GROAN!!!!!

OK, decided to spray for bugs on my maters and taters and eggplants yesterday, went through 3 gallons of spray, wore goggles and mask and sprayed all the undersides of leaves, was pleased. Today, here comes the rain, why does it have to rain everytime I spray????? Especially now, that the oil spill has ruined our beautiful gulf of mexico? And the hits just keep on coming folks, here is this weeks weather forecast:
Tonight Thunderstorms 67 degree average temp
Sat WIND see that, WIND, no spray weather right?
Sun, WIND, see that, no spray weather right?
Mon, scattered thunderstorms all day long
Tues, much of the same as Monday
Weds, cloudy AM/ Sunny PM (supposedly right, weatherman doesn't always get this right either)
Thurs, partly cloudy
Fri, partly cloudy
sat scattered thunderstorms all day long
Sun what do you know it's supposed to be sunny.

GROAN
joy

Well Joy, only positive I can think of is that maybe the
bugs will be blown over to your neighbors yard & leave
your plants alone.

Gosh Joy, sounds like So. Cal., only warmer! Oh ya, you actually get the rain...all we get is promises. Our night time temps have been in the 40s so the bugs aren't bad yet.

I should have pulled some weeds and mowed the back yard, think that is what is drawing them so badly. My poor maters.
joy

Speaking of bugs. I found a new one today. First time I have encountered Scale bugs(at least I think that's what they are). Weird looking little guys. Kinda fun to squish lol They took up residence on one of my peppers that survived the winter. No wonder a part of the plant looked sickly, while the other branches have new growth and almost 5 feet now.

Ray_Der_phan, I believe those are 'cottony cushion scale' on your peppers. The white part is the egg sacks. I have never seen them until last year, when I got them on some of my roses. Time to get out the big guns!

Thank you Carol! So the white is eggs? Yikes! I thought it was their poop. Sounds like they are relatively new in these parts since neither of us have encountered them until recently. From reading, spraying doesn't do much good. Looks like it's squishing time for the whole lot of them. Either that, or I'm just gonna chop down the plant. It's too close to some of my tomato plants and I probably shouldn't risk an infestation.

I would definately get rid of that pepper! I sprayed my roses with everything that wouldn't kill the cats, and picked them off all last summer, but I found them on a couple of other plants as well. This year I said to heck with it and used Bayer 3 in one on my roses. so far, so good, but it is early (and cold) yet.

I inspected every inch of it and only found 2 more scale bugs. Seemed like they were just in one area. I sprayed the heck out of it and moved it to the front yard. Will inspect it tomorrow again. If I find one of them bugs, it's getting trashed. Too bad, because it was such an interesting pepper plant. Haven't ever grown one that reached 5 ft. before. Maybe I'll just douse it with a systemic insecticide and plant it in the front as an ornamental. Good idea or bad? Thanks again Carol.

Ray: systemic is poisonous so I wouldn't eat anything off it if you use that, I use that when I get desperate with my canna lilies. My lawn gets trimmed and the weeds are outta here today, cause it's gonna rain again tomorrow. Once it is done with the thunderstorming we are privy to lately here, I will spray again and hope I don't have to resort to melathian. I've lost 3 maters and might lose a 4th one.
joy

Joy, all sprays are poisonous, systemic or not. Some are just less poisonous than others. Main reason I manually remove bugs. Squish, squish, squish :)

Will be an ornamental, not for eating.

If you're that fond of the plant, I would just continue inspecting and spraying it. If you remove the branch you found them on, maybe you'll get all the eggs too.