What's wrong with these pepper plants (pics included)?

[DirtDiggler]

This is the first year I have went all organic and I must say it has went very well...........with the exception of these pepper plants. I started most of them by seed but some were bought. They took forever to start growing and even now most of them look stunted but they all have very dark green leaves. Have had very few blooms and only 1 or 2 peppers. There are 6 different types on this row. The soil is sandy and was prepared exactly like all the other rows in my garden: 1 gallon lava sand, 1 gallon garden-ville soil food, 2 gallons dry molasses per 75 foot row. The mulch I used is mixed native wood chips. There are egg plants and tomatillo plants on the same row and they are doing excellent. I have looked closely for any type on insect and have found none. Recently the leaves have started falling off the plants in large numbers and rust spots are starting to appear. They plants have received generous amounts of garret juice, corn meal, and aerobic teas in efforts to correct this problem. Anyone have any ideas? ( Sorry the pics are so big-did not post them this size.)





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[Pamzilla1]

My guess would be too much of everything. Pepper plants a lot of watering or too many amendments. You can't take the rich soil away so try cutting back the amount of water.

[DirtDiggler]

Kinda what I was thinkin but everything else has done really really well; I did go a little heavy on the amendments trying to get my soil into shape and upon the advice of some local organic people. What about peppers' requirements are so different than pretty much everything else in the garden?

[Pamzilla1]

Pepper plants are more drought tolerant than most everything else in a garden. If you'd rather keep your watering routine you could try scraping away some of the mulch from around the plants. Peppers like to dry out between waterings. I like to container garden tomatoes and peppers and I always plants my peppers in the small containers that dry out in a day so I can water everyday, I like routine.

By the way, did I see flowers on those same pepper plants?

[DirtDiggler]

The white blooms are Zinnias; In the spring I generally replace any failing plant with a flower or some other beneficial plant. You may be right about the water; I already scraped away some mulch and will scrape away some more. These peppers get approx 1/2 to 1 inch irrigation a week which is much less than what I used to put on them-but I didn't used to mulch. Peppers have always done well in my garden with NO effort so as I said before, just surprised whatever is bothering them isn't bothering the other plants in the same soil with similar requirements. By the way, as you can see I got the size of the pictures down to a less irritating level. Have seen a lot of posts asking how to post pictures but never really saw any answers; be glad to answer any pm's about posting pics as I think it would make these forums much more interesting and get a little more participation if there were more pics. Thanks for the advice Pamzilla.

[Tony M]

I've posted pictures before but now I'm having trouble and the admin is looking into it. I was using "all you can upload.com", selecting the img button first, inserting the website and then ending with the img button. It's not working. The "test" is still showing in the organic farming forum.
Please share you success with me.
BTY, I'm very impressed with your garden, the neatness as well as the health of your other plants. I wish my tomatos looked like yours. I can't add much to what has already been said about your peppers other than sun scorch. Peppers do well in shady spots so the sun may be too much for them this year. I'll send a pic of mine when we get that working.
Thanks,
Tony M

[DirtDiggler]

I was having the same problem-I was posting the website that shows up in the address bar where my picture was displayed on the Internet- what I found out is the picture is not actually contained at that address. To get the true address of the picture, while displaying the picture (which as you know must be on the Internet somewhere) right click over it and then click on properties; the true address of the pic is displayed here-copy and paste to make sure there is no typos as some of the addresses are fairly complex. Note the "img" button has two slightly different commands and will only work if they are put at the correct end of the address. Also note most of the addresses for pics that work on this board end with "jpg". Hope this helps. Please let me know if it works.

[Nadine]

Great pictures!

I found this on the subject of companion planting:

PEPPERS, HOT: Chili peppers have root exudates that prevent root rot and other Fusarium diseases. Plant anywhere you have these problems. Teas made from hot peppers can be useful as insect sprays.

Hot peppers like to be grouped with cucumbers, eggplant, escarole, tomato, okra, Swiss chard and squash. Herbs to plant near them include: basils, oregano, parsley and rosemary.

http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html

[DirtDiggler]

Thanks for the link! Lots of cool stuff- I knew a little bit about companion planting but have not seen such a good, comprehensive site for it. I already intended to start incorporating more herbs into the garden - this will give me an idea what to shoot for.

[Health Helper]

Companion planting can be really helpful when planning a garden - knowing what to plant together as well as what to keep apart. A great book is Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte. And another good website with a good chart of what to put together and keep apart is http://www.gardenguides.com/TipsandTechniques/vcomp.htm for vegetables and http://www.gardenguides.com/TipsandTechniques/herbc.htm for herbs.