Curled Leaves on the Peppers

My peppers have been growing well. Hard to tell in the images but all four plants are loaded with peppers. I've had to prop the Jimmy Nardellos up to prevent them from falling over. I don't know what I'm going to do with the Hot Wax peppers this year.

Something I noticed a while back was that all of the leaves are curling at the edges. I haven't figured out exactly what is causing this. There are no bugs on the plants which is a miracle. I think this is the first time I've grown peppers and not had problems with aphids. There are no spider mites to be seen anywhere on the balcony. It must be a nutrient deficiency but I'm not sure which one or why that would be a problem. There are no other signs of problems. No yellow or dead leaves. No problems with fruit set. Nothing. Perfectly healthy plants with.

The first Charentais melon

It was very windy last night and I lost a big branch from my brandywine tomato plant. And it had a couple of small green tomatoes on it so I wasn't overly happy to see that. But I was looking over the Charentais melon plants and was quite surprised to discover a new melon.

These plants have been growing well. A bit of powdery mildew but it hasn't completely taken over yet. The plants put out lots of male flowers and occasionally a few females. I've hand pollinated at least a half dozen female flowers and this is the first to produce. The flowers are quite small and the males don't appear to produce much pollen.

Bolting Fennel

I've tried growing Florence Fennel in the past without much luck. Florence Fennel is suppose to grow large and bulbous just above the soil surface. Light is a big problem for me and without proper sunlight, it grows tall and skinny, with nice tops and no bottom. I figured the only way I'd have any success with fennel would be to get it up above the balcony railing at the edge of the balcony. Lots of sunlight there But as usual, I was a bit lazy this year and before I knew it, the fennel had started to grow long and lanky before I finally got it up into an adequate amount of sunlight.

Once I got it up there, it was happy until I had to do some re-arranging to get more light to some other plants. The fennel, which I had pretty much given up on, got stuck down in a shady corner and I stopped watering it regularly. After a bit of hot weather, it started to bolt. One of the plants is just starting to produce flowers.

I may uproot these and try again although I think it's getting a little late in the season to be starting fennel from seed. On the other hand, growing it into the fall means I won't have the hot weather to deal with. But with tomatoes, peppers and melons demanding all of my sunny spots, I'm not sure I can give any fennel plants the sunlight they desire.

Trellis for the Melons

I was going to construct a bigger trellis for the Charentais melons, but instead decided to just use what I had lying around. The vines were getting long and really needed to get up into the sunlight. The upright poles are over 6 ft so I can still add a few horizontal polls. By the end of next month I should have a wall of vines growing from these two plants. I think each plant has 5 or 6 secondary vines and I'm going to start pinching them back, limiting each plant to two or three vines. I'm starting to see male flowers. No females yet.