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This is my first year growing chili peppers in pots. I would like to know if chili peppers blossom constantly during their fertile growing period, or do they blossom in "waves" all the time or sometimes?
My peppers were blossoming nicely, but they stopped recently. They have several blossoms now (mid Jun). Can I expect more blossoms during this summer?
Plants will generally blossom in fits and starts, not necessarily because of their type, per se, but more because the mechanisms that determine blossoming are reliant on quite a few factors. Think of things like temperature, watering schedule, soil fertility, potential pests, current fruit load, etc. Depending on how much these things vary, your blossoming and fruiting can vary as well.
That being said, I've not seen that my peppers are really any more variable or not than other plants like tomatoes or squash. The biggest factors for me have always been watering schedules and temperature. As more fruit is on, plants tend to want a bit more water and as temperatures go up the ground loses more moisture to evaporation. However, be careful about over watering. I tend to only fertilise at the start of a season and focus on keeping organic mulches going, so don't end up with much in that variable, other than possible tail off at the end of the season.
I would say you should almost definitely expect more blossoms this summer, unless your plants are highly stressed or you get a pest problem that basically kills the plants.
Peppers should bloom without stopping once they start until frost. When a pepper plant stops blooming, assuming it has been blooming before, isn't necessarily a sign of stress. As an example, I've seen pepper plants stop blooming after a heavy dose of nitrogen, but remain healthy. Sometimes, under close to ideal conditions, the plants don't put many resources toward reproduction.
Also, at times, slight stress will cause a surge of flowers, because the plant senses a possible near end to it's future. For example, around here (southeast Pennsylvania), pepper plants (and tomatoes) produce an unnaturally huge amount of fruit right before frost. Not because the plants liked near freezing temperatures, but because they naturally try to self replicate under those conditions.
Because you cannot control all of the factors in your garden, you should expect some fluctuations. This is normal. And you should expect flowers during most of the summer. They may drop in poor weather, but they should appear.
