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What's causing those brown spots on my peppers?

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED AUG 30, 2019

Blossom end rot shows up on peppers when they've received uneven watering and too much sun. (Photo: Debbie Arrington)

Signs of uneven irrigation pop up in late summer

It’s a maddening malady of late summer. You wait weeks and weeks for peppers to ripen – or at least get big enough to pick. Then they develop an ugly brown spot or callus.

What happened?

Most likely, those brown spots are pepper blossom-end rot. This can happen on the sides of peppers as well as the bottom. It’s not a fungal disease or the result of a pest invasion, but a calcium deficiency. The pepper plant didn’t have enough calcium available while the fruit was developing. Without that necessary building block, these too-thin cell walls collapse, then rot.

The answer is not to add more calcium to the soil (although that probably won’t hurt), but to be consistent with irrigation. Overwatering as well as underwatering can lead to those brown spots.

Blossom end rot, which also affects tomatoes and squash, usually occurs if soil was allowed to dry out too much, then flooded with water. That happens a lot during late summer vacations; gardeners return and overcompensate for not irrigating while they were gone.

The plant responds by pulling up as much water as it can, growing rapidly. But if there isn’t enough calcium available to go with that sudden abundance of moisture, brown rot follows.

The good news: It can be corrected. The damaged peppers are edible; just cut off the brown spots.

Then, remember to be more consistent in irrigation. Mulch around plants can help keep moisture even and let the remaining peppers develop normally.

Other factors that can lead to blossom-end rot are too much nitrogen-heavy fertilizer or ammonia. For peppers, stick to fertilizers with more phosphate than nitrogen or potassium. Excess sodium also can be an issue.

To boost calcium, add bone meal, rock phosphate or crushed egg shells to your planting bed next spring.

For more on blossom-end rot: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/GARDEN/VEGES/ENVIRON/blossomendrot.html

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Keywords:

gardening Sacramento peppers vegetables calcium deficiency soil moisture blossom end rot irrigation summer weather sunburn plant diseases

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Garden Checklist for week of May 19

Temperatures will be a bit higher than normal in the afternoons this week. Take care of chores early in the day – then enjoy the afternoon. It’s time to smell the roses.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. If you haven’t already, it’s time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.

* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Don’t forget to water. Seedlings need moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

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