I'm wrong, here's a pic from yesterday, had it going on and I didn't notice. It was not as bad.

Have you fertilized recently?

Need more info. Weather? Fertilizing regimen? Watering schedule? Amended soil -- when and with what?

Kevin

I did give them some miracle gro recently.. I wanted to give them a little boost and just didn't have time to add humus to the entire garden. I did not use a lot, 4 of the 1.5 tablespoons IIRC of 24-8-16 all purpose plant food for an entire 600 SF garden. The last time they got any of that was 2 months ago, and it was even less.

The soil is a rich looking loam. There has been a ton of rain this season and they have needed little water, but it hasn't been too too much the past 2 weeks. The soil was amended with humus and dehydrated manure, about 30 bags, not recently I put in about 15 bags when I tilled the soil and side dressed with another 10-15 about 1.5 months ago.

Thanks!

EDITED to add: The weather has been mid 80's, about 60 at night now, mostly sunny days. It's getting hottish. And I have sprayed a few times with a pyrethrin and sulfur product.

This post was edited by Peter1142 on Sat, Jun 28, 14 at 9:33

The "ton of rain" is the most likely issue. Peppers don't like or tolerate constantly wet root systems. Results in leaf yellowing and dropping of the leaves. It will recover once the soil is allowed to dry out some.

The leaf tip burn on the one healthy leaf in the pic is a sign of over-fertilization (nitrogen burn).

did not use a lot, 4 of the 1.5 tablespoons IIRC of 24-8-16 all purpose plant food for an entire 600 SF garden.

That is a lot. Especially for peppers and other fruiting plants. Leafy greens would love it but nothing else would.

Dave

The package says that one 1.5 tablespoon scoop is for 10 feet of row, every 7-14 days (!)... I will try to avoid the chemical ferts alltogether in the future. The plants are all still small and I did want to encourage leafy growth.

The soil had dried out quite a bit, then got wet again. I will stop watering the peppers until it is very dry a few inches down.

Thanks, I will post of any developments.

A few leaves fell off and looked worse. The spots are in some of the middle of the leaves.

Also, my nearby potatoes seem to have a blight! They have been eaten like crazy, mostly by flea beetles. Should I pull them all up? They are Red Norlands and probably have some decent potatoes under there already, it's been about 60 days. I did not give the potatoes the chemical fert. More pictures in next post.

Potato blight?

Another potato leaf... this plant has curled leaves and has always looked less healthy than the others.

Agree with Dave. Overwatering(tons of rain) will cause the paleness and leaf drop. The tip burn is caused by too much fert in most cases. Burning in the middle of the leaves--- did you foliar feed or splash by any chance?

"I will try to avoid the chemical ferts alltogether in the future."

Good idea. You did what is best for MOST veggies needs... feed the soil early. Past that, veggies like maters and peppers and most others fruiting types just need side dressing of more compost, worm castings, compost tea or ORGANIC ferts, etc. after each "flush" of fruit starts. Why ruin that nice looking soil with chemical ferts?? Save it for container plants.

Not sure about the potato blight thing. I don't know what it looks like. Looks like burn also. But the same as above applies to taters -- feed the soil early and get some bone meal in extra early( long before planting) since it takes so long to break down.

Do the same with BONE MEAL with other veggies also. I'll use it in side dressing but I don't expect THAT application to come into play until I till the soil in the winter for my winter/early spring veggies. It's a consistent sprinkling of it every 6 months so that FUTURE plants can take advantage when it's usable.

Back to the peppers --- it's difficult to control water with RAIN. But maybe you can set up tarps to divert SOME of it in the future if you're expecting deluges. Dave is spot on about watering peppers -- they like to almost get bone dry in between. Water thoroughly, let get bone dry, water thoroughly, let get bone dry, and so on.

Good luck.

Kevin

This post was edited by woohooman on Sat, Jun 28, 14 at 13:24