I thought I would share my first experience with growing peppers here in Wisconsin. I remember gardening when I was growing up. My parents had a garden every year, and we kids would help. Now, though, both red and yellow peppers have gotten so expensive in the stores!
Last April I found a great local nursery called Stuarts in Oshkosh. Towards the end of the month, they had their red pepper seedlings in stock. The people there were really helpful, and we bought 4 red pepper plants and some fertilized soil. We wanted to use buckets, so we wouldn’t have to dig up the lawn.
With some thoughts and recommendations from Stuarts, we went to Lowe’s and got 4 big buckets. We drilled holes in the bottom, partly filled them with Styrofoam peanuts (for drainage), and added dirt. What with moving here last year, we had plenty of the peanuts! Next, we put one seedlings in each bucket.
I was out there watering faithfully, starting in the Spring, and moving into the summer. Not much happened. But then, very slowly, they started to grow. One was pretty slow, and we weren’t sure how it would work out. It was fun seeing Mother Nature do her work, and sure enough, the slow one did catch up, as you’ll see in the pictures.
Here are 3 collage’s showing the whole adventure, from the beginning until harvest. If you click on each image you can see how much they grew along the way. We ended up having 12 red peppers, with each plant growing three full-size peppers. It was a lot of fun, and I’m planning on doing it each year. Enjoy!
Hope you enjoyed seeing them. They are delicious and a bit sweeter then the ones you get at the store!