Garden Pests and Diseases: Hard one for you., 1 by at1a5

at1a5 wrote:
Okay all you experts out there. I have a hard one for you. I love growing herbs in our kitchen here and over the last month or so, most of them have been killed off. What kills them is unknown and new too me. Deterioration comes quickly and suddenly with out warning. I'm including a pic of a basil that has been "infected." One day it was perfectly fine, then two days later it looked like this. I know it might look like it needs watering, but the watering has been just fine.

Here's the best description I can give you.

Both the branches and leaves are covered with black dots. On closer inspection they don't look bumpy, but rather flush/flat with the plant. And they are thick in terms of how many there are "per square centimeter" On the leaves, along with the black small dots, you see white splotches. These as well seem to be flush/flat with leaf and show no bumpiness to them. As funny as it sounds, it looks as if someone took salt and pepper shakers to my plants. The black dots have the appearance of vanilla seeds. Very very tiny. The white splotches are a bigger and vary in size more.

Let's see, what else can I tell you about them.... Maybe what would be best is for you to ask me additional questions that might help you in helping me figure this out. Sadly, the only plant I have left over (before my DS threw everything out) is a small Dill plant which I grew from seed and hasn't really taken off any ways. I'll try and get some pictures from that, but hey....it is Dill which is not exactly very leafy.

Thanks for your thoughts.