Wilted Pepper Plants? Do This NOW

Your peppers are growing beautifully until one morning you come out and the leaves are drooping. Sad, soft, wilted leaves, like the plant gave up overnight. Your first instinct is probably to grab the watering can, but watering is actually the wrong move in some of these cases, and you could actually make things worse for your peppers. So let's figure out exactly what your plant is trying to tell you the next time it looks wilted. Number one, and this is probably the most common cause of wilted pepper plant leaves, sun or heat stress. Now these plants come from a tropical or subtropical climate, so they love heat, but some varieties can tolerate heat better than others. For example, jalapenos are excellent at hot dry weather, but this rocoto variety is actually more accustomed to cooler temperatures, and when it's really hot, this plant wilts badly. If this is the cause of your plants drooping, look out for this happening in the afternoon when the temperatures tend to reach their peak for the day. Between 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. is usually that range, and it's usually associated with direct sunlight. If you have a plant like this one that is getting morning sun and afternoon shade, you may notice the plant coming back to normal after it goes into shade. If it's really hot above 95 degrees Fahrenheit or so, you may also notice flowers falling off of the plant, and your plants are struggling to hold on to their peppers. And in severe cases, usually early on in the season just after planting outside, you may also see some burnt leaves that have turned white and crispy. So if this is the problem for your plants, what can you do about it? Well, first of all, you can provide some shade for your peppers. Like I said, this one is getting morning sun and afternoon shade provided by the house that it's against. So positioning your plants strategically when you plant them, or if you're growing in containers, you can, of course, move them around to a more suitable location. For in-ground plants, we use shade cloth during the hottest parts of the year. If you grow from seed indoors, it's important to move them outdoors gradually. This problem is much more common early on when your plants are transitioning outside because they're not used to the outdoor elements. They're not used to the intensity of direct sunlight. So making that transition as gradual as possible will reduce the amount of wilting that you see. Real quick, if you're just getting started growing peppers, grab our free growing guide. It's a quick, no-fluff rundown of the basics to get your plants off on the right foot. Totally free. Click the link in the description or scan the code here to get it now. Another cause of drooping pepper leaves is dehydration. And I know I said your first instinct is to grab the watering can. And in some cases, that is what you need to do. This one goes hand in hand with high temperatures, which we just talked about. Higher temperatures means the plants are going to use more water. Your plants essentially sweat when it's really hot, just like we do. It's called transpiration. And the hotter it is, the more water they lose in this way. So if the leaves are very delicate and thin, almost papery, drooping straight down, this is how the leaves will look when the plant desperately needs water. If you dig your finger an inch or two down into the soil and it's dry, that's another sign that it could be dehydrated. And if you do water, come back an hour or two later and the drooping should have resolved. So how can you know that it's time to water before this problem happens? Again, I like to just use my finger and dig down an inch or two below the surface of the soil. If it's damp down there, your plant doesn't need water. The roots are much deeper than that. But if it's completely bone dry, then it's a good time to water. It may not need it at this point, but it's better to water and make sure that your plant has the hydration that it needs than let it get out of hand. Now we're going to go to the opposite end of the spectrum here and talk about a third reason that you can have drooping leaves. And that is overwatering. The drooping that you'll see in this case is a little bit different from dehydration. The leaves will still have a bit of plumpness to them. They won't be completely papery. They'll be more waterlogged and droopy instead. Another thing to look out for for overwatering is if your soil stays wet for days and days after watering without any rainfall. That's a sign that you may have poor draining soil or clay rich soil. It may also be accompanied by yellowing leaves and leaves falling off of the plant. And in severe cases, you may see dark patches on the leaves, sort of watery spots. And if you get close to the root system, it may smell a little bit swampy. So what do you do about overwatering? It's tough if you have a lot of rainfall. There's not much you can do about the amount of water hitting your garden. But if you're watering your garden manually, you can definitely cut back. Again, make sure that the soil has dried out down about an inch or two before you water again. Make sure your pots have drainage holes. This is a grow bag, so it has naturally good drainage out of the sides and the bottom. But if you're using a plastic pot, sometimes you need to punch out the drainage holes on the bottom using a screwdriver before you plant. And for in-ground plants, you can get a soil test to see if you have lots of clay in your soil, which would lead to poor drainage and effectively overwatering the garden. And next time you do water, check to see how long it takes for the water to actually sink into the soil. I will say with potted plants, it's pretty hard to overwater. They have naturally good drainage and the soil mixes that we all use drain really well and have plenty of aeration in them to avoid root rot. Root rot is the extreme, and that's when you'll get that swampy sort of foul odor coming from the root system. And you need to address it immediately by improving drainage or even repotting your plant into new soil and trimming some of those dead roots. Another cause for drooping pepper leaves is transplant shock. And that is when you move your plants from one container into another or from indoors into the outdoor beds. A lot of the time you'll see your young pepper plants drooping their leaves just after transplanting and for maybe a week or two after they've moved into the garden. There are a number of reasons this happened, and thankfully most of them aren't serious. Number one is moving from one location to another can cause sun stress. So you're going from a shadier or a less well-lit location, going into a full sun garden bed. Those leaves are going to stress out from that direct sun exposure and take some time to adjust and establish. You're also potentially disturbing the root system as you pull it out of a container and put it into a new home, which can cause a minor setback. And you've got a relatively small root system going into a large body of soil and it takes some time for those roots to spread out and grow. So when you transplant, minimize root disturbance. Make sure that you've hardened off your plants gradually, that slow period of transition from indoors to outdoors. Water nice and deeply after planting to make sure there's plenty of moisture in the soil for those roots to develop and grow. If it's really hot at the time of transplant, some shade can help the plants establish and any drooping should resolve within a week or two. The next cause of drooping pepper leaves is pest damage, and this can come in a variety of forms depending on where you live in the world. But some of the common ones are aphids, spider mites, thrips, and then we also have animals that can damage the plants and cause drooping like foals or field mice. For insect pests, you're going to look for damage on the leaves. Usually you'll see some light stippling, little brown spots, often on the newest foliage, the tiny leaves that are just forming on the ends of the branches. Take a close look at the foliage underneath the leaves. You might spot them in the act. For spider mites, you're going to see webbing like a spider's web. And for foals, which is something we've dealt with recently, they tunnel underground and will actually chew on the root systems and sometimes even the base of the stem girdling the plant and killing it. Basically overnight. So for the insect pests, what can you do about that? If you've noticed an infestation, don't do anything drastic. Be pretty patient. Oftentimes your pepper plant will survive a pest infestation and natural predators will come and take care of the problem for you. One thing you can do is manually remove or spray them off with a hose. Many of these pests don't have a good grip on your plant, so you can just hose them off and that will slow them down dramatically, giving your plant time to recover. And for those beneficial insects to make their way to your garden. If you're growing indoors, unfortunately, you're going to have to spray something because these are very persistent pests. Aphids and thrips, they just multiply so quickly that the infestation will get out of hand if you don't do something about it. So an insecticidal soap spray can be used indoors, but I don't recommend it outside. And for foals and other animals that might be causing root damage, causing wilted leaves, you really have to exclude them from the garden. And we're struggling with this because we didn't do this. A fence around your garden is great, but more importantly, underground metal mesh netting will exclude those burrowing animals. So if you're building new raised beds, for example, you can staple some mesh to the bottom of the beds before you fill them with soil. That way those pests can't get through and chew on your plant's roots. Now this next cause of drooping pepper plants is just about as serious as it gets, and that is bacterial wilt or fungal disease. For the diseases I'm talking about, the symptoms are pretty similar. You're going to come out and notice sudden wilting on your plants. It may be one-sided at first and then spread to the rest of the plant, but the plants basically don't recover no matter what you do. Water, mulch, nothing seems to help. And eventually you will have to get rid of your plants. But before you do that, let's talk about some specific diseases and what to look for. Bacterial wilt is a soil-borne bacterium that infects the plants through the soil and the root system and will essentially clog up the plant's vascular system so that it can't transport water. How does it spread? It comes from plants that you picked up at a nursery with the bacteria, soil that is infected from past seasons, and it can persist in soil for years even if you don't have a plant that it can infect. It can sit in that soil and wait until you plant your peppers. The other two types of wilting diseases are fusarium and verticillium wilt, both of which are fungal. Fusarium wilt is common in warmer places, but verticillium is actually more common in a bit cooler climates like ours here in the Northeast. So if you live in a temperate climate, be on the lookout for verticillium wilt. Again, these fungal problems persist in the soil and you can pick them up from a nursery plant or even from seeds. And if it's in the soil, you want to be really careful of soil splashing back up onto the bottom of your plants. So there are some things you can do to prevent that. But what can you do to avoid these diseases? This is much more important for most of us. If you haven't had this issue, you want to prevent it. Number one, start from seed and try to find varieties that are disease-resistant to these specific diseases. They're very common diseases, meaning that many of the hybrids are developed to resist them. And you'll look for a V or an F for verticillium and fusarium wilt. But we have an article on our website, which I'll link below with some great disease-resistant peppers. Sterilize your tools at least a couple times a year. I know it's a pain and you don't have to do it every time you go into the garden. But if you want to prevent the spread of disease, it's really important to clean your tools. A layer of mulch on the surface of your soil can prevent that soil splashback. So I highly recommend using things like pine needles, straw, or shredded leaves around your peppers. Wet, damp soil will help that bacteria spread and fester in the soil. So making sure your soil drains well is critical. And if you've had a past outbreak, one thing you can try is solarizing your bed. So covering it with a clear plastic film and sealing it in and allowing the sun to just bake that soil and kill off any of those pathogens. That will also kill off weed seeds on the surface of the soil, which may be another benefit you're looking for. So if you're sure your plants have one of these diseases, unfortunately, you have to pull them from the garden right away and destroy them. Don't throw them in the compost because the fungal spores and the bacteria can persist in that compost and infect your soil in future seasons. So you have to get rid of the plant, burn them, or throw them away. So the next time your pepper looks sad and droopy, you'll know exactly how to identify the true cause and hopefully you can fix it really quickly. Don't forget to get our free pepper growing guide at the link in the description below. Thanks for watching Pepper Geek and I'll see you soon.