Peppers. Acidifying the soil.

[Durgan]

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?EVAHQ 23 September 2012 Peppers
Frost is imminent so the last of the peppers were picked about 20 pounds.Over the season about 40 to 60 pounds of fruit was produced by these nine plants.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?LSQWP 2 June 2012 Peppers lowering the pH.
It rained heavily yesterday, so it was decided to acidify (lower the pH) the area around the pepper plants. Two cups of white vinegar was mixed with 20 litres of rainwater.This is a subjective decision, but experience indicates that it is beneficial in my garden.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?OTQIE 15 May 2012 Peppers
Nine pepper plants were placed in the outdoor garden. Four California Wonder and five Pimento, both sweet types were available. The plants were purchased in flats and placed in individual containers to establish strong root structures for about ten days in the greenhouse. Peppers need an acidic soil or production is low or nil. I water periodically with vinegar during the season. A cup of vinegar in 20 litres of water was used for planting time watering. Some support was provided utilizing curved metal stakes from the dollar store, which I painted with Tremclad.

[Doug9345]

I take it the your soil is alkaline. My experience has been that peppers are less tolerant of acid soils than tomatoes are and I've found that I have to decrease the acidity to get a better crop.

[Hotwired]

Peppers like 5.5 to 6.5 Ph which is slightly acidic. I keep mine hovering around 6.0 Ph and let it work up to 6.3 before I feed it Jack Classic Acid Special to drop it back down. I grow about 120 pepper plants and have had a bad experience with yields when I let it drop too low. My experience has been that too low causes me more problems than too high.

Nice Peppers. I like your trellising system. I also see you have them fenced. Deer love chewing off the tops of pepper plants. I hate weeding, especially around a fence. Can't weed-whack it, and this 67-year old body creaks when pulling weeds on my knees. I picked up a truckload of old paver blocks and lined my fence with it, tucking in the weedcloth. Now I just run the wheel of my mower over it and no weeding. I put in 240 feet of them, and I can tell you that being lazy is a lot of work.

[Durgan]

I don't measure the pH but follow my nose, since I only have a few plants. I know without the vinegar the production is lousy.

I agree with you about weeding around the fence. I only have about 100 or so feet so usually pull the grass when it starts to irritate me. The fence is is for rabbits, which I probably don't need any more, since my dog Ginny can almost catch the odd intruder or at least scare them off. There is only two or three each year.

[WVTomatoMan]

Hotwired: I don't know if you grow hot peppers or not, but if you do I know something that might nix the deer chewing off the tops of your pepper plants. Plant hot peppers on the perimeter of your pepper garden. You might get some slight damage, but they'll leave them alone soon enough. I found this out accidently. Years ago I just happened to have a hot pepper plant on one of the corners and I saw a deer approaching it so I just decided to let things unfold and watch. She started to munch and it didn't take her long to spit it out and run. I assume she ran as fast as she could to her water source. Since then I've planted hot peppers on the perimeter and rarely get any deer damage. Somehow word gets around.

Randy

[Durgan]

Last Summer visiting a friend on 100 acres I noticed he had a three wire electric fence around his gardens. It was to deter raccoons, rabbit, and deer and groundhogs. He used copper welding wire. My little dog managed to touch the lower wire before I could grab her and the remainder of the day she was always ten or so feet away from the wire. One shock was enough. It appeared to be simple, cheap and effective.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by Hotwired

I can tell you that being lazy is a lot of work.

I feel your pain!

[Stvrob]

I didn't even know peppers liked acidic soil.

[Durgan]

Originally Posted by Stvrob

I didn't even know peppers liked acidic soil.

About 40 years ago while visiting a person, he was watering his peppers and using vinegar. My comment was, "what are you doing"? That is where I learned something and never forgot it. I even give my blueberries a treat of vinegar now and then as a precaution along with sulphur treatment. So far, I don't seem to have over done it.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by Stvrob

I didn't even know peppers liked acidic soil.

Slightly, not too much. All I ever did was throw in some coffee grounds at transplant time. Coffee grounds are very slightly acidic. Not enough to really make all your soil acidic, but locally around each plant it seems to give the peppers what they need without going to the trouble of making the whole soil acidic.

ie... If you did a test of the over-all soil Ph even where the grounds are, it won't have changed much, but the tiny root hairs directly touching a particle of coffee grounds can pick up whatever it needs.

[rnewste]

From this, I conclude you would not add dolomite lime to Pro-mix BX when growing Peppers in a container. Very interesting.

Raybo

[Stvrob]

Im not so sure about that Raybo. though you should get other opinions than mine. peat moss and pine bark and other partially decomposed foresty stuff is fairly acidic as its decomposing. And from the above, i doubt peppers like very acidic soil, probably in the same range as tomatoes, so I would think limestone should still be used. Plus, Limestone isnt very alkaline, a lot of people assume it is because it has the word Lime in it, but limestone is NOT lime

[rnewste]

Originally Posted by Stvrob

Im not so sure about that Raybo. though you should get other opinions than mine. peat moss and pine bark and other partially decomposed foresty stuff is fairly acidic as its decomposing. And from the above, i doubt peppers like very acidic soil, probably in the same range as tomatoes, so I would think limestone should still be used. Plus, Limestone isnt very alkaline, a lot of people assume it is because it has the word Lime in it, but limestone is NOT lime

Thanks for the reply. I will be interested in reading other's opinions, as you suggest.

Raybo

[RayR]

The PH raising effects of dolomite on soil-less container mixes is much more rapid than it is in native soils from my experience. A good PH meter will verify that. Native soils containing fair amounts of clay and silt tend to resist PH change and depending on the amount of dolomite lime used the effects are typically more gradual over time.
Acidifying native soil is much more difficult. An acidic liquid like vinegar can change soil PH slightly initially, but the effects are short term. I tried this for myself. I've never tried to acidify a soil-less container mix containing dolomite, might make an interesting experiment to see what happens.
You have to take into account other PH altering things like synthetic fertilizers if they are used because they have a PH lowering effect. Decomposing wood components may also contribute to a lower PH over time like Styrob said, as the primary decomposers are fungi.

[Doug9345]

I wonder, since Durgan has reported good results with adding a small amount of vinegar, while most of the rest of us have seen that being too acid hurts pepper, if there is something else going on besides changing the Ph. I propose that the soil microbial mix is being changed more than what a temporary change in Ph would do.

Am I underestimating what a little vinegar will do to soil Ph. I estimate this is a .06% acetic acid solution which isn't very strong. I'd think the other components of the soil would be more resistant to a change in PH than that. After all my pepper plants don't die after a rain and I know we get acid rain around here.