Good afternoon, @hellena!
We hope you don´t mind that we dare to give you a little recommendation regarding your planting situation. It would be much better if you used pots instead of paint buckets. Pots have three essential advantages as follows:

1. They have a completely dark coloring which impedes light irradiation.
2. They have holes at their bottom side which enable water excess to drain off, thus the plants can´t be immersed.
3. They are made of a special material that is not affected by light and other external influencers. We have some pots that we are using since 15 years so they are extremely durable.

Your pepper plants look great, please don´t get us wrong. However, their branching, leaf building and general growth could be still improved.

We hope you appreciate the comment and are following you for future #gardening publications.

Best
Team @semillas