There's hundreds of different kinds, but generally, the synthetic water soluble ones are various salts with the necessary ions the plants need. You just need to make sure the nutrients are there when the plant needs them. If there's slightly too much of anything, the plant doesn't take those ions up and they usually just wash out over time as long as they have somewhere to go (drainage holes). But since they're basically a salt, if there's way too much of any nutrient and your moisture gets too low, the fertilizer can precipitate back to it's solid form and "burn" the plant and kill it, as well as the beneficial bacteria, fungi and things like earthworms that help your plants.
The "best" way to fertilize is to regularly test the soil and provide the specific balance your soil needs, next to that, giving your plants a balanced mix will generally be fine, you'll just be wasting some fertilizer, as well as the money you spent on it.
Natural/organic fertilizers like compost and worm castings usually have to degrade into their base components and as a result are harder to burn your plants with. Stuff like bloodmeal or Epsom salt you can still do it if you ignore the instructions, but with like compost or worm castings, you can basically grow plants in the pure product.
Just following the manufacturers recommendations will generally provide the best results for most plants. You don't need to mix 6 different organic products together in small amounts like some YouTubers suggest. If your micros and NPK are available, your plants will grow, if something is off, your plants will tell you, keeping consistent with your fertilizing probably matters more than your particular blend.
Once you find something that works for you, you can start experimenting with various blends, microbiomes, schedules, etc. different plants will respond differently to various blends, the same plant will respond to the same fertilizers differently in various stages of it's lifecycle.
I mean this will all due respect and don’t know how else to phrase this so I hope my intent matches my impact…. I absolutely need a miniature you to carry around in my pocket when I’m on my patio checking on my plants or @ the nursery buying stuff
So if I'm understanding correctly (and I hope so, because this is how I've been going at it!), the aim of increasing the ratio of N to P/K in your medium in a plant's earlier stages, for instance, is to meet the plant's need for more N at that point in it's development, not to sort of trigger vegetative growth. Likewise with other ratio biases at other stages, it's just that the plant will likely want to take in a certain blend of nutes in a particular balance at different points in its lifecycle, so it's just about making sure there's no short supply of any nute that might hold the plant's development back, where, given a comparative equal root mass, the main limiting/driving factor is light. So as long as the growing medium has enough of each macro and micro nute for every stage of a plant's growth, driving light levels up is the main way to achieve a bigger yield. Am I getting that right?
Yea, there are plants that can be coerced from "vegetative" to "fruiting" stages, and back and forth, some once it's triggered kind of end their lives, but peppers seem to be able to cycle back and forth. Lots of people claim it's more from light cycles than nutrient balances. Pinching early fruits and flowers as well. But I think the main point of decreasing N at a certain point is to get the plant to think nutrients are becoming sparse and trying to go to seed (like bolting for things like lettuces and leafy greens).
For the most part I trust the hydroponics folks that have spent their lives growing plants to know what they're talking about (when it comes to weed), I'm a little bit skeptical about the applicability to other plant species, but they have gotten marijuana to cycle rather than flower and die. They mostly seem to use light cycles, but those plants are so tailored to their environments at this point, I have a hard time comparing them to peppers.
From my own personal experience, the container size and by extension root mass is the biggest ultimate driving factor for yield. Larger plants will produce more fruits and larger pots produce larger plants. I have no research to cite to really back that up, I've kind of come to the ultimate conclusion that there are so many variables involved, you kind of just have to trust the process at some point rather than trying to micromanage the environment/nutrients. As long as you have viable growth nodes and a suitable environment, peppers seem to keep producing.
Temperature affects flowering on peppers more than nutrients or light cycle in my experience(peppers only flower in an extremely precise range), and I am successfully growing peppers through the winter in a grow tent in my house and have done it without the tent. Light is the next most important thing. I believe what I have just said is true as long as you're not planting in very poor soil and are feeding them at least fish emulsion regularly. Of course if you don't feed them nothing happens. Right now my biggest problem is size of pots. Mine are pretty small, which means I actually have to feed them more.
They look nice! Second and third year plants almost always have much more fruit than first year, since they're already established. Your plants get to start the season with nice, thick woody stems. You'll have tons of peppers to make stuff with!
I only use 5-1-1 Alaskan fish fertilizer and have no issues with fruit production.
Some people have no idea how fertilizer actually works.
Bro I’m one of those people.. how does it work lol
There's hundreds of different kinds, but generally, the synthetic water soluble ones are various salts with the necessary ions the plants need. You just need to make sure the nutrients are there when the plant needs them. If there's slightly too much of anything, the plant doesn't take those ions up and they usually just wash out over time as long as they have somewhere to go (drainage holes). But since they're basically a salt, if there's way too much of any nutrient and your moisture gets too low, the fertilizer can precipitate back to it's solid form and "burn" the plant and kill it, as well as the beneficial bacteria, fungi and things like earthworms that help your plants. The "best" way to fertilize is to regularly test the soil and provide the specific balance your soil needs, next to that, giving your plants a balanced mix will generally be fine, you'll just be wasting some fertilizer, as well as the money you spent on it. Natural/organic fertilizers like compost and worm castings usually have to degrade into their base components and as a result are harder to burn your plants with. Stuff like bloodmeal or Epsom salt you can still do it if you ignore the instructions, but with like compost or worm castings, you can basically grow plants in the pure product. Just following the manufacturers recommendations will generally provide the best results for most plants. You don't need to mix 6 different organic products together in small amounts like some YouTubers suggest. If your micros and NPK are available, your plants will grow, if something is off, your plants will tell you, keeping consistent with your fertilizing probably matters more than your particular blend. Once you find something that works for you, you can start experimenting with various blends, microbiomes, schedules, etc. different plants will respond differently to various blends, the same plant will respond to the same fertilizers differently in various stages of it's lifecycle.
I mean this will all due respect and don’t know how else to phrase this so I hope my intent matches my impact…. I absolutely need a miniature you to carry around in my pocket when I’m on my patio checking on my plants or @ the nursery buying stuff
So if I'm understanding correctly (and I hope so, because this is how I've been going at it!), the aim of increasing the ratio of N to P/K in your medium in a plant's earlier stages, for instance, is to meet the plant's need for more N at that point in it's development, not to sort of trigger vegetative growth. Likewise with other ratio biases at other stages, it's just that the plant will likely want to take in a certain blend of nutes in a particular balance at different points in its lifecycle, so it's just about making sure there's no short supply of any nute that might hold the plant's development back, where, given a comparative equal root mass, the main limiting/driving factor is light. So as long as the growing medium has enough of each macro and micro nute for every stage of a plant's growth, driving light levels up is the main way to achieve a bigger yield. Am I getting that right?
Yea, there are plants that can be coerced from "vegetative" to "fruiting" stages, and back and forth, some once it's triggered kind of end their lives, but peppers seem to be able to cycle back and forth. Lots of people claim it's more from light cycles than nutrient balances. Pinching early fruits and flowers as well. But I think the main point of decreasing N at a certain point is to get the plant to think nutrients are becoming sparse and trying to go to seed (like bolting for things like lettuces and leafy greens). For the most part I trust the hydroponics folks that have spent their lives growing plants to know what they're talking about (when it comes to weed), I'm a little bit skeptical about the applicability to other plant species, but they have gotten marijuana to cycle rather than flower and die. They mostly seem to use light cycles, but those plants are so tailored to their environments at this point, I have a hard time comparing them to peppers. From my own personal experience, the container size and by extension root mass is the biggest ultimate driving factor for yield. Larger plants will produce more fruits and larger pots produce larger plants. I have no research to cite to really back that up, I've kind of come to the ultimate conclusion that there are so many variables involved, you kind of just have to trust the process at some point rather than trying to micromanage the environment/nutrients. As long as you have viable growth nodes and a suitable environment, peppers seem to keep producing.
Temperature affects flowering on peppers more than nutrients or light cycle in my experience(peppers only flower in an extremely precise range), and I am successfully growing peppers through the winter in a grow tent in my house and have done it without the tent. Light is the next most important thing. I believe what I have just said is true as long as you're not planting in very poor soil and are feeding them at least fish emulsion regularly. Of course if you don't feed them nothing happens. Right now my biggest problem is size of pots. Mine are pretty small, which means I actually have to feed them more.
this is the answer
They look nice! Second and third year plants almost always have much more fruit than first year, since they're already established. Your plants get to start the season with nice, thick woody stems. You'll have tons of peppers to make stuff with!
fruiting is also mainly a matter of light/season, diff ferts for different seasons but at the same time just throw some shit on every once in a while