Bells can be a pain.

From what I've read most of the hybrids are really geared towards greenhouse producers. For home growers you can only expect 8 - 12 peppers max.

If you've grow heirloom varieties before, you'll know you will get tasty bells but again, output will be low. I usually hedge my bet and grow a couple of each. And no, I don't grow evil hybrids from Monsanto related sources.

Give them time, I'm sure they'll put out new buds.

I think you should be ok at this point would leave any flowers that develope going forward. I have two bell plants, growing for my Wife. Yellow and green, my green have about 5 med size pods and yellow has about 4 they have put out more flowers but some just fall off guess its just too much strain on the plant to put in pod production to have a bumper crop of any more than 5 or 6 per plant. I have them in pots but soon may have to stake down some support as the pods get bigger, the plants are starting to lean over because of the weight.

Mine was a seed from a store bought Orange Bell. I really grew it as an experiment and started it a bit late. I planted this one on February 21st. It isnt all that big yet and I guess I will just have to let it set fruit from this point forward. I really want to get some ripe fruit off it to see how it follows the parent. I don't really care for a huge harvest, just a couple specimens should be fine.
Bruce

I'm thinking you should be okay, but I must say I am torn on the whole bud-removal thing. My season is shorter than yours and I've got some 5"-6" tall Hot Hungarian Wax peppers that started blooming yesterday. Makes sense that clipping buds would encourage a bigger plant that could set a heavier crop, especially on peppers with large fruit like bells and wax peppers. OTOH, maybe it's best to leave the plant to figure things out on its own, and let the plant figure out how to maximize its fruiting?

I wish there was solid evidence for which approach is most successful, but I don't see much conclusive on the Internet. I think I'm just going to let my plants figure out on their own whether to carry or drop any early fruit, but I might change my mind on this in a week or two :) That said, I think you should be fine -- the plants want to produce fruit and lots of it, and it's so early in the season that they should still have lots of time to replace any flowers and fruit that were removed early in the season.

You should be okay, but IMO, unless the fruit are going to drag the ground you might want to keep the flowers around...especially low-setting peppers like bells/pimentos...and especially in short-summer-season area.

You still have 3-4 months up there, though...so no biggie.

By "low-setting" i should have said "low-fruit-volume/producing"...if you're removing flowers on a pepper like a Serrano then removing even 2 dozen flowers probably wouldn't slow down it's production even with a short season.

Bruce: I've grown colored bells for a few years and they don't put out too many fruit, so nipping those flowers probably wasn't smart.

Bells might be one of those that would benefit from a container since I've noticed that at the end of the season the plants tend to get more productive with the flowering--- a couple more months of "warmer" weather would be great. What I usually hope for is that some of the remaining fruit at least START to turn color before it gets TOO cool. At least that way I can Pick and let them ripen at room temperature in a bag

Yep, all of my other peppers have started to re-bud and many already are blooming but he Bell isn't showing any signs of putting out more buds or blooms yet. Shucks.
Bruce

Bruce:

They're great to grow, but just very low producing. Whereas a hot pepper plant or two will give the home gardener so much fruit one has a hard time figuring out ways to use them, you want to have plenty of bell plants.

What's ironic though is that a plant seems to start ripening the fruit all around the same time. So, say you have 4-6 plants going, the next thing you know, you have an abundance of bells. Nature's little trick -- lol.

I have about 12 reds, oranges and yellows going this year, but I'm really digging them in my stir frys lately and I think I'm going to be making some roasted relishes with them.

Kevin

Kevin:
I only have the one plant. The only reason I am growing it is because it was from a seed from a pepper I bought at the local supermarket. I really was testing the viability of the seed and it came right up and grew rather quickly. I guess I didn't have the heart to toss him in the trash so I decided to take it to term. But now I am worried the term may end before I get any ripe peppers off it.. So, I guess it is no big loss if I don't, just a bit of disappointment. yep, I should have kept those two early pods.
Bruce

Hey Bruce-

I went through the thought process of clipping flowers a couple of months earlier. I clipped off a few cayenne flowers, and a couple of other varities that were really kicking in the flowers early. But then I said...enough! I am clipping no more. And I am glad that I stopped:) Our season is not so long here and I was having doubts with every flower I removed. In fact, I am still waiting for the bells to flower and I know I didn't snip any of their flowers earlier. All the plants that had fruit on them when I potted them up are continuing to flower, grow, and mature the fruit. Bottom line: I am taking flowers off no more and letting the plants choose their own path:)

naturemitch:
Yes, I snipped buds, blooms and even some pods about 10 days or so ago on all my plants. They are all starting to put out more buds, several have started blooming and there is even a pod or two. Except for the Bell. But that is OK. It was an afterthought for this season anyway. But I just wish I had left that one alone anyway. I think I would have gotten the two pods that I snipped and it probably wouldn't have tried to make any more. My hope now is that once it decides to try again, it tries for more than two. But it better hurry.

This weather we are having in Wisconsin right now is good for the peppers at least.
Bruce

Yep,those peppers are enjoying our heat:) I am hoping for a good season for them. We have 63 pots/plants going, the most by far for us in pots. When we lived in Point, most all the peppers went into the garden plot...a few we grew at home in pots. After finding out about the 5-1-1 mix and moving way up north, I we knew it was going to be all pots for the peppers. We just received our Dyna-gro in the mail, I looked and looked for it anywhere local and could not find it. I am excited to try it out! We have had good luck with our fish fertilizers in the past (we grow our tomatoes in pots to0) but I wanted to see if the Dynagro would give us a significant difference. Here are all my babies.

Yep, I am definitely behind you this year. But mine will be fruiting up this next week. Should be getting some needed rain tonight and a short cool down but then back to pepper growing temps the rest of the week.
Bruce

I don't mean to hijack this thread but... I have a red bell pepper plant that I bought at a garden store about two months ago. It had a couple little peppers on it and the plant was about a foot high. We harvested two peppers from it, one small and one impressively large (to me anyway). The leaves started to look a little wilted and light around the edges. Not "diseased" looking but definitely not as healthy as they did look.

After harvesting the last pepper I decided to give it some fertilizer. I don't know much about fertilizer and used what was recommended to me at the store, Doctor something fruit and vegetable fertilizer. Well it seems it's worked very well. I now have a bunch of blossoms and little pods. The old leaves (about six inches long) look about the same, kind of wilted. But I have a bunch of new smaller very healthy looking leaves as well.

So my question is, should I just leave the old leaves alone or should I trim them off? If they don't harm the plant I'm tempted to leave them on to help protect the fruit from sun scorch. Any advice or opinion much appreciated.

bell peppers like a lot of water and a lot of fertilizer and a lot of room for their roots to spread out. For you guys in Wisconsin and zones north of here, try king of the north, or big early, or ace, or king arthur. And start your plants early, like in February.
Dougyfish, as long as the leaves look green, leave them on.

Thanks for the advice. I'll leave them on. Picture should be attached. There are at least 7 little peppers at the moment with at least that many more blossoms. Looking forward to a peppery fall.