Habanero Pepper Help!!

[FireEater101]

Alright pepperheads so this is my first year growing a garden and I have tried to take the baby step approach and not get over my head to try and have some success. So far this has worked in all of my veggies and peppers except these darn Habanero peppers. I bought the peppers as seedlings from Lowe's Home Improvement and they were tagged as Bonnie Habanero peppers http://bonnieplants....nero-hot-pepper i Planted all four of these peppers in Sta-Green All Purpose Potting Soil and have only fertilized it once in the last 4-5 weeks. I am at a loss as to what is the problem I am having with these peppers? Are Habs that hard to grow? I have been having a bunch of buds but they were not setting fruit so about two weeks ago I started spraying Epsom salts as a foliar spray and have not seen much improvement. I do have one plant that has the one pod and another sprouted. These peppers have been planted since back in early May and I put them all in these gallon pots back in early June. I water every few days since they are potted. My question is what is going on? Is there anything I can do to help these plants at least put out a handful of peppers? These Habs are by far my worst performing pepper. I am on second and third harvests on my Yellow Cayenne and Serranos.

Just a beginner looking for advice...if these were your peppers how would you try and fix them?

Four Pictures Pics 1-4 top to bottom are separate plants pics 5-6 are the plant in pic 4

Thanks!!

 

[Hendrix1326]

Looks to me like you are overwatering them. The spots on the leaves are most likely a fungus from too much moisture on the leaves, and the plant itself looks pretty sick. Habaneros like evenly moist soil, but not much water at all compared to some other varieties. Question, too: How much rain do you get down in the Carolinas?

Careful with those Golden Cayennes, they're quite a bit hotter than regular Cayennes! I mean HOT, as in not far below regular Habs!

 

[ajijoe]

im with hendrix overwatering

 

[stickman]

Surprising as it seems... I think they're right. I started my Orange Habs from seed in mid February and planted them in the ground outside under cover in mid April. In the beginning, I watered them every other day, but since July 4th I've only watered them twice a week in the heat of the late summer. Shane in Poway, CA was having some of the same problems with his superhots planted in black plastic 3 gal. pots. He noticed the soil temp. in them was over 120 degrees, and solved the problem of heat stress by wrapping the sides of the pots with white plastic garbage bags to make them more reflective to sunlight. It's something to check anyway.

 

[Jetchuka]

Any moisture sprayed on the leaves at this point will only make that disease worse.

Looks a lot like the bacterial spot that plagued my garden in recent years, till i started spraying my plants with copper and Serenade that is.

Personally at this point, i would get those habs far away from the non-diseased plants, or if you're not going to treat the disease, then just throw them out.

Habanero's are not normally so hard to grow btw, you just had a little bad luck with em this year.

 

[FireEater101]

Looks to me like you are overwatering them. The spots on the leaves are most likely a fungus from too much moisture on the leaves, and the plant itself looks pretty sick. Habaneros like evenly moist soil, but not much water at all compared to some other varieties. Question, too: How much rain do you get down in the Carolinas?

Careful with those Golden Cayennes, they're quite a bit hotter than regular Cayennes! I mean HOT, as in not far below regular Habs!

I figured I had something to do with this failure. Thanks for the feedback. Normally by this time of year we are in a severe drought and I like to say I live in the desert of NC. This year I never had to turn on my AC till mid June and it has rained so much here that my grass is actually still green and lush so as I am sure many are having different mother nature kinda years a typical hot dry NC summer has been a hot and wet NC summer. Ah yes the yellow cayennes do have a nice kick to them. I am enjoying them and compared to the serranos seem hotter as well.

im with hendrix overwatering

Thanks ajijoe

Any moisture sprayed on the leaves at this point will only make that disease worse.

Looks a lot like the bacterial spot that plagued my garden in recent years, till i started spraying my plants with copper and Serenade that is.

Personally at this point, i would get those habs far away from the non-diseased plants, or if you're not going to treat the disease, then just throw them out.

Habanero's are not normally so hard to grow btw, you just had a little bad luck with em this year.

Thanks. It is interesting the only plants that I seem to have had any problems with are these four Habs. I have some sweet green peppers that have shown some slow production but they don't look like these Habs do. After you saying that the bacterial spot description reads just as I see these plants behaving and being affected. I would have to do some research as to how to treat this problem. I am probably just likely to cut back the watering see what happens and close out the year and dump these plants and move on. I guess I should have bought the $3 pack of Habs at the grocery store this weekend. It does not look like this pepper will be a success for me. Thanks again!!

 

[HotPeppas]

Is that even a hab?

 

[Jetchuka]

Thanks. It is interesting the only plants that I seem to have had any problems with are these four Habs. I have some sweet green peppers that have shown some slow production but they don't look like these Habs do. After you saying that the bacterial spot description reads just as I see these plants behaving and being affected. I would have to do some research as to how to treat this problem. I am probably just likely to cut back the watering see what happens and close out the year and dump these plants and move on. I guess I should have bought the $3 pack of Habs at the grocery store this weekend. It does not look like this pepper will be a success for me. Thanks again!!

Going by the pics, i can't say for absolute sure but to my eyes it's bacterial spot, which is fairly common on pepper plants purchased from big box stores. I wouldn't blame it simply on the fact that they are Habs though.

For future reference, to keep BS under control, you can do some preventative spraying using copper fungicide and or Serenade, preferably both, alternating week to week or right after it rains. Buy the concentrated versions because it cuts your costs. And space your plants out so the leaves don't touch, until they're full sized anyway. Get rid of all pepper-leaf litter because they will catch BS from the dirt and spread it to the plants. BS can spread pretty quickly, i check my plants every day for it, yesterday i had none, whereas today i yanked off around 20 leaves from five or six plants, then sprayed everything down.

Good luck either way.

Is that even a hab?

Definitely a Chinense with a shriveled up immature pod.