The Chili Pruning Experiment: Conclusion
April 24, 2009
It would seem for overwintering chilies, pruning is the way to go.
Chili plants – plant which was pruned on right
In an earlier post, I described how I wanted to check whether pruning my chili plants was a good or bad idea. I pruned one and left the other unattended. I wasn’t able to find any conclusive advice online or otherwise for how to overwinter my chili plants (or indeed if overwintering was a good idea at all) but on looking at them now it seems quite clear that pruning is the correct course of action. This is for two main reasons:
1. The plant grows better. Shortly after pruning, the plant had many new vivacious green shoots and was producing fruit in no time. In the unpruned corner, the plant seemed to decay gradually as it tried to support it’s outstretched branches. The growth on the pruned plant is also much lower and dense, give a much more efficient plant.
2. The plant looks better. If you have a live-in female life-partner like myself, you will realise how important aesthetics are. There were a lot of folks on the net saying that chili plants required minimum maintenance, just leave the leaves fall off and to they will right themselves of their own devices. I can assure you this leads to discolouration, a needlessly big plant, witheredness and a fairly severe case of plantugliness.
I have now pruned both plants, and am growing some others from seed this year. Either way, I would say that the chili plants have been a very rewarding exercise: easy to grow (indoors in Ireland), good space / yield ratio and long harvest season (almost ’til Christmas last year). So if anyone is thinking of making a foray into home food growing, I can comfortably recommend chilis as a gateway plant!
Close-up of previously pruned chili plant – the winner!
Close-up of newly-pruned loser chili plant
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Hi Adam,
What and how often should I feed my chili plant?
Hi, I dont grow chillies but would have thought they were an annual as most veg plants, have you extended their productive lifetime as another experiment?
Caroline – any way you want! Organic fertilizer or non-organic fertilizer if you prefer; and follow the instructions on the container.
Peggy – in practice they are usually grown as annuals but strictly speaking they are not. I guess the idea of overwintering them comes from America where they are grown outdoors a lot. I suspect the yield may be less in the second year but only time will tell. We started these slightly late in the year (may/junish) so hopefully there is a bit of life in them. They look well at the moment anyway!
I’m glad you had success with growing your chili plants indoors. I’m in North Wales and I’m growing about 18 different varieties this year (I have 75 plants) and they’re all indoors on the windowsills. Hopefully mine will do well too. I started all mine from seed in March.
Hey Andrew. Sounds like you are on a scale on a multiple of mine! I’m not sure what type they are to tell you the truth. I can tell you that they are not at all spicey and quite bitter! This is one of the reasons we are growing a couple of other types this year – one thai chili variety and one we got in Lidl. They both look good so far – just about to start flowering.
Hey Folks – I live in New Mexico where it is safe to say some of the best tasting green chile’s are to be found. (Hatch) New Mexico. Anyway we are @ 6000 ft above sea level and I can presume thats why we have such a great tasting Chile.
I have about 20 plants out doors this year and next year I am going to grow all hydroponic.
Right now I am trimming my plant so I can only concentrate growth on stems and flowing so my yield it greater than normal and the plant strength is high.
I also Dose them heavily with Miracle Grow and Coffee grounds from Starbucks daily.
I dripp feed them becaus eI have noticed that the over head watering causes the flowins to fall of in their young state.
I will keep you all posted as to my progress.
P. S. I have spent over a years total time over the last ten years living in Ireland working for the Intel there.
Hey just saw this older post too – I’ve seen many chilli plants overwintered here in Melbourne, Oz. We do it outside and after a few years they can become quite hedgelike. A good heavy prune after harvest definitely helps.
And I think yield actually improves – after all next season they don’t have to waste time establishing a root base etc. We had far more chillis than we could use this year from plants which overwintered.
@New Mexico Mike Do keep us posted – do you have a link to your blog or site?
@esther since this post I have to say yield has been quite good. Only problem is they don’t seem to be very hot. Not sure what I can do about that!
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