"OhioGuy" wrote in message ...
Out of my 6 pepper plants, 1 appears to be a bit stunted and shorter - it
is the banana pepper plant. When I look at the plant up close, I see that
the base of the plant, where the main stem meets the ground, seems to be
brown and not hard like the rest of the stem - almost as if there is some
sort of "infection". The plant has not died, but it isn't really growing
much, either. I have mounded soil up around the affected area, hoping
that it may grow additional roots through the soil.

That most likely wont happen with a pepper plant. It will only encourage the
infection to spread by omitting air and light and dryness. I would remove
that soil and let the stem breathe.

Should I apply some sort of
fungicide or other chemical? Should I tear out the plant to make sure
this doesn't spread somehow to the neighboring plants? Leaves and fruit
on the affected plant seem slightly yellower and smaller than the rest of
the plants.

That's hard to say. It could be disease or a need for shot of fertilizer,
most likely nitrates at this time of year. Does it look diseased? Blotches
or spots on the leaves? Mottling or curled leaves? Mottled peppers?
There's an organic concentrate for disease called Serenade. It's supposed
to control molds and mildews. I just got it so don't know if it works or
not. If it looks diseased to you, you may be better off pulling it before it
spreads.


Even with this shortcoming, after applying the tomato fruit set spray
roughly 10 days ago, I now have 57 peppers on my 6 plants - fully double
what I had 10 days ago, when I complained about low fruit set. One of my
jalapeno peppers has a couple of places now where there are 3 peppers
together in a "bunch"!

What store carried the tomato fruit spray? Did you get it online? I hope
they have it at Dicken's Turff. We're going there this week, one day. My
husband thinks the Greensand will be better than the questionable Ironite.
The rest of my peppers, in very good health in the other gardens, are
setting very few peppers. Very odd. By now we're usually rolling away in
peppers. :*(


I would heartily recommend the tomato fruit set spray to anyone who has
healthy pepper plants that otherwise don't seem to be bearing as heavily
as they ought to be. Spraying it once and waiting less than two weeks for
the plants to respond seems to be all that is required.

Did you spray the open blossoms?