Why Do Peppers Fall Off The Plant? Preventing Fruit Drop

During the Fall, Southern pepper plants seem to gain a second season. They produce more peppers now that extreme temperatures have passed. However, more gardeners see a higher number of baby peppers fall off the plant.

Why Immature Peppers Fall Off the Plant

Here are some key reasons that you may see peppers fall off the plant and how you can get a quality fruit set again.

1. Lack of Essential Nutrients

Peppers need a balance of macronutrients in order to thrive in your vegetable garden. They particularly don’t like excessive nitrogen in their soil. 

This flies in the face of what we know about the nightshade family of vegetables in general. Most love their nitrogen. And while they’re heavy feeders, too much nitrogen will cause immature peppers to fall off the plant.

This is a risk we run if we’ve chosen to forego soil testing for a complete analysis of the nutrient contents in our soil. Unfortunately, without a proper test there’s no way to know for sure if this is the problem.

However, a good indicator is the leaf growth. If you have vibrant green, very bushy, beautiful foliage on your plants, and peppers fall off the plant before they’re ripe, then excess nitrogen could be your problem.

To remedy this problem, you can add brown organic matter to the soil beneath your plants. Shredded dead leaves would be my first choice to add to the garden beds. Not only will this help to balance the carbon to nitrogen ratio in your soil, the leaves will also mulch your pepper plants.

Wood chips would be another great option to use to balance the nitrogen in your vegetable beds.

This may not help a whole lot during the growing season that you notice your peppers fall off the plant. If the imbalance is severe, you may need to rest the soil until the following growing season.

2. There’s a Water Issue

Peppers strongly dislike being overwatered. Too much water will absolutely make peppers fall off the plant. So how much is too much? A lot depends on your climate and current environmental factors.

Make sure that your peppers are planted in well-drained soil. Additionally, make sure that you’re allowing the soil to dry well between watering sessions.

Next, are your peppers planted in full sun? They should be in full sun for the best growing conditions. The added light will help the soil to dry with evaporation.

Last, are your peppers mulched heavily? Yes, mulch is good. We always preach about covering your soil. However, if your soil is locking in too much water, then proper drainage can’t happen, and your peppers fall off the plant.

On the flip side of overwatering is obviously under watering. Drought conditions can also make peppers fall off the plant. Even watering is best.

3. Cool Temperatures

Peppers, especially hot peppers, love the heat. If your daytime temperatures are staying too low, then your pepper plants won’t thrive. 

Remember, peppers are native to tropical areas as perennial plants. Those growing zones don’t see a whole lot of environmental stress from temperature fluctuations. They consistently get high temperatures that they love.

Again, make sure that you’re growing your peppers in the hot part of your growing season, between frost dates. Make sure that you’re planting them in direct sunlight to help facilitate the heat energy they need to thrive.

4. Bacterial, Viral, or Fungal Diseases

Pepper plants are prone to several diseases that may cause fruit drop.

• Bacterial Leaf Spot
• Mosaic Virus
• Verticillium Wilt
• Blight

The most common pepper disease that we see is Bacterial Leaf Spot. It occurs naturally in the soil and spreads by water splashing back to the plant. Bottom watering and pruning your pepper plants for good air flow can help prevent bacterial leaf spot. 

Keeping a balanced soil with quality microbial life will keep a healthy plant that can thwart bacterial disease without intervention. If you find that you need to assist your pepper plants affected by leaf spot, an organic fungicide spray can help.

Mosaic Virus is also somewhat common, but once it has affected a pepper plant, the only remedy is to pull the plant out of the garden. It’ll spread to other plants if you leave it because there is not a cure to mosaic virus.

A tell-tale sign of verticillium wilt is that one limb or one section of the pepper plant will be affected first. Peppers fall off the plant then the leaves quickly begin to wilt. Soon, the limb will die as the disease spreads to the rest of the plant.

Verticillium wilt is spread by pests, so keeping up good pest management practices will help deter this disease. Also, a little extra watering can get your plants through if you think you’ve gotten this in your garden. Trim off the affected limbs, and water your pepper plants a little extra.

5. Poor Pollination

Peppers are self pollinating, so you shouldn’t have much of a pollination issue. However, if flower buds open and then don’t get pollinated for some reason, they will close and show you what looks like a tiny pepper. Those are really just unpollinated flowers and those little peppers fall off the plant. 

If you’re familiar with squash pollinating, it’s similar, (only squash are not self pollinating). You can also give your pepper flowers the occasional tap or gentle shake to make sure they get pollinated.

Work on attracting pollinators to your garden with a variety of colorful flowers. Stop with the insecticides to encourage a healthy ecosystem that keeps them coming back.

Pepper Flowers Drop Sometimes Too

Blossom drop can also be caused by all of the same problems that make peppers fall off the plant. Make sure that you have even watering, balanced fertilizer, ideal temperatures, and good growing conditions to keep pepper plant flowers from dropping.

The most common cause of pepper plant flower drop is extreme temperatures. Yes, they like the heat, but they do not like triple digits for multiple days at a time. If you’re experiencing an unusual heat wave, you can offer some temporary shade with row covers to keep healthy plants.

Leaf Drop 

Too much water is the most common possible cause for pepper plants to lose their leaves. This can be detrimental to the plant because they need their leaves to photosynthesize energy properly. The first sign of overwatering is yellow leaves, quickly followed by fruit drop and leaf drop.

If they aren’t getting enough sunlight, you may also notice your pepper plants dropping their leaves. This rarely happens until the late season when the daylight hours are shorter.

If you experience leaf drop, you can prune back the bare limbs, and then sprinkle a teaspoon of epsom salts around the base of the plant. This will give your plant a boost in magnesium for leaf production.

Our Favorite Peppers

Everyone wants to grow big bell peppers, but did you know that those are the trickiest peppers to pick? It can be difficult to get them up to size and ripened on the plant.

If growing peppers are new to you, try some of these varieties to set you on the road to growing success:

1. Shishito Peppers – These small plants will give you a high yield in production. One out of every 10 peppers is hot, so there is an occasional surprise.
2. Sweety Drop Peppers – They provide a fruity, sweet, tiny pepper. Plants grow large and produce abundant, small fruits.
3. Honey Bells – This is a small pepper that tastes like a green bell before it’s ripe, but sweetens as it turns orange.
4. Nodapenos – These carry the jalapeno flavor without the heat.
5. Sweet Banana Peppers – I think that every new gardener should grow a few banana peppers simply for the encouragement they’ll give. They’re easy to grow, hard to kill, and they just keep kicking out peppers.

Easy to Grow Hot Pepper Varieties:

1. Hungarian Yellow Wax – Some like it hot, and some like it real hot. These are real hot.
2. Datil Peppers – Excellent for making gold hot sauces.
3. Florida Grove Peppers – These small chili peppers pack some serious heat.
4. Jalapenos – They are probably the easiest hot peppers you can grow, and seeds/plants are readily available in most stores.
5. Serrano Peppers – I like serranos for the flavor depth they bring, not just a blinding hot. However, a little goes a long way. These are good for making red hot sauces.

Planting Pepper Tips

Here are some general tips to help set you up for a successful growing season with peppers.

• Companion Planting
• Intensive Planting
• Provide Support

Companion Planting

Peppers companion well with onions, tomatoes, carrots, basil, carrots, cucumbers, and squash. Some of these will be difficult to pair together depending on your growing zone. 

Here in Florida, we grow short day onions and carrots over the winter, but peppers need the heat of the warm season. Except during transitions between seasons, such as October, when the peppers are steadily cranking out fruit and the carrots are just barely big enough to thin.

So for the most part, we will grow peppers with squash and herbs like basil and dill. Tomatoes work because they have the same growing requirements; however, tomatoes are prone to catching those diseases that’ll spread to your peppers. I generally keep them seperate for this reason.

Plant Intensively

Have you heard the phrase “peppers like to hold hands?” When the plants reach mature size, they do well if the limbs can just barely touch. This creates a canopy of shade for the fruits to hide under, preventing sun scorch. 

Provide Support

You wouldn’t think that a non-vining plant would need much support, but peppers do. Especially bell pepper plants. Consider the fact that they’re growing on single stems that then carry heavy fruits. 

They tend to get top heavy and flop over. They also have shallow roots, so they may easily uproot themselves when they fall over.

Tomato cages make perfect pepper supports. Alternatively, plant them along a trellis and tie them off, or you can create a grid of strings tied to stakes to help hold them upright.

Summary of Peppers Fall Off The Plant

Remember the best way to avoid pepper drop is to start with a balanced fertilizer in your soil and provide even watering. Make sure that you plant in full sun with well-draining soil. Avoid spreading diseases and pests, and you should have an abundance of peppers from your garden to enjoy!

Good Luck and Happy Gardening!

Donna and her family have been homesteading for most of their 20+  years together in some shape or fashion. She currently lives on their 20 acre farm where they grow as much food as possible. What started as a just a few laying hens, has grown into large gardens, pastured poultry, pork, and lamb. They are continuously evolving their small farm to not suit their family’s needs, but also providing to their local community. Donna’s favorite part of the family farm is her self-built micro-dairy, where she gets to love on dairy cows while serving her local community. Milking, cheesemaking, and processing dairy have become the soul of their homestead and the center of their farm.