Hello, everybody. While in the garden today, i noticed that a few of my bell peppers have been falling off the plant before the pepper is mature. There are 10 or so peppers on one plant, all just a little larger than a golf ball. There are no signs of physical damage, the break from where they are supposed to be broke off. The break is clean, so i'm sure the pepper was not meant for a squrrils' lunch!
Does anybody know why this is happening, if the baby peppers that have fallen off are eatible, or how to prevent this?
Maybe just the bad weather or lack of sun from all the rain is causing this...
Thanks you for all your help!

* * * *


"I don't want no more of army life, gee mom, I wanna go, but they won't let me go, gee mom, I wanna go home!" My PB!

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt...
All you can do is to cage the pepper plants.

* * * *

thanks Deborah

* * * *

Hang on, I just re-read both of your posts.
It probably IS a squirrel, as they nip off cleanly at the stem and do NOT eat the pepper.
They do the same thing to my baby lemons.
I thought your posts were suspecting squirrel damage. (I need to read more carefully !)
I'm guessing that once a squirrel gets a taste of peppers and lemons (from biting the stem) they aren't interested and so leave the fruit. Argh !

* * * *

well, Penny... I've been taking the peppers off the ground (because they are intact) and eating them myself! I don't find anything wrong with them, and, of course, i clean them throughly.

I saved the seeds to plant next year, just to see what happens, so they aren't a COMPLETE waste...

* * * *


"I don't want no more of army life, gee mom, I wanna go, but they won't let me go, gee mom, I wanna go home!" My PB!

Thats what we did lastnight too Mark,....picked them up and washed them and into a salad they went, but even some of the tiniest ones are coming off...I'm talking the size of a pea...who knows?????

* * * *

Interestingly enough, wild types of peppers drop their fruit very easily. It's a reproductive strategy, as it makes seed dispersal by various creatures more likely. So, somewhere in the gene pool of our domestic peppers there is a trait for dropping fruit. I would not be surprised to see this behavior with mini-peppers as they are most likely closer genetically to wild peppers. Also, some fruit drop may occur due to high heat. Be that as it may, I would harvest the fallen fruit. There shouldn't be a thing in the world wrong with them.

* * * *
According to my calculations, the problem doesn't exist.