Have you been feeding them? Peppers are pretty heavy feeders. Another thing I have noticed through the years is that peppers should be planted and allowed to develop a nice root system before setting fruits. Once the fruits are set, even if it was just one or two, the plant focuses almost entirely on growing those first fruits if they are not fertilized heavily. If the peppers haven't had the time to grow roots, it will be stunted for a while until the first fruits are picked off. Then it will start growing leaves and flowers again.

I'm in zone 6 and I have a devil of a time getting peppers to flourish. It seems that just when they start getting big, the season ends. I do okay, and I keep experimenting with new varieties to find one that really likes our growing season in New England, but I don't do great. So, among whatever other issues your peppers may have, it may also be that your season is just a little short for whiz bang pepper production.

As always, the more experienced should feel free to correct me. Any tips and tricks would be appreciated.

Well, besides the leaf mold and compost, I haven't done anything. I wanted to stay organic, so I wasn't really sure what to use. Miracle grow sounded a little shifty. What do you use?

When I planted the peppers, they had a very nice root system going. But like you said, I don't if it got any bigger.

Hi Kim,

I planted from seed too, but unlike you ,I rebelled and planted too soon and shocked my little girls with cold soil (they were doing great in the greenhouse), but they are just starting to gain some momentum, they will do great... hopefully yours will too... It sounds like you did everything correctly ...good girl... ;-)
I just ran out and snapped these pics for you ;-)

The first pic shows my attempt at "tossing a few seeds and seeing if they will grow" ...They are starting to poke their heads out of the ground... but they are wayyyyy behind my "sown indoors" peppers...

the next pics show one of my Pepper beds,they are doing well....finally,...... next year I will wait until the soil warms up or at least use a red plastic ground cover to raise the bed temp....

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Since we are sharing photos here are two of my plants: blushing beauty on the left and gypsy on the right. They are both loaded with fruits and are about 2 ft tall.

In general, leaf mold and compost don't have a high amount of nutrient and I think those two alone would not be enough for the peppers. I use composted manure when I prepare my beds. Then I use comfrey to make liquid fertilizer that I applied to my peppers twice a month. I am organic as well so I don't touch miracle grow. You can find organic fertilizers at garden centers.
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Yeah, my peppers do NOT look like these. lol. Now I'm just embarrassed ;). Is it too late to apply fertilizer now?

Kim

I ain't buying the "fertilizer" story, I only use compost as my fertilizer too... and my garden is booming off the hook, everything is dark green and absolutely lucious..
In the last two months May 1st to July 1st I have donated 676 lbs of Vegetables to the Food Bank

Totals to 6-30-2010
112 lbs of Broccoli
79 lbs of Sugar Snap Peas
136 lbs of Lettuce
12 lbs of Onions
79 lbs of Radishes
106 lbs of Swiss Chard
12 lbs of Spinach
40 lbs of Carrots
100 lbs of Cabbage

You have some other issue, I would love to see some pics ;-)

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Kim they aren't shaded by the tomatoes are they. I am with Jon on advice my peppers may have a shot of 10-10-10 on them but surly not any thing since they were transplanted. you could try a shot of fertilizer for a week or two to see if it improves their growth. The wet spring was rough on the roots of most plants around here so it might take a while for them to catch up. Yes I have peppers. I have harvested them for 2 weeks now. I like the green ones! OH and Jon is ahead of us with that mild Oregon climate. Good looking garden as always Jon.

Curt~

Kim, I think a photo will really help here. When you say large leaves have fallen off, do they turn yellow then fall off? Do they have any kind of spots on them? Given that you had a lot of rain, it is possible that it got some kind of fungal disease.

Here's the pics of the peppers. The leaves do turn yellow, but they don't seem to have any spots. I bought some fish emulsion today. Too late? Too much nitrogen?

Anyone know how to just post the pictures on here, and not just the link?

The last picture is of the chard jonhughes told me would grow even though I swore I killed it. haha.

Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Pitiful peppers

Hi Kim, I couldn't see your pics,the link didn't work ;-(
If you don't have an online album set up yet,go to photobucket.com and start one,after you upload pics to your album,you will see this set of links,use them based upon what you wish to do... but for Gardenweb use the third link down (HTML) and simply cut and paste it into your post ,If I am not clear enough ask more questions,I want you to be able to post your pics...OK ;-)

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Peppers are kind of touchy plants and are slow to recover from stress...like the time hail hurt mine.
I think that too much rain in not perfect soil has hurt them and I suspect that they need fertilization. Some who have built the soil up over several years seem to think according to their situation rather than yours in my opinion.

Kim, apply the fertilizer as directed on the product. Peppers are touchy plants... but they are not nearly as bad as eggplants. Talking about being difficult. :)

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This work?

YAYYYYYY ;-)
That is awesome...
and your plants look great (for looking a little waterlogged),
did you just water before taking the pic,or is the ground really that wet ???
BTW.. Is that shade or did you take the pic late in the day ???

Anyway, they like very warm soil,so if it is too wet,let them dry out a little and they will do fine... eventually ;-)

But they do look great ;-)

Kim, earlier this year when I was growing my transplants indoors my tomatoes and a few peppers had lower leaves turn yellow and fall off. I asked around and found out that I was overwatering them. Given that you grow in the ground and it has rained a lot, it could very well be too much water that's causing the leaves to turn yellow and fall off. Fertilize and hope for dryer weather.

I also wonder if you've had any chill nights. Peppers really don't like any chill.

Good to know I'm doing something right! ;) I had actually just watered them that afternoon. It was almost dark when I took the picture, but they are in full sun all day. Despite having inches and inches of rain fall for days, it has been pretty sunny and super hot the past couple of weeks. The thing that worried me, though, is that my peppers last year got about this big and just stopped growing. I only got 1-2 pepper per plant. Yuck. But I hope to have better luck this year.

So will the fish emulsion be a help or hinderance to them right now then? Can I apply it to everything in the garden? I noticed it had lots of nitrogen relative to other ingredinets. Will this cause the leaves to grow and not the veggies themselves?

Thanks for the help. I finally know how to post a dang picture now!

Kim

Hi Kim,
Good Job on everything and post more pics of your garden...
I never use fertilizer,so I better let the members who do, tell you how to go about doing it,(I don't want any harm to come to your babies ;-)
I once tried fertilizer and killed everything OY VEY
That really sucked...don't want that to happen to you ! !

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Good to know! And it'll save me the money too. I started my broccoli seeds yesterday. First time I've ever grown them. Pretty excited!

Is that cabbage in the one picture? The enormous, clam shaped leaves? They're so big! How much room do you you have to grow again? Was it like 30 of the cinderblock beds? Very nice.

Kim, what is the NPK number on the fish emulsion? Yellow leaves and general week plant growth could definitely benefit from some nitrogen, especially after all the rain. Remember that week plants will fruit poorly. You said the plants didn't do well last year, so maybe try something different and add some fertilizer this year and see how it goes? I would also recommend deep watering at most twice a week, even in 90 degree weather.

5-5-1 is what the bottle says. When I said I wanted an organic fertilizer, the garden center worker went totally blank and acted like I was asking to buy moon dust. How sad is that?

Hi Kim,
Yeah Red Cabbage, totally sucks though, I'll never plant these again, I can't taste enough of a difference between Red and Green Cabbage,and the green is 60 day and the Red is 120 days (give or take), and they are sucking up all my room, and they are monsters, I keep ripping off the bottom leaves because they shade everything in their path, I just took one to the Food Bank,it was 25 lbs...what a beast ! !
This thing was 3' in all directions ... Sheesh ;-)

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Kim, the potassium number (the last one) is low, but if your compost was made out of kitchen scrap your soil might have enough potassium. Peppers and tomatoes like a lot of potassium, which is why I use homemade liquid comfrey fertilizer. It has a ridiculously high amount of potassium. I also know people that save their banana peels for potassium. But give the emulsion a try and see how the plants do in a few weeks!