Pitiful Peppers
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sunpath8
Location: Western Washington
Posted: Jun-18-2004 at 12:47pm
I seem to be having some problems with our pitiful peppers. I want to pick a peck but...
In our garden we have several flower beds in addition to two raised beds for veggie gardening. Last year everything did great in these raised beds. This year some things are doing well and some are...well...not. I planted some pepper starts in the area where we had tomato plants growing last year (and moved tomatoes to a new spot). The beds get full sun after 12 noon and we ammended the soil with compost at the beginning of the season (last year was when we built the beds so they had nice, new garden soil).
The problem is that my peppers are looking really yellow and have curling leaves. Some of the leaves have been chewed on (slugs - I haven't been after them enough). They just aren't growing. When I planted them I put them in deeper than they were in the pot...was that bad? For some reason I had the notion that this was better for them...
Any ideas???
gary
Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor
Posted: Jun-18-2004 at 5:07pm
Micha,
I have some questions for you first. Where in Western WA are you growing (be as specific you can because nightime temps are) and what date did you transplant the peppers? What was your source of seeds/transplants and which varieties do you have? To what extend have you fertilized, watered, etc. from soil preparation this Spring until now? What compost and to what extent did you apply it; i.e., "Did you put 3 inches of compost into 6 inches of soil?"
I don't mean to burden you with questions with no answers but Trav and the rest maybe able to do the diagnostics quicker if they can eliminate some obvious choices first.
Travis does have a good article on growing peppers on his site which you can read at:
Peppers
How close have you been to following his recommendations? I look forward to your answers so that we can help you.
Gary
Olympia Sunset Zone 5, USDA Zone 8
sunpath8
Location: Western Washington
Posted: Jun-21-2004 at 4:54pm
I don't mind answering questions - I feel like it makes the answers more accurate :)
Answers:
We live in West Seattle. We transplanted the peppers kinda early (early May), but we have others that we put out at that time that are thriving. We bought our starts at West Seattle Nursery and they are primarily hot pepper varieties. We have watered regularly and I fertilize about once a month. We put down a 2 inch layer of compost (Garden and Bloome store bought - ours isn't cooked yet) on the top of the garden soil. This past weekend we built a couple of cloches.
And now for some insight from the world out there...
growsherown
Location: Olympic Peninsula
Posted: Jun-22-2004 at 8:07am
hmmmmmmm.....Im in your area too. I put out 3 varieties started from TSC seed on June 1, and they were pouting a bit also, until we got this heat wave, that is! Some are even blooming. I have neighbors that are having the same types of troubles w/ thier peppers this year too......perhaps my luck is coming from the Complete Organic Fert.....any thoughts there? Also.....pumice was added to my soil this year..and worm castings.
cjmiller
Location: Oregon, Willamette Valley
Posted: Jun-25-2004 at 1:09pm
After learning the hard way, I advise you either use wall-o-water to protect your pepper plants, and/or wait to transplant outside until after June 10--we live in Portland. My daughter lives in Lake Stevens,WA and keeps her pepper starts in the unheated green house until June 15 before putting them outside. I think the night time temp should regularly be above 50 degrees before they do well outside. It seems like once they get a setback from a cold night, it takes a good 3 weeks before they start perking up again. This year I left the wall-o-water around the plant and put a tomato rack inside it to modify the space and for support.
Carol

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