I believe you live near me, I'm in the Merrimack Valley near the NH border.

First off, yea, heck of a drought! Rain rolls in through the Berkshires then dries up at Worcester! Second, I haven't grown in the ground for years, when I did I used soaker hoses , with a pressure regulator, under porous weed block. Third is I currently use an "immersion" method to water my 5 gallon pails by putting the pail in a larger container with 6 - 8" of standing water and wait for the potting media to display wetness at the plant. This insures the plant gets maximum water and extends the length of time between watering as I noticed if I just put water on the top it would start coming out the drain holes but the pail was much lighter than after soaking them.

One hint about watering your in ground babies, insure you water them for an extended period of time to soak the ground deeply insuring good root growth. And with the growing number of water bans the soaker hose prevents your local officials from knocking on your door!

Happy harvest!

In 2014 I had fantastic results in the ground, but lousy the past two. I believe last year was a drought but nothing like this. I can now see the advantages of containers for moisture control and nutrient control. Would you ever use raised beds for peppers?

When you say "extended period of time" how long is that? I spray the base of each plant with a hose for 10 seconds each.

When you say "extended period of time" how long is that? I spray the base of each plant with a hose for 10 seconds each.

The generally accepted method of watering in ground or raised bed plants is to soak the the soil thoroughly to a depth of 6 - 10 inches to promote deep root growth, not a 10 second spritz around base of plant. Try these sites:

How and When to Water Pepper Plants/The Pepper Seed

When watering my plants in ground/beds I give them a long soaking to really get the soil 6+ inches deep really wet. Infrequent deep watering encourages deep roots which leads to plants that can go longer without water.

Hot Summer Tips for Watering the Garden/Bonnie Plants

Watering the garden deeply is critical. The water must go down, down, down to encourage deep roots and get away from the hot soil surface.

Got it?...(;>)))

Hmm - so does that mean the drip would have to go for 8 hours to get 6"?

How did "drip" get into the conversation, are you using drip irrigation?

hmm, when you said "soak" the soil I thought you meant use a soaker hose. So I bought one today.

Drip irrigation has individual emitters that "drip" water close to the plant.

Soaker hose is what you bought today.

right, just an el cheapo soaker hose. Has been on the past hour.

Careful, I blew up a couple of hoses by turning the faucet on fully, just turn it on a 1/4 - 1/2 turn until you get the hang of it...

yes, its on low. I read on the instructions it takes 200 min to only water 1 inch!!

And how goes your "soaker" hose trial period?

Its been okay. The jalapenos have started budding again and gotten greener, but the cayenne still look like crap. I think I'm going with raised beds next year.

Hope you don't mind me butting in. I've been growing bells and jalapenos for several years but this year is my first with a large variety of peppers, most started from seed. I'm in NH, just north of Concord so we are in drought conditions. I have peppers planted inside a plastic high tunnel with the sides rolled up and also outside in a regular garden bed. Nothing in pots. I debated but got too confused by the soil mixture discussions. I use an oscillating sprinkler set as low as possible to water a bed, originally built using the lasagna method. Beds get watered for an hour maybe once a week. I haven't checked to see how deeply they actually get watered. Inside the high tunnel the beds don't get any rain just the sprinkler. We are on a well. I originally meant to mulch the beds with old grass and chopped up leaves but never got around to it. Potatoes and garlic got a heavy mulch of straw and the ground looks darker and cooler underneath the straw. There's a frog or toad living in the straw mulched area. I have lawn between my beds. There's a big difference between the soil structure in my garden beds which seem to do a lot better at holding water than in my perennial beds where the soil is extremely dry and powdery. Those beds also have not been watered. My peppers are doing great but there is a big difference in production between some of the bell varieties, for example, growing next to each other. I'm not even sure which cayenne is in the photo. My next batch of photo I haven't upload yet include name tags so I can tell what things are. I'm just learning about these new varieties. My point is whether you have enough organic matter in your soil. I started off with a pretty loamy soil and the lasagna beds were built right on top of thick sod. We also have a high water table but don't know where it's at this year. The next door marshy meadow is pretty dry.

Thanks for the welcome. My lawn is crunchy from lack of water and I don't think I water the vegetable beds very often. Of course, I do have a couple of scrawny pepper plants of varieties I won't grow again. First batch of hot sauce started today. Lips are tingly but I don't grow anything very hot.

My lawn is crunchy from lack of water and I don't think I water the vegetable beds very often.

I've been gardening since '95 and don't remember a summer this dry!

Lips are tingly but I don't grow anything very hot.

What about Hunan Hands?

Thanks, my husband said he has some Dawn someplace which I better put by the sink. I wore gloves and the tingling didn't last long.