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Ginger

To Top or Not to Top Your Pepper Plants!



Hey Y’all! Welcome back! Today is all about topping pepper plants! I’m sure you have heard someone telling you on top of your pepper plants, telling you that it helps the plant produce more peppers. This can be true, but you should know these things.


What is topping a pepper plant and why should you do it?

Topping a pepper plant is initially just chopping off the top of your pepper plant after the 2-3 sets of true leaves on the plant. This causes the plant to not just grow one stem straight up giving you one stem of peppers. It can cause you to have 2 or even more stems that will grow up and give you double the number of peppers. 


Why not top your plant and why?

While topping your plant can help with more production of peppers, there are some reasons why you shouldn't do it. It isn’t recommended to do it if you have a shorter growing season unless you can start them extra early and have them in the house longer. 

Another reason not to top your pepper plants can be if you are growing big bell peppers. This can cause the plant to grow too many peppers and eventually snap the plant in half or even make the whole plant fall over. I stake all my plants that I top, but even then, I had one big bell pepper plant that I topped fall over, but it had 3 big bells on it, and I didn’t even realize it. I would be extremely cautious about topping big bells, especially if you have many pepper plants and can’t keep an eye on all the plants at once.


Are you going to top your pepper plants?

Now that you know most of the facts about topping pepper plants, are you going to top yours this year? Why or why not? Do you think it is worth it? I know I will be topping some of mine, I also know that I will keep an eye on my big bells as they start producing peppers to make sure I see all the peppers and I don’t lose any! Happy gardening everyone!


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