Something is wrong in my Garden

[luigiwu]

Some of my plants don't look quite right - their leaves are deformed. Please help me figure out what it might be??

Below: some peppers. The one on the right, you can see the older leaves look fine but the new ones look wrinkled?
And the pepper on the right looks kinda discolored in a varegated way??


Below: more pepper plants where some of the leaves look off, curled up etc.


Below: these are Insuk's Wang beans. The upper ones look much diffferent than the lower ones, they are all 'wrinkled' and obviously holey...


Some of my Thai Chili Peppers have black spots on the fruit/pepper itself... I'll try to get a picture tomorrow... to add to this comment.

[RayR]

That is caused by a calcium deficiency.

This fellow on YouTube has a good video about it,

calcium deficiency in pepper plants - habanero puckered, curling, bumpy leaves - solution

[Nematode]

Beans look like mine, hoping its insect sucking damage and not viral. Bottom leaves are fine and green.
further up the veins are pale, leaves are crinkled/mis-shaped and have some mottling. I had aphids.
Sprayed with mycotrol, newest leaves look better but they are still not developed enough to know if I am back to normal. Still have time to pull and restart if I have to. A few years ago beans looked like this and I got zip.

[RayR]

The spotting on the sides of the peppers is also a symptom of Ca deficiency. (BER doesn't always occur on the blossom end.) The bean leaves also have that distorted crinkled look on the new growth, again a symptom of Ca deficiency. I wouldn't looking at pathogens as a suspect before investigating a more common cause.

Ca deficiency can either be a real lack of Ca in the soil or it can be induced. Ca competes with both Magnesium and Potassium. Too much Mg or K can cause Ca deficiency. Too high soil salinity can also cause Ca deficiency.

[Nematode]

Regarding the bean, it is my understanding that Ca deficiency will result in green veins and yellow intervein.
The picture shows yellow veins and green intervein area.
http://www.ipni.net/ppiweb/gusawest.nsf/$webindex/article=22FF32B388256DF700240CF58009ABF1!opendocum ent

[RayR]

Originally Posted by Nematode

Regarding the bean, it is my understanding that Ca deficiency will result in green veins and yellow intervein.
The picture shows yellow veins and green intervein area.
http://www.ipni.net/ppiweb/gusawest.nsf/$webindex/article=22FF32B388256DF700240CF58009ABF1!opendocum ent

Mg deficiency will result in green veins with yellow interveinal chlorosis, I'm not aware of that on any plants regarding Ca.
I don't see any yellow veins in any of the pictures. Am I missing something?

[Nematode]

Sorry don't want to jack this. I'm sure you guys are on it with regard to the Ca.
Thought I saw yellow veins in the bottom bean plant, maybe its normal for that variety, I am unfamiliar with it.
Nematode.

[Lorri D]

If you have a calcium deficiency, which I concur with everyone that it is, then you probably will have other nutrient deficiencies as well.

In this case, being that they are container plants and already stressed, I would advise to get a good complete non-organic fertilizer to give them immediately what they are lacking.

I love being organic myself, but it can be tuff to do it in small containers; because organic fertilizers need to be broken down by microbs, before they are available for your plants to use.

[RayR]

Lorri, I wouldn't advise Luigi on anything yet, we don't what he did or didn't do.

I'd like to know:
1.) the potting mix used
2,) amendments used
3.) fertilizers used

A long time ago when I first tried organics in a container growing peppers, I did terrible.
Then I figured out that I needed the microorganisms, but they don't just show up with a resume asking for a job. So I add them every year and it's now the only way to grow for me.

[luigiwu]

Originally Posted by RayR

Then I figured out that I needed the microorganisms, but they don't just show up with a resume asking for a job. So I add them every year and it's now the only way to grow for me.

How do you add microorganism, Ray?

My potting mix is a DIY and this year its probably a mix - some buckets have last year's batch and some have this year's batch. The recipe is 2 parts peat moss to 1 part compost (used dehydrated bovine this year) with some perlite and 1 cup each of epsom and lime. Then in the top 1/3 of each container's potting mix, I add an additional cup of epsom and lime. When I plant, I add a ring of 10-10-10 granular fertilizer (Lowe's Sta-Green Brand) in a trench around the perimeter of the bucket.

I've started watering with Calcium Nitrate - ratio of 1teaspoon to 1 gallon. Does that sound okay?

Thanks for all the input guys! Much appreciated!

[RayR]

Originally Posted by luigiwu

How do you add microorganism, Ray?

My potting mix is a DIY and this year its probably a mix - some buckets have last year's batch and some have this year's batch. The recipe is 2 parts peat moss to 1 part compost (used dehydrated bovine this year) with some perlite and 1 cup each of epsom and lime. Then in the top 1/3 of each container's potting mix, I add an additional cup of epsom and lime. When I plant, I add a ring of 10-10-10 granular fertilizer (Lowe's Sta-Green Brand) in a trench around the perimeter of the bucket.

I've started watering with Calcium Nitrate - ratio of 1teaspoon to 1 gallon. Does that sound okay?

Thanks for all the input guys! Much appreciated!

I don't know what 2 parts this and 1 part that and 1 cup this and 1 cup that represents. Is that making a certain # of cubic yards of mix?
The most important question since you are making a DIY mix is what's the PH?
If the PH is too low or too high calcium as well as other nutrients will be locked out, so not available to the plant.
Sure you can add Calcium Nitrate to add more Ca to the mix but will the Ca cations be available to the plant? For example if your PH is too alkaline Ca which is very reactive will combine with other elements to create insoluble compounds.
I don't like the idea of pumping even more nitrates into a plant when it is the flowering and fruiting stage, but that's another story.

[luigiwu]

Its proportional - For a 3 bucket batch for example - its 2 buckets is peat plus 1 of compost. The lime is suppose to neutralize the acidity of the peat. I didn't come up with this recipe but there is another thread at one point about amount of lime and ph so I could revisit that to make sure. Will a cheapo ph meter help me or do I need to send away to a lab? I really don't think ph is an issue but I guess a test should put that to bed. My tomatoes on the same DIY mix are as happy as clams can be!

[RayR]

Originally Posted by luigiwu

Its proportional - For a 3 bucket batch for example - its 2 buckets is peat plus 1 of compost. The lime is suppose to neutralize the acidity of the peat. I didn't come up with this recipe but there is another thread at one point about amount of lime and ph so I could revisit that to make sure. Will a cheapo ph meter help me or do I need to send away to a lab? I really don't think ph is an issue but I guess a test should put that to bed. My tomatoes on the same DIY mix are as happy as clams can be!

OK, so it's 3 5gal buckets for the peat and compost components and then 1 cup of dolomite lime to
buffer thet PH and too add Ca and Mg. Those all have to be mixed very thoroughly so there are no hot spots in the mix. The Epsom salts are unnecessary. An inexpensive PH pen meter or at least PH papers is a useful tool so you can do a slurry test to see if the PH is in the desirable range. Most commercial container mixes target their PH to around 6.5.
Calcium is probably the most important but overlooked macronutrient by gardeners, it's relatively immobile in a plant so there needs to be a constant supply. Not all plants will exhibit the symptoms of Ca deficiency the same way. Your tomato plants may look totally fine until you get BER in the fruit. Typical synthetic Ag fertilizers like your Sta-Green 10-10-10 don't contain any Ca or Mg, so availability of those nutrients has to come from other sources in your container mix like the dolomite lime and the compost (microorganisms are key players in making nutrients available to the plant from the compost and even the lime) and may need to be supplemented with other sources during the season especially at fruiting when the requirements for calcium are higher.
The limiting factors for Ca uptake by the plant even if there are sufficient supplies can be PH too low or too high, too much magnesium or potassium, and salt buildup in your mix from the synthetic fertilizers (do you flush your mix that you reused from the previous season?)

[Lorri D]

I like organic, but I'm thinking it isn't going to fix this problem within the growing season.

If the microorganisms aren't there or are in low numbers, it would't make sense to me to keep going organic. It is my understanding that it takes weeks if not months for them to break down nutrients to be available to plants in high enough quantities to stop deficiencies. MG has products that contain calcium and magnesium, I just googled it. But, it sounds like you are already fertilizing your plant enough and now adding calcium nitrate, so I don't think I'd change and add any other types of fertilizer.

The calcium nitrate won't acidify your soil as much as an ammonium heavy fertilizer will, but Rayr gave very good advice about testing your p.H. first. You can have all the nutrients needed to grow a plant, but if the p.H. is off, then they won't be able to uptake them.

One more thing I didn't see mentioned is that you need to keep your pots consistently moist. If they dry out during the day, then the plants aren't going to be able to uptake the nutrients consistently and will show signs of deficiencies too.

Good luck,

[Bipetual]

I wonder if a calcium foliar spray designed for blossom end rot (like Rot Stop) would help. Couldn't hurt, could it?