Peppers can be fussy plants, especially for novice gardeners. If you're frustrated by a lackluster pepper harvest, have no fear — Calvin of the gardening duo Geeky Greenhouse (@geekygreenhouse) has a game-changing trick for coaxing more impressive produce from your plants.
The scoop
Calvin demonstrated his pepper-growing hack in a recent TikTok video.
@geekygreenhouse Grow bigger bells! #gardening #gardening101 #gardentok #gardeninghacks #gardeningtips ♬ original sound - Geeky Greenhouse
"If you're sick of growing small bell peppers and want bigger ones instead, this video is for you," he explained.
"If you leave your bell pepper plants to do whatever they want, they'll typically try to produce more peppers than they can, and so the average size of the fruits goes down."
The key is to leave only six to ten pepper fruits on each plant at a time. This allows the plant to direct all its energy and nutrients into that smaller number of peppers rather than many tiny ones, yielding larger fruits for you and your family to enjoy.
"When your peppers are … about an inch tall, or maybe even a bit smaller, you can go through the plant, try to identify which pods look the healthiest, and remove all but maybe six to ten," he said. "... And it's really that simple."
The plant will continue flowering, so as you pick ripe peppers, new ones will form to replace them.
How it's helping
This clever trick helps in three major ways.
First, you'll wind up with far larger pepper yields. One bigger pepper packs more edible flesh than three tiny ones. Similar hacks work on other produce, such as cucumber plants and kale.
Second, you'll save money. Growing your own large peppers means less store-bought produce to pay for and transport from far-away farms. This allows you to enjoy fresh, homegrown items while keeping more cash in your wallet and reaping the mental and physical benefits of gardening.
Third, growing your own food reduces your environmental impact by decreasing the demand for mass-produced, store-bought, and globally shipped produce. The farm-to-grocery store-to-table process creates loads of carbon pollution that warms our atmosphere and restricts breathing for individuals with compromised respiratory systems.
What everyone's saying
Fans love this genius yet simple gardening hack for boosting pepper sizes without much extra effort.
One viewer remarked, "I have only 1 tiny pepper on my plant. Thanks for advice. I'm learning all the [time]."
"Great tips," another TikToker praised.
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