Sorry for the confusion and thanks everyone for the advice. To clear it up, I was just trying to figure out how much soil to buy and a recommendation. I am new but learning more everyday especially from this forum. For example I wanted to know how much soil to purchase for aprox (10) plants using 5 gallons as an (example measure.) 5 plants will be in ground and I am planting the other 5 in containers or container bags.... I think I will go the container bag route (Any recommendation on Container bag brand and size for tomatoes and peppers?)..... I am aware that 5 gallon gallon containers are pushing it for tomatoes/peppers so I may get a 7 gallon bag or 10 gallon if that is not to big for tomatoes. My initial confusion was when I saw some soil advertised by cubic ft and some by the pound, but I do know now from the above responses. I also did not know that the weight of the soil played a factor on the soil moisture content as said above. Last year I was told to dig a whole and pour soil in it to help with the plant and top it with mulch. So I dug 4 holes about 12x14 and poured soil in it. The 4 plants only produced about 35 "early goliath" tomatoes about tennis ball size so I new something was wrong, I did not use anything else. For my soil, I think it could be good, I just never tested it the location is based between Philadelphia and Princeton and there tons of tomato farms in the area so I guess it couldn't be bad. So now I know not to grow organic in containers with organic soil but rather soil-less mixture? and with that said any organic soil-less mixture should fair well in containers. I hope this clears it up and I thanks everyone again for their help. And for my last question which I am still confused about has to do with..... what fertilizer to add to the soil for the plants that I just put in the ground with it's existing soil? ......and what type of fertilizer to use for the plants I grow in the containers with a soil-less potting mix? Sorry if I confused you again. And I really appreciate everyones advice and patience in answering. -Mr Beno

Walter; I am growing bell peppers in a small ebb n flo in my office window. during vegative growth, I generally keep the EC at around 2.0-2.4 which (according to the stick) is approximately 1500-1700, so your 1100 sounds a bit low to me. I started my plants approx august 20. I have one that is very leggy, the other is short and stout. the latter is about 8" tall and has 6 fruits. the largest fruit being about 1.5" between flower and stem. I am currently clipping flowers to limit quantity and focus on size. the leggy one only just recently started to flower, and I haven't seen any fruit set yet. I generally keep my EC as stated above w/ pH of 5.8-6.0. I use general hydronics per their label, except in flowering I'll increase the micro a bit and / or lessen the grow. My experience with these plants and the ones I've grown in the yard is they are not very large plants, so I would expect 8" to 1 foot to be about max height, especially since you're using artificial light. Greystoke; I'm working on just such a system now. I'm thinking two tanks. the one at the bottom catches system runoff, the system at the top is a gravity feed reservoir. you just have to dump the bottom tank into the top tank each day.(muscle versus electricity, has to be some kind of power input) this system will also require some kind of check valve to keep the ebb n flo starting and stopping throughout the day. I haven't got the valve part fully worked out yet, but when I do I'll let you know. I believe it will somehow incorporate the smartvalve walter mentioned in his post though. Here is a link that might be useful:

Hi Y'all, I'm back, after being tied up most all of last week with a huge and very successful VFD fundraiser. Sorry I wasn't here to answer the habanero and apricot questions in a more timely manner. First of all, I don't know if y'all are using the Habanero Gold original recipe that makes about 3 jars per batch or the Big Batch recipe that makes 6 jars per batch. I normally use the Big Batch because you get twice the jars per batch so it is more efficient if you want to make a lot and have a lot of peppers at one time. Seedmama, Some years I have huge habaneros and other years I have smaller ones, so it is hard to say how many it takes to make a quarter cup because it can vary widely. This year the habs were smaller (but there were more of them) so it probably took 8 of them (or more) to make a quarter-cup. I usually cut up a whole bucketful or big bowl full at one time (WEAR GLOVES!) and then measure them out into 1/4 cup portions, placing each 1/4 cup in a small ziplock bag. Then I put all the small ziplocks into a gallon-sized freezer ziplock bag and I have all the chopped habs I need for the next year. You can make jelly with fresh habs or with frozen and then thawed habs. It works fine either way. With regards to the gloves, some people wear the standard yellow or pink kitchen gloves, but I wear the tighter-fitting nitrile or latex medical type gloves, which I buy by the two-pack of 100-glove boxes at Sam's or CostCo. For some peppers, one layer of gloves is sufficient but sometimes I can feel the capsaicin soaking through to my skin and have to either change out gloves with every batch or wear double gloves. I never, ever, ever handle cut hot peppers without wearing gloves, a rule which has served me well over the years. When making habanero jelly, I always remove the seeds and inner white membrane because those habs are hot enough as it is and I don't think the seeds are attractive mixed in with the 'confetti'-sized pieces of sweet peppers, hot peppers and red onions. If you want REALLY hot flavor, I guess you could leave the seeds in, but I don't. If I want exceptionally hot flavor, I just double or triple the amount of habs and decrease the amount of chopped sweet peppers/onions accordingly. I chop up all the dried apricots from a Sam's bag as needed, so I've never kept track of how many batches I get from a big bag, but a big bag will last me about a month in the summer unless all the habs ripen at once and I'm making jelly day after day, in which case I might go through three bags in one month. I've made about 100 jars of hot pepper jelly so far this year and I've used several containers of apricots, including both the big bags from Sam's and the little square plastic containers from Wal-Mart. I also have made apple-habanero jelly using the small bags of dried apples from Wal-Mart and I think I got two small batches (3 jars per batch) from each bag of dried apples. Hope this info is not too late to be helpful. Dawn

we are growing the white bullet habenero this year also. I don't think your pot is too small, seems like it should be the proper size. We use 5 gallon black nursery pots which may be a little larger. I don't know how big the plant is supposed to get but ours are very squat bushy plants rather than tall. They are maybe 10-12 inches tall over the top of the pot but they are not having any probs setting chiles (in fact the chile is small and not the usual hab shape which is why the plant can hold so many pods, I think). Flower drop is usually lack of pollination that could be due to many different reasons. Are you getting pods on all your other peppers, have you tried self pollinating the flowers with a q-tip or small paint brush or another chile? Older leaves will yellow and fall off naturally but it never hurts to cut back on water and fertilizer on a chile plant. Maybe you could post a pic, other wise I would just wait and see. Chinense are late pod setters sometimes, my other two chinense types have not set any pods even though they are pumping out flowers, but they will eventually. Here are some pictures of our white bullet hab taken maybe a week ago. White Bullet Habanero kendra