Lessons in Peppers and Phospates

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This is my first year growing peppers and it has been a learning experience.  My first lesson is that you can not sow pepper seeds directly in the garden and have much luck, you must start them indoors.  My second lesson was if you grow different varieties of jalapeno peppers, use labels so you know which ones are the hot ones.  My third lesson was the importance of heavy phosphate based fertilizers when growing peppers.  

I talked to someone at my local nursery about growing peppers, and this guy said that adding a heavy phospate based fertilizer right when the plants start to flower will really increase pepper production.  He said he does this when growing habaneros and has great results.  

I took his advice and a few days ago and I sprinkled some 0-45-0 triple phosphate granule fertilizer around each plant and watered in thoroughly.  I am growing jalapeno and cow horn peppers this year.  I hope this little trick works, only time will tell.

Here are my three jalapeno plants

 

Jalapeno pepper flower

 

Here are a few jalapenos

 

Here are my three cow horn pepper plants
 

Cow horn pepper bloom

 

Baby cowhorn pepper