Good Morning! Two things: 1. Soil always needs to be amended with about 85-90% carbon compost (brown leaves, brown straw, wood chips and so on) along with about 10-15% nitrogen compost (kitchen scraps like banana peels, any peels, broccoli stems, uneaten vegetarian spoils, apple cores, coffee, and manure is nitrogen too). Egg shells should also be mixed in for calcium. This should be done in any vegetable and even flower bed at least six months prior to planting. If you haven't done this, you can go to Home Depot or your local garden shop and ask for balanced compost to mix into your soil (be careful not to damage roots) and layer on top so that it slowly goes into the earth with rain. Oh, and obviously it is cheaper to plan/more environmental too:-) 2. The person who mentioned weather is spot on too. Once you've given your plants food, wait for the sun, heat and rains. It's shocking how plants will all of a sudden just take off when everything is right for them! Hope this helps. p.s. numbers above can vary depending on what you are going to grow.

Fruitnut: I applaud your efforts, at worst you may be eccentric, who cares, at best, ahead of the curve. All of us should be aiming for what works best in our area as you well know. Speaking from experience, greenhouse and high tunnel culture are worlds vastly apart from outdoor culture, each have their own set of challenges and benefits. Probably the biggest set of challenges, depending on the regional climate, for the beginner is the relative lack of information on growing under cover when it comes to fruits. Being an atypical beginner to outdoor fruit culture, it is wonderful to have access to so much information ranging from published refereed journal research to gardening magazine articles. Though the learning curve is steep, at least there are many good footholds to use to climb the hill and many hands held out to help. I suspect trying to find labeled pesticides for fruit crops under plastic is pretty challenging also. Just curious what your water quality is like and soils as the 2 can lead to problems with salt accumulations over time depending on the water quality, soil type and irrigation practices. Like many, our little postage stamp sized horticultural enterprise could definitely use more land, there is none available. Both my wife and I would love to put up a high tunnel for extended vegetable production but we lack the means. It is quite unfortunate as I easily have the expertise to erect and maintain a high tunnel and farm under plastic. I just remembered a benefit you may not have ever mentioned to growing under plastic, you don't have to wear sunscreen to avoid sunburn! Darned it, now I really wish I had a high tunnel!

I would leave them in the ground. it is too easy to break off the roots and really mess up the plant trying to put it back into a pot. Your habanero is huge for this time of year. they grow slow. However, it would have been best to keep them in pots. I am zone 5 and my habs are in pots. most are smaller than yours. the big advantage is that in the day time the sun warms up the pot and the roots and the plant can grow much better. I really think you are going to be OK and will get habs. next year with experience. keeping the plants in pots so the roots warm up in the sunshine. you should do even better. I was at a big fruit stand today, and thy have habs half your size for $3 each in tiny pots. that habanero you have is going to do just fine. but these first weeks are going to be hard on you and then it will get hot and they will shoot up. you will get peppers on them so sit back and enjoy. now you will always remember. plant peppers last. they need lots of heat. tomatoes like it warm but will grow better at a cooler temperature than will peppers. Peppers want it hot and sunny. and they want the roots good and warm.

Lol Bob! I am anxiously awaiting my ST lemons to ripen (I’ve got one or two that are huge and starting to turn). I can’t wait to try lemon bars with those! I spent all morning working on my trees. I moved all my grafts into slightly larger pots and still have a few more trees to move up. I found two with two types of scale that had been snuck on by ants (on my red lime and cocktail grapefruit). Yuck! Citrus emergency last night as a result. I wiped them down and cut off the part of the brack they were one. Luckily, they were quite localized.