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  • From: "Allan.Balliett" <allan.balliett AT gmail.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] peppers
  • Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2010 07:05:17 -0400

I'm just contributing a data point.

I'm in the eastern panhandle of west virginia.

We had hot days VERY early, record heat days through July and August, and about zero rain since the end of June.

My main sweet pepper plantings were California Wonder and Golden California Wonder, each of which I planted a thousand plants of.

We have not had a descent harvest of either of these so far this season. As the temperatures cool, however, the plants are looking better and blossoms are coming back in.

I was on black plastic, did not use mulch, believing the pepper canopy was cooling enough for the roots. Did not take soil temps.

Much of our fruit has been distorted and discolored and there has been little of it.

I also had several hundred sweet banana peppers, a plant that is generally unbelieveably productive here. We've only gotten a couple of small harvests from them this season. (I noticed yesterday, though, that there are more and longer ones than there has been.)

Our hot peppers seem to be doing fine. They were on black plastic, no mulch.

OKRA did horrible, which is sad since it is always effortlessly productive here. In normal years, I never have to irrigate it. I assume that's what caused the problem this year (assuming okra can't get too hot to produce). I waited late to start irrigating it. It was productive early, at least one variety was, then it dropped down to about zero productivity through July and August. More fruit on it now but it is growing about half as fast as it normally does (which, in okra, might be a virtue! ;-)

Our egg plant crop has been much the same as our pepper crops. I planted thousands of various japanese varieties and have seen little fruit. They, too are coming back, but the fruit remains very small.

I sent some soil and plant samples to the WVU plant pathology labs where, initially, they told me that they thought I had root knot nematodes in the peppers, tomatoes and egg plants, but they were doing further testing. That was 3 weeks ago and I haven't heard any more about nematodes in my plant roots or the soil and compost samples I sent in.

I was speaking with the produce manager of a local organic super market chain. He said that this was the worst year for sweet peppers ever with many of the Pennsylvania growers getting none this season.

On the other hand, many of the farmers I know in the DC-area got much more rain than we did up here and have no complaints about peppers and egg plants. In fact, I think some of them are claiming bumper years. (Obviously, I don't know if rain was the only weather factor that was different or if they got the extreme early heat that we got.)

Strangely, this was out best potato year ever. (Something I heard other area farms claim as well.)

Sorry for not giving more detail.

Allan Balliett
Fresh and Local CSA
Eastern Panhandle, WV







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