Gosh Richard, you offered nothing more than a put down. I feel duty bound to enter this into the record and to also suggest the effects of acid rain may have made things a little worse for us here on the east coast.
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Sorry, nothing personal intended. And you know, a lot of rain can lead to rust!
You are spot on. It’s the high rainfall over thousands of yrs that washes many nutrients out of your soils. That’s the reason most western, dry-climate soils are higher in Ca, K, and some other nutrients than Eastern US soils.
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I don’t believe so.
I find the discussion a little ironic as I’m always acidifying my soils. This year I planted some onions around a new blueberry planting. I had room as the blueberry was small. And to my surprise these onions are twice as big as the rest. Only difference is the 5.5 pH soil. So here calcium also is not a problem, too much of it is though, and so I use iron and sulfur in all my gardens to reduce pH. I water with tap water so I’m adding calcium every time I water. Everything makes the pH go up, so I actively knock it back down. I find the pH of 6-6.5 just about perfect for plants, and try to keep it there.
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So what is your explanation?
The pH lowers too. Western Michigan has a low pH even though the sand used to be basic from the deposit of shelled animals (MI was under the ocean at the equator at one time). Anyway the rains drained all the calcium. I found a couple fossils last weekend on the shore at my cottage. Small shelled creatures. Here in southeastern Michigan the soil is clay, not sand, and has a pH of about 6.5. Some red clays are acidic, this is a gray or yellow clay. Both are around.
Yes rainfall leaches out the Ca and Mg and that lowers soil pH. That’s why many Eastern soils require additions of limestone to maintain a suitable pH while many western soils are 1, 10, 20, or even 90% calcium carbonate. Those high carbonate soils would require tons of sulfur or heavy rainfall for thousands of yrs to drop pH into the acidic range.
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this is my favorite pepper for stir fly，very thing wall， strong hot pepper smell but taste not very hot, just a little hot spicy for some one who loves pepper but can’t take the heat
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After having relatively mediocre results over the 3 growing seasons on the farm, I am going to get soil samples this year after the growing season ends. I’ve been reluctant to use fertilizers on a large scale, but I also hate not getting good results. I would like to keep it as natural as possible, but I think I can find an acceptable compromise.
I did, however, fertilize my pepper plants yesterday after rescuing them from the weeds, so hopefully we’ll get a decent crop of those.
As I’ve mentioned before, dependent on the soil test results, I think I would like to try a cover crop this year, something like a legume-type crop, such as a clover of some sort. I’m pretty sure the soil is N deficient, and the clover would help. And, perhaps some lime of some type.
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I think you’ll only find one kind, ag limestone. The quarries usually have their own trucks that spread it at several tons per acre dependent on soil test results. In Illinois we spread it before planting alfalfa since it is the crop most dependent on a reasonable pH and high calcium levels. Our rotation was something like oats with alfalfa interseeded, 3-4yrs alfalfa, corn, soybeans.
@subdood_ky_z6b you may want to get the results of those soil tests prior to putting anything down. Limestone especially. Ag lime can vary greatly in the amount of Mg it contains, from near none to 30% or more. It can make quite a difference depending on what your soil needs. Clay type soils generally already have an excess of Mg, while sandy soils usually can use more Mg to help bind them.
I don’t recall if you’ve told us what your soil type is, but if it is at all clay-ey, then I’d be very cautious about putting down more Mg of any type. Excess Mg can be quite hard to correct,
Ag limestone usually states % Mg on the bag (at least they do here). I typically buy Hi Calcium limestone with little to no Mg. It is available here, but clay soils are the norm around here (not at my place though).
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Yes, I’ll wait for the soil tests before I add anything, but like I said, I’m pretty sure we are N and Ca deficient. I’ll keep that in mind about the Ag lime
Our soil is neither heavy in clay or sand, a nice loamy type. But, this consistency varies from plot to plot, as does the amount of rocks in the soil, even though that doesn’t really affect the nutrient levels. There does seem to be clay-ish layer about a foot deep.
Thanks Steve. You said “In Illinois…”, but your profile says Alpine, TX. When didya move to Texas? I bet it was quite a culture (or should I say climate) shock for you. Same for me since we moved from N Texas to here…
I moved to TX in 1971. But was involved in ag in Illinois for 20 yrs prior to that. We had a limestone quarry right next to our property back then. Later they bought some of our land to expand the quarry.
Oh Annie, tell us the variety name please. 
For an early, very short season sweet non bell pepper I really like Red Belgium. Even in my short season climate I always get red peppers. It’s a yellow turning red, open pollinated variety, fairly small plants. I’ve tried a lot of short season varieties over the years and this is the earliest and most reliable.
The seeds were given by a friend ，I really don’t know the name，but only know it tasted very good.
Is it thick-walled? How is the taste?
@Drew51, I made the picture of the seed packet with Costa Rican pepper. I saw that it was sold in many stores in our area. They say that it has exceptionally sweet fruits, but it is not, because the flavor was somewhat worse than the other peppers that I grow. It is still very good pepper to grow.
The trick that I learned through my experience to grow productive peppers and some other veggies like eggplants and tomatillos(but not tomatoes) is that you need to feed them well through May and June months, so they will grow enough green mass to set the good harvest later.
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