Peppers, worst year on record for me

[seedcorn]

Normally I have banana peppers running out of my ears all year long. Bells come on late but have many to freeze and enough jalepeno's to make fresh salsa all summer long. This year I moved the garden, planted 60 plus pepper plants split between bells, gypsy's and banana's. Most died or remain stunted all year long. Fed them with foliar fertilizers trying to get them to go. Watered them in the heat. Put straw around the plants and what do I get, few burnt green peppers, 1 banana plant that is about 1/2 filled, gypsy is stunted and trying but it's September, time is running out.

My jalepenos? Couldn't find any, then I found some at a local amish nursery. She wouldn't take anything for them as she hadn't transplanted them yet, so I bought 3 overpriced pepper plants to pay her something. Some of them survived, are about 16" high with a bush look to it and VERY dark green. So I look for the peppers, saw 3 shrunken peppers. Kept looking at them and then it hit me..........they aren't jalepenos' at all but habenero's...... I got what I paid for them. For me totally useless.

Oh well, next year is a new year........

 

[4grandbabies]

Normally I have banana peppers running out of my ears all year long. Bells come on late but have many to freeze and enough jalepeno's to make fresh salsa all summer long. This year I moved the garden, planted 60 plus pepper plants split between bells, gypsy's and banana's. Most died or remain stunted all year long. Fed them with foliar fertilizers trying to get them to go. Watered them in the heat. Put straw around the plants and what do I get, few burnt green peppers, 1 banana plant that is about 1/2 filled, gypsy is stunted and trying but it's September, time is running out.

My jalepenos? Couldn't find any, then I found some at a local amish nursery. She wouldn't take anything for them as she hadn't transplanted them yet, so I bought 3 overpriced pepper plants to pay her something. Some of them survived, are about 16" high with a bush look to it and VERY dark green. So I look for the peppers, saw 3 shrunken peppers. Kept looking at them and then it hit me..........they aren't jalepenos' at all but habenero's...... I got what I paid for them. For me totally useless.

Oh well, next year is a new year........

My plants were beautiful, and started out great, then stopped setting on, I blamed the heat, the plants are still really nice, just no peppers.I usually have way too many in the fall.

 

[digitS']

I don't think there's more than 1 year out of 5 that I've got pepper plants that aren't embarrassingly small. It takes a warm end to spring to get them started well and we just almost never have that. The pepper plants come out of June stunted and they stay that way.

Something that can be done about it is to grow varieties that are normally small. Things like Thai Hot and Super Chili . . . I can act as tho' they are just supposed to look like that.

I've even come up with a little sweet pepper - Fushimi. Actually, I don't know if the plants should be so small or not - I'm pretending. Their neighbors, Giant Marconi & Big Early look a little silly with big fruit kind of stuck on those little plants.

Fortunately this year, the little plants are loaded with peppers! That doesn't mean there are very many because the plants can only hold a few. Harvest is going quickly . . .

Steve

 

[hoodat]

I piled on the rabbit manure between my pepper plant rows and they are producing all that the neighbors and I can eat, and my neighbors are Mexican. My Anaheims are so big they look like New Mexicos and my bells are loaded with nice thick walls. I planted bells from Yolo Wonder seed I saved last year. My Jalapenos though are so hot I have to use them with caution. I tried frying some with cheese inside and a batter coating as "poppers" and I think I burned the lining out of my mouth. I went through a quart of milk before I got them cooled down below the misery point.

 

[lesa]

Very strange gardening season... I had a dozen pepper plants. Half Marconi's and the rest bells. I have already frozen 14 pounds of cut up peppers. The bushes are tiny things, a foot and half tall, if that. They are so heavy with peppers they are leaning over! I easily have another bushel out there. The only fertilizer I used was chicken poop in the winter months. Seems to have worked!!

 

[ninnymary]

Well I can't believe my jalapenos are doing very well considering my cool weather. My Hatch new mexico chili is also doing well and I've gotten 4 eggplants from my Rosa Bianca. I didn't get one from my rosa bianca last year and almost didn't plant it. But I found a plant and since my daughter's name is Bianca decided to try it again. I never know what will do well for me here.

Mary

 

[wifezilla]

I have some good pepper growth this year. It isn't always the case. Cherry bomb peppers, big Jims and a jalapeno plant or two. I didn't plant nearly enough, but the ones I got in the ground are doing great. I will bring some inside in a few weeks. They don't produce in winter, but they will do great next year when I put them back outside.

Mine have been on a steady diet of poopy duck water and pond water.

 

[seedcorn]

You get pepper plants to winter over inside? I'm impressed.

 

[vfem]

Mine did not do well either. I planted quite a few and several plants just gave out and died. I did manage to keep 6 or 7 bell peppers going, but only got about 6 or 7 peppers from all of them. 4 of them were off the same plant.

I did do cayenne peppers in pots, and got a good amount from those. I also had 4 banana pepper plants in pots that did great too, still picking from those.

 

[April Manier]

We are here in Oregon and it was just a strange year! It seems as though it is over and it never REALLY began. Just not hot enough here! I think we are going to try and set them out a little earlier, but I just don't think we had the sun.

:/