Should I have plucked the blooms on these...

[harleysilo]

These peppers started blooming really soon, before they looked anywhere close to mature, and now have a bunch of peppers which are small, and the plants seem to be stunted because of it...

[Suze]

What's the variety, and how tall is/are the plant(s)?

Sometimes it is a good idea to pick the first couple of peppers before they are red/orange/yellow ripe, as leaving them on to the dead ripe stage can slow things down a bit. Also, sometimes it is a good idea to remove the first few blooms depending on time of year and plant size.

But if you've already got several set fruit, I'm not so sure I'd recommend removing all of it *now* at this point.

[harleysilo]

Those are the cayenne peppers. They had a rough start as they were planted in my fenced in garden prior to the easter freeze, but they were doing terrible. So I thought they were going to die, dug them up moved them and fertized them. Now they look like what you see above, they are 12" tall. The newer plant that didn't struggle through the freeze or lack of nutriants is 2' tall already.

[Granny]

Harleysilo, this plant is much smaller than the other because it has had quite some few shocks and stresses in life the other has not had. I have to agree with Suze that I don't think I would remove all the fruit and flowers at this point though.

[barkeater]

Pick them off NOW. And use them. If they aren't hot, they are still like a free Bell Pepper then. After 20 years of farming, and advice from Italian farmers born at the turn of the century - 1900 - when I was young, ALWAYS pull off the first pepper or 2 ( they never said the flowers ) to stimulate the plant and prevent "constipation" (the plant, not me ;-) )

[harleysilo]

I already pulled off 3 or 4 from each of the 2 plants, they were hot. Surprisingly my Irish setter helped me eat them. the issue is that there are maybe 15 more very tiny peppers started already. My original concern is/was that the plant wouldn't be substansul enough to grow that many peppers to maturity because the leaves are so small.

Another issue I have noticed last night is that the new pepper plants i purchased after the Easter freeze and planted in the place of the ones picture above now are looking just like these ones. The older leaves are turning a yellow shade, the new growth is very tiny compared to the pepper plants I have planted outside of my garden. The beans planted in the garden didn't do to well either, the were really yellowish but a does of 10-10-10 helped green them up. They are now loaded with green beans but yet remain under 2' tall whilst the snap peas are nearing 5 ' tall and loaded with pea pods. I'm wondering if it's a nutrient issue or not. I'm watering everything equally in the garden and most likely a little less than the pepper plants planted outside the garden which are doing really nice.

There shouldn't be a major difference in soil quality, the garden was tilled up and various bags of manure and compost in a bag were added and mixed thoroughly. The peppers outside the garden I just dug a 1.5'x1.5'x1' hole in the red clay and planted in a mixture of miracle grow soil and clay.....

in the garden...



outside the garden, right beside the garden...



previous pepper plants in the garden, you'll notice the yellow on the green beans, this was prior to adding 10-10-10 which the new peppers got to...

[Granny]

Did you think to have the soil tested in the area where you made you garden before adding in all of the various amendments that you used?

Also, what is that very obvious area of much darker soil (almost like an old oil spill) in the lower right corner of both illustrations of your garden. Is there any possibility that your garden is in an area where there has been some sort of construction or industrial contamination?

[harleysilo]

No that dark soil is just that dark soil, it's miracle grow that i used to plant something after I had mulched the garden with old "free" wood chips from the front yard.

I did not think to have the area tested prior to making the garden there. I have used a home test kit when I first started noticing the peppers were yellowing, it showed low nitrogen thus the 10-10-10 application.

The house is 20 years old, all that had been on this side of the house was a row of some type of bushes right nest to the side of the house picture above (thus the crappy paint job) and yard. I tilled up grass, "free" wood chips and the area under the bushes to make this space. It was pretty much all red georgia clay. I built the garden around the area, and then added 12 bags of manure (composted) and a few backs of compost and tilled it all in. I don't think i added enough ammendments to the clay.

I guess I should take some soil to an ag ext. and get it tested. Given what I have said, given the fact that one sample from the garden might not turly be represnetative of the whole garde, should I dig a little soil from right next to the garden and have that tested to see what my original soil was like?

I should note that I tilled everything a lot, but that doesn't mean it's 100% mixed. Some places the soil is loose, some places a lot of clay.

[Granny]

Now that you have added a bunch of stuff to the garden area it is of little value to know what it was originally like. What you need to know to fix things is what is up with it at this point in time. A couple of things:

I would be very wary of "free wood chips" in my garden. Note that you don't seem to have the problems on the side where few of those "free" wood chips are evident.

If your test kit showed only low nitrogen, then I would have used a high nitrogen fertilizer rather than a balanced 10-10-10 one, on the principle of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

[harleysilo]

The "free" wood chips had been laying in beds around the home for an unknown number of years, but most likely more than 2.

[celticman]

Ask a gardern for advice and you get more than you want.
Red clay is a hard way to start. My advise is to see want you get and find a sorce of compost (CHEAP) so you can pile is six or eight inches deep over the garden this fall. Turn it in and repeat in early spring (not quit as deep on the compost). Then get a test.
The best mulch is newspaper with something on top like wood chips, straw or what ever you have that is free of thing you do not want to add.

[feldon30]

I ended up picking the first blooms off my pepper plants.

Scientific study? Respected member of the pepper growing community? Who knows, it just sounded "right" to me so I did it.

I've got ~12 Carmens with more setting, about 120 Jimmy Nardellos between 4 plants in a 17 gallon pot, and what I consider decent output of Sweet Banana (6-8), Jalapeno (20-30), Ancho (8-10). Golden Marconi was a late bloomer but is now setting tons.

The only plant I didn't pinch blossoms is a Tangerine Pimiento. And it stopped growing to about 12" tall and has 6 peppers on it. That tells me I should have pinched blossoms on it too.

[Worth1]

I know some folks have different opinions on clay but what I do and works for me is this.
First off clay is composed of microscopic plates that are stuck together, not like a soil that is high in humus and fine sand.
These plates are what makes the clay be what it is.
It is very hard to break up true clay and then mix in other soil to try and amend it.
Clay has the ability to hold water but due to the nature of it.
Some plants cannot take up water; thusly not get nutrients no matter how much you put in the soil.

Here is what I would do and suggest it to others as well.
For folks that have small gardens I would dig out all of the clay down to about 18’’deep and haul in good sandy loan compost and manure maybe some top soil to boot.

Fill up the garden with this and use the clay to build a dike around the garden or what ever else you want to do with it.

If you do the dike thing fill the soil up to the top of the dike, (raised bed that will not rot.)

This sounds like a lot of work but in the amount of time it takes to watch a ball game you can get a lot of work done.

I have done this and it works.

Worth

[harleysilo]

"If you do the dike thing fill the soil up to the top of the dike, (raised bed that will not rot.)"

Would I have to still deal with the issue of poor drainage? WHy do you say will not rot, because I've gone down 18"?

[Worth1]

I haven’t had to deal with poor drainage here and the last place I grew tomatoes.

Here in the front yard along the drive I dug holes in solid hard clay that was infused with hard round river rocks.

I filled in the holes with sandy loam and composted manure and put them on a drip system.
This system does not run all of the time just when they need water.
After the plants got to about 2 feet tall I put about 3 inches of compost around each plant a little wider than the holes.

The plants have now put out roots into the compost and getting their nutrients from it.
I have had to put out a small amount of 13-13-13 to help it along, ‘oh well.
It has rained about 22 inches here in the last month and I have had no drainage problems yet.

The other place I lived had about I foot of sandy loam mixed in with the same rocks then it turned into what I call gray pottery clay no drainage at all.

There I had tomato plants that were huge with lots of fruit.

No mulch no insecticide and no daconil.

If you are inclined to think you may have drainage problem then you can put in short PVC pipe around the dike about every 5 feet or so at ground level and it will drain.
To hold the water in you can put a connector and a screw in cap on the end.
The pipe should be about 1-1/2 inches.

There is a better way to do this with perforated pipe and a layer of gravel at pipe level if you want but I don’t see the need.

As for the rotting issue what I meant was the dike would serve the same purpose as landscaping timbers.

Clay does not rot wood does.

At the top and side of the dike you can plant prostrate rosemary about every 18 inches apart.
It will fall down around the dike and make a beautiful addition the garden.
This stuff will grow there and it will help to keep the dike from washing away.
In about two years the whole dike will turn blue from the blooms.

You should of course fill the entire dike up to the top with the soil I mentioned before.

On a final note on the Sportster you have, if it has a carburetor H/D is famous for putting them out with the throttle squirter pointing to the back piston use a wrench and turn it to the middle; where it belongs.

In the middle of the carburetor there is a plug; drill out this plug carefully and there will be an adjustment screw behind it.

Then bore out the jet 0.001 of an inch at a time and adjust the screw.
If you have put on an after market air breather this will stop the thing from spitting at the stop lights if it is inclined to do so.
It will also run a lot better. (PS I out ran Yamahas with mine.)

Worth