FIMing Pepper Plants

[nick]

Just finished watching this video about "FIMing" pepper plants and found it useful. This may be old hat for some folks here, but I thought it'd be best to share it anyway. I'm really looking forward to growing peppers someday soon.

[MaryL]

I’ve never heard of that before, and I think it’s brilliant. It makes perfect sense.  I will definitely try this on my next, bigger, pepper plant, after the petite Sweet Heat.  My jalapeños definitely could’ve benefited from this method.  They’re really tall and airy.  Thanks for posting this!

[Shawn]

I never heard of this.  Thanks for posting.

[MaryL]

Aug 31, 2018 15:58:09 GMT -5 Shawn said:

I never heard of this.  Thanks for posting.

Shawn in retrospect, I think you’ve been doing a version of this all along with your peppers, by instinct alone. I was always noticing that your plants stayed more compact and neat. You were always removing leaves along the way, and not just at the bottom of the plants. I’m really glad to have a blueprint and explanation in the video. I’m not great with instinct, lol. 

Did anyone catch what the FIM stands for?  I missed it or he didn’t say.

[Shawn]

I am not going to type (nor will anyone else) what it REALLY means but in terms of Peppers,

FIMing: The act of pinching or cutting a young plant in such a way as to force it to grow 4 main tops instead of one

[Shawn]

Aug 31, 2018 16:22:55 GMT -5 MaryL said:

Aug 31, 2018 15:58:09 GMT -5 Shawn said:

I never heard of this.  Thanks for posting.

Shawn in retrospect, I think you’ve been doing a version of this all along with your peppers, by instinct alone. I was always noticing that your plants stayed more compact and neat. You were always removing leaves along the way, and not just at the bottom of the plants. I’m really glad to have a blueprint and explanation in the video. I’m not great with instinct, lol. 

Did anyone catch what the FIM stands for?  I missed it or he didn’t say.

I guess you are right, in a way.  I never cut my plant in a way to have 4 main tops.  But I guess more a narrative of it.

FIMing, topping,pruning,pinching...it is all the same to me. Exactly why I will never be an AG pepper person.

But thanks for the information..always good to learn.

[Shawn]

Sept 1, 2018 7:54:20 GMT -5 @cornne said:

FIMing, topping,pruning,pinching...it is all the same to me. Exactly why I will never be an AG pepper person.

But thanks for the information..always good to learn.

There is no topping, pruning or pinching with the Sweet Heats

[Rialle]

Thanks for sharing this, I think I'm going to give it a try someday.

FIM is an acronym..."F&%^...I Missed". It stems(no pun intended) from the 'weed' community.

Mostly used here as ''pruning". You wll see the initial pruning at 5 weeks in your instruction guide for the toms projects. After that, periodic pruning is beneficial as is seen in Shawn and Mike's peppers.

[MaryL]

Aug 31, 2018 17:23:29 GMT -5 Shawn said:

I am not going to type (nor will anyone else) what it REALLY means 

Uh oh, Corinne just did, lol    But now I know.

[ASFx]

I mostly agree with the technique in the video, but one thing i do differently is that i don't like to remove the leaves all the way at the bottom until they start turning yellow. When a plant decides it doesn't need a leaf anymore, it will turn yellow and fall off naturally. If a leaf is still strong and green, then then plant is still making use of it. And if it's at the bottom not blocking out other leaves, i say leave it alone. Once it starts yellowing, then pull it off since that's when it has truly become useless to the plant.

[MaryL]

Good point