I'm not sure you can make an antelope vine... Ok, it was a funny typo! I'm not sure about the melon, I've never done that. I think you just tie the vine on with plant ties as it grows. Your pepper sure doesn't look good. I don't know if it will bounce back from that. It looks like may have sat in too much water for too long- roots die and then fungi attack. Peppers are known to hate having "wet feet". Definitely don't water it for a while. Next year, put those drainage holes in, they do help prevent that problem. But also get to know by how the pot feels whether or not it needs water, heavy needs no water, light needs water stat. Trying to judge by eye, or number of days, is less accurate.

Pick the peppers off of it and then let the pepper plant dry out for a while. It might recover but it might not. It looks pretty bad. All containers need drainage holes.

As sunnibel said, just tie the vines to where you want them and eventually the plant will get the message and start climbing.

Rodney

Peppers don't like a lot of water. I've found, occasional deep watering after the plant has just started wilting or,as stated above, checking the weight of the pot to work the best. I've read peppers need to be a little bit stressed, especially early on, to develop a good root system but not sure of that goes for container planting

Thank you for the info....
Lol yea gotta love auto correct!
Ok so Here's the thing, I planted these peppers just 2 days after the one In The bucket, into the ground. All started indoors by seed, all about the same size at transplant. Now I have the Anaheim in the bucket, without drainage holes, only pebbles, for about 7 weeks now. As you can see, the Anaheim in the buckets has does amazing compared to those in the ground. I've had no issues with drainage this far and I live in the Chicago area!
Because I am a beginner with this I spend at least an hour DAILY in my garden every single morning checking every little inch for signs of anything. And I also come out to just look at it because I truely enjoy the satisfaction of knowing not only did I grow all of it myself from seed, but I weeded, dug, filled, designed, planned and built it all by myself so I notice a problem immediately!
Now how long would too long be? I was in my garden all day Saturday, the pepper plant was full, luscious and just blooming beautifully. I was out sat after dark checking around for bugs as I see to have a problem with something attacking my broccoli and cauliflower, it was fine. I came out early Sunday morning to do my waterin and check and it was like that!
I immediately tipped it to drain out some standing water and even added in some compost to try and soak some up. I left it be and then Monday morning when I came out and it was still like that I drilled the drainage holes. Now here we are Wednesday morning and the top 2-3 of soil appear a dry with a some moisture still but a good level of moisture, I think and the plant is still looking like that.
I'm just baffled at how I can have such good growth with no drain holes, like I said I live in Chicago so rain is not at. A loss here, and have had no probs this far. It's actuLly the only pepper plant fruiting at this time so is there anything else that could cause it to do this? I just really want to explore any and all possibilities.
When I first got everything planted I think I under watered and when the plants went limp I watered and without hours they perked back up so this had just got me baffled.
Also, they all pretty much got 'stressed' it in early growing. It tool a while to warm up here so I got a late start on prepping the area and being that I did it alone it took a lot longer than intended so they were in their growing pits much longer then they should have been but all seem to have benefited from that and doing well.
Anyway sorry for the rambling, I feel like I'm losing a child here and really need some good advice so I don't lose my best child lol
Oh, should I pick off all the fruit, even the not fully crown ones or just the bigger almost ready to come off ones?

Here is a link that might be useful: GardenWeb

The Other pic that did not post

Here is a link that might be useful: GardenWeb

Ok, the size difference with your peppers is likely due to a difference in heat. The bucket on has soil that warmed faster, so it put on a good spurt of earlier growth than the ones in the ground. Why did the watering issue go from fine to death overnight? I think you were probably flirting around the edge of disaster for a while, then just hit the critical point. The fact that there was any standing water at all is pretty telling. Standing water in any pot is a no-no for any plant that doesn't naturally live in a pond or bog.

Also, I think you are asking how can the plants have droopy leaves from both underwatering and overwatering. Well, plant leaves get their rigidity by being pumped full of water. When they don't have enough, they go limp, pretty straightforward. The thing is when they get overwatered, the roots die. The roots are where the water comes into the plant, so without enough roots to do the job, the top needs more water than the remaining roots can supply, and voila, droopy. Hope this helps.