[Rita]

This year my pepper plants look great but the peppers are very thin-walled, no body to them. Granted this has been a drought year but the plants do look good. My dil planted the same variety and hers are great. Any ideas?

 

[MELOC]

my very first peppers seemed a bit skimpy...or whatever (cannot spell peensy, lol), but they are looking better. also, peppers are about the only thing i ever need to feed. they were looking sickly a week and a half ago, but have really perked up since i fed them.

 

[Windy in Kansas]

I'm guessing that it is a water and soil condition IF the two of you are growing the same variety.

SprayNGrow ( http://www.spray-n-growgardening.com/ ) is a micro-nutrient fertilizer that is typically applied with a foliar feeding. I read university field trial information using it on commercial crops in Texas. I specifically remember that the peppers produced were of normal size but each weighed considerable more because of having thick walls. Extra yield per acre was in tons.

Field trials in South America, or was it Central America, increased yields of various vegetable crops so greatly that growers abandoned further testing and began using SprayNGrow on their entire production.

My own testing on ornamentals in my yard have convinced me it is a great product. On roses---I never had any rose hips until the year following regular application of SprayNGrow. That year the roses were loaded with hips.

FYI---organic.

 

[Paquebot]

If the plants look healthy and with bright green leaves, it sound like the fruit simply isn't mature enough to have thick walls yet. It seems that no matter what the conditions are, the fruit comes first at the expense of the leaves. Thus I always tell people that if the leaves are a healthy color, don't worry about the size of the plant. Maybe it also takes a lot of years of experience but I can stand 10' from a green pepper plant and tell if the fruit is ready to eat. It just has a certain "shine" to it. You can also use a gentle squeeze. If the walls have any give to them, the fruit isn't ready to pick. You can also "plink" them with your finger. Should sound hollow.

Martin

 

[Windy in Kansas]

If the plants look healthy and with bright green leaves, it sound like the fruit simply isn't mature enough to have thick walls yet. It seems that no matter what the conditions are, the fruit comes first at the expense of the leaves. Thus I always tell people that if the leaves are a healthy color, don't worry about the size of the plant. Maybe it also takes a lot of years of experience but I can stand 10' from a green pepper plant and tell if the fruit is ready to eat. It just has a certain "shine" to it. You can also use a gentle squeeze. If the walls have any give to them, the fruit isn't ready to pick. You can also "plink" them with your finger. Should sound hollow.

Martin

Or when the color starts to change showing maturity????

 

[Rita]

Thanks for the replies, I have used Spray n Grow in the past. Paquebot, you might be right and I am jumping the gun as I need the peppers for canning all the tomatoes coming in. We are colder than where my dil lives even though we are only 7 miles apart so her peppers are probably just ahead of mine.

 

[Paquebot]

Or when the color starts to change showing maturity????

That would be one way to explain it but hard to explain a color in words. Most unripe green peppers are a deep shiny green and you can only see the skin. When they are ripe, there is a sort of opaqueness to them. That is, looking at they just right, there is a slight transparency as if the skin has become colorless. I've never heard it described that way but that's basically what it is.

Martin