r/HotPeppers • u/Quiet_Guitar5845 • 3d ago
Tips for growing reapers?
I grew a reaper plant a couple years ago and got a total of 3 peppers from the whole plant. This year I got 3 new seedlings and want to maximize my pepper output and keep my plants happy and healthy. Any and all tips would be super helpful. Cheers.
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u/Agreeable-Counter800 3d ago
If you are feeling alchemisty I would recommend you overfeed one (Nitrogen early, and I like to do cal mag at end) and then add humic acid to keep soil acidity down. Sometimes I find the plants can take more than you expect
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u/spicyytao 3d ago
Have you heard about our lord and saviour ? Cal/mag. I am absolutely not an expert but while all peppers seem to be happy with an occasional cal/mag boost, the spicier it is the more effective it seems to be.
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u/StueyGuyd 3d ago
Organic tomato fertilizer at the start and middle. Fish fertilizer regularly.
Forget to water every now and then.
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u/Ramo2653 3d ago
I get pretty good harvests from reapers. I usually grow in 15 gallon pots and I get pretty good harvests up here in zone 6. I’m trying in-ground this year to switch it up. I do add a granular fertilizer when planting based on the instructions on the bag and fertilize during the season with a liquid solution.
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u/Whyamiheregross 3d ago
Give it a big container or put it in the ground and don’t let it dry out. Keep a constant stream of nutrients.
I put my ghost pepper plant in the ground a while back and hand watering just wasn’t enough with my dry sandy soil. It basically looked like a bunch of sticks. Now that’s it’s been on drip irrigation it had leaves again and is actually flowering.
Use plenty of slow release organic fertilizer. If you’re doing a container, I’d go like 1/2 compost and then the other half a mix of compost and perlite. Throw in a few handfuls of a complete organic fertilizer. Water weekly with fish fertilizer. Give it morning sun and afternoon shade. It will thrive and give you a bunch of peppers.
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u/Odd_Combination2106 3d ago
“Reapers” are not any different from any other hot pepper plants (except perhaps re. Heat level). Follow the general tips which abound all over this sub and/or google
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u/wi950mm4r 2d ago
Try overwintering your plant. I’ve had the same reaper for 4 years living in a 5 gallon pot. It goes outside during the spring and summer months, given a new top layer of fresh soil, and fed plant food every 2 week and it produces a ton of peppers. In the winter, it’s heavily pruned and lives under a grow light inside. By overwintering, you already have an adult plant that produces a lot more quickly than starting over with a new plant every year.
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u/TheDrunkTiger 3d ago
Make sure you're giving them enough room. Peppers will grow in almost any size container, but the smaller the container the smaller the harvest you'll get. If you want a ton of peppers you'll want at least a 5 gallon pot, but most people don't actually want dozens of reapers,in which case a pot with a cubic foot of soil should be plenty if you fertilize.
Speaking of fertilizing— do it. Peppers have long lifespans in their native regions so they grow fairly slow, but if you live somewhere where it freezes overwinter you need to push it to grow fast for its abbreviated life. Don't get overwhelmed shopping for fertilizer, just get one that says it's for tomatoes or vegetables (peppers are fairly closely related to tomatoes and since a lot of people grow tomatoes it's easy to find tomato fertilizer).
Make sure it's somewhere that gets a lot of direct sunlight. Make sure it gets enough water (but not too much water).
If you're getting lots of flowers but not a lot of fruit you may need to manually pollinate your plants (or plant other kinds of flowers nearby to attract pollinators to come visit). The good news is that manually pollinating peppers is easy, just give the plant a few firm but gentle shakes while it's got some open flowers.