper flowers begin to appear you will need to create movement of the air to pollinate the flowers since you will not have outdoor pollinators to accomplish that. You should run the fan for an hour or two on a daily basis. Some just shake the plant on a regular basis but the fan makes it simple. It would be wise to transfer your pepper plant to a six or eight-inch pot to give the plant more growing room. The growth of virtually any vegetable plant will be slower when grown indoors but one must be patient and realize that when the snow falls you will still have your garden.
