Peppers Yellowing and Leaves Curling

[Tutter]

How have your day and night temps been, Beekissed?

 

[Beekissed]

We had a week or two of 60-70 days/40 nights, then quickly went to a week of 90 days/60 nights, now is back to 80 days/low 50 nights. We've had some unusual weather fluctuations. The original peppers I set out haven't grown much, look spindly, some yellowed leaves, not standing up real straight. About 3 weeks later I got some FREE peppers that were left over from the FFA greenhouse at the school. They were beautiful, green, sturdy looking plants. I planted them in the middle of the heat wave. It rained after the planting and a couple of times since then. Now all the lovely plants look like my previous plants. This is soil that has never been gardened (in this part of the garden, anyway), was lightly fertilized with aged horse manure and mulched 1 in. deep with old hay. The soil seems moist but not overly so. Raised beds. The onions and potatoes in these beds are thriving, the watermelon and peppers, not so well. The peppers are trying to set blooms. I've been taking those off to conserve their strength and let them get bigger before setting fruit. Ya think the epsom salts would be in order? I've never really had a problem growing peppers before, but this is my first year at this place, so soil conditions are unknown to me.

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

I think that you should apply some epsom salt Beekissed. IME, the temps you've been having shouldn't be too much of a problem but may have caused some stunting.

Another thing is that pepper plants are not necessarily heavy feeders but to tend to need a lot of nutrients, especially in raised beds. They have a very shallow root system and as watering/raining runs the nutrients deeper in the ground it depletes available nutrients. This also may be your problem. I'd side dress with some compost or your favorite balanced fertilizer.

What's wrong with your watermelon?

Also, what do you mean, al6517, about pepper plant leaves and nitro? Just noticed that too.

 

[Beekissed]

Well, I've never actually grown watermelon before, so I'm not aware of their growth rate....but they are the slowest growing plant in the garden. I set them out the first or second week of May and they have hardly grown at all. I went out today and they actually have 3 leaves instead of 2 now! Tiny and slow growing....don't know if that is normal but the squash and pumpkins set out a week after them are enormous! Same soil, same conditions, except the bed the watermelon are in has had more compost and manure content as it is part of the garden from last year. The tomatoes, onions,and beans in the same bed are doing fabulous. The watermelons are Sugar Babies. The pumpkins I planted from seed last week are bigger than the watermelon now! Is that normal?

BTW, put epsom salts around peppers today and then we had a nice rain....will wait impatiently to see if the yellowing dissipates. :bee

 

[Tutter]

Our watermelons are slow and steady growers. All varieties.

I hope that's all that you're looking at, because there's nothing quite like watermelon from the garden!

Are you growing other types of melons? One of the best sellers I know of, if you can bear to part with any are Haogans. They are amazing!

 

[papadekaitlyn]

Yellowing would make me think 2 things...

1) Lack of nitrogen

or

2) Over watering

Peppers like good drainage. If they set in saturated soil a lot it isn't real good for them. They use a decent bit of water, but having too much water will also make the fruits of hot peppers be milder than they will be if the drainage is adequate.

Curling sounds more like magnesium...

I did just briefly glance over all the posts (not very thoroughly) since the last time I was here so forgive me if I am repeating anyone or seem to be talking about something irrelevant...

Steve

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

Hey Steve!

So yeah, in my situation it was definitely a lack of magnesium. And perhaps a little bit of wet soil since we have clay soil and this was earlier in the season.

Thanks

 

[al6517]

Thanks epson salt worked very well, I will start to use it from now on as a prevenitive measure.