Should You Pinch Off Pepper Plant Flowers?
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If you’re growing peppers, you want to get the most out of each plant. It can be exciting to see the very first flowers start forming on your plants. More flowers means more peppers, right?
Since we start our peppers indoors in the late spring, it is not unusual to see flower buds beginning to form in April or May. So that begs the question, should you remove early flowers from pepper plants? In this article, I’ll share our advice on pinching flower buds.
In this article:
- What are pepper flowers?
- Should you prune pepper flowers?
- How to pick pepper flowers
- When to stop picking pepper flowers
- Why are my pepper flowers falling off?
Should You Pick Pepper Flowers? (Video):
What Are Pepper Flowers?
Pepper flowers are the beginnings of the plant’s fruits. Each flower has the potential to form into a pepper, so long as it is pollinated and the plant is large enough to support the fruit. Bees, flies, and even the wind help to fertilize the flowers, and the peppers bear seeds.
Peppers self-pollinate, meaning that each flower contains both male and female reproductive parts. This means that you don’t have to worry about growing multiple plants side by side to get good harvests.
However, sometimes pepper plants can begin flowering too early. A number of factors can cause this, including waiting too long to transplant, poor fertilizer habits, or irregular temperatures.
Should I Pinch Off Early Pepper Flowers?
If you are waiting on the weather to warm up so that your plants can safely move outdoors, your plants may start producing flowers prematurely. This is a pepper plant’s natural response to limited soil space. If the plant doesn’t have enough soil to continue growing more roots, it will begin the next stage of growth, fruit and seed production.
During the transition outside, I recommend to prune early pepper flower buds and fruits off of the plant. Be sure to first allow the flowers to grow large enough so you don’t damage the young leaves when picking. Another option is to only pick flowers that begin forming fruits, and leave the rest alone.
Early flowers are a sign that your plants need to be up-potted. If you planted your seeds too early, it is very common to have pre-mature flowers when plants outgrow small containers.
So more important than pinching the flowers is to give the plants more space to continue growing. The premature flowers are a signal that the plant needs more soil, so prioritize up-potting as soon as possible!
If your plants have been properly transplanted to larger pots at the right time, the leafy growth will continue while flowers form simultaneously. So if the container size is adequate, there is no need to remove flowers.
Plan ahead by scheduling your seed starting according to your planting zone. There’s nothing worse than planting too early and having root-bound plants eager to get outside! Know when to plant your pepper seeds.
Fertilizing Properly
Using the right fertilizer in early-stage pepper growth can change how many early flower buds your plants produce. During early plant growth, pepper plants prefer a higher percentage of nitrogen.
This helps the plants produce a strong stem, branches, and leaves as opposed to flowers and fruits. If your fertilizer is low in nitrogen, consider switching to something with a higher volume.
For early stage growth, we recommend using one of these fertilizers for pepper plants:
- Fox Farm Grow Big – Part of a 3-pack fertilizer regimen.
- Miracle-Gro Organics
After your plants have reached maturity (usually mid to late July in the Northern Hemisphere), you can either reduce the amount of fertilizer or switch to something with less nitrogen to encourage fruiting.
Keep in mind, I mostly use fertilizer for potted plants, while in-ground gardens need less (or even none). If you have a raised bed or an in-ground garden, I highly recommend composting and amending the soil once or twice per year for slow-release, natural nutrients.
How To Pick Pepper Flower Buds
The last thing you want to do is to damage your pepper plants while pruning flowers. You’ll want to work carefully to avoid damaging any leaves while removing the buds. To help you avoid this, here are a few tips for picking early flowers.
- If the buds are tiny, let them grow larger before picking
- Use tweezers or pruning shears for smaller flowers
- If using your fingers, don’t pinch, just pluck in an upward motion
- Consider waiting for flowers to begin forming a fruit before picking (many will naturally fall off before fruiting)
Pepper plant flowers tend to grow in tight bunches right around newly developing leafy growth. Each flower is usually surrounded by new leaves. If the flowers are tiny, it is best to leave them until they are easier to pick to avoid damage.
I find that using tweezers helps get a more precise pluck, especially with peppers that have a smaller flower size. With larger flower buds, it is safe to just use your fingers and pull the flower off in an upward motion.
Tip: It can be painful to remove your plant’s progress, but don’t worry! Healthy pepper plants will produce plenty more flowers later on.
If you have any tiny peppers growing too early in the season, pick those off too! When fruits are growing, the plant is focusing all of its energy on growing the fruits and seeds rather than leaves and branches. Failing to remove early peppers is a main cause of stunted pepper plants.
When To Stop Picking Pepper Flowers
At some point, you should stop picking your pepper plant’s flowers. After all, the flowers are what grow into the peppers, so when should you stop removing them?
In general, stop picking pepper flowers when your plants have been in their final planting location for 2-3 weeks. This allows the plants enough time to grow a healthy root system and form strong branches and leafy growth. In the Northern hemisphere, we stop pruning flowers around early to mid June (Zone 6).
After a few weeks of being in their final location, the pepper plants should be maturing to a healthy size. The plants will then be ready to set fruit and begin producing peppers. Give your plants enough time to produce fully ripened peppers by the end of the season!
One potential exception is if you live in an especially cold climate. For you far-Northerners, you may want to avoid picking flowers and fruits all together. Letting the plant flower earlier will maximize the time the plants have to ripen fruits. Pay attention to the ripening time of your pepper variety, and your location’s first frost date.
Note: Nutrients can help encourage your plants to form more flowers and fruits instead of more leaves and branches.
Why Are My Pepper Flowers Falling Off?
During late-stage growth, you want your pepper plants to have lots of flower buds. The more flowers, the more potential peppers. So why are your pepper flowers dropping off instead of growing into peppers?
There are a few possible reasons this could be happening. Let’s go through the possibilities. Learn more about pepper flowers dropping here.
Hot or Cold Temperatures
Peppers like warm weather during the day. This means daytime temps around 75-80°F and night-time temps above 60°F. Having temperatures above or below these can cause stress for the plants.
Excessively hot temperatures in mid-summer is a common cause for flower buds dropping. If you expect a heat-wave with temps above 90°F, try to provide shade through this period and feed the plants plenty of water. This will help avoid too many dropped flower buds.
If you are expecting cold weather below 55°F, consider bringing your potted pepper plants indoors for the night. If you have plants in the ground, you can temporarily cover them with floating row cover for some temporary protection.
Over-watering
If you’ve read our article on watering pepper plants, you’ll know that over-watering is one of the most common mistakes newer gardeners make when growing peppers. It is easy to over-care for your peppers, and providing too much water is not good.
Pepper plants are happier when slightly dry as opposed to soaking wet. They need to have moist roots, but they also require good drainage. That is why growing in pots is a good option, especially for first-time pepper growers.
Whether you have pepper plants in pots or in a garden bed, make sure that water can escape from the root system of your plants. Too much water can suffocate the roots and cause yellowing leaves, leaves and flowers dropping off, and even root death.
There could be other reasons for dropping flower buds (poor pollination, disease, excess nitrogen, etc.), but these are the most likely culprits.
Read Next:
I hope this guide helps you decide when to pluck your early pepper flowers. This simple technique in early spring can help you get the best results from your plants in the long run!
Calvin
One of the original Pepper Geeks! When Calvin isn’t gardening or learning more about peppers and botany, he might be traveling new places or playing some music.
I am growing ghost peppers and habanero in pots outside, and they both just started producing flowers. I pruned the first round of flowers in hopes the peppers would get taller (they are around 1 foot tall now) and now more buds are growing. Should I prune them or let them grow? I am in Zone 8b!
As long as you have enough season ahead of you, you can prune. But we simply wait until the plant is showing signs of leafy growth/getting taller, then we stop pruning the flowers. From there, the plant should do both – produce fruits, and continue to get bigger.
I planted my bell and jalapeños about a week ago in the ground. I’m happy to have found your article so that I can give my peppers the care they need. Thank you for your instruction. You explained it so well.
I am growing bell peppers indoor under lights with lots of flowers happening they will be staying indoors
If they are large enough, let the flowers form! The only reason to pluck them off is if the plant is too young and small to be producing a good sized yield.
i topped a 7 pot lava plant, and im keeping it indoors until its ready to go outside, the removal of the main growth has created a short and very bushy plant with about 70 flower buds. The ones that are producing peppers seem like they are going to end up being dwarf versions of the expected pod size. i dont know if the plant is ruined or if i can to remove all flowers and try to induce foliage growth, or if its too late and ill just keep getting dwarf peppers that have extreme heat and no flavor..
And they are bell peppers
Thanks for the info. What if you had the plants about 1 month in the elements in a fairly small pot because that is all the space you have and they started to flower.. Should I pick the flowers then or leave them? Oh and I live in a tropical country.
If you do not plan to up-pot, then leave the flowers on. Bell peppers may struggle to produce full-sized pods in a smaller container, but no need to pluck flowers either way!
Hello,
I live in a tropical country, I’ve planted in my garden my Farmer Market Jalapenos once they had 3 sets of true leaves like 2 weeks ago.
One is starting to produce flower buds despite having no more than 5 set of true leaves. Should I pinch those when they get bigger ? The plant is still small (but it gets a lot of direct sunlight, like 7 or 8 hours a day), I would say no more than 20cm. And I doubt it’s be able to support full grown jalapenos.
Thank you for your input !
Hi, I would see how the plant naturally progresses without plucking. If the flowers begin to form fruits, you could consider picking them.
I have a few jalapeno plant in 8 inch pots. They got sun scalded when I moved them outside. I placed them in a greenhouse since and there are still growing. I see flower buds forming on them. Should I let the flowers grow or should I pick them off. I live in Ireland. the peppers plants are not that tall for 1/2 feet to 1 feet tall.
At this point, you can do either – you can leave them on and the nutrients you provide will encourage more leafy growth. Later in the season, reducing nitrogen will then help trigger a strong harvest.
I planted my peppers a couple weeks ago on the first week of may. They were starter plants and few of them are already starting to flower. I should pick the flowers correct? I’m in California and usually the weather is nice but the weather has been 70 or below the past week and for the next few days.
I have a Trinidad maruga scorpion pepper plant that is about 18 inches tall and has been overwintered. I live in an apartment so I cant put it outside. It is in a large pot about 13″ across by 15″ deep. When I overwintered it, I pruned all the foliage and cut the stem down to about 6″ (not sure if I did this right). Anyways about a month ago I put it back in the window that gets the most sun. it has grown very quickly and now it has around 30 buds and 2 open flowers. I cant put it in a bigger pot and cant take it outside. Should I clip off my buds or just let them be? I am in Denmark and today is the hottest day of the year (about 60 degrees Fahrenheit)
Considering you are in Denmark, I would leave those flowers on and let the plant do what it can do to produce fruits. If you were here, where things are only just beginning to warm up, I might say prune the flowers to allow the plant to grow larger first, but you don’t have as long a season to work with.
Hello Calvin,
Thank you for your reply. I am growing in an iDoo hydroponic garden that has the same size pods as Aerogarden. In addition to the plant from store bought sweet mini pepper seeds I am growing Jalapeño M, Mini Belle, and Pretty and Sweet. Upon closer inspection it does look like the Pretty and Sweet and the Jalapeño have one or two tiny buds.
I have never grown peppers. I am concerned that if I cut the buds off I will never see any peppers. Conversely, I am afraid if I leave them on the tiny plant/s can’t support the peppers. This garden comes with the ability to stake items. However the stakes are six-seven inches tall and I would have to move the light way up away from the plants, (3” inches is the tallest).
Thank you for your advice!
I would remove the flowers until the plants reach a mature size. Then let the flowers develop. Don’t worry, as long as they have access to nutrients, they will continue to put out new flowers.
However, depending on the reservoir size, the plants may become crowded. For 4 pepper plants, the reservoir should be several gallons, especially for larger pepper varieties. This is why they always provide smaller varieties for the smaller systems.
Pluck the flowers for a few weeks and allow the plants to produce more foliage, and once they seem to be maxing out, let the flowers mature. Btw, if you are indoors, you may need to self-pollinate. Check out our post on the Aerogarden here for more info on how to do that.
Hi Calvin,
Thanks for the great article on flowering peppers. I have a question: I started a hydroponic garden on 09/07/20. I have four types of peppers growing. One of them (seed from store-bought mini sweet peppers), appears to have over a dozen tiny flower buds starting. It’s barely been a month. The plant is only 3-4 inches tall. Should I remove all the buds? How can I be certain they are buds? They look like the ones in your pictures. Any help will be appreciated greatly. Thanks!
Hi Valerie,
If you want your plant to grow larger, you can prune away the flowers. However, what size is the root chamber you’re growing in? The smaller it is, the smaller the plant and the sooner it will flower and produce fruit. Type of nutrients can also encourage flowering.
Do any of the other pepper plants have flower buds yet? It could just be the variety of pepper…
We are also planning to do a winter hydroponic pepper grow this year, so we’ll definitely have a bunch of new info on our site/youtube channel in the coming months!
-Calvin
Is it normal for the petals to fall off of ghost pepper flowers but not the stamen? I have lots of buds and as they flower the petals all drop off after a few days. Is this the same thing as flower drop?
Hi Zach,
Yes, this is totally normal. The pistil can also remain on the pepper all the way through to harvest. Once the fruit begins to develop, you can carefully pluck all of these pieces away (if you wish).
Best,
-Calvin
I have a pepper plant in the ground with lots of leaves & little wee peppers, but the peppers aren’t getting bigger. Do you know what the problem could be?
Hi Laurie,
This happens often for the first few peppers that are produced, however you should make sure the plants have the nutrients (fertilizer) they need to develop fruits. If you are unsure of what your soil contains, best to use a well rounded fertilizer like Fox Farm’s trio.
Another possible reason could be temperature. If it gets very hot (over 90F degrees), the plants may have stunted fruit production.
Best,
-Calvin
I want to say thanks . i learned more in this article than most others . now u just have to deal with wild rabbits . ( an on going issue no matter what has been planted) i live on former marsh land so all my plants do fairly well .
Thanks again.
Hey Mike,
Good luck with the rabbits, they can be a real pain when plants are young…
Best,
-Calvin
This is my first year planting anything. I planted cherry and Roma tomatoes and Serrano and jalapeño peppers. I planted them in 12 gallon canvas bags. They are kind of like grocery bags. They said they were good for air circulation and avoiding over watering. They have been planted for almost two months and are about a foot and a half tall. Covered in flowers and about 10 peppers each. How often to you think I should water. I’ve been doing an every other day thing or when the bag feels lighter. They are on the side of my house and get full morning sun and then shade at about 3pm. Also should I take some of the flowers off. They are covered in them and most of them have little nubbies starting. Also do you have an article on how to know when to pick them. Lol.. This is all new to us. My son and I started them as a science project for the new home schooling regimen where all going through.
Hi Valerie,
Sounds great! How many plants are in each of the 12 gallon bags? That is a lot of soil, so it should take a while to dry out (though it has been hot).
For watering, check out our article on watering peppers here. Generally, we water when the soil is almost completely dried out, or when the plants begin to wilt. Peppers hate being overwatered!
As for when to pick your peppers, we do have an article – read all about harvesting peppers here. Most peppers change color when fully ripe, but you can also pick them earlier. Generally, wait for them to stop growing in size, and ideally allow them to change color.
Hope this helps and best of luck with your peppers!
-Calvin
Do you think this is a pepper? The flower florescent has 4-6 teeeeny flowers. One group has started to produce fruit from all flowers in the group. I did not intentionally plant pepper seeds in the bed they started from so I have no idea and can’t find any pictures to match. I might have to just wait and see.
Hi Jane,
Without a picture it is hard to say. Pepper flowers are typically 1-2 cm in diameter, so it doesn’t sound likely…
Let us know what ends up fruiting!
-Calvin
Hey there!
Very good content on your channel! Quick question: I planted a plethora of 17 different superhots consistent of carolina reaper, chocolate bhutlah, bhutlah scorpion, red Savino, butch T, 7 pot brainstrain, and peach scorpion. All of them are very healthy green and are around 2 feet tall. I am getting some bushier anatomy on them and they are starting to grow flower quite abundantly with some that are starting to fruit and make peppers. Now that they are making peppers, I still don’t feel these are mature enough in size and so I have not been fertilizing because I don’t want to affect the fruits. What would you advise for a regime moving forward? Should I continue my fox farm fertiziler, pluck off the approximate flowers to keep green growth progression? I used miracle gro in the early life and now moved to less nitrogen uptake via fox farms 3 bundle. I live in Southwestern Michigan. Thank you for your help in advance! Hope the growing is going well for you so far this year!
Hey Anthony,
That sounds great, 2′ is a pretty good size for this time of year! At this point, we don’t touch any flowers, especially with superhots. The pods can take months to form and ripen, so it is a bit late for vigorous vegetative growth. However, the plants should continue to get bigger while the fruits are developing, so I would keep fertilizing with a reduced (but not 0) nitrogen. Hope this helps and best of luck with the awesome set of plants! -Calvin
Many of my pepper plants (wide assortment) each have produced 1 pepper after being transplanted in the garden 3 weeks. It is now 6 weeks since transplant (June 30) and they are not getting very tall, they are only about 8-10″ and have no other flower buds. We had a lot of rain here early on and the leaves were a little yellow but now the tops are getting good greens leaves. Would it be a good idea to pick the one fruit from each plant to get it to produce better in the long run?
Hey Brian,
I would recommend taking away the one peppers to allow the plant to focus on foliage. Since each plant only has 1 pepper, it isn’t much of a sacrifice. You should end up with better harvests later on as a result. Also, the early peppers are still edible (though they likely won’t have much heat or flavor yet).
Good luck, and check back to let us know how everything turns out.
-Calvin
I have a ghost pepper plant that isn’t potted yet but has around 15-20 buds. Should I pull them all off?
That’s a tough question. I would pot it immediately and allow the flower buds to produce at this point in the season. Ghost peppers (and other superhots) take a long time to ripen, so pulling off flowers this late may cause you to lose out on some of the harvest.
Good luck!
-Calvin
Thanks for mentioning the watering aspect in this article. I am the guy that keeps everything wet , probably too wet. I’m growing my peppers in a raised garden this year, (stupid squirrels) as opposed to mounds on the ground. They do seem to like it so far, but we’ll see, since it has great drainage.
Garden pests can be tough, hope you have success in your raised bed this year!