Found out what was wrong with my peppers

I went early this morning to the Cowtown Farmers Market. Took my poor pepper (pic attached) and asked a farmer what was wrong. She said it is sun scald. Since there is no way to give my peppers afternoon shade, she suggested one of these:

1. Foliar feed, to make the leaves grow bigger so that they can partially shade the fruit.

2. Wet the peppers, apply DE to act as a sunscreen. Might not be real easy to do this (?)

3. She said there is a product, and I can't remember the name, which is much more effective and easy to apply as a fine spray that will also act as a sunscreen. I plan to go to the local feed store, and ask them if they have any.

In the meantime, my peppers are getting fried in the Texas sun.

Suntan lotion for peppers-who'd a thought?!

There's really no way to set up shade cloth for them?

It might work. I do have some shade cloth, but I'll have to figure out the best way to rig it up.

Thanks for the suggestion, Boffer! I'd prefer to find the spray stuff, but I guess I could try the cloth. My peppers are in a table-top box right next to the fence. It would also depend on the angle of the sun and time of day as to positioning.

It's too hot already in North Texas. :cry:

How about an old umbrella you can stick in the soil - maybe with slits for mottled sunshine?

Or you can just tell everyone you are growing grilled peppers. :>

Hi cherriesjubilee,

Here's what I do for the smaller areas I need to cover.
I'm in Texas and it's really hot now. So I cover the lettuce - which means that as the sun moves around it gets some but is in the shade part of the time.

The white sheet is one of those thin plastic cutting boards that come in a package of 3 or 4 for a few dollars, and the wire is a sign holder used to put out "for sale" signs. I got them from the big box store and bent the wire by hand to be the angle I needed. The sign holders were 97 cents each and I can't remember, but I think I paid about $2 for the cutting boards.

Good luck,
Gloria

...growing grilled peppers Hee hee...

I hope that the current weather is not an indication of the summer. Record snowfall in February and early heat in May. Only in Texas...

Chopper,
Well, if I had an old umbrella..... (I don't). And, hey, I do like grilled peppers!

Gloria G,
Thanks for this tip of using the sign holder. Very cool idea. I'll consider it.

Actually, I went out to the back yard, and the box in question is getting lots of shade mid-afternoon from an 8 foot Vitex bush that is next to it. I think it might need some shade at around noon, though, and I will consider some ways to provide it, starting with the shade cloth.

I do like shade cloth, and used to have some suspended over perennials I had put in. Without it, they never would have made it.

My tomato plants are getting a little sun scalded. My peppers seem to be doing okay for now! Yikes it's hot here in Texas!!

Ok, I tried to rig some shade cloth over my box, and it was fine until the high winds disturbed it and blew it off.

So here is what I'll try:

I'll borrow the "critter cage" from my other garden, tie or staple shade cloth to the top of it, and set it atop the box that is being sun-scalded. I'm a little worried about the extra weight, because it's already sagging on the supports, but oh well.....

Or -- I'll spray my pepper plants with "Cloud Cover" which I just bought at a farm store. You mix the product in the correct proportion with water, and spray it on your leaves and stems. Cloud Cover protects against extremes -- both frost and extreme heat! And it says it will last 2 or 3 months without having to re-spray. Perhaps I'll just spray it on ONE plant and test it, rather than try the whole bunch of them! It's an experiment. Right?

Oh loverly -- a new product to try. Please let us know how it works. I've had some sun scald on both peppers and tomatoes.

Belfry,
I plan to also try this Cloud Cover product on my mother's peppers in South Central Texas. She asked me to bring her some. So at my home as well here in North Texas, between the two of us, I'm sure we'll develop opinions on this.

I see you're in Texas as well.

cherriesjubilee wrote:Belfry,
I plan to also try this Cloud Cover product on my mother's peppers in South Central Texas. She asked me to bring her some. So at my home as well here in North Texas, between the two of us, I'm sure we'll develop opinions on this.
I see you're in Texas as well.

So, a month later, any opinions on this Cloud Cover stuff?

My peppers weren't helped by the Cloud Cover. But on the instructions on the bottle, they say you really need to spray the plants when they are young. My plants were mature by the time I sprayed. I'll give it another try sometime.

I did get a benefit, when the plants really grew tall, because the peppers that were growing near the bottom benefited by shade created by the upper leaves.

Unfortunately, right now, I don't have the help of "upper leaves." For the last week to ten days, something has been eating the leaves. Plants are getting de-foliated!
But they're still alive. I've got to figure out what is attacking the leaves.

Any ideas?

Oh, I forgot to add -- My attempts to drape shade cloth were not very good.

For a while, I had a length of shade cloth clamped to the fence, since the elevated SFG was up against the fence. To secure the cloth on the other end (and by this time, I had tall pepper plants), I got my aluminum ladder and positioned it on the grass. This worked well for a time, until the wind got too strong. It just wasn't very secure.

I'm going with caterpillars maybe as to what is eating my plants.

Tomato hornworms are eating my pepper leaves. I've picked off a couple, but I think I've missed one since the leaves are still disappearing. I'd been finding them on the tomato plant next to the peppers. I guess some of them decided to add a little variety to their diets.