Pepper plants are doing too hot!

ericksonpad 6/18/2010, 9:27 pm

Hi!
I am looking for advice on my pepper plants! I have a few different varieties and they are all not doing terribly well. There is some kind of burning on some and black soot-like on others.
My Anaheim pepper is really looking sad too! It almost appears to be nitrogen deficient- can that happen in square foot? In another box I have a jalapeno plant that has not grown at all in about 3-4 weeks and everything else in there is doing fine.
This is my first year doing a square foot garden and I don't know what we are doing wrong!
Not only are the peppers having a hard time, but we only got 2 green onions and chives when I planted about 16 of each. I do have to say that our tomatoes, squash and lettuce are all kickin' butt and taking numbers!

**WardinWake** 6/19/2010, 5:04 am

ericksonpad wrote:Hi!
I am looking for advice on my pepper plants! I have a few different varieties and they are all not doing terribly well. There is some kind of burning on some and black soot-like on others.
My Anaheim pepper is really looking sad too! It almost appears to be nitrogen deficient- can that happen in square foot? In another box I have a jalapeno plant that has not grown at all in about 3-4 weeks and everything else in there is doing fine.
This is my first year doing a square foot garden and I don't know what we are doing wrong!
Not only are the peppers having a hard time, but we only got 2 green onions and chives when I planted about 16 of each. I do have to say that our tomatoes, squash and lettuce are all kickin' butt and taking numbers!

For those squares that are not growing at a normal rate I recommend adding 20 ounces of diluted fish emulsion per square. The directions on my fish emulsion is to dilute at the rate of one ounce per gallon of water.

God Bless, Ward and Mary.

ericksonpad 7/28/2010, 3:08 pm

Thanks for the info. on the fish emulsion! Those plants that were not growing sprouted right up in a couple of weeks with the fish. Next question: I am getting rot at the end of my peppers & tomatoes. I am not sure if it's due to watering and getting the blossom end rot, or if it's a nitrogen deficiency. I believe it's water because a few of my cherry tomatoes have cracked. Is there a solution to this so I won't loose my crop!?!?
Thanks!
Dawn Erickson

junequilt 7/28/2010, 3:43 pm

Glad the fish emulsion brought your peppers back to life! It does indeed sound like blossom end rot is your culprit. BER frequently crops up in the first few tomatoes or peppers to ripen on a given plant. Most of the time it disappears thereafter.

Megan 7/28/2010, 5:59 pm

I got some BER in my squash -- not a couple, more like 6 or 7 -- and some powdered Tums seems to have fixed that.

jenjehle 7/28/2010, 7:11 pm

Megan wrote:I got some BER in my squash -- not a couple, more like 6 or 7 -- and some powdered Tums seems to have fixed that.

What? Powdered Tums for Blossom End Rot? What do you do with it?

Thanks in advance!

ericksonpad 7/28/2010, 7:14 pm

Powdered tums!?! That's something I never would have thought of! Did you just grind it into the soil or add it to the water you water the plant? Did you do one tablet per plant!?! I have also heard that someone added calcium tablets to their plants with BER.
I never knew so much science goes into this gardening! Every year of owning my own home and garden, I learn something new!

Wyldflower 7/28/2010, 7:17 pm

BER can be due to a lack of calcium, which is the main ingredient in TUMS. What I've done is dissolve four Tums in a gallon of water, and fed that to my tomatoes and peppers to prevent BER. I thinks the powdered (crushed) tums would dissolve pretty quickly, too. There was another thread about BER ... let's see... HERE

Megan 7/28/2010, 7:23 pm

I was not being very scientific about it -- didn't read up on it -- just seemed like a good source of calcium. Couple handfuls of Tums in a ziptop bag, smashed it up on the front door step with a cast iron frying pan (flipped the door mat over it so the bag wouldn't tear) and scattered a handful of the dust each around several squares, then watered well. I did try to cover the squares evenly with the dust, and when I had some extra, I covered some additional area around my squash because I'm sure its root system is bigger than one square.

I used Tums tablets from a Costco big jar... Tums Ultra 1000 (max strength), assorted berry flavor. Only because that is what we had on hand in quantity. I don't have a lot of powdered milk, it is reserved for baking. The brightly colored powder looks a little funny, but it doesn't seem to have hurt anything.

boffer 7/28/2010, 7:40 pm

Megan wrote:....Couple handfuls of Tums in a ziptop bag, smashed it up on the front door step with a cast iron frying pan (flipped the door mat over it so the bag wouldn't tear) and scattered a handful of the dust.....

Nevertheless... :

**camprn** 7/28/2010, 7:43 pm

boffer wrote:I'm imagining the visual: woman in housecoat and steel toed slippers beating the daylights out of a doormat with a frying pan...

Megan 7/28/2010, 7:54 pm

Minus the foot protection. And I was wearing shorts and a tee, as I recall. Smile

My cast iron pan is VERY handy for all kinds of things, though!

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Pepper plants are doing too hot!

Pepper plants are doing too hot!

Re: Pepper plants are doing too hot!

Worked great! But still need help!

Blossom end rot

Re: Pepper plants are doing too hot!

Re: Pepper plants are doing too hot!

tums

Re: Pepper plants are doing too hot!

Re: Pepper plants are doing too hot!

Re: Pepper plants are doing too hot!

Re: Pepper plants are doing too hot!

Re: Pepper plants are doing too hot!

Re: Pepper plants are doing too hot!


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