Hello,
Have a bit of bad news dealing with the leaves of my Cayenne and Jalapeno peppers. As you can see from the photo the leaves are in a bit of bad shape. Any idea what this is and how I can fix/prevent this. My fear is I might have over watered...Each plant has it, some more widespread than others.
Thanks for the input
that's leaf miners, a larva that live and eat the tissue of the plants. Try to catch them early and cut off the leaf, always use a clean knife and dispose of the clipping away from the garden or you can spray with spinosad or plant something near as a trap crop.
Wow, that's a bad infestation. It seems really early too, doesn't it? I would recommend you drench the soil also.
Aww, thats really bad news. The infestation is widespread. All 5 of my peppers, about 90% of the leaves had to be removed. Would yall recommend pulling them out and starting over?
did you start your own seeds or purchase these plants?
I don't know about Lisa, but I would.
I have to agree with araness. If you can, yank them. Are they on any of your other types of plants, and,like she ask, are they store bought transplants or did you start them?
Im asking so many questions because, Im not sure what their life cycle is but I know they can fly in and by the time they are that bad I would think they are in the soil too. So you need to get them under control before you plant anything else. You may want to google them or go to DGs bug files to see the recommendations. It seems really early in the year....but Im not sure.
unless they were in the soil to start with I would feel they came with the plants. I've never had that many this early in the season, nor on a plant that wasn't purchased. I got a tomato a few years ago from HD that looked like that after a few weeks...ohh the names it got called for bringing them into my garden.
I guess that's what I mean, IF the plants were purchased the miners were probably in the soil too in the pot from the store. I'll have to check out their life cycle, I had a really bad problem with them on some "greens" I grew last fall for a Market order. I've never really seen them until then so either they came in the organic potting soil I purchased or they flew in. It was Oct. I believe, and at that time I thought it was really late in the season, but it was still really hot. Labor Day it was 113*.
I do remember that I kept removing the infested leaves everyday and eventually they died off as it cooled down. But Swiss Chard and such put on new leaves continuously, not like peppers. If they are that bad this early, it's not going to get better. I'm not even sure what product to use against them.
Thanks for the replies everyone.
I bought them from the store about 2 months ago. As for the soil I used several bags of soil from the store. Living on a island so I used 100% bought soil. Native soil here has trouble growing weeds...
as I said early you might want to try a product that contains spinosad I really don't know of much else other than the leaf picking method or growing something they like to infest equally or more than the veggies.
Since they are store bought transplants and the miners are only on the peppers I bet the pupa came in the soil the peppers were in when you bought the peppers.
It's a total pain when you do all you can to keep these kinds of infestations out of your veggie garden, only to bring them home in a store-bought vessel. I stopped buying veggie plants from my local Big Box stores awhile back. Every time I brought something home, I ended up with a mealybug or spider mite infestation. And, I later found out, these crafty creatures just LOVE to hide out in the soil.
If I ever bring anything home these days, it sits in quarantine for awhile before it gets to play in my garden. I dunk the WHOLE plant, pot, soil and all, in a bucket of soapy water before it goes into quarantine, to stir up whatever might be lurking beneath the surface. At least I can see it happening in the hospital area, first.
Linda
hmmm i discovered yesterday i have them on one of my lima bean plants.
