Growing peppers next to my tomatoes..... TINY pepper plants

[Gardener123]

So, ALL of my plants are in raised beds.....

My tomato plants are HUGE, with tons of unripe tomatoes, and my pepper plants are still small - about 1/2 the size I normally have by now. They are planted in the same beds. I planted everything with worm castings in mid May. I am about to do my first feeding. The pepper plants don't have any pods on them, with the exception of one plant.

Am I missing an important food for the peppers? This is year 2 of a fresh soil / compost mix.

[applestar]

Tomatoes are bullies -- they grow fast and send out densely matted network of roots. Peppers on the other hand take longer to grow a measly root system, then only send out exploratory feeder roots in several directions.

So it's entirely possible that the tomatoes have scavenged every bit of available nutrients and moisture.

Pepper's are well behaved and play well with each other when planted in their own bed though.

[KitchenGardener]

Best quote of the day: "Tomatoes are bullies"!

[imafan26]

Peppers grow slow in the beginning and they need the light. Tomatoes are bullies, they hog the nutrients as well as the light. I keep tomatoes, one to a pot by themselves, but I do make them share a 10 ft trellis. I wrap the trellis around the end pots so they form their own cages. The one in the middle gets the space between them.

Peppers need light and are moderate feeders. I keep them in pots because I can move them around since they need more space as they get bigger and they can last more than a year.