I can’t believe the time has past so fast. The peppers are growing faster!
Don’t feel like reading? Well I’ve recorded a video of this weeks update:
This week I was able to top all the peppers. By cutting the very top of the branch, a technique known as topping, you encourage the pepper to back-bud and for the stem to thicken. In most times those back-buds will turn into new branches.
Here you can see some back budding on the Numex Twilight variety, that I topped several days ago. The new buds are still quite small and look almost like the first leaves the seedling grew.
Last week I was able to top the fastest growing plant, the Marbles variety. It’s easy to see how fast the peppers are growing; its got plenty of new leaves. Looking underneath the leaves you can see how new branches are forming and growing from the main stem.
Many of the varieties are starting to show their individual characteristics now. Some varieties have darker colored leaves than others, for example. Some leaves are also more rounded, whilst others are longer and more triangle shaped. This is most evident when viewed side by side:
Some of the peppers are much slower growing than others. The Bolivian Rainbow variety with its purple leaves is easily half the size of his siblings, if not smaller. You can see him in both the photo above and below:
I topped him about two days ago, and you can see very small back budding starting to form (the lighter green leaves).
Finally, I started some new seedlings of the varieties that didn’t seem to germinate last month. So far Birds Eye Baby, Bonzi and Chinese 5 Color pepper varieties have germinated. That makes 13 total varieties of peppers growing, including the larger jalapeños.
Interesting technique. I’ll have to try it out.