Mark_Thompson wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:53 pm The lone exception is Roulette Hybrid from @Cornelius_Gotchberg The one plant is massive and seems super happy, but doesn’t have as many fruits as I would expect. Are they similar to tomatoes, could that be a sign of too much N?

Just picked the 1st Roulette yesterday, my experience is it's a mid-to-late season producer.

The Gotch

I hear ya. I just referenced my Glog and I got my first fruit off of there May 29th. Guess I’ll just hang in there and hope the two big beautiful plants start finally yielding some fruits.

Cole_Robbie wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 11:49 pm Pepper seedlings are more cold sensitive than tomatoes and don't seem to recover as well from cold damage. In growing them, organic matter content of the soil made a big difference for me. The other difference I remember is seed cost, mostly for hybrid bells. The only way I was able to grow a bell pepper that looked like it was off a grocery store shelf was to buy very expensive hybrid seeds. A buck a seed is nuts, but worth it for a market garden.

For years, we couldn't grow bell peppers -- they went down to disease right around the time they set fruit, dropped all their leaves or the leaves would curl up and be stunted or have lesions. Then I found Alliance and Declaration hybrids, and they're basically bulletproof in our garden, so many peppers we don't know what to do with them. They're on sale at Harris right now:

Alliance hybrid bell pepper $3.13 for 50 seeds: https://www.harrisseeds.com/products/pe ... 2226956360
Declaration hybrid bell pepper $3.54 for 50 seeds: https://www.harrisseeds.com/products/pe ... 3707619400

I know I've talked these up before like I get a commission, but they've really been a miracle in our garden. For us, the key was bacterial leaf spot resistance, and maybe tobamovirus (mosaic/mottle viruses) resistance.

Park's Whopper II also does very well for us, but they're a lot more expensive right now, so no point in linking to them.

Yak54 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2024 4:04 pm

maxjohnson wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2024 2:02 pm Well this year I learned that pepper don't recover as well from frost damage compared to tomato, and probably should be planted a little later than tomato as a result.

Years ago the Stokes seed catalog used to specify not to put out pepper plants into the garden till the night time temps were 55 deg or above and referencing a June 10th planting date. I don't think they still say this in their current catalog but then I haven't received them for 10 years. Anyway I always followed this advice and always have had very productive pepper plants no matter what the variety so I still follow this. I always start my pepper seeds a week later than my tomato seeds .

So these days I grow my peppers in grow bags and in early June about the 8th or 9th I put my 4 different varieties in the grow bags because I was seeing night time temps at 55 deg or more. Lo and behold on the 11th night time temps went down to 49 deg. So as I was watching it get colder about 10:00 pm I decided to go out and move the peppers in their grow bags into the garden shed to keep them warmer. Well it was dark and the 8 gal bags were heavy and I gave up after moving only 3 of them to the shed. The one I left out was the Anaheim variety. And wouldn't you know it that this is the only one that is a lush bushy plant with very few peppers on it. My others are loading up nicely with peppers. I have grown Anaheim 5 or 6 years in a row and it always produced abundantly (last year 56 peppers) so I'm thinking that the Stokes seed catalog was correct and me leaving that one plant out exposing it to 49 deg temps is what caused it to turn into a bushy plant with few peppers.

In my experience, peppers prefer warmer soil. So, where I live in zone 6b, I believe it is better to wait another week or two to put out the transplants in raised beds relative to tomatoes. I am sure you could use methods to speed up the warming process as well (e.g., black fabric/plastic etc over the bed) or go with containers.

Container media is probably warm enough by the time I start to transplant tomatoes. I usually end up doing my container planting later anyway due to scheduling/time. Refreshing the media in 30g containers is no fun - and I decided to no longer use them starting next season since they are a lot to manage. My peppers always seem to do better (plant size, productivity) in containers as well - haven't really determined if that is due to too much shading in my beds or the soil temp is consistently warmer in the containers (could be drier as well). I only grow peppers in containers now. I imagine containers could be a worse choice depending on your zone.

I water as needed (stick my finger in the media/soil). I fertilize everything at the same time [mostly prep beds/media at the start of the season, dilute soluble at transplant and once/month after]. Probably not ideal, just easier for me.

As for types, the horn/shepherd types seem to do better than most bell types. I haven't grown any hybrids yet, but there are plenty of attractive options that I would like to try.

@Seven Bends I just planted those two varieties you mentioned. Maybe I’ll post results here instead of my grow log. I used your Harris Seeds link, used the promotional code SEVENBENDSSAIDTO at checkout, so hopefully you get your commission!

Those are great deals on the hybrid bells.

I also switched to containers only for peppers after an epic fail in a cool summer they were planted in ground.
Peppers definitely like the warmer roots. In an iffy temperature regime, you can make them happy with water containers underneath. I have these flat sided juice bottles and putting a row of them underneath the pots is a great insurance for contented peppers.
I did move three plants outdoors earlier than the 55 night guarantee, but I put the pots in a larger container and surrounded the pot ie the roots with water bottles, and I stuck them in a shelter when it turned cool and rainy. They do have a decent set of peppers on them but the best ones came outdoors maybe a month later with nothing on them, and two got potted up into a 15 gallon black tub, they are loaded. Another two in small pots also loaded up heavy being the last to come out, and full summer temperatures. I have water bottles around them as well, to moderate the heat instead of the cold.

The difference between tomatoes and peppers is tomatoes are less resistant to hurricanes than peppers or peppers love hurricanes, tomatoes, not so much.

My peppers have pretty much gone bonkers since Beryl. Set tons of fruit. I did put out some side dressing of fertilizer just prior to the deluge. Peppers, being vertically challenged, end up having an advantage in the wind.

Mark_Thompson wrote: ↑Thu Aug 08, 2024 4:55 pm @Seven Bends I just planted those two varieties you mentioned. Maybe I’ll post results here instead of my grow log. I used your Harris Seeds link, used the promotional code SEVENBENDSSAIDTO at checkout, so hopefully you get your commission!

Yay, another $.37! It's starting to add up.