Peppers starting to rot before they mature

I have a few pepper plants growing at the moment. Two Bell pepper, 1 jalpino, 1 hot banana pepper and 1 sweet banana pepper. My two bell pepper plants the bell peppers start to rot before they have a chance to mature. They only get to about the 2-3 inches then rot. And now my sweet banana pepper is doing it! I am a first time gardener and frankly am suprised that I have been able to keep my plants alive! So its a big dissapointment that my peppers are starting to rot before its time to pick them. Does anyone know how I can stop this?

Is it rotting at the bottom? The peppers might be suffering from blossom end rot. The good news is that often it just affects the first couple of fruits and then things straighten up. That happened to me with both peppers and tomatoes but only the first one or two on each plant.

If memory serves, it's caused by a calcium deficiency. You can crush a TUMS tablet into your water to give it a little boost of calcium, but from what I've read, often it's not a lack of calcium in the environment, but rather that plant stress has inhibited its ability to utilize the calcium. As to what has stressed it, it could be a variety of things. I think I overfertilized mine, as in too much nitrogen -- but not sure.

Anyway, look up blossom end rot on other threads or google it and you'll get some more authoritative advice, or maybe someone else will chime in.

SPENCERSmommy09 - cut them open and look for a small caterpillar. If you find one, curse the corn ear worm! If no worms are found, then it's probably what LiseP said: blossom end rot.

I'll add another thought -- if you're getting a tan patch on them, it could be that your peppers are getting burned by the sun. I think they call that sun scald.

From what I understand, sunscald and blossom-end rot look very much the same, except maybe for the location. Blossom-end rot will usually become sunken and look watery before turning dark brown, sometimes black and leathery. The rest of the fruit is still good to eat unless bugs or some other pathogen have infected the whole fruit through the bad spot.

Now, to the reason for it. Blossom-end rot is caused by a calcium deficiency in the soil, which, in turn can be caused by drought stress, inconsistent watering and the over use of nitrogen-based fertilizers. Try mulching around your plants and monitor the moisture of the soil regularly. This year is super hot and dry in some areas, so more watering may be called for. It will also depend upon if your soil is clay-based or sandy. Most veggies, including peppers, need about an inch of water a week and if it's exceptionally hot.... Nitrogen-rich fertilizers cause over leafing, which can leach the calcium right out of the soil, so once you see signs of blooming, discontinue the nitrogen fertilizer and use something like Neptunes' Harvest (http://www.gardenharvestsupply.com/ProductCart/pc/Neptune-s-Harvest-Fish-and-Seaweed-Blend-Fish-Emulsion-Plant-Food-c27.htm) instead. It's a concentrated liquid fish emulsion fertilizer that helps to build your soil up.

I lost all of my bell peppers to blossom end rot last year, not knowing what it was, so I had some research to do. That's what I found out. This year I didn't even plant bells because of it, but am planning to plant some for my fall garden. I'm kind of glad I didn't plant them, because they would have fried like everything else has this year. Waaaaaay too hot and dry in central OK.

I hope it helps you.

I had a problem with blossom end rot one year and a calcium spray was recommended to me. I tried it and it worked really well. I might be causing the deficiency by using too much nitrogen. I think I'll use 5-10-10 instead of 10-10-10 next year.

Inconsitent or insufficent watering was the problem with blossom end rot on our peppers. I put the soaker hoses and drip lines on a timer and the problem went away.

If the weather is really hot then I go to watering more frequently than once a week. We have 100 deg weather with a high heat index forcasted for today . During really hot and dry weather I start watering the beds either every day or every other day to make sure the plants have enough water. They are mulched.