Tag Archive | pollination

Potted Peppers For A Winter Harvest: 5 Easy Tips

2024

Updated 12/9/2024

**Potted Peppers for Growing—in the Winter?**

‘Candy Cane’ sweet peppers.

Autumn Has Arrived!

With cool weather approaching, our attention shifts from harvesting heirloom tomatoes to preparing our gardens for winter. Some gardeners clean the shed, weed the beds, and pile fallen leaves onto bare soil or dig them into the ground. Others continue growing greens and vegetables outdoors. In this article, I’ll show you why and how to grow potted peppers through the winter!

Why would we grow potted peppers in winter?

Peppers are warm-climate perennials that, with proper care, can live for a few years. Here’s the key: these frost-tender plants must stay indoors through the colder seasons. Left outdoors, they’ll die with the first freeze of early autumn.

For the coming months, you’ll be able to enjoy moderate harvests for salads, frying, stir-fries, dips, and veggie omelets. They’ll bear fruit over most of the cool season, from mid-autumn through spring, although not as heavily as they would in summer.

During the short days of January and into February, the plants might stop flowering, although fruits that have already set will continue developing. As days lengthen, the plants begin blooming and fruiting again.

Earlier this year, I retired the potted peppers—‘Aura’, ‘Glow’, and ‘Candy Cane’—I’d been growing for 3 years. But several others now fruiting in pots will take their place indoors for the winter.

With good sunlight and proper temperatures, I’ll harvest dozens of peppers from a few moderately sized plants. I’ve been doing this for years at other residences, but now the sunny enclosed porch makes it much easier.

As the temperature drops, warm season crops outdoors will succumb to seasonal changes. Pepper plants begin to decline when temperatures dip below 50°F. If you decide to proceed with this project, you’ll need to watch the weather very carefully.

Early Fruits Next Summer

Peppers take quite a while to grow and mature. Most cultivars of peppers require around 2 months of growing time after transplanting into the garden for fruits to form. Since they must have warm soil and air temperatures, they can’t be planted too early. Even if frosts are over, the ground might still be too cold—from a few days of rain or cloudy weather—to plant sensitive crops, such as peppers and basil. They sulk or die in cold, wet soil.

If your last spring frost date is May 1, for example, you’ll pick your first bell pepper from a new transplant from early to mid-July. For a colorful ripe fruit, you’ll need to wait another 3 weeks. In contrast, potted peppers begin bearing fruits months earlier than new transplants set in the spring garden. You’ll enjoy a significant head start by overwintering these plants indoors. For that reason alone, you might decide to give this a try.

Many of my farmers’ market customers complained of poor flowering and fruit set due to extreme heat and drought this past summer (2024). Each variety of pepper and tomato has a threshold above which the pollen denatures, or dies. No living pollen = no pollination = no fruits. Some gardeners harvested no peppers at all! Growing potted pepper plants indoors could be the solution to poor harvests. Because they’ll be in flower and fruiting by the time they go outdoors for the summer, you’ll have harvested several peppers before the hottest months settle in. Covering tomato and pepper plants with shade fabric can prevent non-fruiting during the hottest weeks of summer.

Are you ready to expand your horticultural experience? If so, here are the 5 tips describing how to grow potted peppers:

Tip #1: Start with Healthy Transplants

Young pepper seedlings in spring.

When planning your summer garden, consider keeping one or a few vegetable plants in pots. Keep in mind that some pepper varieties grow large while others attain only half that size. This information is often found in the catalog. Because roots are restricted, potted vegetables normally won’t grow as large as healthy plants in the garden.

A grower in your area might have kept some pepper plants from an early sowing. I ordinarily grow more than I can sell, so I keep a few dozen potted peppers well into the summer for customers who regretted not planting them earlier.

Another option is to start seeds in early summer. Raised in containers all season and properly fertilized, these plants grow fruits from late summer and continue as long as outdoor conditions favor growth. It helps to let the plants root into garden soil under the pots. This way, their roots can explore the soil for moisture and nutrients.

Later, you’ll sever the roots from each of the drainage holes, one at a time, giving the plant time to adjust before autumn arrives. The leaves probably will wilt somewhat as you cut the roots at the drainage holes, but less severely if you remove some of the foliage. For vigorously growing plants, it would be a good idea to cut back some of the stems by mid to late summer.

Look for plants without symptoms of disease, including wilt and heavily spotted or discolored leaves. Remove old pale or insect-eaten foliage. Potted peppers in winter might not have perfect foliage, but if the leaves are green and photosynthetic, they can remain on the plant.

Inadvertently, a few small peppers hang around here in their market packs, undernourished and barely alive, with some reduced to just a few leaves. Plants often can be restored to a healthier state with proper potting and pampering, as long as the roots have not been severely compromised.

Tip #2: Transplanting Potted Peppers

Orange and red ‘Lunchbox’ peppers.

The Pots

I transplant plants that prefer warmer conditions, particularly sweet or hot peppers, into black nursery pots. You can buy them or ask a landscaper or a local nursery if they can spare a few pots that they might otherwise discard or recycle. Black pots absorb more of the sun’s energy, helping to warm up the soil in cooler months.

Conversely, try to shade the pot so the soil doesn’t overheat in the summer. In hot climates, the sun bakes the soil on the sunny side and damages the roots. I either shade the black pots with other plants or drop them into larger white nursery pots. All pots must have drainage holes.

Avoid planting a young seedling directly into a 2-gallon pot. Instead, transplant the small plant into a 6″ pot and let it thoroughly root into that pot. A few weeks later, move it into the larger pot. This helps the plant develop roots with a more extensive branching structure.

Moisture in a pot behaves differently than moisture in the ground. New soil (with no roots growing through it) in a large pot stays saturated after a day of rain and could suffocate the roots. Even though much of the excess water drains through the holes, a layer of wetter soil remains in the bottom of the pot before it is absorbed by the roots. But in the ground, water is pulled through the soil by gravity and capillary action. As water drains, air is pulled into the soil. Roots need oxygen in the soil as much as they need water.

The Potting Soil

Potting soil should drain well, but it also should be able to hold some moisture and nutrients. Most potting soils today contain large amounts of wood products (bark, wood), which cause them to quickly drain and dry out. A few brands offer excellent soils, but they’re quite expensive.

I tailor the potting soil for each plant species by amending it with ingredients that improve either drainage or moisture retention. Clean garden loam, peat moss, compost, finely ground coir, and aged cow manure have smaller particles and, therefore, help hold water in the air pore spaces.

On the other hand, perlite, pine fines, pieces of wood, coarse coir, and expanded rock products introduce larger air pores spaces, facilitating drainage and drying the soil.

Information on the bag of soil usually indicates whether it’s best used in pots (“potting soil”, “raised beds”, or “container gardening”) or for planting in the garden (“planting mix”, “garden beds”, or “in-ground gardening”). Potting soils tend to have a finer texture than planting mixes.

Amend potting soil that seems coarse (has lots of large particles) with some of the components that hold moisture, as mentioned above. If you’re using more than a small amount of peat moss, which is very acidic, mix in a teaspoon of pulverized limestone. The soil pH should be around 6.0-6.5 for peppers, which is slightly acidic.

If in doubt, have the soil tested for pH and nutrients through your local cooperative extension service. Lime can take a while to work on the pH, so test your soil before adding lime.

The Process

Scoring the root ball encourages rapid re-rooting.

Most nursery pots have large drainage holes which can cause erosion of the soil. To prevent loss of soil, line the pot on the bottom and partway up the sides with a piece of landscape fabric, polyester fiberfill, or similar material. Water can still drain from the pot, but soil particles won’t wash though the holes. This compromises the plant’s ability to root into the ground beneath the pot, however, so you’ll need to carefully monitor soil moisture levels.

Fill the new pot almost to the rim with lightly dampened potting soil, firming gently. Before setting the plant into the new soil, score the outside of the root ball or use a fork to tease some of the roots out from the root ball. This slight damage stimulates the root system to branch out, helping new roots establish quickly in the soil.

Set the transplant into a hole in the center, and firm the soil around the root ball. Don’t bury the stem with new potting soil when transplanting peppers. If space is a consideration, 2 plants might comfortably fit into a pot that’s a bit larger than you’d use for just one plant. This works better for cultivars that normally grow into small or medium-sized plants.

The finished soil surface should be 1-2″ below the rim of the pot. A pot completely filled with soil can be quite messy when applying a thorough watering.

After planting the pepper, insert a stake (2-3′ long bamboo, a tomato cage, vinyl-clad metal, or a twig) all the way to the bottom of the pot. Secure the stem with twine, but not tightly, to keep the stem upright. The main stem or side branches heavy with fruits will slump over and might need additional support as the plant grows.

The First Watering

High yielding ‘Flavorburst’ pepper in the summer garden.

Water the plant. Apply enough water to soak the original root ball and some of the soil surrounding it. Thoroughly watering a new transplant needlessly leaches nutrients out through the drainage holes.

As roots grow into the soil, you’ll need to moisten more of the soil volume. If you begin this process by midsummer, the pot will have filled with roots by late summer to early autumn.

Plants slow their growth as days shorten, so they might struggle to fully root into their pots if you delay transplanting until autumn. If you transplant them at that time, be very careful not to overwater.

Keep the potted peppers outdoors in full sun (7-8+ hours/day) through the summer and early fall, or until nighttime temperatures drop below 55°F. While pepper plants can tolerate colder conditions than that once in a while—but not close to freezing—exposing them to low temperatures on consecutive nights weakens them.

Varieties of Potted Peppers I’m Growing This Year

‘Flavorburst’ is a medium-large sweet bell pepper (photo, above) that starts out lime green and matures to a golden orange color. The flavor is milder than the deep green bells. The plant is a medium-large grower, so it’s in a 3-gallon pot.

‘Olympus’ is a medium-sized plant growing in a 2-gallon pot. This large, deep green bell pepper turns red when fully ripe. I’ll harvest most ‘Olympus’ peppers, however, in the mature green stage when preparing curried tuna or sweet-and-sour chicken. (Photo, bottom of this page.)

‘Lunchbox’ peppers are medium-sized plants. They grow very well in 1-2-gallon pots over the winter. The red fruits on some plants are a bit smaller, so most of the ones I’m saving ripen to orange. Each plant develops fruits that start green and ripen to just one color: red, orange, or yellow. (Photo, bottom of this page.)

‘Aura’ and ‘Gourmet’, in 1- or 2-gallon pots, are orange-when-ripe bell peppers on small plants. Sweet bell peppers that ripen to orange contain extremely high levels of zeaxanthin—10 times more than ripe red peppers. The antioxidants zeaxanthin and lutein help preserve eyesight. (Spinach, pistachios, goji berries, and egg yolks also boast high levels of these antioxidants.) If I need bell peppers when my plants aren’t producing, I usually buy orange bells. I’ve read that orange hot peppers do not contain those elevated levels of zeaxanthin.

'Candy Cane', a variegated pepper, white splotches in leaves, striped fruits.

‘Candy Cane’ variegated pepper.

‘Candy Cane’, a sweet pepper with green and white variegated leaves, is among the potted peppers I’ll grow again this winter. The thin-walled fruits grow irregularly striped green and creamy-white, ripening to bright red (photos, top of article and above). This cultivar needs full direct sun to maintain good variegation in both the foliage and the fruits. Even if it loses its white splotches, it will yield good peppers.

‘Jimmy Nardello’, an heirloom Italian frying pepper, has long, curved, red, sweet fruits when mature. At the last minute, before cool weather moved in, I literally yanked a few young plants out of the ground and potted them into 6-8″ pots. (Photo, next page.)

You can dig up peppers that aren’t very big but try to keep the root system intact. Removing half of the foliage (by cutting back the stems) and lightly shading them for a couple of days prevents severe wilt. Misting a few times a day for a few days should help. Then, with good sunlight and careful watering, they’ll recover.

I don’t eat hot peppers and will sell the rest of the potted habaneros, cayennes, and jalapeños. ‘Helios’ habanero is so cute with its bright orange lanterns (photo, below) hanging on small glossy-leaved plants. It’s ornamental qualities merit keeping it around during the autumn holidays.

: ‘Olympus’ sweet bell pepper.

: Red ‘Lunchbox’ pepper.

: Habanero ‘Helios’ hot pepper.

Headings

Page 1: Autumn Has Arrived! (Why would we grow potted peppers in winter?, Early Fruits Next Summer), Tip #1: Start with Healthy Transplants, Tip #2: Transplanting Potted Peppers (The Pots, The Potting Soil, The Process, The First Watering, Varieties of Potted Peppers I’m Growing This Year)

Page 2: Tip #3: Caring for Your Potted Peppers (Direct Sunlight and Temperature, Artificial Light, Water for Potted Peppers, Fertilizer, Timed Release Fertilizer, “Should I use organic fertilizer?”, Insects and Spider Mites), Tip #4: Pollinating Your Potted Peppers, Tip #5: Fruits from Your Potted Peppers (No New Fruits?)

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Strawberries From Your Own Garden

Mar14

2021

Updated 7/14/2024

Strawberries!

Do you have an empty plot in the garden where you’ve wanted to plant something but aren’t sure what to plant? It’s too small for blueberries or raspberries. Tall plants will shade vegetables in the other raised beds, so you need something that stays rather short on this south side of the garden.

Here’s an option: strawberries!

Now that spring is in the air—and in your local garden centers—this is the perfect time to plant young strawberry plants. Nurseries are filling up with all sorts of temptations—hardy annuals, trees and shrubs, early greens and vegetables, and budded spring-flowering bulbs in pots. You might find young, well-rooted strawberry plants already leafing out.

Strawberry plants can be purchased from neighborhood nurseries, farmers’ markets, and specialty mail order companies. Some varieties are available as seeds, but most are bare-root plants sold in bundles or rooted plants in pots. Bare-root crowns are less expensive than potted plants but need to be planted right away. I’ve been selling ‘Seascape’ strawberry plants at local farmers’ markets.

Strawberries, by the way, are not berries at all, but aggregate accessory fruits. Those little brown spots on the outside of the strawberry are the achenes, or ovaries of the flower, each containing a seed. The achenes are the true berries. The colorful part is an enlarged receptacle, the flower part that normally holds the ovary. But I’m quite sure no one will warm up to the term “strawreceptacle”.

U.S. per capita consumption of strawberries was 7.6 pounds in 2020, and that number is growing. North Carolina is third in the nation for strawberry production, after California and Florida. Among nations, top producers include the United States, China, Mexico, Turkey, and Egypt.

Types of Strawberries

Strawberry species are native to the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In the 1700’s, French botanists crossed the strawberry native to the eastern U.S. (Fragaria virginiana) with a Chilean species (F. chiloensis), yielding, eventually, most of today’s cultivars. That explains the “x”, representing an interspecific cross, in the name Fragaria x ananassa. Breeding efforts using genetics from several species have resulted in hundreds of varieties available today.

Strawberries grow within USDA zones 3 to 9. Some varieties prefer the cooler end of that range, and others need somewhat warmer climates. Most require at least 200 to 300 chill hours, when plants are exposed to cool temperatures between 32° and 45° F. Most strawberry plants stop fruiting above 75° or 80°. (Above: the newer edition of the USDA plant hardiness zone map.)

Planting varieties that mature at different times prolongs the harvest, but place them in separate beds for ease of maintenance. Keep track of the varieties you’ll be growing in your garden.

There are 4 main groups of strawberries, with many varieties within each category. Look for disease resistance, and consider other characteristics, such as color, fruit size, and time of harvest.

1. June-Bearing

These large-fruiting varieties bear heavily over a period of two weeks to a month in mid to late spring. They respond to a short daylength, having formed flower buds the previous autumn. The buds, though, stay dormant through winter, safely tucked inside the mulched plants.

For gardeners living in areas with a limited growing season, June-bearing strawberries are a good choice. Those who wish to preserve the fruits often select varieties from this group.

June-bearers develop many runners, or stolons, which root at the tips and grow new plants from there. The “matted row system” is commonly used on farms and in home gardens for this group of berries. Runners are permitted to roam about and root in at will, within the confines of the bed. Each year, the beds are thinned or renovated immediately following the harvest.

Because flowers will be snipped off over the first 4 to 6 weeks after a new planting, as recommended, June-bearers will have no fruits the first year. You can avoid this task by planting crowns of June-bearers later in the season, after they flower. They will bear fruits in the next spring season.

Although strawberries are short-lived herbaceous perennials, some commercial operations renew their stock every year, establishing young plants in a new location.

2. Everbearing

Everbearing strawberries have a large first crop, a smaller late crop (especially in areas with warm summers), and sometimes a few berries in between. They are not affected by daylength.

Berries in this group are smaller and not as abundant as June-bearing types. The total harvest is about the same as for June-bearing types, although it is spread out over time.

Remove flowers and runners the first 4 to 6 weeks after the initial planting. This will sacrifice the early harvest, but they’ll flower again and yield berries later in the season.

3. Day-Neutral

Day-neutral varieties produce strawberries through the growing season and will flower regardless of daylength. Fruits are smaller and the plants don’t yield as heavily as the June-bearers.

As with the everbearers, remove flowers and runners that develop during the first 4 to 6 weeks after planting. They will flower again later and set fruits in the current season. Cooler temperatures might yield heavier crops in late summer.

4. Alpine

Wild Strawberry Red Fruit Sweet - Radfotosonn / Pixabay

Alpine strawberry.

These are the smaller, oval-shaped berries carpeting the ground in their native northern hemisphere habitats. Sometimes called “fraises des bois“, French for “strawberries of the woods”, these strawberries often belong in the species Fragaria vesca, although several species of alpine strawberries grow around the world.

They’re found in a wide range of climates, in USDA zones 3 to 9. Avoid planting in low spots or where the soil stays soggy after rain.

Alpine strawberries tolerate some shade but give them 4-6 hours of direct sunlight. Plant them 12-18″ apart. They don’t grow a vigorous system of runners but will propagate from seeds and division.

Some strawberry enthusiasts swear by these tiny morsels and grow no others.

Preparing the Bed for Strawberries

Find garden space that gets full sun for the best yields. Strawberries start growing before the end of winter, when the sun is still low in the sky. Take this into consideration when locating your garden. In partial sun, foliage and fruits might be plagued by diseases that ruin the crop.

Avoid low spots. Locate the beds on higher ground where cold air won’t collect and freeze the flowers. Try growing strawberries in containers if you don’t have garden space.

Don’t plant them where tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, or eggplants have grown in the past 5 years. Verticillium wilt disease from infected plants in the nightshade family (Solanaceae) can also infect strawberries (family Rosaceae).

Strawberries prefer sandy loam and must have well-drained soil. This is one reason you often see them growing in raised beds. Another benefit of raised beds is increased air circulation, which helps prevent diseases from spreading among the plants.

How To Configure Strawberry Beds

The Matted Row System

In the matted row system, space strawberries 18″ apart down the middle of a 4′ wide bed. Spacing between the beds depends on the method of harvest and whether large tools (tiller, mower, wheelbarrow) will be required. For most home gardeners, 2′ or 3′ between beds serves that purpose.

June-bearing strawberries grow in matted rows, allowing their numerous runners to spread. Over the growing season, let plants fill in to a density of 4 or 5 plants per square foot. Heavy leaf canopy discourages weeds from growing in the bed, but overly congested growth encourages diseases.

The Hill or Mounded System

In this technique, crowns will be spaced in a zigzag manner 12″ apart, in mounds 8″ high. These hill systems are narrower than matted row systems, at about 24″ wide. This permits better air circulation and drainage around the plants. Disease prevention is of prime importance.

This method suits everbearing and day-neutral strawberries, which have fewer runners. In fact, websites recommend removing all runners in hills, forcing plants to grow lateral crowns next to the original plants.

Dig In!

: Pine fines.

: Compost.

Loosen the Clay

First, remove all vegetation where the strawberries will be planted. They don’t compete well with weeds.

Loosen the existing soil, breaking up the clay to a depth of about 12″. This is easier to do if the soil is damp. Don’t work the soil if it’s wet, though; that will collapse the air spaces between soil particles.

Add Drainage Material

Now, incorporate (don’t layer) 2″ to 4″ of pine fines, sometimes called soil conditioner, into the loosened soil. Pine fines (photo, above) are partially composted small bits of pine bark. Because they decompose very slowly, they help keep the soil open, improving drainage for many years. Pine fines might not be available everywhere. See if you can find bags of “soil conditioners” that include pine fines.

Strawberries also like large-grained coarse sand (not play sand) added at this time.

Adjust PH, Peat Moss

Strawberries need acidic soil, with a pH range between 5.5 and 6.5. One or two inches of pre-moistened peat moss incorporated 8″ into the bed will help lower the pH in alkaline soil.

Your local agricultural extension office can analyze a soil test and make recommendations about pH and fertilizers.

Compost

Next comes the nutrient-rich compost. Incorporate 2″ or 3″ of compost into the top 4″ of soil. Placing it deeper in the soil will put it out of reach of the strawberry’s shallow roots.

Compost provides nutrients for the strawberries as well as for the microbes living in the soil. Microbes, active during the growing season, break down organic matter, making nutrients available to plant roots in a usable form. These microorganisms derive the benefit of carbohydrates from this relationship. Microorganisms also help plants fend off soil pathogens and contribute in other ways that scientists are now researching. In healthy gardens, billions of microorganisms occupy a tablespoon of soil!

For sandy soil, add more water-holding amendments, such as peat moss, pasteurized loam, and compost.

Some gardeners apply 10-10-10 fertilizer with the initial soil preparation.

Rake the soil, filling in low spots.

Planting the Strawberries

Strawberry ‘Ozark Beauty’.

If you received bare-root plants, trim long roots to about 6″. Place the roots in a bucket of cool water for an hour, in the shade.

Although a raised bed is an efficient method of growing strawberries, they can be planted in level gardens. Pay special attention, though, to slope, drainage, and air circulation.

After preparing the soil, dig a hole for each plant, spreading out the roots and firming soil around them. The crown of the plant, where the leaves meet the roots, should be right at (never below) soil level.

Mulch

Once all the plants are in place, apply 2″ or 3″ of an airy mulch, such as pine straw or weed-free straw (photo, right). The traditional use of straw as a mulch might be where the term “strawberry” came from.

Don’t cover the crowns; give them space to emerge freely. This kind of material, rather than a heavier mulch, permits air circulation and lowers humidity around fruiting stems, helping prevent rot.

Mulch cools the soil, conserves moisture, and keeps the fruits clean as they grow. As it rots, it adds organic matter to the soil and needs to be replenished now and then.

Using mulch in the growing season is optional, of course. In beds of June-bearing strawberries, a thick layer of mulch could hinder runners trying to root into the soil.

Another option used by many commercial growers and home gardeners is black plastic or fabric over the soil. This warms the soil rapidly in late winter and early spring. Commercial growers using “plasticulture” renovate the beds every year. If you’d rather not use plastic, you could use biodegradable black mulch. Using a soil cover might extend strawberry production. And weeds won’t stand a chance. Still, this is optional.

Water the bed, making sure the entire planting depth has been moistened.

In Their First Year

Most experts recommend removing all flowers during the first 4 to 6 weeks after planting. This concentrates energy in the roots and runners. For plants in the June-bearing group, however, there will be no harvest the first year if you planted them in early spring. But they should yield a bountiful harvest the next year.

Other groups of strawberries will develop more flowers in the months ahead. They will bear fruit later in their first season. For everbearing and day-neutral varieties, apply fertilizer after their first crop.

Water the beds every week if there isn’t substantial rainfall. Strawberries need 1″ to 2″ of water per week, most importantly after planting and during fruit set. Most of their roots are found in the top few inches of soil, so they are very susceptible to damage from drought.

Pollination

These early flowering plants attract bees and other pollinators. Strawberry flowers contain both male and female reproductive parts. Although they can self-pollinate or be pollinated by wind, strawberry flowers achieve more complete pollination from the activity of pollinating insects. This results in fruits that are plump and well-formed.

Headings

Page 1: Types of Strawberries (June-Bearing, Everbearing, Day-Neutral, Alpine), Preparing the Bed for Strawberries (How To Configure Strawberry Beds, The Matted Row System, The Hill or Mounded System, Dig In!), Planting the Strawberries, Mulch, and In Their First Year (Pollination)

Page 2: The Harvest, Renovating the Strawberry Bed, Varieties, Winter Protection, Potted Strawberries (The Pots and Potting Soil, Watering the Containers), Problems? (Insects and Mites, Slugs and Snails, Diseases), and Celebrate!

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No Fruits On Your Tomato Plants?

Jun24

2018

Here Are Some Simple Solutions If Your Tomato Plants Have No Fruits In July and August

No Fruits In Hot Weather?

It looks as if we’re in for more above-normal temperatures in the Southeast through the growing season. No surprise there! I’m going to spend a few minutes to explain why we often have no fruits on our tomato plants when it gets real hot outside. In most years, though, production picks up again in late August or September when the temperatures drop several degrees.

The main crop that most home gardeners are concerned with is the tomato, although this could happen to peppers, eggplants, and other vegetables as well. When temperatures soar into the 90’s F, the pollen produced in the flower is “denatured”, or, essentially, killed. No pollen means no fruits!

When the air is very still or humid, the pollen grains are less likely to be dispersed. But, we can’t control the weather, so I’ll concentrate on what we can do.

Try Some Shade For Tomatoes With No Fruits

Before you replace your vegetables with agaves and astroturf, there is something you can try in order to harvest a continuous crop. If temperature is the problem, and not lack of pollinating insects, you can simply provide a bit of shade during the hottest part of the day, usually from 1:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon.

Here’s How:

Some tall stakes stuck in the ground and an old sheer curtain could work. Make sure any covering is above the foliage, so air flow is not impeded. One day, a customer stopped by the garden center where I used to work and wanted to thank me for the suggestion. He said he finally (after many years of trying!) was able to get tomatoes in the hot summer months by simply repositioning the patio umbrella to shade his tomatoes for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

Look for black UV stabilized polyethylene mesh, sold as “knitted shade cloth”, from garden supply companies. Johnny’s Selected Seeds lists the product in their catalog. For the hot south, a product that casts 30% shade works well. Or you might find that 50% shade works better. Position it overhead, and on the west side to cut the harsh afternoon sun. A little experimenting will indicate the best arrangement.

Rat snake caught in bird netting. yes, it was freed.

This non-venomous snake was freed by snipping the mesh, starting at the tail end.

If you have a package of black deer netting, folding it over several times will give you about the same effect as the shade cloth. Check it daily, though, for snakes that can get caught up in it. A few times, I used sharp-pointed scissors to free non-venomous snakes that had become entangled in the netting.

Another option is lattice or snow fence attached to a sturdy frame.

The point is not to block all the light. You just want to moderate the harsh sun for a few hours a day, dropping the temperature to below 90 degrees. Not every growing season will require this mitigation. But, if you don’t see tiny tomatoes growing on your plants in mid-summer, this is one option you can try. When the temperatures moderate, remove the covering.

Shading the Flowers and Fruits

Sometimes it’s not practical or necessary to entirely shade the large plants on the deck. So, I’ll use those mesh bags found in the produce section at the grocery store (holding avocados, tangerines, etc.). When it’s hot, I drape the mesh over the young flower cluster. It will stay in place as the fruit develops. This helps keep the animals away and prevents sun scald.

Occasionally we have summers when the temperature hovers in the mid to high 90’s for weeks at a time, not cooling off much at night. We might not get any tomatoes at that time, until the weather cools. But we do harvest more tomatoes by shading than if we did nothing.

Cultivars

‘Sun Gold’ tomato with netting to keep animals away.

Select varieties that are more heat-resistant; their pollen tolerates higher temperatures. Names that allude to the south or to heat are clues that those varieties could grow better in warm climates. ‘Phoenix’, ‘Estiva’, ‘Arkansas Traveler’, ‘Florida 91’, ‘Creole’, ‘Heatmaster’, and ‘Summer Set’ are cultivars often cited as being heat-resistant.

‘Better Boy’, ‘Terenzo’, and ‘Black Krim’ also should do well. The bright orange cherry tomato, ‘Sun Gold’, produces abundantly in our hot summers.

‘Big Beef’ has always been quite productive here and is highly disease resistant. If you must grow your favorites that are susceptible to heat, try using the shade cloth.

Check online or ask your local cooperative extension agent for information on recommended cultivars in your region. The varieties that had bountiful harvests every year when you lived in Buffalo, New York, might be disappointing in Birmingham, Alabama.

Pick Earlier

During very hot weather, fruits might not fully “color-up” to catalog pictures, so don’t leave them too long on the vine. Pick them once they’ve developed some color.

Let them ripen on the kitchen counter, but never in the refrigerator. Tomatoes exposed to temperatures below the mid 50’s undergo cellular changes that rob them of flavor and texture. Certain genes that enhance flavonoids in ripening fruits become inactive in cool temperatures.

Especially during periods of drought, thirsty animals know what’s inside those juicy ripe tomatoes! You won’t miss out on much flavor by picking them a day or two early…but they will.

Letting ripe fruits stay on the vine inhibits the production of new flowers. The plant thinks it has done its job by providing seeds for the next generation. Removing ripe or almost ripe fruits reminds the plant to resume its responsibilities.

Mulch

Pine straw.

Mulch the soil all around the plants with a thick layer of airy mulch, such as pine straw or oak leaves. Clean chemical-free grass clippings mixed with shredded leaves can be used, but not so deep that decomposition generates even more heat. These materials add organic matter to the soil as they break down, keeping the earthworms and the microbes happy, and provide nutrients to the plants.

Mulch also helps prevent disease spores lying dormant in the soil from splashing onto the lower leaves of the plant. And, of course, it holds moisture in the soil and keeps it a little cooler.

Water

Water thoroughly during hot, dry weather to moisten the top 10″ to 12″ of soil once or twice a week (more often in sandy soils). Established vegetables, in average soil, need 1″ to 2″ of water per week. Here’s why:

Lack of water causes wilt, stressing the plant.
Lack of water causes flower-drop. (Incidentally, flower-drop early in the season can be caused by cool weather.)
To prevent blossom-end rot, there needs to be enough moisture in the soil to keep calcium in solution.
Fruits that crack are responding to uneven soil moisture levels, although some cultivars are more susceptible to this. Cracked fruits are still edible, after checking for little critters (insects, slugs, sowbugs) that might be sipping the fluids. Ordinarily, it’s safer to discard fruits that have been partially eaten by raccoons or squirrels.
And a good watering in hot weather cools down the soil. But first check the temperature of the water coming out of a hose that sits in the sun. It could be too hot for plants. Don’t overdo the watering, which will dilute the flavor of ripening fruits and cause other problems.

Thorough and deep soil preparation invites roots to grow where the soil is cooler and where there’s more moisture. The more we can minimize stressful conditions, the more likely our vegetable garden will perform the way we’d like it to.

Better Pollination

Hand-Pollinate Flowers If No Fruits Are Growing

: Sweet bell pepper.

: Cherokee Purple tomato.

If pollinating insects are not plentiful around your garden, try hand-pollinating your tomatoes and peppers. Usually just shaking, tapping, or vibrating the flower is sufficient for the task.

Each tomato and pepper flower is perfect, containing both male and female flower parts. So, they can self-pollinate as well as receive pollen from other tomato plants. This will work if the pollen hasn’t already been killed by heat.

Photo, above right, shows simple procedure for pollinating a tomato flower. Gently flick, or tickle, a mature, but not old, flower to move pollen to the stigma.

The pepper (photo, above left) was unlabeled and purchased at a big box store. It had a big floppy habit. There were no fruits on it for the longest time, and I was about to remove it. But I gave it one last try, and hand-pollinated all the flowers. Since then, it has yielded a dozen big bell peppers, and it’s still full of fruit.

‘African Blue’ Basil

Plant an ‘African Blue’ basil near the garden. This is an ornamental basil and a pollinator magnet! Because it is sterile and can’t set seed, it keeps flowering all summer long. You can find this variety in late spring or summer as potted transplants.

Few plants attract as many pollinators. Having one of these plants near your vegetables will guarantee visits from honey bees, bumble bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. In fact, bumble bees often spend the night among its flowers, ready to go to work as soon as the sun comes up.

*** * * * * * * * ***

So, if you’re following sound horticultural practices and can’t understand why your vegetables have no fruits, try shading them for a few hours. Or perhaps one of the other suggestions will work for you.

I’ve had dozens of customers over the years who have tried shading when nothing else worked, and now they enjoy vine-ripened tomatoes and peppers without interruption. Tomato-basil salad, coming up!

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