re: Garden Updates

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A few of my pepper plants really look like crap. I was out of town all last week and I think my mom (caretaker) may have watered them too much, but all the same. Banana pepper has a bunch of fruits but half have what I assume is blossom end rot. One of my bells has blossom end rot. Half my maters have blossom end rot. I am frustrated. Will post photos later for OB advice.

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I can't speak on the watering but I am using gypsum this year as a source of calcium and haven't seen the first sign of BER. It's supposedly one of the most bio-available sources of calcium and may be a quick fix. My tomatoes and peppers are setting like crazy right now with that and a higher phosphorous fertilizer, but the tomatoes are definitely feeling the heat when it comes to ripening.

Side dressed after plants had gotten a good start, before they began flowering. It's highly water soluble so it's easy to apply but I may hit them again if I feel like it's rinsed out, very similar to how I apply epsom salt.

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But, a bunch of the little cucumbers are turning yellow like this one, shriveling up and dying.

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Completely normal for female flowers that are poorly (or not at all) pollinated.

For your pepper plants, I’ve had little luck growing in containers. They’ll need to be fertilized more often if you are watering a lot because over watering will wash all of the nutrients out of your soil.

ETA: you could try hand pollination with a small paint brush. This might help more of your cucumbers take. The female flowers have the small cucumbers. The male flowers don’t. Use the brush on the male flowers and then transfer the pollen to the females.

Go buy cheap shop lights from Home Depot, lowes. Get the trays with good potting soil that is well nourished. Keep the the lights 2" above the plants and 90% will grow to transfer outside. It's addicting.

This is kinda long, but I want to get up on my soap box cause I feel like this year I learned more in a short time than I did any other previous year, by doing things differently than I usually do.

I agree with everything Pillage said, but to expand I think you're getting the worst of both worlds with those small containers and it's causing multiple issues. It's not quite an issue of "too much water" IMO, that's more of a symptom than a cause.

First off, they're too small so they plant isn't allowed to set deep roots. Right off the bat that's gonna stunt the plant's growth. This snowballs with the fact that small containers usually dry out quickly between watering, yet nutrients tend to get rinsed out when you do water. The deeper the soil the more moisture and nutrients it's going to hold. I water my plants almost every day, but my pepper boxes are deep, drain well, and I fertilize lightly often. These are the best I've ever seen them do, and the difference is giving them depth. Likewise with the tomatoes, I made the boxes over 18" deep and they are loving it. I'm using a heat tolerant variety, but even those aren't supposed to be setting fruit with nights running 75+, but mine are setting like crazy because I believe they have plenty of available moisture to stay cool and aren't stressed.

I used soil designed specifically for raised beds, it drains well but stays moist, and isn't compacted. I think this combination is they key however you get there. The difference for me has been night and day in these deep boxes, versus the shallow raised beds or planting directly in what was probably too compacted clay soil like I've done in the past. If I went back to either of the other methods I would heavily amend the soil for drainage and break it up at least two feet deep.

I think a lot of people underestimate how deeply plants will root if allowed to, and how much it can help. I've read studies that showed tomatoes will set roots down to 36" deep. When you only give them a foot of soil you're constantly babysitting to keep it perfect. You have much greater margin for error when the soil is deeper, the plant can always reach down and get the moisture and nutrients it needs.

Your cucumbers on the other hand look completely normal. I've had probably 100 female flowers wither due to lack of pollination on just a couple vines, and I'm just now getting them to set. Same story with squash. For whatever reason it took the bees forever to find them this year, and only about two weeks ago did I see a specific type of little black bee tending the flowers. Within days of noticing them I had squash and cucumbers set, and in bunches. If the bees had showed up two weeks earlier I would have had buckets of squash, dozens of female flowers had withered by then, and now the borers have gotten to them. Hand pollinating is an option but tedious. Read up on how to attract bees, but just know I did ALL those things and it didn't make a bit of difference until they just decided to show up when I believe they would have anyway.

I apologize for the dissertation but I really figured out a lot this year after being frustrated in the past. Some things you can't control like the weather, bees, etc, but I think a lot of simple things get overlooked and attributed to boogeymen like disease when in reality plants just need a few simple things and they'll do the rest.

Thanks for the informative post. I agree that the containers are too small, and I think that may be a cause of many of my issues. My local co-op suggested these containers to get started (they're like 3 gallons I think), but in the fall, I'm going to build a bed. I'm going to keep the maters in containers, but I'm going to go with 5gal buckets instead.

My plan for the rest of summer/fall is to build a flower bed along my privacy fence and run a relatively well put together trellis up my fence just for cucumbers. I'm also going to add some herbs and flowers to that bed to hopefully attract bees. I need to figure out which herbs companion well with cucumbers. I currently have basil, mint, green onions, thyme, tarragon, and rosemary on my porch in pots, and they're all growing like weeds.

Based on your suggestion, I may make a box specifically for peppers along my other fence that's deep and maybe 2-3' wide. If I could have enough space for 8 pepper plants I think I'd be happy. I'm going to start some peppers from seeds within the next three weeks. Then, I'm planning on putting a general 4x12'x12" or 4x16'x12" raised bed in the middle of the yard for squash, broccoli, lettuce, etc. at their appropriate times. In addition, I'm hoping to have like 5-6 container tomatoes.

eta: sorry, you may have already, but could you post some photos of your setup? I'm interested to see.

My above ground beds are only 12" deep and that's plenty enough depth for most plants. My five gallon bucket plants look no different from the beds. Even my carrots are 7" long and are straight and not stunted. I think it's more important a to have very loose soil and give each plant space. Also good drainage is a must. If it rains hard my beds never puddle. The soil is rich and I'm adding compost regularly. A good indicator of good soil is earth worms. I just harvested two broccoli heads and removed the plants. When I pulled each out there were 5 or more worms in each hole. My issues this year are that I should have started my tomato seeds inside at the beginning of February instead of beginning of march. I also learned a lot this spring on proper fertilizers for my plants without overdoing it. My biggest mistake was not giving my tomato plants enough calcium and some got blossom rot. Installing a sprinkler system has done wonders to my garden as well. If you stick a finger in the soil and it's damp then your plants are getting enough water. If it's soaked I reduce the timer for daily watering.

Thanks for posting. That's kind of what I have in mind for a pepper box, but I will need to raise mine off of the ground. It's going against the privacy fence, and the ground immediately adjacent to the fence isn't level. So, I'm probably going to raise it up about 2 feet or so, and level it. I'm thinking I'm going to build it 2' deep and 8' long, which is the width of the 4x4 supports for my fence. That way, I only really need to put two legs on the outside of the box. I'm also going to stain the outside of the box so it looks nice-ish. Do y'all think 12" between pepper plants in such a box would be sufficient? I'd like to get at least 8 plants in there. I cook with peppers a lot.

I'm going to build it either 16" or 18" deep. I guess this would be a good place to ask, but I'm thinking that I'll drill a good bit of ~3/4" drainage holes in the bottom of the box. I'm also thinking that I'll add a couple of inches of gravel at the bottom to aid in drainage. Would you guys suggest doing anything to keep the wood from rotting? I.E. adding a liner of some sort? I don't want to impede drainage in any way.

TIA for all the input.

I'm going to have to put a bottom on it just because I'm going to raise it off of the ground by a couple of feet.

Came home today and one of my bellpepper plants is totally wilted with leaves falling off, it was fine yesterday.

Any ideas? It’s in a corner of my raised beds and the 2 next to it are fine.