Concur

I'm assuming that the failed "hand pollinating" that the OP is referring to is blossom shaking. You do that when you have an indoor plant that doesn't get shaken by breezes. But if the pollen is sticky, as with high humidity, you can do it manually by gently swizzling a Q-tip, small paintbrush, or even your finger around in the flower to be pollinated. I've done that a few times, and ended up with a pepper, though of course I can't be sure that I ended up with one because of that manual pollination. This process is well-reported on the internet.

Allegedly the flowers are more prone to breaking off when the temperature is high, so do this in the morning before it gets hot.

Perhaps try a small box fan or two to create breezes for the peppers.

All my peppers are grown inside, daninthedirt. Outdoors it never gets hot enough. I've never shaken them. However, there's probably some air movement from the windows. I'm dubious that there's no air movement where ninecrow is growing them.

Ninecrow, where are these peppers growing? Have you grown peppers successfully before? If not maybe you are expecting to see baby fruit when the blossom drops, like a tomato. But there isn't much to see for a while. Could be that you will get peppers in due course.

If the pollen is sticky because of high temps as well as humidity, it requires lots of shaking. Yes, we don't know where the OP is. We could be dubious about the weather conditions there. That would be of interest. I'm pulling out my tomatoes tomorrow. No amount of shaking is going to pollinate them in this heat.

Dan, it gets very hot here too, Have you tried just trimming back your plants and allowing them to regrow for a Fall crop? I have been doing this the last couple of years and usually have tomatoes at Christmas.

"we don't know where the OP is"

The OP is in England as it states in the screen name and growing the peppers indoors so I highly doubt excess heat is causing the pollination issues.

I'd follow floral's advice as she is most familiar with the OPs growing conditions.

I hear the UK is having quite a heat wave right now though.

This is a recurring failure in Gardenweb - I don't see a location listed. All I see is "ninecrow". That may mean England to you, but it doesn't to me.

Yes, in principle, one can trim tomatoes back and hope for a fall crop, but I'm a little impatient with heavy watering and taking up space for another four or five months without getting anything out of it until December. These are cherries, so trimming them back would entail removing most of them. But I'm excited to use the space for winter squash, which is impossible earlier because of SVBs.

must be your browser or phone.

When I asked Ninecrow where they are growing I meant where in his house. I knew he's in England already from previous posts. But I also see it in brackets after his name.

It is warm here today. I'm sure some of you will laugh when I say I'm inside in the cool because it's 77f in the garden. We're forecast 84 tomorrow so I'll probably barely move ;-)

I've never seen a well-grown outdoor pepper here - we just don't get the consistent or protracted heat. Even outdoor tomatoes are a gamble. But I've grown several peppers and chillis in my glass porch. Chillis especially are a cinch and you can get a year's supply from just a few plants.

I see the same thing with Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. This is an old problem. No brackets after the name. Or anything else. I see everyone else's location or, less useful, their USDA zone.

Hi, My Pepper is Grown in a Sunny Windowsill and Yes I've Grown some Nice Ones before in the same Spot, So I'm a Bit Stumped....

I've Grown Red Bells with No Problem {This One is Purple} and I'm Sure One Year I did Yellow or Orange with No Problem...

Seeing one's location or zone info depends on how you access the website. If you enter via GardenWeb, all that info is displayed (if entered initially). It goes back to the old days of GardenWeb, where there was a specific section in your profile to enter zone or location info. If you enter via Houzz, you don't see that info.....unless it is amended as part of your screen name. Zone or location was never important for Houzz as it was a home decorating platform and never involved with gardening at all until the GW acquisition.

Just another case of how the two platforms are not yet successfully integrated.

Thank you, Gardengal48. First time I've heard that explanation. I've battled with this before. Now, if I go through Gardenweb to the vegetable gardening forum, I'm automatically re-routed to https://www.houzz.com/discussions/vegetable-gardening-dsbr0-bd~t_30039, which is where I've been going. So what's the link to get here directly through Gardenweb? I pre-date Houzz here, so I'm not sure how I managed to switch.

Try this: https://www.gardenweb.com.

I am never signed out of the site so always visit via GardenWeb. But there are a couple of features I cannot access that way so sometimes I sign on again through Houzz.

If they could get it all to work together properly that would be a huge plus in my book. But these are obviously not software designers managing this site :-) Way too many glitches!!

Weird. I followed your link, Dan, and indeed ninecrow's location disappeared. I'm only ever on GW and never Houzz. This is where I am now. https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5731702/my-hand-pollinating-seems-to#n=16

Thank you, but as I said, when I go to the Gardenweb URL for this page, as suggested by floral_uk, I am ingloriously flung to Houzz. Strangely, just going to https://www.gardenweb.com/ doesn't fling me anywhere else. Clearing my cache nor signing out of Houzz doesn't help. That's kinda weird. If my cache is cleared, and I'm not logged on to Houzz, who's telling it to fling me there?

In fact, I can get as far as this, staying on Gardenweb -- https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/explore-topics#Garden-Forums . But when I choose a forum there, any forum, I am flung to Houzz.

Interesting because as noted, I can coast back and forth between the two, although I rarely ever access via Houzz. FWIW, all of the forum URL's that show up on my laptop start with the https://www.gardenweb.com discussions heading.

Whoa. This is VERY curious. If I change my bookmarks to gardenweb.com,
I now go to Gardenweb, and stay there when I select forums and threads. In fact, having done that, I no longer get flung to Houzz at all. That is, everything just changed. The flinging has stopped! Houzz must have gotten tired of all that flinging.

Now being able to actually go to a Gardenweb thread, and seeing locations there is nice. But when I'm there, and look at my Settings, they are Houzz settings, and don't include a location field. In those settings, I just put my name in "First Name" and my location in "Last Name".

Boy, pepper pollination is easy compared to this! Thanks for your patience.