Over-watering with peppers is very common. Unlike many other vegetables, they prefer to dry out some between watering. They like warm air but cool roots so mulching is very beneficial. They are also hungry plants for P and K and the micros but not for nitrogen so what and how often do you feed them?

Dave

I had great success this year just leaving the peppers alone. They don't want water unless it is a full on drought and they don't want fertilizer, at least not in my soil. They do want tons of sunshine. Of course they still take forever to turn color. Ace and Biscayne have set tons of fruit for me.

Peppers are relatatively easy crop. Bells

are the most difficult but that is usually due to diseases that attack them. Most failures are due to mothering them to death. I doubt that heat is your problem, They grow further north than you. Stick them in good well drained soil worked to a minimum depth of 7 inches. Deep water when the wilt, keep them free of competition (weeds or competive veggies) and get of their way and watch them grow. They do respond to magnesium so in my soil, I add a tablespoon of Epsom salts to the hill and incorporate 1/2 cup of 10-10-10 in the planting hill. If disease is the problem, ther are many varieties availble that have some resistance to specific disease. I suggest taking a plant to your county ag extension agent to determine which if any disease is present, than choose a resistant variety.

Bell peppers grow taller and larger than hot peppers. So the growing season tends to be longer. This year, I grow them between my grape plants. Since I do not water my grape vines, the pepper plants get little water except a couple of times of watering in heat waves.

And I do not mulch them either. And this does not seem hurt them. I do not see them wilting in the hot sun. I mulched them last year and the results were bad. I still need to do more comparison before I blame mulching. Many folks say mulching is not the problem.

Mulch is good in dry years; not so much in wet years. In my zone (3), I use plastic mulch but grow under cover inside a tunnel, so there are many 90-degree days. Green bell pepper yields for me are about 600 to 700 lbs per 1000 sq ft, over a 10 week period. I keep some of the peppers to ripen to red, and that's another 300 lbs or so. I too keep them on the dry side.
Stunted plants without any other dramatic symptoms often indicate a phosphorus deficiency. Composts and manures are not always reliable sources of P. What have you fertilized or amended with and/or have you done a soil test?

great ideas... I probably have overwatered, I know I do that with my perennials. I have tried to lay off the watering within the past couple weeks because my dad said everything looked stunted. So I haven't watered anything within the past 2 weeks probably, I'm trying to let the rain do the work.

My soil is clay but I top dressed with several inches of compost this year, and mulch. I haven't used any fertilizer so far this season - but when I do fertilize, I usually use fish emulsion - would that work?

Most of the casual gardeners do not even analyze soil and do not feed the plants. Yes, bell peppers do like dry and hot weather. And we need to feed the plants...

I think this is exactly what I did last year. I planted peppers rather early, like mid May. They were mulched with wood chips and the soil was not dry. The leaves turned yellow, then black, like sunburn. Then leaves dropped. The plants were wilted and stunned. So I thought they were lacking water and I watered them even more.

Things changed when the hot summer came. The hot peppers responded very well to the hot weather and I ended with a good season. I do not recalled the same success story with bell peppers.

I thought the mulch was the problem. This is why this year I did not mulch them.

peppers in general are pretty slow growers in soil. try giving them some fish emulsion.. i've had good luck with it and peppers since fish has tons of micro nutrients that they need without burning them to hell with tons of nitrogen.

test the soil for too much moisture. stick your finger about 3-4 inches down, if there is any hint of moisture DO NOT water.

if you want faster growth try hydroponic, all you need is a bucket, a net pot and some water soluble fertilizer and they grow about twice as fast compared to soil.

I'm in zone 5 also, upstate N.Y., and my peppers do great. I always start them out with an organic calcium/magnesium application..they get full sun from dusk till dawn, and I never water them unless their leaves are drooping. I also only grow heirlooms, but if yours are only a few inches tall this late in the season, that's not it. How do your other vegetables do? You said someone remarked that your other flowers looked stunted...you need to get yourself a ton of leaves this fall and till them in..nothing does well in clay..top dressing takes decades, get some good organic matter and till it in.

dawn till dusk lol

The other thing is that, you said you set them out in late June. That is too late. Late May should be OK. Or earlier with the help of black plastics. Bell peppers are larger and need a longer growing season than smaller hot peppers.

Yes but...(LOL)...even so, 2 months after setting them out they aren't 8" tall? Not normal..they should have taken off in the warm weather.

MY ERROR! I did plant them end of May... not June.

and, boy I feel like a dope, you guys are so right!

We just moved into this house last year so this is my first year gardening in this plot. Before this year, it was all covered in grass - the previous owners never planted in it. I took an organic gardening class last year and one of the tasks was to do a soil test - I dug out a hole in the soil and filled it with a couple gallons of water to see how well it drained. Well, 24 hours later the water still wasn't gone.... terrible drainage to say the least. So this past winter I covered the plot with leaves and put plastic over it to kill the grass. This spring we gave everything a good till but we weren't able to incorporate a lot of the leaves, it was just making a gigantic mess all over so we raked them out and I saved them for compost. We then put a hefty layer of compost over the top of the tilled soil but I didn't till that in... and I should have. Dumb, dumb, dumb. AND I've been watering too much.

Donna - my zucchinis did pretty well this year I think, even though I planted them too close together. Tomato plants are small right now but they are producing a decent amount of ripe fruit, string beans did well but seemed a little slow and I think I picked them too late because they're large and dry, lettuce did well, onions look like they're doing well.

So, main ideas are, don't water, do a good till next year, add micronutrients to the peppers, no mulch.

I've been doing this for 5 years but I still learn new things every single day...

I fertilize bell peppers at planting time with Espoma Tomato tone. 3 Tbsp mixed into the planting hole. Then I fertilize again with a water soluble fertilizer like MG for veggies in mid to late August when the weather starts to cool a bit and the first fruit set is ripening. This second round of fertilizer helps the plant put out a second flush of fruit that will hopefully ripen before first frost.

Lauren...don't be too hard on yourself. Gardening is a learning curve that we are all on, and we never stop learning. The good thing is that you are asking questions and trying to learn ...you'll get there, just don't beat yourself up along the way!

Hey, they haven't died!

Peppers are fancy weeds that make tasty seed pods. Plant them in your nice garden after after they get going, treat them like your fancy weed patch. Don't do much. Ignore them. Pull off any obvious bugs. Spray some water if they look near death. Dump some fish emulsion water at some point just because you have some. Then--enjoy your peppers! Just remember, somewhere in the world, peppers are the local weeds and they're doing just fine without any fuss.

I found, that as bigger the fruit of the pepper suppose to be, the less chance you get any of it colored. They either do not set more then few bells, or get rotten on the way to ripe. So in order to get a lot (like a gallon+ per plant over the season) I switched to early and small fruited types. Orange blaze and Gypsy hybrid are my favorites for several years... This year I added one more I am happy with: Cute Staff red. Very productive so far. I am in the same zone as you, and I starting my peppers from seeds inside in the end of Feb or early March in half gallon pots. South-east window plus additional lights are the must. Do not over water. Use good soil mix. Avoid peat moss - they do not like acidity of it. I mix coco fiber(2), compost(2), vermiculite(1) and perlite(1) + long release fertilizer. Feed them lightly when they are a 3-4 weeks old and every 1-2 weeks. By April they should be almost a foot high. I set up heated greenhouse on the deck and move them there when weather permits till the end of May. Make sure that the acidity of your soil is not high where you transplant them. Check it in fall, add lime if needed. Before planting I add compost, super phosphate and potash and calcium. Good luck!