Leggy plants can be staked but if I could I would put a fan on a timer the wind helps beef up the steams. In my greenhouse the seedlings would cut you if you stepped on them... just kidding of course but you get the point. Start out slow with the wind and build you way up on time and speed.

T S, the plants were planted out almost a month ago.

The stem is pretty stocky, at least at the bottom. The top is just kind of growing too fast. This is what it looked like fallen over.

Hmm to much nitrogen? Any other symptoms? Have you checked for aphids, mealy bugs, and white flies or other sap eating bugs. I can enlarge the picture on my phone but is that steam brown at the bottom. If it is that's not a good sign this early in the season. If the rain was really hard it could have damaged the steam check for cracks and other sings of stress on the steam. It's just a thought I don't see signs of wilting from steam damage.

There are white flies, and aphids. There isn't much I can do about them that I know of... feel free to give any advice.

My soil is very rich, but the peppers were not fertilized.

I thought the brown stem was normal.

The plant mostly perked up this morning and does not appear to be wilting.

The Ace and Biscayne are both early peppers.

Insecticidal soap and kill the ants. Try terror near the plants but not to close. Try to find their nest. Ants areally their fierce protectors kill the ants and other insects will eat them but you need the soap ASAP!!

This is a recent picture of the peppers. About a week ago maybe.

I have not seen ants on the peppers.

I will pick up some insecticidal soap, but I am not sure how useful it will be, considering these pests are all over my garden and my property and it is a contact only pesticide.

I was just thinking need oil would help stop bacterial and fungal problems associated with that brown steam or aphids not sure if it works on pest or not.

Not sure of Biscayne, but Ace is a bell variety, no?. I find that using tomato cages work great for large fruited annuums like bells..

Regarding the blooms--- leave them be. Most will abort, so you'll want as many as it can muster.

Regarding the aphids and whiteflies. Like TS mentioned, try to control any ants. Also, jet blasts of water every couple days or so in the evenings on the undersides for a good couple weeks will bring the populations down some. Then, start with treatments of soap or neem oil every 3 days or so. Neem is more expensive, but it does have anti-feeding properties. The key to all this is diligence. Stay on it and you should see improvement.

In the meantime, maybe go get a six pack of marigolds and/or alyssum to attract some "good" bugs to help with the fight.

Good luck.

Kevin

Yes Ace are bells and Biscayne are cubanelle... not hot peppers, but this seemed like the place to ask. :) They are just starting to set fruit now.

Won't Neem kill beneficials as well?

Peter: Yes. Sweets as well as hots are discussed here and there are a few posters in the veggy forum who know their peppers.

Yeah, I'd use a cage for the Biscayne as well being that they're pretty large and pretty heavy producers.

No, neem will not hurt beneficials. Though if you really get into a stringent IPM(Integrated Pest Management) program, it's wise to wean yourself off almost all pesticides. The reason being is that you want a few bad guys for the good guys to munch on... or the good guys will just move on to greener pastures.

Kevin

The plant seems to have recovered. I did see what looked like possibly mold on the soil at the base of the plant (but not on the plant) so I am a little concerned about that. The weather has been wet and the ground is saturated, sadly, with more rain tonight. But that's NY for you.

Also I figured out this is one of the Biscayne plants... there are no other pictures of it online I think.

Peter, I've got Biscayne going also. They are producing well. I've got them in with some cayennes and so far, the Biscayne Cubanelles are producing much better.

Nice plants, thanks for sharing! Next year I will go for that closer spacing I think. Are you harvesting green?

Thank you. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure of the approximate size each pepper is supposed to get, but I'll be harvesting green. I harvested 3 so far and haven't yet tasted them. :-|

I'm growing them because they are my grandad's favorite (he loves them with eggs in a half-scrambled egg/half-omelet dish he makes. In the supermarket these things are $3.99 Lb. in season, and $4.99 Lb. out.!!!

Honestly, I've always had them green, I'm not even sure I've seen one ripe. I'll let a few ripen just to see how they taste.

As far as the spacing, I'm mainly doing it because of lack of garden area. They'd probably do better spaced, but to get weight/sq. ft. and since I started from seeds and had a lot of starts, I just bunched them. I think they are about 1' apart in the width of the bed, and about 18" along the length. They don't seem to mind being in close quarters though. Oh, and they are contained in 6"-8" diameter cages.

I don't really like green peppers, but the cubanelles are a bit different. Still, I think I will try letting at least half fully ripen.

Yeah, with the price of peppers, they are definitely something that it actually pays off to grow, if you can grow them successfully. I hope this year I will be, so far they are lightyears ahead of last year. I saw my first bell pepper on the Ace today.