Hi William,

Welcome to the forum.

The slight upward leaf curl you see could have been caused by any single one of the following, or by several of them in combination:

--Plants got too dry. When this happen, the leaves curl inward to conserve water. Sometimes leaves also will drop as a survival mechanism.

--Plants have been sitting in very wet soil.

--Plants have alternated between very wet soil and very dry soil.

--Plants have been exposed to high temperatures.

--Plants have been damaged by herbicide drift.

--Plants have a disease like pepper mottle, tobacco etch, cucumber mosaic, tobacco mosaic or tomato spotted wilt. Plants can have more than one disease in combination. The symptoms for all these diseases resemble one another and it is impossible to distinguish one of these diseases from another on pepper plants in a garden.

In the photos, your plants show a slight puckering of the foliage which is common is plants with any one (or more than one) of the diseases mentioned above. I also see some yellow and green mottling. Usually these diseases are spread by aphids although the aphids often have moved on (or been eaten by lady bugs and other predators) by the time you noticed you have mottled, puckered or cupping/rolling leaves.

The viruses normally don't hurt the plant enough to kill it. I just ignore puckering and curling of leaves as long as the plant is growing, has decent color, is blooming and is setting fruit. Some people will yank out a plant because they are afraid the disease will spread to other plants, but I feel like all the plants probably were exposed to the diseases at the same time so there's no point in discarding a plant that might produce. And, before you ask, different plants have different levels of resistance to diseases so that's why some get everything in the book and others stay healthy. Some pepper varieties do have more disease resistance bred into them than others.

A feeding with Epsom Salts is a great tonic, but be very careful to read and follow the package's application instructions very careful. You only give a plant the amount specified on the package, and you only do it once every three weeks or so. Giving the plant too much Epsom Salt solution at one time can lead to salt damage and even to plant death.

If you aren't feeding your pepper plants regularly, it probably wouldn't hurt to feed them once every few weeks. I'm really partial to Liquid Seaweed for sick plants. It has a lot of micronutrients that help improve health even though it can't cure them of the disease they're suffering from.

And, by the way, an early clue that your plants have aphids is that the leaves will begin to curl slightly downward in response to aphid damage. The only problem is that by the time you notice the downward curling, the damage to the plants already has been done.

Hope this info helps.

Dawn

Dawn,
Thank you for your prompt response. The plants are in raised beds which get watered 2x a week via soaker hoses. They get a pretty through watering (over an hour) and I have mulched them with cypress mulch. Do pepper plants need more or less than that? I can't do much about the extreme heat we get. My bell peppers are in the same bed as my basil and eggplant, my hot peppers are in the same bed as cucumbers. Next year would it be better to put them all in the same bed and give them more or less water?

They all look pretty healthy, the hot peppers have been producing fruit, the bell peppers are starting to get small fruit and none have died on me. Last year I grew hot peppers but didn't have this issue, but that was in different beds so I thought the soil might be an issue.

Also quick question, my crooked neck yellow squash is producing small soft pieces of squash then they fall off. Do you have any idea what could cause this? I have Zucchini right next to them and they are producing tons of healthy fruit with no issues. I figured the yellow squash wouldn't have any issues. Thanks again for all your help.

William

William,

Because soil friability and drainage varies, and because water percolates down into the soil and evaporates from the soil at different rates, no one can tell you how to water on a 'schedule'. Every one of us on this forum probably has to water our gardens at different rates and for different time frames because our soil and our weather varies. All I can tell you is to keep the soil evenly moist. My peppers get one good soaking weekly from a soaker hose and I water them until the soil is moist about 6" down. How long that takes will vary depending on how dry the soil was when I started, etc. My peppers are in heavy red clay that has been very heavily amended for 10 years with lots of organic material, so it is fairly ideal soil in that it holds moisture pretty well but also drains well because it is a raised bed.

I would put all the peppers in the same bed because they do have similar fertility and water needs.

Last year was just your 'lucky' year and either the aphids didn't find your plants, or you had 'clean' aphids that hadn't picked up any diseases yet to vector, or your pepper plants had great disease-resistance. This year, your luck ran out.

If crookneck squash are falling off, that usually means pollination failed to occur, which is puzzling since the zucchni are pollinating just fine. However, there are a couple of other things it could be as well.

First, if by chance, you planted your crookneck squash early and the plants were exposed to very cool temperatures for a few days, that can cause them to be stunted and nonproductive for their entire life.

Secondly, it might be one of the rot diseases that sometimes appear on squash and, if it is, it likely is choanephora fruit rot. You'll see this rot in high heat, high humidity conditions. With it, you'll see immature fruit form but then shrivel, turn a very light tannish-brown and will decay or rot. Once this happens, there is not much you can do. There are no organic or chemical controls for this. I just remove and compost all the bad squash, cut back on moisture if possible, and hope that the next squash that pollinate don't have the same issues.

To prevent this kind of rot on future plants, plant in raised beds which drain more quickly so the plants don't stay too wet, space the plants far apart to allow for good air circulation, and water less often, preferably with drip irrigation or soaker hoses that put the water into the soil and not on the leaves. Once again, my squash plants get watered once a week deeply and that's it. To much moisture causes all kinds of issues in a veggie garden and I go to the opposite extreme and probably keep my garden a bit too much on the dry side to avoid the diseases.

To return to the pollination issue, be sure you're seeing bees and that pollination is occurring. It could be you had bees, they pollinated the zucchini squash and then something happened to the bees and they didn't come back and pollinate the crookneck. Be sure you aren't using any insecticides that might have killed or discouraged the bees. The female blossoms have tiny squash at the end of each blossom. If they aren't being pollinated, they'll turn brown and fall off.

The difference in fruit drop caused by a lack of pollination versus fruit rot is that the baby squash don't enlarge and just brown/fall off if it is a lack of pollination, but the fruit begin to enlarge and grow some before turning brown and falling off if it is fruit rot.

Dawn

Dawn,
Thank you again for your prompt reply. I think the issue is pollination, but I saw some bees inside the yellow squash flowers this morning so i'm crossing my fingers that they will fix the issue. All my plants are in raised beds and they seem to drain very well, but I will start checking the soil before I start watering. Next year I will plan better how I setup my beds. This is my second year gardening so ever year is a learning year.

Do you have any recommendations on what kind of Liquid Seaweed I should use? A Brand name you like which I can get at lowes? Thanks,

William

William,

The one I usually get is Maxicrop but any of them will do. Most stores only carry one or two kinds. If you can't find liquid seaweed alone, watch for Alaska Fish Fertilizer or for Neptune's Harvest, which is liquid fish plus liquid seaweed (kelp). The only drawback to using either liquid fish fertilizer or a combination kelp/liquid fish fertilizer is the fishy smell, which sometimes attracts cats. The cats, by the way, look forever for the fish which they are smelling and cannot find!

Some big box stores don't have a lot of organic products. If yours is one of them, try a full-line nursery.

At the Lowe's and Home Depot near us, limited organic producs are available but are in a separate section from the chemical stuff.

Dawn

I am beginner & know little. I have some leaf curl but also have some sick looking leaves with black on them. What is it? What to do?

Flamingogirl2,

Here in Oklahoma, black spots on pepper foliage would most likely indicate Bacterial Leaf Spot, although it is impossible to say without seeing the foliage. I assume the same diseases are present in Michigan.

Once the pepper plants have bacterial leaf spot, the best treatment I've used has been to spray the plants with a copper-based organic fungicide like Kocide. Copper fungicides are generally effective on bacterial infections although they work best if applied once every 7-10 days throughout the growing season to prevent bacterial diseases. They are less effective once plants are already infected but may keep the bacterial infection under control so it does not spread.

I've linked some info about Bacterial Leaf Spot from Cornell University. You can look at the images on that page and see if your pepper foliage resembles any/all of the images shown there. That should help you determine if your plants do have Bacterial Leaf Spot.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell Univ. Peppers/Bacterial Leaf Spot

I hope I don't jinx myself by saying this, but I just rarely have a problem growing pepper. I guess I am kind of a "pepper head" because I always have as many, or more, peppers than I do tomato plants. I love to cook with them so I like all kinds of peppers except the super hot ones. I'm sure I have at least 3 dozen plants right now. About the only problem that I ever have is a few will get sun scald if they are growing where the foliage doesn't shield them from the hot afternoon sun.

I even planted a couple of seeds that I took from those little peppers that they sell at Sams. Maybe I will get lucky and they weren't hybrid. I have bought some seed for next year for the small ones.

My peppers look good this year but they are very late because of our goofy spring. Only the long peppers, like bananas are producing, but the others are blooming and most have small peppers on them. I was growing them in containers, but they were getting droopy most days so I have moved them all to the garden. Although they were much to big to transplant, they did just fine. After the first batch got moved we had a 1.8 inch rain at the perfect time. My DIL helped me move the rest yesterday and we watered them in good and it looks like we should get rain any minute now. My company left this morning (more arriving tomorrow) and my DH helped me in the garden this morning and we got the newly moved plants caged or staked. I still have to tie some of them to the stakes and I hope I can beat the rain.

The beans and squash that we planted Tuesday are already coming up, and I planted a different kind of bean today. My spring planted squash (in containers) all have some yellow leaves, but are all starting to produce with gusto. We had only gotten an occasional one off each plant until this week and now they are all just popping them out. I planted a very big container with cucumbers but got them in very late. I had a volunteer come up in the garden and another in the flower bed, but none are producing yet. All have a lot of blooms so they should start very soon. The ones my other grandson planted last week are up also.

I have had more help in the garden this year than I have ever had before. I don't know if they all or getting more interested, or if I just looked more pitiful and helpless this year. I wish they all lived closer.

All of you zone 7 folks are probably thinking that I am really late, but remember that I am just a few miles from Missouri. LOL Yeh, I was late getting most of it in also.

I am anxiously waiting for the first cantelope, and it is not many days away. I have at least two that are showing heavy netting and beginning to loose their green color. One of them is really big. Thanks Dawn, they are on your plant.

Everyday I am picking a few big tomatoes and a handful of Sungold, but my plants look horrible. Some Sungold that were potted a little later still look pretty healthy, but the big tomato plants are in bad shape.

Didn't intend to highjack the thread, but got to talking about peppers and had to do a full garden report. Ha

Carol,

I always enjoy hearing a full garden report!

I don't have much trouble with peppers either, probably because we tend to lack humidity/moisture here most years. You, on the other hand, have the moisture and humidity there, so raising healthy pepper plants in those conditions is a huge accomplishment!

It is nice that they've all been willing to help in the garden while they are there. Wouldn't if be nice if they lived closer and could help you on a regular basis?

To me, it doesn't really matter if a garden produces early or late, as long as it produces. I think most of us got our gardens planted late because of the weather conditions. This was the latest I have ever planted the spring garden, but I'm still getting good results so I cannot complain (and it wouldn't do any good if I did!).

I hope the cantaloupe tastes good, and you're welcome, by the way. The melons I've been getting during the dry weather have tasted great. It doesn't take much rain or irrigation to water down the flavor though. I have a lot of muskmelons and watermelons that are almost ripe, and rain is in the forecast for 5 days next week. Of course, I am hoping for the rain to fall, but I'm hoping even more that the melons ripen first so their flavor isn't ruint!

As far as tomato plants looking horrible, who cares? I mean, I like pretty, lush green plants as much as the next person, but we aren't growing the plants for their ornamental beauty--we're growing them for the tomatoes. LOL I don't care how awful the plants look as long as they produce. By the time they are looking awful it tends to be late in the season and their energy is going to fruit, which is what really matters. I have picked off all the diseased foliage, so my plants look better now than they did about three weeks ago, but what really matter is that even when all the foliage looked like crap, they still were making tasty tomatoes.

This has been a very challenging year in terms of having all the wrong weather at the wrong time.....it seems like it has been too wet when we needed dry weather to plant, too dry and hot when we needed cooler, wetter weather for young plants to grow, etc. We've had rampant diseases and tons of bugs. Yet, a lot of us are still harvesting in spite of the difficult conditions, so we have a lot to be thankful for.

Dawn

Guess I spoke too soon about the rain. I was watching it on radar and knew it had to be very close. We didn't get a drop and the sun came out. Had to go water after all.

My tomato and pepper plants looked great 6-7 days ago. Over the last 4-5 days all leaves at top of all hot pepper plants, tomato plants and potato plants are curled inward and they are so small they don't even look like leaves. The ones on the bottom of the plants are still big and healthy looking. There is no discoloration. Can someone help!!??