I have seen several you tube videos recently that say that, yes, while tomatoes and peppers are WARM weather crops, they are not HOT weather crops.
The recommendation now is during the hottest part of summer, to use shade cloth.
I’m learning a bunch about container gardening and am more comfortable with trying it next year because I have done OK some summers with peppers, never a great crop. We just don’t have the growing season length for them.
Yes, we are Zone 7a, so, definitely not “Deep South”, but it seems to get too hot for many plants like tomatoes and many types of peppers, in our summers, anyway. That’s likely why I’m having some success in the old spots on the north side of the house that we used to use for impatiens and so on.
Heatwave II tomatoes have done well for us, out in the garden, but, they are very bland tasting. :-(
I just walked out to check the garden and the peppers, including the Serrano Peppers, are so far “ok”. A few tomato plants in pots were beginning to wilt, so, I gave most everything in pots a good watering.
I also discovered a Colorado potato beetle laying eggs on one of those Ichiban Eggplants that has been doing well. More eggs were on those 2 struggling Opo plants’ leaves. I turned the Colorado Beetle into a “squash(ed) beetle”, rubbed off what eggs I could find, and gave everything potentially vulnerable a good spraying with Sevin.