I have finally figured out my pepper and eggplant disaster.  I bought a soil test kit from my favorite garden store and tried it out tonight.  pH is 6.5 (perfect), but Potash and Phosporus are only adequate.  The real shocker is that the dirt is completely devoid of nitrogen.  I did the test twice I was so surprised. 

Our garden had to have 20+ cubic yards of dirt imported in order to level the terraces, and we bought "garden dirt."  This stuff looked and smelled just like you would expect dirt to smell.  It was deep black, had tons of organic matter, crumbled like cake.  But apparently had no nitrogen.  WTF, mate. 

As frustrating as it is, I'm so happy to finally have an answer.  A fixable answer.  I hope I can fix it in time to rescue the peppers!  As insurance, I'm going to buy and pot a bunch, just so I can have peppers in case the front yard doesn't pan out this season!