How did the father in law manage to sell them off? Did he not realize what they were? Was it unintentional? That is rough dude! But the community has your back. PM me if you want lemon drop, bhut jolokia, chocolate scotch bonnet, etc.
Dude! Samesies! My ghost is easily my biggest plant with hundreds of flowers. For the last month every flower has been sterile. Literally just this evening I found the first bit of pollen. I let the old girl dry out pretty thoroughly, then bloom fert with a bit of water, dry out pretty well...
You would likely also find webbing left by spider mites. My leaves do indeed have the "stippling" or white dots all over like in the photo below. Then the yellow splotches began appearing, along with extensive webbing on the underside of leaves. Then some leaves would curl up almost cocoon-like...
I am curious to see how long that soil holds water. It is clearly listed as a potting mix on the website, but looks like it would have poor aeration/drainage. I like seeing something different i.e. without a heavy dose of perlite mixed in. Yellow lower leaves can mean nitrogen deficiency. Or...
I used a shade cloth this year to transition my plants outside. Shade greatly helps the hardening off process. Your New Mexican sun might be too brutal for the plants like my Floridian sun. I have them under the shade cloth 100% of the time.
I picked no flowers on my red bhut and it has thicker stems and branches than any of my plants, even the tomatoes. It is also both taller and bushier than my other plants. Genetics I guess? Perhaps it also depends on climate? I wonder how much picking the flowers would have affected this...