Hey everybody how is it going? So I planted a bell pepper in about a 20 gallon pot (and drilled holes at the bottom for drainage) and my plants have been looking and doing great up until blossoming.

The fruits will grow to about 1.5" with no problems and then start to turn brown on the far end. I am 99% sure this is classic blossom end rot, so I took thr following steps to try to stop it:

1) during the vegetative part of its life cycle, back in about April comma I put down some used coffee grounds in order to add nitrogen to the soil. I read that too much nitrogen can cause blossom end rot during fruiting so I manually took the coffee grounds back out about a month ago

2) here in Sacramento it has been getting 100+ on most days, and I usually water once in the morning. I had not mulch my plants so I added bark mulch about 2 weeks ago. I feel like this would protect the roots from Heat of the Sun shining directly on the soil and making it hot, and also helping retain moisture in the soil

3) lastly I started using a calcium spray to try to get the plant to absorb calcium because this is the causes blossom end rot based on what I read. I know it's a last ditch effort to try to save my fruits comma and the instructions say to apply at once every 5 to 7 days so I apply it every 7 days so as not to over apply.

Despite all this my fruits are slowly rotting. Any help would be appreciated more than know :)