man must be nice to get sun! here my mission bay we have not seen the sun in 3-4 days! rained on me this morning! and all my plants are growing nice and SLOOOOW! a few plants have a bloom or 2 but no peppers yet! hopefully the sun decides to come out and say hi soon!

how often are you watering? i am finding that i can go 1-2 maybe 3 weeks between watering but all of mine are in 14" terra cotta pots and a #7 plastic pot and a #15.

Eric

I'm watering about every 6-8 days

ha for the last 3 weeks it has been in the high 80's to high 90'and Ive been watering every day cuz it hasnt rained in weeks! but even though I am new to growing peppers i now have over 70 plants and another 144 seeds germinating, but my first 12 I bought from a farmer's market stand and they were quite leggy and they started flowering early and had some blossom and immature pod drop and now they are flowering and setting fruit again w/o any apparent issues, w/o changing anything i was doing so i guess what im trying to say is that I think they are probably fine and u just need a little patience, all the ones I have grown from seed this year had no similar problems good luck with the weather and the peppers

Flower drop probable causes:

1. Day temp too high >95F
2. Night temp too low 3. Too much nitrogen fertilizer
4. Too much water
5. Low light levels (reduces fertility).
6. Very low humidity (reduces fertility)
7. Poor air circulation (air circulation contributes to pollination).
8. Lack of pollinating insects.
9. Size of pot
10. Too much mineral in feedwater.
11. Too much grower attention/anxiety.

Could be any or all of the above but I bet it's too cold at night.

Well, if that "Night Temp

To my knowledge Willard3 pointed out everything except Bugs and Disease, which would be obvious and definitely affect the 'healthy appearance of the plants, so exclude those for now.
1. temp >95F ~ I've read 90F
~ my experience is consistently >90F if in full sun & consistently > 100F if in morning and/or indirect sun.
2. temp ~ my experience is consistently 3. Is definitely a contributory factor, you should never fertilize more than once a month, that is unless you are trying to correct an issue that requires a specific kind of fertilization.
4. All peppers are sensitive to over watering and respond with blossom & fruit drop, but lots of water is good for leaf & stem growth. Pay attention to what part of its growth cycle it is in and water accordingly.
~ Recommend during flower/fruit time to wait for the leaves to start drooping before lightly spritzing top of soil just to keep it damp (not soggy). Then water conservatively from bottom, monitoring the amount and the plants response. Again adjust accordingly. This is called 'Water Stressing' and it not only helps prevent blossom drop due to over watering, but greatly improves the heat of the fruit.
5. Low light tricks the plant into reacting like it is fall and starting to shut down. Peppers are annual plants if outside and perennial if brought in for the winter.
6. Low humidity prevents the pollen from fertilizing the flowers, so they die off instead.
7. & 8. Are self explanatory.
9. Most peppers will push themselves out of the top of a pot that's too small, and bare the feeder roots, you are spritzing, to the air (very bad 4 plants especially the Chinese family)
10. I don't know about this one, but it makes sense.
11. This is my biggest problem and definitely can cause severe damage to plants in several ways.
~ Anecdote: A couple of years ago, after several years of loving my plants to 'DEATH', I got frustrated and started ignoring my plants. I had put them aside to die so they only got indirect sun and rarely got watered.
To my surprise, they all thrived. That year I ended up with over 75 plants consisting of 16 different varieties. I moved them 2 a better place but still only indirect sun and they soon got to be more than I could take care of, bearing a lot of fruit. I learned a valuable lesson from my mistake.

Two more things; Peppers need Magnesium (Epsom Salt) twice a year. 'Once` when they have just gotten their first couple of leaves and once when they start to grow blossoms. This is related to the 'too much nitrogen' problem. Too much nitrogen inhibits Calcium assimilation and Magnesium helps that assimilation. Lack of Calcium assimilation is one of the causes of flower/fruit drop and 'Leaf yellowing', so it can be applied @ other times. I would only use 1 teaspoon per gallon of water and use it only once unless you have yellowing leaves. Then I would only apply it 2 or 3 times.
And
Different species of peppers react slightly different to all of the items above, but they are a good rule of thumb for all.
These are the hard lessons I have learned and am still learning. I would appreciate info from any others that would increase my knowledge base and help prevent my plants from dieing, I need these plants for medicinal purposes and can't afford to loose any.

Thanks for reading my lengthy post, and as I always say "A day without learning is a wasted day!"
All my best, Pic-Z