Question
Hi mike and thanks again for all of your past advice. My garden has been an amazing success this year (my first garden ever)!

My cherry pepper fruits have been turning mushy and brown on the plant and falling off.  The cherry peppers that look "healthy" on the outside have blackened seeds and a white larvae looking worm on the inside. There are no visible punctures to the fruit, and no blemishes on the outside.

So far, this has affected ALL of my hot cherry peppers and very few of my various other hot peppers. Is it something I've done wrong?  Have we gotten too much rain? was it a bad batch of seed?

thanks again!

Answer
Michelle, you've done nothing wrong.  This has been a horrible year for peppers in most parts of the country due to the excessive rain we have had.  Peppers prefer dry, hot conditions.  Rain depletes the soil of the nutrients needed for a bountiful harvest.  It also causes fungus rot on the peppers due to their high susceptibility in wet conditions.

There is little that can be done at this point in the season to correct the problem.  My only advice would be to rotate your pepper crops next year to a different location in the garden, and be sure to feed them with a fertilizer high in phosphorus.

Enjoy the rest of the season.

Regards,

Mike