Pepper Problems

I have a pepper question and hope someone can help. I am pretty new to growing, but I've had pretty good success with certain veggies. It's these peppers that are kicking my butt. The peppers I'm growing in my garden (Jalapeno, Bell, and Poblano) are not looking too happy. My peppers will start fine, but then as soon as they start setting fruit they stop growing and the plants get dull looking. The leaves droop and look dull. It's almost like the leaves get hard or brittle. They will break if bent. I have no idea what causes this. They have no other signs of diseases (that I know of). The jalapeno stopped growing at about 8" tall, the bell at like 6", and the Poblano at about a foot. Each one only produced 3 peppers each. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I use compost, an all around organic fertilizer, water on a regular schedule.... What I dont understand is that I have other plants (tomato, eggplant, cucumber, romaine) in the same garden that are producing wonderfully. Are the nutritional requirements of peppers that much different then everything else? Does anyone have any ideas? Any help would be much appreciated.

the soil where they are planted may in fact be a bit TOO rich in fertilizer for them...they are far less demanding than a lot of other veggies when it comes to feeding needs, and are quite more sensitive to pitching a fit from too much being added. typically they do well with the nutrients already in the soil that was there from the start, without anything else added. any photos available for us to look at?

I would also suggest that you pinch off the first flush of blooms and let the plants develop further. It may be that they are trying to fruit too early in the plant's development.

When I started out with trying to grow peppers someone here on Dave's suggest pinching off the first few flushes of blooms. Also, he told me not to plant the hot peppers and the bell peppers together so that they might cross pollinate each other. So I'm passing this advise on as it has helped me move on from really bad pepper grower to mostly OK pepper grower (I'm better with the hot peppers than with the bells). I still need to learn a lot more before I can say I'm a much better all around pepper grower.

Did you also try asking on the pepper forum? I lurk there often ☺

i do admit that my pepper plants also did very poorly, lol, one bell that i bought from the garden shop did pretty well, but a yellow bell that i tried from seed did pitifully, lol. I suspect my problem is from this cruddy clay soil that i was forced to work with this first year, i did add in a bag of manure that first year, but it still was rather clay-ey (if you can term that), so drainage / water absorption wasnt optimal. I threw in a dose of compost from my new compost bin a few weeks ago to get it well worked in by the time planting time got here, and it has darkened the color of the soil a bit, so maybe will have better luck this year.

maybe i should start lurking around the pepper forum also ;) lol

I live in South Florida and have very sandy soil. I added compost (store bought) and "garden soil" and mixed it in in an attempt to make the soil a little better. I will try to take pictures of my peppers when I can. It's pouring down rain right now. I guess the best way to describe how they look is SAD. I guess I will try again and fertilize less? I've always thought I didn't fertilize enough (I do what I can afford) because of the poor soil.

Too much rain. They are originally weeds, need fast drainage and stable temp soils. Dull leaves- any underground critters exposing the pepper roots to air? They like hot humid, but want their feet dry, I plant mine around a hole dug down for water, then the plant up in the top area of the hole, water only in the hole, small garden, but lets me wrap with plastic around multiple plants to protect from wind, or to lay a shade over in deepest summer heat. Good luck

I have a small Bell pepper and Pimento pepper plant that I brought indoors, lots of leaves dropped off and now they are having new leaves and really filling out nicely. Last summer I
planted one bell pepper in a large container and one in the garden bed and the container produced a lot . Dragonuv ,try growing them in containers and see if you get better results.