sand pail peppers

[bower]

So delighted with the early pepper crop I'm getting on my windowsill. I found these sand pails at the dollar store and I liked the shape - deep enough but with a low profile for a windowledge, so got some and drilled drainage holes. The pail takes less than 2 litres of soil, and it looks like these plants will produce as much peppers as the volume of soil they're growing in.

Topepo Rosso and Sweet Banana are pictured below in a west window. It is way too early to plant peppers here, even in the greenhouse, but I'll be eating fresh ones soon. Jimmy Nardello is another type that pumps out peppers even in a small pot in a window.

Anyone else have a favourite pepper that is productive in a wee pail?

[tlintx]

That's amazing, I've never tried peppers in pots before, let alone in a window!

Are you bottom watering? Thank you for the suggested varieties!

[RebelRidin]

Neat!

[rockhound]

Bower, I think you're right; hot peppers seem to adjust output to the container size. I like to grow a piquin pepper over the winter. This year it was in a 6-inch pot. Seeded in Sept and bloomed in Dec. with only a spiral flo light above it. I set it out into a 5-gallon bucket a month ago, it's doing fine. I also have Ghost peppers and Zigzag in the 5-gals.

[bower]

tlintx, I just water evenly around the soil surface and try to get water to run down the sides.
There's some bone meal in the soil mix, and that stimulates the plant to flower and provides some essential nutrients for setting fruit. Also the narrowness of the pot I believe, will encourage the plant to flower and fruit earlier because there's no room for roots to expand outward.
Last summer I had around 20 Jimmy Nardello's that set fruit before they were moved out of beer cups. Other Jimmys in larger pots set lots of fruit on the windowsill, and this year is doing the same, producing much better than Carmen which I think would rather go in the ground to produce. Doe Hills last year also didn't do well in the window, and were much happier outside.
This year I also have decent fruit set on Alma and Feher Ozon, in a fairly low light situation (East window). Sweet! In the spicy peppers, Early Jalapeno, Guajillo, Pasilla Bajio and Santa Fe are starting to produce too, but only in the south or west windows where they get the most sun.

[bower]

Rockhound, I'm hoping to plant these peppers out, or into large pots in the greenhouse, when they finish fruiting... wonder if I can get a second crop this summer. (Yes! I want even more peppers!)

This is my first year growing a Chinense pepper - a 'heatless habanero' - very nice plants flowering now with tiny little blossoms, also in sandpails. I haven't decided whether to move them now to a larger pot or try to get them to fruit in the pails. No fruit set yet, so I may have to shuffle them around a bit too, until I find the spot they like best. What do you think, full sun and hottest place?

[Mojave]

I've used the exact same dollar store sand pails as pots!

[bower]

Aha, Mojave, they're pretty awesome eh! I was looking for something with the same profile as a beer cup but larger. I felt like a felon, going off with all those pails and depriving some poor kid of his sandbox adventures.
I'm hoping to find a use for the snap-off handles as well.... plant ties?

[rockhound]

Peppers like full sun unless you're in the Mojave in august, then a little shade is appreciated.