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A New-ish gardener here! This year I have planted 5 varieties of peppers in a brand-new raised bed in central Arkansas (zone 7b). The fill for the raised bed is 100% compost purchased from a local plant store, with no amendments or additions.

Initially, all of the peppers saw slow growth through the cooler, wetter weeks after transplanting, but as it has warmed up most of them have grown quickly. At first 2 of the plants showed signs of strange growth, including new leaves curling, thickening, becoming harder, darkening, and areas of new growth looking strange and stunted. Because of the presence of these symptoms only on new growth, I assumed a calcium deficiency. (google image results for "pepper plant calcium deficiency" show at least one result that looks like my plants, but the comments were inconclusive). Several posts here have suggested that ongoing pest damage could cause this, but I have seen very few pests and have preemptively applied neem oil on a couple of occasions.

In the last few weeks, new growth on some of the surrounding plants has started to show some of the same symptoms and now I am not so sure what could be going wrong here. I'm starting to think that it could be one of the following:

  1. Disease (virus, maybe? transmitted between plants via pest)
  2. Deficiency of some nutrients (peppers are growing in compost with no soil mixed in)
  3. Toxicity of some nutrients (I have no idea what the nutrient balance of the compost is)
  4. Presence of herbicide in compost (I don't know the source of the compost)
  5. Environmental factors (Maybe overwatering. Compost retains significant moisture)

I'm trying to determine if any of the above causes are obvious causes of these symptoms.

In addition, These plants are planted within 5-10 feet of a bed of tomatoes in similar planting conditions, some of which are showing leaf curl which does not resemble this, and a potted ground cherry plant in store-bought potting soil does have similar symptoms.

I've attached some images that should show the affected area of a couple of the plants, as well as a previously healthy plant that is now affected. I can provide any additional photos, including ones of surrounding plants, to help diagnose this.

patient zeropreviously healthy plant Closeup of previously healthy plant

Rohit Gupta
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Joseph Benton
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  • What kind of conpost? – Bamboo Jun 16 '20 at 23:46
  • @Bamboo, It's a municipal compost, I believe. I bought it from a garden center. It has lots of organic matter, as well as the occasional piece of random litter. – Joseph Benton Jun 17 '20 at 15:28
  • Let me know if you find a solution. I have been growing hot peppers for years in Ohio and all of mine have this exact issue except Jamaican Yellow Scotch Bonnets. I usually have the best looking plants of anyone and I use manuer solids, clay, balanced NPK fertilizer and pre season boost soil with 100%N Urea Nitrate and pure calcium. They all displayed this at the exact same time and I have a pretty big garden so I am thinking it is environmental somehow not the soil. We had a lot of rain do I am thinking it is root rot or mold in the soil. Just a guess. – Paul Miltiades Jul 26 '21 at 02:29

5 Answers5

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If you filled the bed completely using only municipal compost with no soil, that might be the problem. Composted materials of this type are meant for mulching or digging into garden soil; they are not usually suitable for use as a planting medium, especially not in a contained area. If your raised bed is open at the bottom and sitting directly on soil,that's not quite so contained as a raised bed on legs - not sure which you've got, but even so, there is no soil in the raised bed, only the compost. You could try checking the source to see if it's been produced using a hot, aerobic method, which would mean it is suitable for use as a planting medium, but more usually, these are not produced in that way.

The other possibility is there is some contamination from pesticides (usually herbicides) of some sort; this could be present in the compost, or could be caused by spray drift from you or someone else spraying some sort of pesticide nearby. Note that composted materials meant for soil conditioning purposes do not usually cause problems when mixed in with soil in open ground, though some horse manure can sometimes be contaminated with a particular herbicide.

Bamboo
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  • I never fail to add dirt to my compost, or 40% sand to silty soil. Plants need drainage an micro-nutrients. Your initial slow growth may have come from too much nitrogen in the compost. Peppers are sensitive to that. I lost a whole month's growth to too much N one year. Darn plants just sat there. At the plant size you have, there's a good chance they'll recover. – Wayfaring Stranger Feb 19 '21 at 21:42
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My son got couple yards ( he is young and has a truck) of great looking, free mulched soil from raised beds at an apartment complex that was removing the beds. He put it in his own raised beds with results similar to yours. LATER he found out the apartment complex had been using herbicide on the raised beds because the residents were not using them and they were full of weeds . After 3 years he was able to grow in the beds. Easy to imagine you encountered some variation of this scenario.

blacksmith37
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  • After several years of similar issues with my pepper and tomato plants, I narrowed it down to herbicide damage. Either in the grass clippings I use for mulch or the fine mist from spraying the lawn turns into vapor. I now cover my plants with blankets when spraying and have three years with zero damage. – Evil Elf Jul 27 '21 at 11:42
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Look into "Tomato russet mite" which also affects bell peppers. The damage from russet mite looks similar to your photos. I've had the same issue in my garden for years and could not work out what was causing it. And then one day, someone mentioned tomato russet mite in a Facebook gardening post I was following and when I looked into it, it seemed to match what was happening in my garden. It was so good to finally have an answer. Hope this helps you too.

Lewhitt
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I CAN END THIS It's an old post but this was a hard one for me, so I sent information to my ag extension office at PENNState. Your pictures show a bad case of Tomato Bacterial Wilt. I'm battling it again this year, I'm culling the plants because I'm noticing the SLOW but obvious spread. My new buds and growth point turned black dead in spots, and repruning to the ground was no help. That corner got hit and I lost vibrant cucumbers and pulled my zucchini and squash because it turned the base stem into a melted bug-filled hell. Could you please tell me what your results were? Last year I found out too late, this year my Marconi and Cubanelle are fried but I have so much more. However you handled it, I'd love to know.

Ethan B
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    This does not really answer the question. If you have a different question, you can ask it by clicking [Ask Question](https://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/ask). To get notified when this question gets new answers, you can [follow this question](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/345661). Once you have enough [reputation](https://gardening.stackexchange.com/help/whats-reputation), you can also [add a bounty](https://gardening.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/set-bounties) to draw more attention to this question. - [From Review](/review/late-answers/32101) – Spectra Jul 23 '22 at 19:13
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https://extension.unh.edu/blog/2020/05/broad-mites-pepper Hope this help you all It’s called Broad mites. Good luck

Marisa
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  • While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. - [From Review](/review/late-answers/32762) – Spectra Feb 10 '23 at 15:09