This will be a shorter update because it was a pretty sad pepper season for me - which is extremely rare once I went to growing them in containers or bales.
The key words are bacterial spot. Though I've never experienced it previously, it hit early and often; the only plants that escaped were one Fire Opal growing in a special self watering container, and a few of the super hot varieties. Impacted plants showed heavy defoliation and poor fruit set (in some cases, none at all). Yet all of my pepper plants live on. Strange.
Bacterial spot showing as lesions on lower leaves
The pepper plantings of 2017 fell into three categories: the next iteration of my selections from the dehybridization of Blue Jay, further work on the ornamental hot pepper work, and grow out of some rare hot peppers for fresh seed. A few other odds and ends completed the list.
The Blue Jay dehybridization work consisted of two selections of Carolina Amethyst (cream to lavender to red bell), two of Fire Opal (cream to lavender to gold bell), two of Royal Purple (pale green to black purple to red bell), and one of White Gold (cream to yellow bell). I managed to get good results from all but Royal Purple, which never set fruit due to the disease issue.
Gemstone, one of my new ornamental hot peppers, worked out reasonably well, and I have a decent way forward on one I named Bouquet. All of these were significantly impacted by disease.
As for the odds and ends, Jamaican Hot Chocolate turned out red; I have seed saved from Carolina Reaper (from a cutting from my garden friend Brandon), Brown Moruga, Malu Miris and Padron. I had a very few ripe fruit from Trinidad Scorpion Butch T and Bhut Jokolia. Padron, Fish and Grandpa's Jalapeno did reasonably well. I've yet to get fruit from Tobago Seasoning, Ghost, or Seven Pot Brain Strain....the deer are nibbling the plants, so that may be the end of the story. My two attempts at a dehybridized Chocolate Bell provided nothing due to severe disease effects.
Below are various pepper images from the season. If I were a teacher and my pepper garden was a student, it would get no better than a C. The key mystery is the source of the bacterial spot infestation.
