Matt "plenty of water and fertilizer" What are you using for fertilizer? Down there I'd of thought that you would need to water a lot if plants were in containers. If you were using water soluble fertilizer: would you add the fertilizer once a week, or every time that you watered? How often do you need to water peppers in containers down there? I don't want to start another thread about stressing out peppers, but putting down a bed of "rock mulch will steady out the moisture in the soil" doesn't this seem as if it would dry them out faster? In that case you would be watering more and also fertilizing them too? Styx