Chili plants: The Pruning Experiment part I
February 23, 2009
Bringing two chili plants together after a 6 month separation shows a remarkable difference in progress. As if to further punish the weaker of the two plants, I pruned it right down to encourage some new growth:
After much googling, forum posting, book reading and general conjecture from asking around, I found that the results were inconclusive. It seems there is too much of an outdoor bias in what has been written online, not catering for us urban gardeners who rely on indoor growing to grow plants wholly inappropriate to our climes.
The two plants started off in the same batch but, as you can see below, are very different in appearance now. The chili plant I moved to the spare room last autumn is much more well endowed in terms of growth, leaves and flowers. I am puzzled as to why this is – answers on a postcard please. As far as i can tell, the spare room is several degrees colder on average and has less light than the main room. Either way, one half of the pair got the pruning treatment today and they will both be kept in the spare room from now on. We will check back in a while to see the results but in the meantime, below is a pictorial history.
Last autumn, just before the winter:
Pruning. Just above the growth node, or so I’m told. Was obviously hoping for a secateurs for Christmas.
Late last summer, first fruit:
Last autumn, just before the winter:
5 minutes ago, pre-pruning. Spare room plant on left, main room on right:
Pruning. Just above the growth node, or so I’m told. Was obviously hoping for a secateurs for Christmas.
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[...] an earlier post, I described how I wanted to check whether pruning my chili plants was a good or bad idea. I pruned [...]
What varieties were your chili plants?
Pretty cool post – raises some interesting points for debate. I just stumbled upon your blog this morning and wanted to say that I have really liked browsing some of the posts. Anyways, I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope to read more very soon!