What is this on baby bell pepper?

[Towlieee]

Just noticed this today on one of my 2 sibling baby red bell pepper plants
Feels kind of "soft" when I lightly squeeze it.  Wondered if this indicates I'm doing something wrong (not enough of something, too much of something, disease?)  

There are around 8-10 ish baby red bells growing between the two plants, only one tiny one is nearly fully ripe, just turned bright red on one side today, as a little bit of a orange-redish color on the other side, so will be picked tomorrow and swallowed in one bite haha

My leaves look GREAT, plant is growing like a weed.  Grown in around 4 gallons of the cheapest potting soil available, using 10-15-10 nutes that I add in with my water, I may be over feeding them, I flushed all my stuff recently with straight water, then 2 days later gave them more nutes (yesterday).  

First pic is with my 2900k bulb still on near it, 2nd is with the light off, 3rd is with all my lights off except one 5000k that is on my jalapeno, showing the entire plant on a overcast day on a covered balcony.  Plant looks awesome, other peppers look awesome, this one looks bad

 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 

[Kikaida]

Every single one of my larger varieties are suffering from this. Assuming its an end-rot of sorts and lack of adequate calcium...at least in my situation. The smaller peppers are doing fine.

 

[oldsalty]

sorry hope you get it sorted my friend.  

 

[Towlieee]

Yeah I was thinking it could be a Calcium deficiency, but wasn't sure, which is why I came for guidance.  
I was recently laid off and can't afford to buy a PH tester or have a soil test done, I was hoping I could find like some $2-$3 ph test strips, but eveything I've found locally is like $11-$100+!  I can't drop that kind of cash right now.

I'm worried about all my stuff now, I don't want a calcium problem to kill off all my stuff.....  First time growing, too much money invested towards start up costs, I really want a lot of this to finish so I can eat.  I don't expect a "return on my expenses", just a learning experience and a hobby, I realize I could have went to walmart and got more "crops" for the money I spent.  

I don't want my Jalapeno's and watermelons to suffer.  Hoping this is an isolated issue to the single pepper, I will be monitoring everything close, I already check my plants over very close daily.  Having only 5 total "crops" growing makes it easy to examine them daily, especially since I have to hand pollinate my melons and I only have a few hour window in the morning beofre the females close up =P

sorry hope you get it sorted my friend.  

funny3.jpg

haha, been using this screen name almost everywhere since the episode first came out in 2001!  Purposely spelled wrong so I can get this name just about everywhere lol

 

[oldsalty]

No Worries my friend lots of are growers will be on soon they will get you fixed up asap . They have saved me many times. My only advice is try to keep them as separated as possible. 
iv'e lost a few in my day seriously hurts. 
 
Hope your job situation gets better soon my friend. That's a tough road to walk. 

 

[Towlieee]

Crap, just found something that concerns me, I remember reading about this, forgot what it was, but know it kills plants and dont think there is much to change it.....  
Found some what looks like while mycelium near the  base of my 2 baby bells

I'm wondering if this came from the limbs that I used to stake my bells up....  Kind of scared it did....  I wonder how harmful it is, and if there is a way to kill it.  I'm about to rip the sticks out of my Jalapeno plants.  I "harvested" my sticks from a tree that broke in half behind our apartment complex, idk how long ago it fell, all the leaves were dead

I want my Jalapeno to thrive all winter and keep it for years to come, the bell peppers I'll toss if I have to.  What's even worse is my melon plants have a lattice system I built using these sticks ugh

 

 

 

[Hawaiianero]

Tums has calcium, pulverize a few tabs and sprinkle them in
 
 
Just sayin......

 

[Towlieee]

Tums has calcium, pulverize a few tabs and sprinkle them in
 
 
Just sayin......

Good call, I need to grab some tums/knock off tums anyways lol, was on my grocery list!  

Now I'm worried about the white fungi looking stuff.  I saw this in my "research" and reading online not long ago, forgot what it was, but heard it destroyed plants root system, ugh.  

I figured I might be over watering, and now I think this reinforces what I thought.  Going to separate the bells from my Jalapeno as I plan on keeping the Jalapeno growing all year, crap, hope it does fine

 

[peppamang]

Sorry to hear about your situation man. Egg shells ground up are a good, cheap way to introduce some calcium into your soil. Make sure you rinse them first. 
For that little bit of fungus, I wouldn't worry about it. Most fungi in soil is fairly benign, don't worry about it until you actually see a problem. That one pepper just looks a little funky, I'd just take it off and throw it out. 
 
Good luck! 

 

[Tarzan]

I have soil infested with similar mycelium kind-of-thing. It spreads around the base of the plant and grows even a few inches up the stem. During the time when I wasn't watering them, the thing stopped spreading, dried out and almost completely vanished, but after my first thorough watering, it came back and one of the plant's stem was thick with the white gooey stuff. That pepper performs unbelievably well, so I'm not that worried. It is, however, interesting, how far up the stem it comes. Seems to be feeding on dead plant tissue on the bark and in the soil.

 

[Towlieee]

Thanks for the responses!  I'll monitor the rest of my peppers to make sure they don't start looking the same, if they do, I'll definitely add calcium!

Soon as I noticed the apparent mold, I separated the plant (only moved it across the porch lol), I have been watering a lot lately due to high heat, but already planned on cutting back for a while as its cool and overcast for the next few days (actually supposed to be mid 80's or lower for the next couple weeks)

edit:  Went ahead and cut the pepper off, I probably should have kept it, but oh well, no biggy just a bell not somehting rare lol.  it looked fine on the inside, I should have just try and let it go ripe then trim that one little piece out when I ate it.

If I have any more problems like this I'll start adding calcium. All my soil is new mulch heavy potting soil that drains well, I figure it should be fine for one season especially with me adding my 10-15-10 liquid fert often

 

[Canes1]

My wife has this on some of her peppers too, I was told maybe sunburn, but I am not sure.

 

[Towlieee]

My wife has this on some of her peppers too, I was told maybe sunburn, but I am not sure.
 

I saw your post, those look rough!  

I'm almost certain mine can't be sun scalding, I only get 4-4.5 hours of direct sunlight a day, although it is during the hottest hours of the day (west facing porch).  Plus my plants have tons of leaves, and daily I have them spun a different angle towards the sun.  I do add in another 10-11 hours of CFL's, but I don't think they'd scald them

I just picked my first fully ripe baby bell today, it's one of the smallest ones I have lol.  

I ended up eating like 2/3 of that one bell that looked rough, since it wasn't much, I just added it on top of our frozen supreme pizza haha.  Tasted fine, and looked fine, other than the little tiny "window" in it.  I was worried after finding that one, but I'll just keep monitoring stuff.

Also let my soil dry out for 2 days, may water today, only checked my stuff 6 hours ago when I turned my lights on, fairly dry about 2 inches down.  First tiem I let it go that dry. 

 

[Canes1]

It might be my fault, I water them for her in the AM and they face east, but at most they get 4-6 hrs of sunlight so,im not sure either. Still getting it on some. UGHHHH