Lee, You're welcome. When you used the word 'panic', I wondered if I should be panicking too. I'm glad to hear the answer is no. : ) It is a great relief that the Euro is backing off a bit on the freezing temperatures. Let's hope that the chances of frost start dropping too. I hope you have a great visit with your parents, and I hope the weather behaves itself so y'all can have a good time together without having to run for shelter. I can handle frost. Freezes worry me, even with row cover, but mostly because all the trees, shrubs, perennials, etc. are emerged and leafed out and I cannot cover the whole yard. My hollies (old and well-established) suffered massive damage when we went to 28 degrees, and normally that wouldn't happen. However, we'd been having a lot of days in the mid-80s or warmer, and nights in the 50s-60s, and the hollies had lots of new growth that wasn't conditioned to sub-freezing temperatures. On the other hand, Johnson Grass growing outside my garden fence and attempting to creep into the garden froze back to the ground. Of course it isn't dead, but at least it has been set back for a while. For future reference, to find row cover and frost blanket fabric in large enough sizes to cover anything you can envision, you can visit the website of Agricultural Solutions. That's where I find my frost blanket. I bought it in 12' widths, but they have it available in many widths---some of which are so huge that they clearly are aimed at commercial farms. Most places have it in only more narrow widths. I like the 12' width because you can cover a row of fairly tall (well, fairly tall for early in the season) plants with it. If you buy a roll they have it folded in half on the roll, which helps keep the shipping charges lower since it is a box a little over 6' long instead of 12' long. The very first row cover fabric I bought around a decade ago was 6' wide which sounds good, but really isn't. I was using it on 4' wide beds, so I couldn't cover a whole bed with it once the plants were any taller than 11-12". I've discovered that with row cover, wider is better, particularly since I grow in raised beds that are mostly 4' wide and often I have some plants that are knee-high to waist-high by the time the last threat of frost has passed in the first week of May. If the strong storms the next few days don't pound our plants into the ground or carry them away with the wind, we all might get to begin the month of May with gardens that are in pretty good shape. I like the idea of cooler temperatures. The longer we stay cool in Spring, the better the cool-season crops will produce, and the better the fruit set on the tomato plants. I did look at my Accuweather forecast the last couple of days since it goes out farther than the NWS forecast on the Norman webpage and farther than our local TV forecast, and it showed my lowest low next week of 43. Today that's been raised to 45. I'm starting to feel a lot better about next week's weather, but that doesn't mean I will become complacent and stop watching the forecast. I'll be watching it like a hawk. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: One Source for Large Sizes of Row Cover This post was edited by okiedawn on Wed, Apr 23, 14 at 12:09

mbellot - Based on what I've seen others do, I probably did it on the early side. They were about a foot tall and there was maybe a half an inch of growth (or even less on some) above the Y when I snipped them. I'm not really sure whether I was supposed to wait longer, to be honest. But it seems like it did the job just fine. They definitely slowed down considerably after the trim, but now the growth has picked up again.

We all have a tough time in keeping from going overboard. I have tempered my enthusiam each year since I started growing peppers for a hobby 5 or 6 years ago. I still wind up growing more than I can use.....my friends tend to reap the rewards however. Yep, you got the pepper fever with the super hots. Just one of those plants would produce more heat than a single person could possibly use in a year. The first and biggest mistake pepper growers make is too much love and watering. It seems you have learned that lesson already. Good luck and don't make the second biggest mistake of pepper hobbyists: Wear latex gloves when handling and processing those super hots. I still break that rule every year and pay for it every time...I will probably never learn that lesson.

This is from a link above. It reads well. If nothing else it is worth a notation, in my mind at least. Peppers Are Wilting: What To Do For Wilted Pepper Plants - If your peppers are wilting suddenly, developing large yellow areas and drooping (especially if this starts on the bottom leaves and moves upward) despite adequate watering, fungal wilt is probably to blame. Spotted wilt virus is a less common cause of wilted pepper plants, but if your plant’s leaves are dotted with brown or black spots or unusual yellow lines or circles and the symptoms move through the plant from the top down, it is very likely the cause. Occasionally, bacterial pepper wilt may affect your plants. Pepper plants will wilt and die quickly and upon inspection, the inner stems may be dark, watery and hollow.