Well, it's pretty well established, as far as I know, that heat delays or prevents proper blossoming and fruit set on peppers and tomatos, so your cool nights probably are helping, as are your frequent rains. Now, here in Michigan, we have the opposite problem, it's been VERY cool, and heat lovers are sulking. Daytime temps have struggled to hit the 70 degree mark most days in May and the first half of June (high saturday, for example, was 64), and nights have been mostly in the 40's, a few 50's, and some nights in the 30's (including one night last week when it hit 32 in Port Huron, Michigan, about an hour northeast of me). I DEFINITELY think peppers like a lot of nutrients, you just have to be careful to balance out the nitrogen so that the don't just grow leaves. I would use something like a 20-20-20 at the minimum, if not something that is actually lower in N and higher in the other two.

Bacterial leaf spot, most likely, a common problem on peppers. The good news is, if controled promplty, the plants will recover. The control is Bordeaux Mixture (Copper Sulfate and Lime) available at most any garden center. And, it's organic. You can use it as a dust or a spray, just follow the directions on the label.

Jay, I think you're pretty safe from Bacterial Leaf Spot on peppers there because it seems to require pretty high moisture levels in the soil plus high humidity in order to develop. I just can't imagine that your area could hold on to high soil moisture/high humidity long enough for it to develop. I don't see it often here...only in the wettest years. I haven't seen it yet this year, and don't even think I had it last year with almost 54" of rain. But, I have had it in years when May and June were exceptionally wet. I've never used maneb either and in my garden copper seems to work only moderately well. From what I understand. it is almost impossible to eradicate bacterial leaf spot once peppers have it, so the best you can hope for is to keep it from spreading and worsening. However, when my plants have had it, I've often just stripped foliage and peppers that were affected and never had it reappear...but we can go from too wet to too dry here almost overnight when the rain stops, so it may be that my weather gets to dry for it to continue spreading or developing. This is probably just the start of leaf and fruit issues. I bet next week they'll start popping up practically everywhere that heavy rain has fallen....and not just on peppers either. Dawn

Sherri, There are many reasons that peppers rot and fall off the plant, so you will have to do a little troubleshooting. Pepper plants can drop pepper pods as a reaction to ANY stress, including being too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, etc. So, about the most you can do here in Oklahoma in the summertime is to keep their soil evenly moist--not too dry and not too wet. I realize that this year's weather conditions have made this an almost impossible task. Of course, you CAN prevent soil from getting too dry, but you can't do much to prevent it from being too wet if torrential rains (sound familiar?) are falling. There are two pests that can cause peppers to drop--pepper weevils and pepper maggots--tunneling in th fruit and causing rot to set in. Peppers are susceptible to blossom end rot, so look at your peppers and see if the rot sets in on the blossom end of the pod. Peppers often abort peppers when there is a lack of fertility. As much rain as we have had, it is possible that your plants need to be fertilized--all the rain may have leached nutrients out of the soil. (To me this is the most likely possibility since your peppers get to a certain size and stop growing,) Peppers are heavy feeders so they do appreciate being fed every now and then. If you have sandy soil, you may have nematodes which are damaging your plant roots and preventing proper uptake of water and nutrients. If the rot starts as a small dark brown or black lesion that then spreads, your plants may have anthractnose. If you have foliar spotting, your plants may have picked up a virus. If you have tunneling on the leaves, it is caused by leaf miners and can defoliate the plants completely if it is a severe infestation. Usually, though, leaf miners don't hurt the plants enough to cause the pods to drop. One of the worst pepper diseases is pepper mosaic virus, which really is a complex set of viruses that are spread by certain leaf-feeding insects. If you have mosaic virus, your leaves will be discolored with that characteristic mottling of the leaves that you also see with tomato mosaic virus. This virus can cause oddly shaped fruit that often fails to grow and mature. Wow! After typing the above list of all that can go wrong with peppers, my initial thought is 'it sounds like it is hard to grow peppers'. Really, though, peppers aren't any harder to grow than anything else.....it is just that I had to list all the options I could think of since I can't see your plants (which might or might not help) and don't have first-hand knowledge of your specific growing conditions. I hope this info is helpful in diagnosing the problem. Dawn