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Pepper plants new growth turning yellow (help)

14 years ago

Hey all,

Since this is only my second year of growing peppers, I was wondering why some of my pepper plants are turning yellow. I water every other day, and am using pro-mix and when I potted some of them up, I used miracle grow organic potting mix, with chicken litter. I have also noticed some gnats (fungus gnats?), flying around. I hope these gnats are not fungus gnats, however there are very few. I was thinking about getting some yellow sticky cards to help stop the gnats. Anyway, some plants are also curling and have deformed seed leaves. Could this be because of the slow release fertilizer in the organic potting mix I am using? Is it too much for them. Oh, and I have not given them any fertilizer despite what is in the potting mix already. Should I pot them up, they are in 8 oz cups? I didn't start as early last year, so I got bigger plants this year. Any help would be great. Thanks guys!

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Comments (3)

robeb
14 years ago
They don't need to be watered every other day. Let the mix dry out a bit before you water. When your mix is dry to the touch, give them a little water.

Pot them up when the roots need more space.

Your seedlings look healthy. Other than too much water, they're doing fine.
User
14 years ago
Listen to robeb. You're drowning your plants watering every other day.
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Have your plants been wilting at all? The brown edge makes me think they could be too dry. If so, either watering needs to be increased, or you could have a root or vascular disease in which case watering won't help. If plants are not wilting, I would suspect a nutrient shortage. When plants fruit, they put a lot of nutrients into the fruit and can rob the leaves to do so. What have you been using for fertilizer? You could try giving them a water-soluble fertilizer like Miracle Gro. That can get into the plant quickly and correct a deficiency.
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I wouldn't fret too much about some yellow leaves here and there. Your toms look fine to me. My toms can sometimes look pretty shabby as the season progresses. That said, you want to avoid killing it with kindness. You might be getting some fried roots with a small black pot in direct sun. Water might not be penetrating the newspaper barrier on top of the soil. Tomatoes are resilient enough and do well enough if we just leverage their will to live. :) I grow toms year round in EarthBoxes using Dr Earth organic tom & veg fertilizer (5-7-4). One of the tenets of organic gardening is the use of water insoluble forms on nitrogen (Dr Earth fits the bill). Weekly/weakly fish emulsion and such is fine as well as a supplement, but not necessary. Organic EarthBox tomatoes:
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Well I'd sure dispute any benefit to topping peppers plants but since you already did it then yellow new growth is usually either over-water or nutrient related. In this case the plant could easily be root bound in such a small pot and that would lead to both water and nutrient problems because it can't retain either. About all you can do is transplant it to a bigger pot and give it a weak dose of fertilizer. You'll know as soon as you pull it out of this pot if it is root bound or not. Dave
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The pot is placed a few meters from direct sunlight ==>>> its indoors.. it gets NO direct light ... mostly because there is a window in the way ... and its simply too far from the diffuse light from that window ... the third pic seems to show very good new growth ... why do you say its brown?? ... how about a closer pic ... its going through some stress from moving it from one place to another ... all plants shed older leaves ... annually.. it can be increased due to stresses like moving it ... i think you are on the verge of loving it to death ... try to chill a bit.. and settle in.. and try to get it closer to a window... there is a houseplant forum ... where you can learn all about such ... ken
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megachili
14 years ago
The gnats are in the Miracle Grow potting mix. It is a problem this year. If you google "miracle grow gnats" you will get 18,700 hits and a day's worth of reading about people being really pissed off about it.

The pro mix has no nutritive value afaik; it's just peat, vermiculite, perlite, and the usual other odds and ends. It's a growing medium, not soil. Thus it must be supplemented by fertilizer when you get some true leaves or soon thereafter. The mg potting mix slow release fertilizer you're using on the up-potted plants is not going to be sufficient. A low-key fertilizer like diluted organic fish fertilizer, diluted to half the recommended strength, wouldn't burn the seedlings. Definitely do not want to use full strength or non-organic fertilizer at this stage.

Anyway as others have already noted you are killing them with kindness; you gotta cut the watering back radically. my seedlings are 14 days old and have gotten 1.5 cups of warm water per 72-cell tray, once. They are slightly slightly moist but pretty dry, and the plants like it that way.

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