Deformed Bell Pepper... Help!!?

fiffy · Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:30 pm

I'm planting yellow bell pepper. They are now about 1 -2 feet tall and already bear many bell peppers. Overall the plants look healthy, but some bell peppers are weird looking, kinda deform. Basically it has extra piece forming between bell pepper's calyx and shoulder. I'm not sure what is causing it, should I remove the deform bell peppers from the plant?

opabinia51 · Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:59 pm

Congratulations! You've discovered the wonderful joy of growing plants. Those uniform things you find in the supermarkets are all the same partly because they are grown hydroponically for aesthetic looks not flavour and uniqueness. They are also highly inbred and have very little flavour compared to something grown in a vibrant soil that is organic in nature.

So, don't be upset, be excited!

fiffy · Thu Apr 24, 2008 4:24 am

[img]https://72.52.128.253/%7Epetersik/Angela/DSCN1294.JPG[/img]
[img]https://72.52.128.253/%7Epetersik/Angela/DSCN1291.JPG[/img]
These are the pictures of my yellow bell pepper, they are not mature yet so the color is still green. But I'm a bit concern about the weird looking shape. Is this normal?? Or should I cut the weird looking ones from the plant?

doccat5 · Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:10 am

opabinia51 is absolutely right. Growing your own will give you results like this sometimes. Your peppers look great!! Nice and healthy and looks like you're going to have a bumper crop!! Good job!

opabinia51 · Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:10 am

Yah, they look wonderful! These are the joys of growing your own fruit and vegetables. Let us know how they taste!

amandaraejacobson · Fri Dec 13, 2013 3:05 pm

The main cause for deformed peppers is poor pollination. When the flowers formed they were not fully or evenly pollinated so they will be lopsided. There is nothing wrong with eating these peppers and they won't hurt the plant, they just don't look aesthetically pleasing and they won't be as big as they would if they were properly pollinated. To fix this you can manually pollinate your pepper flowers. All you have to do is take a small paintbrush and lightly swirl it inside the flower covering around the entire anthers and pistil. Another possibility for deformed peppers is if they were subjected to under about 57degrees F (14C) for a any length of time longer than about a day.

Don't forget to prune your pepper plants to increase your fruit size!
Here is a very helpful website with diagrams on proper pruning and a bunch of other info.
https://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department ... ll/opp4523

Good Luck!