Juan's Pepper Academy is for those interested in pepper gardening. Please browse the 10 Quick Pepper Gardening Tips from Juan FAQ, and read more below:

Operational and Organizational Hints: Plan and map your garden and leave plenty of space for air flow and room for harvesting. Trying to cram too much in too little space will haunt you every year. Choose your varieties early and get your seed orders in. I recommend growing fewer varieties and depth in those varieties most important. Widen out your rows for easier harvesting. Doing this will create more air flow in your garden and help prevent disease. Using 4’ wide plastic for irrigation, or newspaper and straw, helps keep soil borne fungus from spattering the bottom leaves on peppers and tomatoes during rain, and infecting plants (don’t try using plastic unless you are irrigating). We still use newspaper, and scatter straw over it in open areas of soil, to keep weeds down and moisture in.

I failed miserably with 60 originally beautiful Enchantment Roma plants one year because of wind damage from a July storm. Most of them blew over that night and I didn’t get out there to stake them back up for three days. By that time they were matted and in their weak state were already infected with Fusarium or some other blight. I run out of time and can’t do it all but I hate to fail when it is something that I could have prevented. Oh well. Most of my basic horticulture principles are listed in the "10 Great Gardening Tips included in this section of my web site.

Variety Success/ Failure Review: Every year I get smarter, growing depth in fewer varieties that sell at the market and I use in my salsa products. It is paying off.

My main chiles are Hatch New Mexicans and Ancho Giant. These two chiles make up the core of my salsa product. We grill and peel every one of these chiles that go in our salsa. They are both also the best sellers at the Farmer’s market. Having abundance in these two varieties is critical and this year was the motherload. These two plants responded to the irrigation very well. My main Medium Salsa Chile is the Fresno. It has around a 7 out of 10 heat level, hotter than a Jalapeno, but doesn’t have the exclusivity and dominance of chiles like the Jalapeno and the Habanero. In other words it melds well with other salsa ingredients and is not oppressive. The other great thing about the Fresno is it’s prolific nature. I pick every Friday from the fourth week of July through frost, and can pick at least 10 gallons from 120 row feet. Incredible production. With most peppers, harvesting some of the early produce in the middle of July helps the overall production volume of each plant. Especially the Fresno Chile.

Juan’s Chile Garden: I receive great enjoyment starting a new garden every year. It begins on New Year’s Day when I choose my seed varieties and order them. Living in Zone 5 ( Iowa), I start my seeds around St Patrick’s Day. Most varieties emerge within a week to ten days and they are moved from the dark and warm incubation area right into the light and room temp. What a shock that must be for those poor little seedlings. Plants are hardened off in mid May and depending on weather, I plant std annum varieties first and plant the habs June Week One. My gardens are mulched every year and drain very well. With a shovel I dig four foot wide plateau’s that I plant double rows on I have one garden that is actually on a decline in my back yard. I tier the garden in three sections to hold moisture and level the planting area. I till in mulch and lay the irrigation header and drip.

Irrigation Review: I found out a lot of information on irrigation principals and products attending two Horticultural seminars over the winter. Because of time consuming hand watering and inefficiency, I had threatened to irrigate for years. This year was so busy that had I not irrigated, my gardens would have dried up so I was glad that I irrigated. Irrigation is a lot easier and more cost effective than I originally thought and anticipating a dry year, I went ahead and took the plunge. I used a 5/8" PVC header pipe system on the vertical side of each garden, the rows being perpendicular to the header (see picture). Off of the header we ran drip tape with locking adapters into the header. My system of plotting runs pepper rows 2 feet apart and then a 5’ harvesting pathway between a set of two rows. The irrigation drip tape runs down the middle of the two rows, about one foot from each plant. There is a hole in the drip tape, facing up, every foot. As the drip tape is below plastic, the water hits the plastic and into the ground. It is very efficient.

Irrigation Improvements: From my first irrigation experience, I essentially will make only two major changes to my irrigation system next year.

Cover Using Newspaper and Straw: Using a full four foot wide width of black hort plastic can really make your soil hot. If you are not careful, have a lot of air flow in your garden and plant wide rows, you can develop a literal hot bed for viruses. The best way that I have found to prevent virus in your garden is to cover the planted areas with newspaper and straw. This will keep moisture in and not let the soil get so hot. Most importantly though the newspaper barrier, keeps infected soil from spattering on your plants lower leaves, and KEEPS THE WEEDS DOWN!!!! That is how soil borne virus infects your plants. Newspaper and Straw is inexpensive and only a lot of work on the day you lay it. End of the year, till in the material as mulch in the garden for next year.

Spacing: I learned that irrigation drip running alongside my plants, one foot away, is less efficient than I thought that it would be. I feel that next year if I can plant 6 to 8 inches away from the drip, that it will help hold down water usage.

Alignment: I also learned that I will plant in sequence with the hole in the drip tape for maximum efficiency. As the hole placement in the drip tape is consistent, that should be fairly easy.