Question
Pepper Plants
Hi there, I've been growing these green bell pepper plants from seeds (of green bell pepper I bought at the grocery store) and they are quite big now, and I have some questions about how to proceed to promote the plant to fruit.
In the attached photos, you'll see it's already flowered, and one of the flowers (the petals have dried away) is exhibiting what looks like a mini green pepper!!! And the other buds look great!
But on a different plant (the first one to flower), its first flower bloomed nicely, but its petals dried away and it fell. The rest of the buds dried like in the pics.
Is this okay, or did I do something wrong?? I live in Toronto Canada and have EXCRUCIATING weather right now (pretty much 30 C or 86 F daily in the daytime, with humidex, or what it FEELS like, is about 38 C or 100 F; night temps are about 20 C or 68 F), the plants are out on my west-facing balcony; I feed them with a 19-31-17 fertilizer at a little less than 1/2 strength one watering, and feed them pure water the next two (I water almost daily).
Please just let me know what you think about my plants, and what I should do to promote fruiting, and if I am fertilizing right (the only other fertilizer I have is 14-7-7, but I could buy another one). Thanks!
AnswerI think your plants look good and healthy. I wouldn't use either fertilizer that you have, I'd get a 5-5-5 or 0-5-3, something like that. You want low nitrogen - the first number. Once a week is enough.
There's really nothing you can do to promote fruiting. Looks like you've got two peppers already, and the other blossoms will probably turn into fruits as well. The plants are small, so you shouldn't expect too many peppers from them anyway.
Elyse
