What is the best fertilizer for peppers?
Peppers are one of the most common vegetable plants grown in home gardens. Almost fifty percent of people planning a garden will plant sweet pepper varieties (especially bell peppers); almost one-third of home gardens contain some variety of hot pepper.
With many varieties to choose from it is easy to find one, or a few, that meet your taste preferences. Proper fertilization will help increase the chance of a bountiful harvest. In this post, we will talk about what to look for in a good fertilizer and a few of our favorite options.
Table of Contents
What is the best fertilizer for peppers?
Here is a quick preview of the plant food we are going to take a closer look at in this post:
- Miracle-Gro LiquaFeed Tomato, Fruits and Vegetable Plant Food
- Miracle-Gro Performance Organics – All Purpose Fertilizer
- Lilly Miller Morcrop Tomato & Vegetable Food 5-10-10
- Dr. Earth Organic 5 Tomato, Vegetable & Herb Fertilizer
- Ludicrous Tomato Plant Food
To learn more about each individual fertilizer keep reading, but first…
What to look for in a good fertilizer for peppers
Extremely easy to grow, it’s no wonder peppers are found in many gardens across the United States. Peppers have a longer growing season than most garden vegetables and their plants are smaller in stature than tomatoes.
They grow slower in cooler weather and faster when it is warmer; to encourage seedlings to grow quickly plant outside once the nighttime temperatures are steadily above 60 degrees.
After transplanting peppers into the garden, wait to fertilize them until plants begin to blossom to encourage fruit production. Fertilizing the plants prior to blossoming will encourage vegetative growth instead and allocate less of the plant’s resources to producing flowers, and in turn fruit.
Peppers are medium to heavy feeders (depending on the variety planted and size of fruit produced), meaning they require more fertilizer than some plants during the growing season for optimum growth. To promote fruit growth on plants versus vegetative growth a fertilizer ratio of 5-10-10 is best.
These numbers are on the fertilizer label and are known as the N-P-K ratio (nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium); this ratio tells the percentage, by weight, of the three main nutrients in the bag. In a 5-10-10 formula, a 10 pound bag of fertilizer would contain 0.5 pounds of nitrogen, 1 pound of phosphorus, and 1 pound of potassium.
There are certain nutrients that are essential to plant growth. Fertilizers are classified based on the main three – nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium – to make it less confusing for consumers.
Nitrogen is listed first on the label since it is considered the most key nutrient needed for plant growth. Its main responsibility in the plant is regulating vegetative growth. Nitrogen is assimilated in the plant into amino acids, the building blocks of protein; it is also a major component of chlorophyll and helps to keep foliage green, and nitrogen is necessary for many of the plant’s enzymatic reactions.
Phosphorus is a structural component in DNA and RNA (the genetic building blocks within plant cells) and is needed for root growth and flowering. Potassium works more indirectly in plants than nitrogen and phosphorus. While it isn’t a component of any plant parts, it functions by activating the enzymatic reactions that occur, making it imperative for the overall health of the plant.
A quick look in any garden center, or an internet search, will provide the home gardener with a plethora of fertilizers to choose from. This may seem overwhelming but can be navigated by thinking about a few main concepts: do you want conventional or organic products, vegetable specific or all-purpose plant food, and granule versus liquid?
The consumer can then narrow down the selection based upon these personal preferences.
To help you make the best choice and get the most out of your garden, I have narrowed my choices of the best fertilizer for peppers to these 4 options.
The Best Fertilizers For Peppers
MiracleGro LiquaFeed
Miracle-Gro products are known to successfully fertilize plants, encouraging fuller, greener growth and bigger blooms/fruit. The brand is a market leader and can be purchased at most retailers.
With that being said a great option for feeding your peppers is MiracleGro LiquaFeed.
LiquaFeed products offer growers a simple solution to fertilizing their plants. Simply attach a bottle of Tomato, Fruits, and Vegetables Plant Food to a MiracleGro Advanced Feeder set the dial to “feed” and water your garden plants as usual.
Yes, I know it may be hard to believe, but fertilizing your peppers can be just that easy.
No need to worry about mixing fertilizer in the correct concentration!
Additional tips for applying: One bottle of 9-4-9 fertilizer will feed about 400 square feet of space.
Apply to plants every 7-14 days to help develop strong roots and grow high-quality peppers.
Miracle-Gro Performance Organic Fertilizer
Another great option to keep your peppers looking great all season long is Miracle Gro’s Performance Organic Fertilizer.
As we mentioned earlier peppers are medium to heavy eaters and thus they need a good amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium blend to promote good growth and keep them looking fresh all season long.
In addition, it uses organic ingredients ensuring to keep your garden as well as the environment safe. Because it is an all-purpose fertilizer you don’t have to limit yourself to using it on your peppers. It works great on other plants and veggies too!
Lastly, this fertilizer is not spread by hooking up the water hose but it contains a shaker. This gives you a little more control over how much plant food is going into your garden. After you have spread the correct amount you then can water your garden to start the feeding process.
How to apply. Open the top and shake the granules evenly into the top 1-3 inches of soil. After you have done that you can then begin to water your plants. This will activate the feeding process.
One 2.5 pound bag covers up to 240 square feet.
Lily Miller Morcrop Tomato & Vegetable Plant Food
A granular tomato and vegetable food, Lilly Miller Morcrop Tomato & Vegetable Food is specially formulated with both slow and quick release nitrogen fertilizer to provide plants with continuous nutrients.
Made from a blend of natural ingredients – including fish – and traditional plants foods to give plants 5 sources of nitrogen. This encourages steady plant growth and strong root systems.
Morcrop Tomato & Vegetable Food is fortified with essential plant minerals to make sure plants receive all of the nutrition they need, not just nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
It is important to note that this is a granular fertilizer meaning that you spread it out close to the plants and then it needs to be watered to start feeding the plants.
Additional tips when applying this plant food. Works on all types of plants, and can be applied at any time during the growing season as it will not burn plants.
One application can provide nutrition for up to six weeks time.
Dr. Earth’s Organic
The last option to make our list of the best plant food for peppers is Dr. Earth Organic 5 Tomato, Vegetable & Herb Fertilizer.
This 100% organic formula provides optimal levels of the nutrients essential to plants, without the need to add synthetic chemical fertilizers.
Dr. Earth Organic 5 Tomato, Vegetable & Herb Fertilizer is a superior blend of fish bone meal, feather meal, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, soft rock phosphate, fish meal, mined potassium sulfate, humic acid, seaweed extract, seven beneficial strains of soil microbes, plus mycorrhizae.
Nutrients are released quickly and easily available for plant uptake; plants are fed a continuous amount of high-quality nutrients for several months.
The natural, organic 5-7-3 ratio of N-P-K results in more abundant crops, healthier plants, and nutritious vegetables.
Ludicrous Plant Food
The next one that we are going to take a look at has a very interesting name?
Since this is a family blog, let’s just call it Ludicrous Nutrients Tomato Plant Food. Tomato fertilizer? I thought we were talking about pepper plant food?
Yes, we are. While this product works great with tomatoes, it can also do wonders for your veggies in general. Including peppers.
As we have mentioned the key for vegetables, in general, is to have those 3 key nutrients, Nitrogen, Potassium, and Phosphorous. Micronutrients such as calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, etc. are also important.
Well, Ludicrous Nutrients plant food has you covered.
Lastly, it is an organic fertilizer that can be used on indoor plants as well as outdoor plants.
Verdict:
What is the best fertilizer for peppers?
My choice is the Lilly Miller Morcrop Tomato & Vegetable Food 5-10-10
I choose Lilly Miller because it has the perfect blend of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. In addition, it is ready to use out of the bag making it extremely easy to use and for me, extremely difficult to mess things up.
So if you are a gardener that just wants some plant food they can give to their plants without having to give it much thought or having to worry about hurting your crops, give the Lilly Miller a try!
Final Thoughts….
Peppers are a staple crop in home gardens with about half of gardeners growing sweet pepper varieties and one-third growing hot peppers.
A key aspect to growing strong, healthy plants that produce quality yields is proper fertilization.
Choosing one of the above fertilizers to feed pepper plants will provide the right about of nutrients essential for plant growth and a hearty crop.
There you have it! Our top 4 options.
Now let’s turn things over to you….What have you found to be the best fertilizer for peppers? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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