Can anyone tell me pls why all my pepper and chilli plants have floweres but no fruit ?

[fakeblonde]

I have about 30 of them with lots of flowers and as yet only one potential fruit ?
Should i be doing anything else ?
Cheers x

the fruits come when the flowers die off, are your flowers dying with no fruits?

Hi Clare.Thans for reply.
Yes flowers seem to open beautifully and then turn brown and drop off.

if they are indoors (or even outdoors I suppose) there won't be enough insects to pollinate them - get a paintbrush and dab pollen from flower to flower

Thanks will try that

You have 30 plants? Blimey I had 3 last year and had chillis coming out of our ears

The paintbrush idea is your best bet. I also tap mine like you do with tomatoes, not sure if it helps or not but it is habit now!

I had over 100 but gave the rest away.
A couple of packets of seeds and they ALL took and i couldn`t bare to chuck any so planted on even the weakest ones and they ALL thrived !

Can you describe the tapping technique please?

And re. paintbrush - is this when the flowers are open? You swizz around inside each flower with a paintbrush?

Also (sorry to hijack your thread fakeblonde) are you supposed to snap off side shoots or anything? Mine keep bifurcating.

yes when flowers are open

you shouldn't even need to swizz too hard - just dab to take pollen off the stamens and then dab on to the stigma of the next flower

Thanks MrsB. You do seem to know a tremendous lot about everything.

I tap the canes of the tomatoes and kind of ruffle the chillis and peppers. They are in a greenhouse so not as many insects to pollenate. The theory is that the movement throws pollen into the air that then pollenates the nearby flowers. As I said, meant for toms but I do the whole lot, it doesn't seem to hurt at all.

Thanks also callme. My tomatoes don't seem to have had any trouble pollinating at all, but no luck with the peppers (both are in my conservatory).

While I've got you here, do you have to do the pollination shuffle with aubergines to? (I'm growing my own ratatouille.)

I don't grow them, DP hates the things and even I could not manage them all

It can't hurt to try although the paintbrush should be more reliable I know it works with Courgettes.

Yes, I'm not sure quite what I'll do if I end up with umpteen million aubergines.

I'll give it a go. Thanks.

my courgette plant is not fruiting. stupid thing. it is outdoors and i am starting to think it has gone male. it did have a couple of tiny courgs a few weeks ago but then no sun so they didn't grow.

One of mine did that fishie. Do they actually change from female to male?

Oh I'm going to have to try this too. I have chllis peppers and habeneros growing but my jalepenos aren't producing fruits.

i don't know but i am very cross with it and have tried pollinating it myself with fingers (i am not as dainty as mrsb and do not bother with paintbrushes).

it shares a container with a round yellow courg which produces fruit but it doesn't grow. not enough sun?

fishie - I had five to start with. Four have been fine but one was a complete dud. I didn't do the pollinating thing with it though (as the others were fine so it didn't occur to me). It carked it in the end and went into the compost.

I'm in the south-east and the weather has been OK down here, so maybe it is the sun? Or maybe you've just got a lazy-arse courgette plant on your hands.

Wow, i learn so much from mn :-) so, does that mean that each individual flower needs to be pollenated to produce a fruit? My tomatoes and chilli are outside, they have seen some bee action, and i have a couple of fruits coming through on one of the tomato plants, and a fruit on the chilli plant. If i do the paintbrush thing on the flowers, will i get more fruits?

thats intersting about the courgettes, last year i definately had plants that were both male and female as i had flowers only and courgettes on the same plant. This year i am getting loads of courgettes and no flowers only. Weird.

courgettes are weirdy and have male and female flowers - only females will set fruit. Depends on the strain though as soe have been bred to be all female for better cropping.

ClairVoiant, again it's strain dependent but usually only a flower that has been pollinated will set fruit.
Paintbrush action will improve your yield or, for plants with lots of flowers, ruffling / tapping as Callmeovercautious suggests.

Ooo, thanks mrsbadger :-) shall get a paintbrush out when i get home. The tomatoes are tumbling tom's, not sure about the chilli. Definately only got fruits setting on one tom though atm. Should i be feeding them now too? And does tomatorite go off? Mine is quite old.

I would say feed them, the tomatorite you have wont do any harm but it may have lost some of its nutrients, its not so expensive to buy some more. I think you are supposed to start feeding once the second truss has set??? Not sure though, total gardening novice