A lot of things cause flower/fruit drop, it's my experience that peppers are kind of touchy in that regard. Too hot, they drop flowers. Too cold, they drop flowers. Too wet or too dry? You guessed it, they drop their flowers. It's like goldilocks living in your garden, they like it to be just right! I wouldn't automatically assume it was the nitrogen. As Dave said, that will cause them to be big, beautiful, bushy plants, but will fail to develop very many flowers to begin with. I too, have almost given up on bell peppers. I have tried containers and I never get any peppers. This year, they are going in the raised bed, if they don't work out, I'll be done with them for good. I second the Vegetable Gardeners Bible. That is a great book. I have several on my bookshelf, but, find that many of them are, at best, good intentioned, at worst, downright misleading. Keep in mind,when reading books, that there is simply far too much info and even more variables to put into a single volume. They can be helpful places to start, but don't always take their word as gospel. Don't be afraid to experiment and fail ("negative results are still results", as I learned from the Big Bang Theory) and go against the grain. Really that goes for the advice given here too. What works in my garden may not work in yours, and vice versa.

Willard, I've read your flower drop probable causes in other threads, but looking at them, the only one I might have is too much nitrogen. 1. Day temp 80-90 2. Night temp 65-70 3. This is the only one i could thinkg of. 7-9-5 4. I don't think my pepper is getting too much water 5. In the sun all day 6. Average humidity 7. Outside with plenty of wind 8. Lots of bees outside, anyways the buds usually drop before they open 9. 3 galllon bucket filled with gravel for medium sized plant (2 ft) Well, I'm not sure about this one either So I'm not sure what my problem is, unless it's too much nitrogen. I'm planning on getting some bloom nutrient soon to try.

I followed instructions found somewhere in this topic last year to fertilize seedlings once a week with very diluted liquid fish fertilizer. I think it was one tsp per gallon of water instead of the normal one tablespoon. I put a general granular vegetable fertilizer in the planting hole when they are transplanted outdoors into the ground (so I'm planting where something else grew last year). I have added maybe an inch of composted cow or horse manure to the bed. The transplants get full strength fish fertilizer after I water them in. They might get a second dose a week later but that's it on fertilizing. Since I grew about 30 different kinds of peppers, there are some I will not grow again because they weren't productive compared to a different variety 18 inches away. If I weren't so negligent about fertilizing during the growing season, those poor producing types would probably end up getting too much fertilizer thinking it was needed.

How many buds do you have on each plant? The plants may still be rather small to set a lot of fruit and handle it. Pinching off the first few buds is a common practice and improves yields later. Your plant may be doing something similar, naturally. It has happened to me. Plants will drop their buds and go on a growth spurt. You could also be overfertilizing. Too much nitrogen and you will get beautiful bushes with no fruit. However, you say the plants are flowering but not setting the fruit? What's the content of potassium in the fertilizer that you are using? Potassium relieves stress and helps fruit set. Hand pollinating is a good idea, if the problem is that there are no pollinators.