So, first of all, I'm new here. I've tried to grow a few herbs and other plants in the past but I've never had much of a green thumb. I was determined this year to actually succeed with some herbs, tomatoes, and peppers though and so far, it's gone fairly well (especially the herbs and my peppers and tomatoes I started from seeds)...however I have a few issues.
This has been a very strange summer in Northern Ohio (I think most anyone in the East knows what I mean). It's been very cool for us (we've had quite a few days where the high hasn't even made it out of the 70s - we're usually in the mid 80s almost all the time) and, at least in our little neck of the woods, it's also been very dry. Since I'm growing in containers though, it's not too hard to keep things watered. That gets me to one of my issues.
Here's a picture of part of my garden.
[img]https://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e7/mozart4898/SIMG0004.jpg[/img]
The first issue is the tomato pot in the front. As you can see it looks like it's got one foot in the grave, although it's still producing tomatoes (there are romas and grape tomatoes both in there...probably should be separated but that mistake was long ago made). You can see the water bottle in the left side of the pot - it has holes poked in the bottom and I fill it pretty much daily in addition to misting the soil from time to time to keep the soil from drying out (it does so pretty quickly actually). The first few roma tomatoes I got off the plant had blossom end rot (as I've found it's called), which was probably because of how badly the plant was drying before I'd get it watered again, back over a month ago. That issue seems to be gone now but the plant still looks awful. There's a pot behind the tomato one with peppers in it and those wilt as bad if not worse than the tomatoes do, but again, they've been growing fairly well too. Is there anything I can do to "spruce" these up a bit and help them out? Or is it because (as my mom thinks) it's just getting too hot on the deck where they are? They get full sun nearly all day but like I said, it hasn't even been that hot this summer - temperatures haven't passed 90 more than about 3 times this summer and it's mostly been a lot cooler than that. (I will admit the deck is probably up to 10 degrees hotter most days, but still, that makes it 80 to 95 most days - shouldn't be too hot for tomatoes or especially peppers, should it?)
Also, one other issue that I'm wondering about. I have poblano peppers growing and there's two that looks VERY nice - but I want them to ripen fully and I'm not sure if they are or not. I've read they'll turn dark red or almost black, and mine are still a nice deep green (I've never seen one in a store that was anything but this color, so I have nothing to go by).
[img]https://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e7/mozart4898/SIMG0005.jpg[/img]
Do some particular poblanos just never quite get to that dark color that I've read about when they're fully ripe? (The tag from the store said "Poblano - Ancho." I know an ancho is a dried poblano, but I wondered if perhaps there are specific hybrids of poblanos and "ancho" actually means something as far as that too.) There are only two on at this point and for some reason I'm not seeing more coming on yet (I've had blossoms but most have fallen off...maybe something to do with the wilting?) so I don't want to just pick one and see, lol.
I find it odd that my issues are all with plants that I bought, not ones I started from seed. My other peppers and tomatoes started from seed, while not as far along in terms of growth, look very healthy and I have tomatoes coming on and tons of flowers on those peppers too...
Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me. It's amazing my garden has come this far since I've proved in the past I'm very good at killing plants but not so good at keeping them alive!