A Basic Solo Cup Is All You Need To Kickstart Your Pepper Garden On A Budget

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When planting a vegetable garden, knowledge is almost as powerful as sunshine and rainwater. For instance, a little wisdom can help you avoid gardening mistakes that make growing peppers harder than it needs to be. Many gardeners plant pepper seeds in itty-bitty seed-starting cells and then transfer them to small pots before moving them to an outdoor garden. However, repotting tiny, tender seedlings after a few weeks can slow or even stunt their growth. To prevent this problem, sow pepper seeds into small plastic pots such as inexpensive Solo 18-ounce red party cups.

Young pepper plants are small enough to call these low-cost cups home for two months. This is about how long you're likely to keep them indoors as you wait for the risk of frost to pass. Set your pepper sprouts by a sunny window or grow light, and don't forget to moisten their soil regularly. Also, take steps to protect the seedlings from transplant shock. They're likely to thrive if you gradually expose them to outdoor conditions before relocating them to your garden. Start this process two to four weeks prior to their permanent move.

If you don't have Solo cups handy, you could rinse and reuse a disposable coffee cup to give a pepper plant a strong start. Just be sure it's opaque, which shields the roots from sunlight, preventing water loss and other problems. If a clear plastic cup is what you have on hand, wrap it in masking tape to protect the roots of your fledgling peppers. No matter what kind of cup you use, poke drainage holes in the bottom so trapped water doesn't lead to root rot.

In addition to making pot-switching unnecessary for delicate pepper seedlings, germinating the seeds in large plastic party cups can prevent the plants from becoming root-bound. This problem is common among pepper seedlings sprouted in 72-cell trays, according to TikTok user @JerrasGarden. A Solo cup's larger volume gives each plant's roots plenty of room to spread out. Root-bound plants aren't necessarily doomed if you repot them, but they may not reach their full growth potential. It may be longer before they're big enough to transplant outdoors, too. If you plant them outside when they're too small, they're likely to perish.

Overall, starting peppers from seed is a smart choice, even if you don't have Solo cups for all of your plants. The reason involves peppers' slow pace of growth. A pepper seed can take as long as three weeks to sprout, and some types of peppers need three more months to produce ripe peppers. Nurture the seeds indoors for the last two months that your location tends to experience frost, and then pop them into the ground when pepper-safe weather arrives. In general, this means temperatures don't dip below 55 degrees Fahrenheit at night. Planting pepper seedlings in your garden at the right time ensures you have fruit to harvest before frost returns in the fall.