Bell Peppers in the heat!

Originally Posted by Redbaron

Ted,
I may have mentioned this to you before, not sure, but the trick that got my bells through the heat and the drought was companion planting low growing companions. I had read that bell peppers especially needed other plants nearby transpiring and creating a micro climate. So I tried it. It worked. I am not so far from you. Just a bit north. So try it and see if it works there too. I got a really big late harvest from my bells this last fall. The peppers were smaller, but actually over-all production was better in fall than spring/early summer because there were a lot more of them. I used basil, tarragon, cilantro, and dwarf marigolds all mixed in my peppers last year.

PS I also used borage, but not inter mingled, the borage was a row over because it gets too big to plant between the peppers in the same row.

Thanks Scott! This year, I am growing them in 25 gallon pots with various herbs growing around the edge of the pots. The pots are twenty four inches across at the top so there should be plenty of room for both. They will be drip watered on a timer so moisture should also not be a problem. Last year growing in smaller pots, the soil would be dry by the time they received their second watering of the day. This year they will have a separate timer and will be able to receive as much water as they need without over watering the tomatoes. With the larger volume of soil in each pot, they shouldn't dry out so much between watering cycles. I'm also considering adding some earth worms to each pot and let them convert some of the organics to fertilizer. I think the size of the pots should create an environment favorable for the worms.

Ted

[b54red]

I have had some bells get gigantic while others of the same variety will only get 3 or 4 ft tall and sometimes planted right next to each other. I have had Giant Marconi plants that reached unbelievable heights. The tallest true bells have been Socrates and King Arthur for me. I had a King Arthur and 2 Socrates well over 6 feet last year but they were dwarfed by one Giant Marconi. I do know that giving them regular water and supplemental fertilizer during the heat of summer helps but the most important thing is to mulch them very deeply with something that keeps the underlying soil cooler.

I think Redbaron may be onto something with the companion planting. The tallest regular bell pepper I had last year had sweet potato vines growing up it which I kept cutting back before they could cover it like Kudzu. I had another bell that was my most productive that was partially shaded by a tomato that was running along the top of the trellis. I had about half of my bell peppers under shade cloth starting in May and they did seem to do a bit better with better production. The plants were more lush and needed less water so I'm hoping to get all of them under some partial shade this summer.

I do spray my peppers with fungicide now when I spray my tomatoes because a couple of years ago I got some kind of speck disease on almost every bell pepper and got almost no production out of them until late fall. It was as hard to stop as Septoria on tomatoes. I ended up having to spray with a dilute bleach spray every week for over a month to get it to start subsiding. I found out that once the drought like weather of early fall arrives with somewhat drier air the need for spraying bell peppers diminishes considerably.

Bill

[sfmathews]

Hi Ted,
I gave up on Cal Wonders too. They would just melt by the time July rolled around. Instead I stick with what works. I grow the purple and golden Marconi (the plants get huge!), along with Lemme's Italian. These do set some fruit during the extreme heat of summer. I also have good luck with Giant Szegedi (however, I make sure it gets shade after 2:00 pm). Although it's not really giant, it is very productive. Another one to try is the Gypsy pepper, which is a small bell type pepper. It has done well for me in the past, although I don't currently grow it. Most big box stores and nurseries should have the Gypsy pepper.
Good luck on your 2013 peppers!
Susan

[Steve Magruder]

I think I'm having the same problem with peppers (hot and bell) that I had last year. The pepper plants are sitting stagnant in the soil while all my other plants are growing, and if it's anything like last year, the bells will produce virtually nothing (maybe one or two peppers at most), while the hot pepper plants will slowly produce a few peppers before mid-summer, but produce much more in the fall.

Is there anything I can do to get the pepper plants going, and producing well during the summer?

[Hotwired]

Here's a thought. It only gets in the 90's here in NY, so heat stress is minimal on my peppers. I have experimented extensively with feeding peppers. One thing I have found is that when it gets hot (95F), I feed with 10-30-20 Jack's classic Blossom Booster. Potassium helps with transplant shock, and it also helps when the plants experience stress in general. Too much nitrogen in high heat conditions is a bad combination.

[Steve Magruder]

Thanks for the idea of what to do in the summer heat, but....

What can be done to spark the pepper plants' growth in May, when the temperatures are more moderate? Could it be that the soil is still just too cool for the peppers? Should I mulch around the plants more?

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by Steve Magruder

Thanks for the idea of what to do in the summer heat, but....

What can be done to spark the pepper plants' growth in May, when the temperatures are more moderate? Could it be that the soil is still just too cool for the peppers? Should I mulch around the plants more?

The best most proven way is with black plastic. Now I don't use plastic. So take this with a grain of salt. But in Oklahoma I don't worry too much about cold soil either. Stands to reason. Nitrogen availability is also a major factor.

Here is a way one farmer does it. I have posted this before other places because I heavily borrowed from this method for my "Red Baron" project. But if you haven't seen these two vids, maybe take a look and see if you can borrow something from it too?

Living Mulch part 1 & 2

Steve,

My peppers (six varieties), tomatoes (thirty varieties) and eggplant (three varieties) just sat for a month while the cold fronts went through. For the most part, they looked as if they would have preferred to simply die. I babied them through the cold weather and they are now growing like gang busters. Everything has smallish fruit on them and are covered with blooms. Yours will probably do the same and start growing with vigor when the climatic conditions reach what each of the plants considers optimum. I have progressed from worrying about protecting them from the cold weather to worrying about protecting them from the hot sun in the next few weeks. The only plants that thrived in the cold weather were my herbs, onions, garlic, lettuce, and a few others. Most of my cucumbers and squash plants required re-seeding after the cold weather decimated them.

Ted

[Steve Magruder]

Thanks Ted and Scott for your input. As I said, all my plants except my peppers are showing growth. My tomato plants especially are growing steadily and are as healthy as can be at this stage.

I'd like to get the pepper plants sparked into growing as well, and then I'll deal with the summer issues when those arise. I suppose I could lay down some black landscape fabric around the plants to warm up the soil more, and then remove it when it starts getting really hot. Does that sound workable? Would landscape fabric or black trash bag plastic work better?

[Tracydr]

I have better luck with Anacongua than regular bell pepper. Some of the mini peppers do well in my heat, too.
All of my peppers slow down in the summer but they pick right up in the fall. I plant peppers with only half a day of sunshine.
I do fertilize about 4 times a year with organic fertilizer. During blooming and fruiting I often spray then with fish emulsion and kelp.
I also sometimes have to treat for iron deficiency because of my high pH. I use sulphur and gypsum to try to bring the pH down but my peppers are along the foundation of my house and our land is very alkaline. I end up using ironite every once in awhile when leaves start to yellow.

[Crandrew]

I covered the entirety of my Tomato and Pepper beds in clear plastic and it keeps the root system very warm. My ambient temp wont pass 80 before Aug so its been quite a nice jump start on the heat.

[Rockporter]

I planted california wonder, carnival and banana peppers last year in May, I picked until the end of November. My peppers received shade in the early evening before I moved them to the new house. Once here I had them on the patio with lattice cover over it and when it was really hot the shade from the lattice came over them. In November when I cut the plants down to the dirt I was going to toss them out along with my handmade self watering container I had built because it was cracking. Come spring I was going to toss and noticed that two of the plants were growing from those cut off stems and I started to water them. I just picked my first california wonders from those plants today.

I think as long as you provide the afternoon shade and do the companion planting as has been suggested you will probably have success. Here, it is hot/humid as opposed to your hot/dry weather.

[greentiger87]

For the second year in a row, my pepper harvest is likely to be very mediocre. Some very virulent strain of bacterial leaf spot (xanthomonas campestris) is apparently everywhere in my neighborhood, and some version of it is on all the plants from local growers. Only my seed grown plants, disinfected with hydrogen peroxide, stayed disease free - until now. I got about 10 peppers from each plant, which isn't terrible - but I used to pick them all summer long. Now I had to pull one out because of the disease. I'll use Serenade on the remaining plants, but they'll likely succumb to if it's anything like last year.

I always liked that peppers were one crop I never had to spray for. So much for that

[dahoss2002]

Originally Posted by tedln

Steve,

My peppers (six varieties), tomatoes (thirty varieties) and eggplant (three varieties) just sat for a month while the cold fronts went through. For the most part, they looked as if they would have preferred to simply die. I babied them through the cold weather and they are now growing like gang busters. Everything has smallish fruit on them and are covered with blooms. Yours will probably do the same and start growing with vigor when the climatic conditions reach what each of the plants considers optimum. I have progressed from worrying about protecting them from the cold weather to worrying about protecting them from the hot sun in the next few weeks. The only plants that thrived in the cold weather were my herbs, onions, garlic, lettuce, and a few others. Most of my cucumbers and squash plants required re-seeding after the cold weather decimated them.

Ted

Im near Shreveport and all my peppers slow down late July and August. If I am able to keep them alive, they bear a couple bumper crops in the Fall. Okra and melons are the only thing still producing for me in the hottest part of the Summer.

[Keger]

Originally Posted by tedln

I've never been able to successfully grow Bell Peppers in the hot Texas heat. Most other varieties do well and produce well, but my Bell peppers simply wilt when the real summer heat arrives. This year, I will try growing them in 25 gallon containers instead of in the soil and see if more moisture and a shade cloth will make a difference. I'm curious if anyone can suggest a variety of bell pepper which may withstand the heat better than other varieties.

In the past, I've had good success with some varieties of long chile peppers like Numex Big Jim, Giant Jalapenos, Habaneros, and a few others. Unlike tomatoes, I don't know variety traits very well because I have been limited to growing varieties vendors sell. I will try growing from seed again so variety suggestions will be appreciated.

Also, I know the best tomato seed vendors having dealt with them for many years. Please name some pepper seed vendors whose variety descriptions seem most accurate.

Thanks

Ted

I am pretty well transforming my tomatoes into more peppers, and it has worked really well. REALLY well.

What has worked for me was tilling up beds in filtered shade, which here is pecan trees. Not only do they break up the intense sun, but the big pecans keep everything just cooler enough that the peppers rock and rock, while the tomatoes go. So it works for what I do.

If you don't have trees I like your shade cloth idea. I'd give it a shot.