Start pepper seeds three to a pot, and thin out the weakest seedling. Let the remaining two pepper plants spend their entire lives together as one plant. The leaves of two plants help protect peppers against sunscald, and the yield is often twice as good as two segregated plants.

Has anyone tried this?

Interested to hear from anyone who has tried this. Good question valray, thanks!

Squash, cucumbers, melons, potatoes , ... are often planted in groups of 2 even 3 per hill. So, for example you can plant 3 peppers together ( about 6" apart. Then plant another group TWO feet away.(center-to-center) As a result 3 peppers are planted in 4 sq-ft, or in average one per 1.33 sq-ft.

On the other hand, I've also had bad luck with peppers far apart. So it seems like a happy medium is best.

A saying I read about peppers was that "peppers like to hold hands" meaning that they do best when planted close enough together that, when grown, their leaves will overlap slightly. This seems to be the happy medium for me. Growing at that distance produced abundant, medium sized, rich orange habaneros.

I also do not thin them at all. I start lots and lots of individual seedlings, and then transplant them into place. Thinning just makes me feel bad about the plants that get pulled up. :( So I only do it with seeds that are too small to handle individually, like argula.

Angie