Today's sweet peppers come in a rainbow of colors, but if your soil isn't amenable to growing them, you're going to end up with a plain-looking salad. If your climate is hot and wet during the growing season, many colored peppers won't thrive where chili peppers will. Combine a hardy chili rootstock with a scion, or cutting, of a desirable colored pepper to create a combination that offers the best of both worlds. Your plants will grow strong throughout the hot, wet season and your harvest will include all the gourmet peppers you want to eat.
Wash your hands and the razor blade thoroughly with antibacterial soap. Rinse them and dry them with clean paper towels.
Examine your plants to find one chili pepper plant and one sweet pepper plant that have stems of the same size right above the first set of true leaves. The graft will only take with plants of the same diameter stems.
Cut the chili pepper plant, known as the understock, at a 30-degree angle about 1/2 inch above the first pair of true leaves. Cut the sweet pepper plant, known as the scion, at the same place. Discard the top of the chili pepper plant.
Cut a 2-millimeter latex tube piece about 1 1/2 inches long, making sure the tube ends on the same 30-degree angles as the plants.
Slide the cut end of the scion into the tube, matching the cut angles. Push the scion until it is about halfway into the tube.
Slide the tube with the scion over the understock stem, rotating the tube to make sure the two cut ends match up exactly. Push the tube down until the scion and understock ends butt up against each other, making a perfect match.
Place the grafted plants in a protected area away from bright sunlight. They will wilt for the first two or three days, but then will straighten up as the graft takes hold. Keep the plants well-watered during this process.
Things You Will Need
- Antibacterial soap
- Paper towels
- Razor blade
- 2-millimeter latex tube
- If you transplant the grafted peppers into your garden, keep the graft line above the level of the soil.
- The latex tube will harden, split and fall off in about two weeks without any assistance from you.
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