Pepper plants - North - South and all between

bmaverick
bmaverick Posts: 175 ✭✭✭
edited June 2018 in Our Garden: Growing Food
I am on the Missouri/ Iowa border due south of Des Moines and I am getting tons of hot peppers for salsa but no bell  peppers.  I am concerned because so many things from frogs to wasp did not survive our winter.  I've been going out with Q-Tips and pollinating that way and finally getting fruit setting.  I know how frustrating all the little weird things are from year to year.   One year I might be buried in cucumbers and the next year get none.  Last year no one had tomatoes but this year we do.  I just go with the flow.  Right now I am buried in peppers and basil and the squash is finally setting fruit.  My oat grass is coming up but corn and beans are a loss this year.  I've never had a year that I didn't have lots of green beans but this year I got plants but no flowers so no beans.

Comments

  • bmaverick
    bmaverick Posts: 175 ✭✭✭
    edited June 2018
    Cherlynn, thanks for the update.  We have similar issues with the green beans as well, but didn't think is was wide spread like the sweet peppers, banana peppers, or types of hot peppers.

    Since moving up here late last year, we went from zone-7 to zone-4/5.   With going into the solar minimum, we chose to keep with things for zones 3&4.  Oddly, it's been the reverse up here.  Very hot while the mid-states to the south are cool.  So, we pressed again to do split zone growing, this way, something is going to grow.

    The green beans either are still small or very large.  some with flowers, many have none.

    I gave up on corn years ago.  Corn and me are brown thumbs or the coons got to it before we could harvest it. :(

     
  • fibrefarmer
    fibrefarmer Posts: 3
    edited June 2018
    <span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: BwGlennSansRegular; font-size: 12px;"> I’ve been going out with Q-Tips and pollinating that way and finally getting fruit setting. </span>
    I find I have better luck with a feather or paintbrush (you can make a pretty fine paintbrush from a feather by cutting it off from its shaft, cutting the closed end of the shaft, and feeding the feather part through the shaft).  I don't like the idea of using Q-tips as it's hard to find some that aren't made of plastic and or that don't have high-chemical cotton.  Also, I find the paintbrush gets further into the flower so that the pollen gets to the right place.

    Here in Canada, I planted some peppers in the greenhouse and some out in the keyhole bed.  The plants in the keyhole bed are taking off and forming flower buds (a bit early for our area).  The one plant I bought from the shop, has flowers on it, but the others in the greenhouse are slow growing.  But the soil there is spent and it's a very cold wet year.  This is the first year we've had rain in June since I moved to the farm.  Crazy!  Yesterday we had nearly a quarter of an inch of rain.  This is insane weather for our part of the world.

    Speaking about pollinators, how about hummingbirds?  We find they do a lot of pollinating when the weather is too cold for bees.
  • Jimerson Adkins
    Jimerson Adkins Posts: 4
    edited June 2018
    I've had problems with various types of peppers in West Texas. Just too darn hot! I had to toss shade cloth over my garden to create a little microclimate and micromanage the whole thing. So glad to be moving to somewhere more hospitable, soon. : )
  • Ruth Ann Reyes
    Ruth Ann Reyes Posts: 577 admin
    edited June 2018
    I am having problems w/ my peppers and beans this year. I agree, the heat is brutal this year! North Texas here.
  • MikeF
    MikeF Posts: 35 ✭✭✭
    edited July 2018
    We are in Georgia and have more peppers than we can eat!  :-)    All of my pepper plants (both sweet and hot) have been growing and producing nicely.   Most of the flowers turn into fruit.  We no longer need to hand pollinate since adding the honeybees this spring.

     

    On the other hand, I simply can not keep a squash plant alive this year.   Every round of squash plants has died right about the time it got to production size.   I have been both growing from seeds and bought seedlings.  I think its all of the rain we have been getting....

     

     

    M

     

     

     
  • bmaverick
    bmaverick Posts: 175 ✭✭✭
    edited July 2018
    OK, we got some pepper plants as starters from the local farmers market.  These have made it to produce.  Even when the 2-week July 4th heatwave struck, we thought these would be goners, but they survived.  The seeds will be saved because these endured the heatwave and will be hardy types.

  • sherryo
    sherryo Posts: 58
    edited July 2018
    I've had little production from our bell peppers this year.  The few I did get were very small.  I think it's just been too hot in central Texas.

    Plants are about 3 feet tall, healthy but no new blooms on them.  I am going to cut them back to 1 foot and apply seaweed and compost to them.  Hopefully they will start producing again in the fall.

    Our hot chilies are just coming into production.  We've got a good fruit set on these.