Planting Peppers in the Raised Bed

I put in some starter Red Knight (X3R) and am trying to grow Cal Wonder Red from seeds. My wife is the Green Thumb and primary gardener in the family. She’s become a convert to straw bale gardening and has been doing that for four years now, along with containers and hanging baskets. I on the other hand have opted to go the raised bed route, along with a few container plants.

The raised bed needed a bit of prep work first after surviving the unusually brutal winter we had.

Some weeds needed to be pulled, including the evil bane of my existence, Creeping Charlie.

Last year, the Creeping Charlie always seemed to be concentrated along the edges. Other weeds came up randomly, but Charlie loved to come up right next to the wood frame.

I’m trying a new theory this year after running across it on YouTube, composting directly in the raised bed. Since I’m not convinced this is a flat-out brilliant idea, I’m just doing it around the edges after pulling out Charlie. The cafeteria where I work had a bunch of used coffee grounds.

The starter plants and the seeds all got a little food today.

The last few years I planted the entire raised bed, but once plants were growing and producing, I found it hard to reach into the interior plants to harvest. Not sure yet, but it might end up with just mulch in the middle section of this bed.

Twelve starter plants around the edges and a row of seeds along the fourth side. Gotta get at least four more starter plants. Once the seeds start sprouting, I’ll thin out those plants so the hardiest of them are remaining. There’s a bit of mulch left over from last year, but I plan on adding more once the seedlings are thinned.

This raised bed was a 4’x8’ one from a kit. I’m thinking about adding another next year but building it myself to a 3’ width so it’ll be easier to both weed and harvest. This one is on the side of our house where it gets a lot of sun. A drawback of the location is that it’s not fenced so deer come to browse, reducing the harvest. Deer repellent has been only marginally helpful. The fenced backyard is patrolled by our 95-pound dog so deer dare not jump the fence for a quick meal. But the backyard doesn’t get as much sun, so it’s a bit of a trade-off.

Yeah, I know, I don’t mulch enough. Didn’t even bother mulching a path around the bed last year. Bad wombat.