indoor-growing This growing season has sucked so far; need some advice.

[Coup]

Howdy y'all.

I started posting here back around 2016 and learned a ton from you guys about growing plants. I spent the next 5-6 years growing plants every season, but then when I moved cities I ended up in an apartment with no usable space to grow anything. I tried some patio grows supplemented with grow lights, but they never really took off. Perhaps a sign of things to come.

Fast forward to January 2025 and my wife and I have bought a house with a nice yard for a garden. I built some raised beds, got the drip irrigation all set up, and was fired up to go. I dusted off my indoor grow supplies and invested in some new grow lights (my old pink ones were losing LEDs and my wife hates the color). I was allotted one corner of the house to grow my plants, so I built some built-in cabinets to give it a clean look and to keep all my materials. I was fired up to start growing again because I had massive success in the past.

To-date I have had no peppers successfully make it outside. Well, I did actually, but they are still the size of an adolescent pepper and have barely grown despite having gone out in late March. My tomatoes and cucumbers are going crazy, but my peppers look like shit and have consistently looked like shit all season. I'm attaching two sets that I currently have indoors; some California Wonder Bell Peppers and some new Hari Mirch (Desi green chili). The Bell Peppers have been sprouted since April, but as you can see they look like hot garbage. The Hari Mirch came out about 2 weeks ago and are still in this stunted state. Normally by now I would have massive pepper plants, but these guys are going nowhere fast.

I'm using these Mars Hydro TS1000 150W LED lights. At 60%-ish they are producing roughly 30 DLI from the plant top. That feels like it should be more than enough to get these guys going, but I can't seem to make any headway.

Would love your help figuring this one out guys. I'm really at a loss, and this losing streak has me feeling pretty down.

 

[Coup]

For reference, this is what my plants used to look like when I would start them at the beginning of spring.

 

[danish]

Something has checked your plants definitely. Unfortunately once checked, especially at an early stage, recovery can be painfully slow. You could have mis-watered one week, let some chill in or damaged the roots somehow and that's it. I can't see any leggy stems so it's unlikely a light deficiency. What are the temps like in there? Do you have any air flow? How moist are you keeping your medium? If you grew the tomatoes right next to the peppers in the same medium and they have gone out fine I guess the medium is good enough.

Don't forget, pepper plants have exagerated growth under those blue/red led light setups, so don't be put off when they don't perform as well as you have seen in the past.

 

[Doctor Scoville]

my guess is a period of over-watering. I see some cotyledons have dropped or dried. so maybe the soils has been to wet for an extended period.
could very well be a little heavy soil medium.

Have you applied fertilizer? over-fertilizing could also throw thing off balance.

also, to cover everything. Have you got a fan in you setup? A good airflow around the plants also helps to prevent all sorts of trouble.

i would tap some water and let it come up to room temperature. mix some highly diluted fertilizer. 1/4 dose or even less.
let them dry out for al day or two then gently water.

maybe risk transplanting into a new medium. If you try one, you can asses the roots.


Hope this helps and the plants make a spicy recovery.

 

[NJChilehead]

I agree with the above posters in that it is likely a watering issue, and I really like @Doctor Scoville 's breakdown of possibilities. Personally I would guess that your soil is the culprit. Not sure what kind of soil you are using, but a good soil should provide both adequate drainage (and root aeration) and water retention. Some soils are very peat-heavy in that they retain water, but when they do dry, they become hydrophobic. In the past, I've found that certain peat-based seed starting mixes really stunted my plants and I stopped using them. What kind of soil are you using?

As far as next steps, you have a few choices. I see you are in Texas so I'm not sure what your prime growing months are, but here are a few (but not all) possibilities:

1) If soil is the culprit, restart all seeds in a better quality soil to be planted out in 6 weeks. For the record, I've been using Fox Farm Happy Frog for my seedlings with excellent results.

2) Obtain a good quality potting soil such as Espoma Organic or Coast of Maine, and carefully repot the bells in a 3-gallon pot. Restart the Desi Mirch in a better quality soil. I think trying to repot the bells with any hope of full recovery is risky because, as @danish said, they could really be stunted.

3) Get plants from a local nursery for this season, if available, and cull what you've started to regroup for next year.

Let us know your soil type, fertilizer and watering scheme, and I'll see what other suggestions I can make for you. Don't worry, all is not lost!

 

[Coup]

Afternoon guys, thanks for the info! I'll answer some questions here:

• The soil blend is custom, and it is a peat + perlite + vermiculite + compost blend. However I was experiencing the intense dry-out issues that peat tends to go through, so I got some coco coir to help retain moisture when I blend it back up again. I think I am going to try potting them in a new mix with more coco coir to hold onto that moisture better and not be so hydrophobic when it dries.
• I do have a fan above the grow lights blowing 24/7, but it could probably stand to be a bit closer to the setup. I think I will move it down so there's more flow around the plants.
• I didn't fertilize until I started seeing what looked like nitrogen deficiency in the plants, and by then they were already not looking so hot.
• I also have a rain barrel I use for my watering, so the water is always very warm since it's outside.
• Temperature inside is always around 73-75 (wife is pregnant so she likes it cool in the house). I have a heat mat for germination to get the soil temps of the starters to around 80-82.

I think based on y'alls advice I am going to try a new soil blend with less peat moss, and get more air flow around the plants. What do you guys recommend to deal with fungus gnats as well? So far I've tried Mosquito Bits, Hydrogen Peroxide, sticky traps, the works. Nothing is working. I have some beneficial Nematodes coming in soon but these little critters are driving me up the damn wall.

 

[Marturo]

What do you guys recommend to deal with fungus gnats as well?

Water & mist seedlings from the begining with GFF . Worked great for us the last 4 seasons.

https://www.amazon.com/Southern-Ag-Friendly-Biological-Fungicide/dp/B00VXQG23O/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1A8GFGHG0FO5H&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.gwqZLcMgqcR2Z68bqesI84Gst8L34q7ahJza-7hgx2SsFkYbsvpo8tgLs0GLRWJdt5cxaW65pxvz1yOKUmLFYe46ukg8yvDpd27KB-DkKuA3BzwRIxdbfJjD3dCSvoBctYA9kjYcIcEN6dgdTgempVop29sD3NRSYthihZBBfDZ32sYpcztIphAiz-EOn1RKP5BgH-hlPBHEIjaPvqyqEoke0mDnJ5aF0QTjCbG5RiHySXw_TzCNKQVd6Iy5ulY5SBGHETnqK-Hj9pSgdkt1w3aoI6bV6MqMKYfZpxs9dhM.Dl1-RObempexrFvcsdsFTtiqt_RWz1U_tfO78ayaLi4&dib_tag=se&keywords=garden+friendly+fungicide&qid=1751746104&sprefix=garden+friendly+fungicide%2Caps%2C139&sr=8-1

 

[Doctor Scoville]

I didn't fertilize until I started seeing what looked like nitrogen deficiency in the plants, and by then they were already not looking so hot.

I think this is consistent in what we think happened.

yellowing leaves are often caused by over-watering. More then once this is mistaken for nitrogen deficiency. More fertilizer is added, so more watering. The problem worsens with the effort.

I do think they can recover with the above

good luck

 

[danish]

fungus gnats? overwatering? hmmm. Just out of curiosity, if you do decide to ditch the bell peppers, could you break open the root ball and take a look for little white maggots demolishing your plants at the base?

 

[Annuchin]

The problem could be anything related to the roots, including infections, e.g. by Phytophthora or Pythium.

 

[Coup]

fungus gnats? overwatering? hmmm. Just out of curiosity, if you do decide to ditch the bell peppers, could you break open the root ball and take a look for little white maggots demolishing your plants at the base?

I went ahead and potted all the plants up into the new medium with 50% coco coir. After teasing apart the roots, I didn't see anything inside. However I noticed on my bigger plants (rose cuttings I propagated earlier this year) the pots were still wet inside even though I watered several days ago. It's my first time using a peat moss heavy medium, so the behavior is a bit outside my knowledge zone. It would simultaneously dry out super fast in small pots while holding moisture in the larger ones.

Hopefully now that I have something that acts a bit more predictably I will have fewer issues. I took everything out of its old pots, shook off as much of the old soil as I could, and put everything in new ones. Watered in more Mosquito Bits to hopefully inoculate the soil with BTI, but I'll also water in the nematodes once the time is right.

Thanks everyone for your help with this, let's hope it's enough to solve the problem!

 

[Doctor Scoville]

hey Coup,

have your plants made some progress after your transplant?

 

[Coup]

hey Coup,

have your plants made some progress after your transplant?

Somewhat. The gnats are pretty much gone (I did a nematode inoculation so hopefully that's part of what's working). I've changed the angle of the fan so it's blowing more directly at the tops of most of the plants, and I ditched the slow bell peppers and planted some more Hari Mirch seeds (the medium dried out and killed 3 of the 4 small plants I had growing). The remaining Hari Mirch is not really taking off quickly, but I guess time will tell after transplanting how it'll do.

My rose cuttings are looking pretty sharp though! I gave them more room to grow so they should be ready to go outside in the next month or two. I'm really hoping for an improvement in chili pepper growth though cuz right now I've got nothing for the season.

If all else fails I may swing by my local HEB and grab some bags of Fox Farms Ocean Forest for next season. That stuff has never done me wrong.

 

[Doctor Scoville]

little transplant shock had to be expected. Hope they pull through