Garden Progressions: Peppers

 

Ready or not, into the ground they go!

These peppers were tiny when they were planted out and they were very slow to get started.

We had snow in the forecast only one week after I planted them!  So I put together a poor man's hoop house with some rebar, pvc pipe and painters plastic held down with rocks.

Happily most of the peppers survived.  I only lost two yellow pepper plants and a green pepper plant to the cold weather.

I replaced them with a jalepeno and two purple pepper plants.

Lots of rain makes everything take off.

 

At this point The peppers have a smattering of flowers and a few small peppers here and there.  I seem to be having a lot of pepper flowers falling off the plants and some yellowing leaves at the bottoms.  I think they might be getting too much rain and not enough warm temperatures to be growing well this year.  I am trying to do a little hand pollinating when I see open flowers to try to get more fruit to set, just in case the flowers are dropping because they are not being pollinated well.  It has taken awhile to see many pollinators in my garden which concerns me a little bit.  Thankfully, once the squash really started flowering, the honeybees finally showed up, though there doesn't seem to be many of them in the garden.  Maybe I should consider getting my own hive at some point.