Thank you everyone for the tomato sympathy yesterday. I thought since we all enjoyed lamenting over our green tomatoes that I’d share another garden disappointment: our peppers. Usually we grow great peppers and by this time last year we even had some peppers on the plants, but this year… this year is a pepper disaster. All of the peppers, be them red bell peppers or green, heirloom or hybrid, grown from seed or bought as seedlings are all looking extremely pathetic. We thought it might be just us so we went to the nursery to buy some new, lush green ones, but all of theres look the same as ours. A little yellow, a little shriveled and plain old little in size. Maybe this cool summer has created a bum year for peppers? How are your peppers doing?
And did you see those melons in last years photo (link above)? Geez, ours are barely the size of golf balls now. A slow growing year, this year.
I feel very fortunate this year – we are having a great growing season in southern Virginia. In fact, everyone’s crops are so plentiful that they have opened the local farmer’s market up an extra day each week. My own peppers are looking great so far & I’ve got some 4″-5″ already. I guess it’s years like this I have to can and freeze like mad because the bad growing years seem to out number the good ones for us! We have a lot of hot & dry summers. I hope it warms up a bit for you though –
Our peppers are doing fairly well. We’ve been picking both the sweet bell and the jalepenos for about a week now. And we are finally picking RED tomatoes…yea! Our melons, however, are pathetic…tho we’ve picked several small cantelopes (which were delicious) mostly they are dying on the vine and the watermelons have all split and the plants are sickly…sigh.
(And our pumpkin vines look pretty sad as well)
We are having pretty good luck with our peppers this year (zone 6a), except for one that has a bad case of white flies, and another that seems to be having a little trouble with an ailment whose name escapes me at the moment. We’ve got at least a dozen others that are flourishing, including different varieties of hot and bell peppers. Our tomatoes are producing fruit but we have yet to have one ripen. *fingers crossed* that they escape the Late Blight that’s going around the northeast!
My peppers and tomatoes and squash are measly little things this year…hardly any flowers and I added good healthy compost and all that jazz. Ack. The weird summer weather of the east bay.
Boy oh boy.. my peppers are really hurting. Very stunted, very small. Some have little peppers on them, but the plants really are too small to be producing. Very cool weather all summer. Crazy.
I just posted pic’s on my blog of my first peppers and tomatoes.
Here in Southern Illinois things are growing well. The cornfields look a little behind because of all the rain we had they didn’t get put in as early. Most wasn’t ‘knee high by the 4th of july’.
Sorry to hear about yours…it’s always so frustrating.
It’s funny — my pepper plants (just two, an Anaheim and Banana) were the saddest plants in my garden for the past two months. Still are, really. They’re just not thriving, or so I thought. I left for a week and a half, and when I came home yesterday, they were still sad little plants, but both plants had a handful of 4-6″ peppers ready to harvest! I swear, there were barely any nubs on the plant when I left! So think positive thoughts. You, too, may be only a week away from a great pepper harvest
I’m in Rohnert Park, btw, so slightly cooler weather than you, but essentially the same climate.
Meanwhile, my 6 tomato plants are growing like gangbusters, and have too many green tomatoes to count. Nothing turning red yet, though. And I harvested my first straightneck squash yesterday, too. Got a few Acorn squash growing, but nothing on the butternut yet.
Kendra, my peppers are really pathetic, too. The plants themselves are more lush than the ones in your pictures, but there’s not a pepper one on them. There have been a few flowers, but no peppers at all. My garden as a whole has sort of gotten out of hand, though. As I was preparing the soil for planting, I added my unfinished compost (as in putting some very not decomposed stuff) under the soil, and as I was planting some things I planted them right into the undecomposed compost/dirt mixture. My garden looks like it’s on steroids! My tomato plants are HUGE, my brocolli and brussels sprouts plants are HUGE, and the same with my pumpkin, squash, and zucchini plants. I guess I can spare some peppers.
Plants are very healthy…Jalapenos are looking very good, the bells, so, so but expecting decent amount. Cucumbers are wild and the tomatoes are very prolific but still green (although 2 plants aren’t nearly bearing the fruit that the others are…). Good harvest for our first year crop over here by Buena Vista.
If you were closer I’d give you some of our serrano peppers. The cherry tomatoes or nearly non existent and still green but the peppers are crazy. I think it’s the Dr. Earth dirt used in the pots as the one pot without it the pepper plants look atrophied. The others are tall, lush and loaded and I swear I had not a thing to do with it but from here on out I married to Dr. Earth dirt.
I am in zone 8B and have four different kinds of peppers planted in four different places. One is looking great, full of blossoms, one has no blossoms but looks promising, the other two are very much like those in your pictures. All this has pushed me into searching out the moon phase philosophy.
However, I did pick two cherry tomatoes today! Thankful for whatever I get these days.
Hi Kendra, we are having a bad year in the vegetable garden too. I don’t know what it is, no bugs, no problems that we can find, just slow growth. Anyhow, ever the optimists, we planted more peppers and lettuces. We’ll see how they go.
Now don’t collapse on me but I posted your parcel today. LOL!! I’m so sorry it’s taken so long. They said it would take between 7 – 10 days. {Hugs}
Now our peppers look like they are going to croak but they are actually producing. I don’t understand it as by now they would have either died out or else bushed out. We are growing a variety of chilis, not bell peppers. I am wondering if we didn’t somehow manage companion planting by accident. I have herbs around each plant-sage, chamomile and lemon verbena around two and chamomile, lemon balm and anise hssyop around the other one. Maybe that is what is saving them?
I’m in Northern Ontario and that’s exactly how mine look. Last year my peppers were so lush. sigh.
Mine look exactly like yours. I thought it was something that I was doing wrong this year. They were so much bigger and better looking last year.
I singed my fingers on seranos last Thursday. No, it’s not a song. I didn’t wear gloves while stuffing these hellish darlings. Lesson learned. I was surprised to see hornworms feasting on my serano pepper plants and peppers. Those suckers are tough.Bell peppers have been giving and giving in fajita fashion.
Another one that I can relate to. I grew both Quadrato d’Asti Rosso and Purple Beauty from seed, but they just never went anywhere after getting up to about 4-5 inches in height. It just has to be the cooler summer that we’ve been having in my neck of the woods. Guess I’ll give it a go again next year.
Ours are on the small size – but we actually have some ready for pickin’ – some purple ones. We’ve never had great luck with our peppers – we chose a different spot this year so I was hoping for some lovely peppers. Yes I think this cooler growing season has hurt my garden. Hopefully this heatwave may help.
I’ll never give up – I will continue year after year to try.
Everyone that my hubby or I have talked to here in Sonoma Co. are having a difficult time with their gardens.
The 2 veg. that are producing anything is zucc. and cuc.
We planted over 80 basil, 12 peppers, 12 cant., over 30 tom. and I forget what else.
No pests, so I think it has to be the weather.
Lori, good to hear from another local that it isn’t just us. Wow what a big garden you have! And you are right, we have zucchini coming out our ears and the cucumbers are catching up!
For some reason our jalapenos are doing fabulously! Seriously, who needs this mean jalapeno peppers?! Our bells look about the same as they did when we planted them. We just tried some organic amendments somaybe it will help. It’s helping our tomatoes, thank goodness.
You made me realize I really need to do a garden update! Eep!
~Tara
So interesting. My zucchini didn’t even sprout! And my cucumbers all died. The crooknecks have some small fruit, but are at least a week from picking. Tomatoes and peppers are in full force. But my pole beans are PATHETIC! LOL The plants are tiny.