9b gives you two harvests — a spring flush and a bigger fall flush — split by a summer survival stretch when the heat shuts blooming down.
Log each pick by weight and pepper count. Totals roll up by year and variety so you can watch season-over-season trends — and the average pod weight lets you turn a sauce batch ("40 lbs of ghost") into a real plant-and-pod estimate.
| Date | Variety | Lbs | # |
|---|
Tuned to your setup — 58"×36" beds (~14.5 sq ft each), adjustable micro-bubblers under mulch, on Rachio. Set your real bubbler flow below and the recommended run-times update. Peppers want ~1–2 inches of water a week; one inch over a bed is about 9 gallons.
| Season | Target / bed | Run time |
|---|
Rough starting amounts for 12 beds · 36 plants (3 each). Always defer to the product label — these are ballpark.
Once plants flower, drop the nitrogen so they build pods instead of leaves. You want the first number (N) lower than the other two — a bloom ratio. Feed at transplant with something balanced, then switch to one of these at first flower.
Your in-ground workhorse. Side-dress every ~4 weeks; slow, forgiving, and organic if that suits the brand story.
Use for · the routine feedFast-acting liquid for pushing the September fall flush hard, or feeding container plants. Keep a bottle for the ramp-up.
Use for · the fall pushCheapest per feeding at volume. Higher N number, but the phosphorus is so dominant the ratio still favors blooms.
Use for · feeding at scaleThe one time you want even nitrogen: worked into the bed at planting to fuel early leaf and root growth.
Use for · March transplant
Overwinter your superhots. Ghost, habanero, and chiltepin all survive 9b winters with frost cloth — and second-year plants produce dramatically more, which matters when the garden is feeding sauce volume. Cut them back after the last fall harvest, protect through the couple of frost nights, and they'll wake up months ahead of seed in spring.
Check-offs save to this browser. Timing is tuned for a Queen Creek microclimate — nudge dates a week either way for your own beds. Not affiliated with any brand named above.