Chillies stopped growing weeks ago...

[jxm]

My chillies where doing great in all that sunshine a month or so back, but since then they have stopped growing. There are various sizes which are just not ripening OR growing, they're just sat there. At the same time new ones are starting to grow but are ripening in a few days even though they are less than 1cm in size!

What do I do now? they are getting plenty of water, had some plant food last week, room is 18c or so...

[Nicos]

Bit more light perhaps??- as it has certainly become duller recently with all this rain.
Am not an expert, but it's my initial thought

[jxm]

they are on a window ledge in the conservatory, and get sun (or at least light) for a lot of the day...

[yoanbob]

try bannana skins like you do for toms, works with my normal peppers.

[dexterdoglancashire]

banana skins?????? dexterdog

[JazzDuke]

Bananas give off some ethylene which helps ripen fruit

[yoanbob]

see i'm not bonkers! thanks for the science bit jazz.

[jxm]

I don't want them to ripen, I want them to grow! the 'biggest' one is only about 3cm long! And the new ones that are ripening are the size of a large pea...

[yoanbob]

what kind are they? they could be naturally small, i'm sure they'll taste lovley.

[Nicos]

They do come in different sizes...from pea size unpards.
Was there a picture of what they look like on the packet?

I think to be honest, the growing season for peppers is coming to an end soon ( not that I know much about them) so maybe you should be chuffed with whatever you get this year , and then look after it over winter indoors and maybe you will be better rewarded next year?.

[jxm]

They're F1 "Super" Fresco and they're supposed to look like this -



The biggest one actually looks like this (and has done for many weeks now) -



On this one you can see its size and a few of the tiny red ones -



So can I still eat the tiny ones?

maybe you should be chuffed with whatever you get this year

I was chuffed, they were sprouting out all over the place and growing rapidly, I thought I was in for a bumper harvest - then they all just stopped growing...

[Nicos]

Sorry....just had a good chuckle!!!
That's the sort of luck I have!!

I would certainly eat the red one (bless it! - it's tried it's hardest!). I should think you could eat the green ones too , but it might be worth hanging on for a few more days as it looks like we are in for a few more hot sunny days which might just tip the balance.

[jxm]

I'm also having the same problem with apples and plums. My golden delicious tree is weighed down, but again they seem to have stopped growing (and are only half the size of a proper GD. And ditto for the plums - there was loads of them, grew fast for a while then stopped. then stayed like that for ages, and now ripening but half the size you would expect... maybe it's just the weather...

[Nicos]

Agree - could be shortage of water for the trees.
Did you thin out the fruit on the trees? That would have made them grow bigger.
I have a small orchard ( sounds cool eh??? ) 20ftx20ft -and it's the second year the trees have fruited, so I am a novice clearly.
I did however pull off about 1/4 of the crop a few weeks ago -just as the books say (and boy was that hard to do!!)
Now I'm glad I did because in the past 2 weeks the fruit is suddenly getting huge. Maybe that would have helped ??

[jxm]

just as the books say

when do they say to do that? and how? which ones? I assume an even spread across the tree?

Agree - could be shortage of water for the trees

Well they grew well in all that hot weather when there was no rain... (but I watered them well with recyled rain water)... now it's p*****g it down they've stopped...