pepper update, Tuesday 7/5/16

twelve peppers, Monday, 4 July 2016



the smallest pepper, probably dying



that funny leaf patch, now more obviously not-quite-right



another leaf with issues


Last week I mentioned that one pepper was clearly smaller and growing more slowly than its fellows. Well, it just got worse and worse through the week, and then -- adding insult to injury -- got uprooted by a squirrel early Monday morning.

(Let me tell you about these squirrels. So there's an evil mulberry tree bang up against the post of my back porch, right? Which means a good half of its branches are growing right toward the house. I clip the ones I can reach, but I'm short and so is my stepladder, and I only have hand-clippers rather than a proper extendable tree-hook thingy, so my area of control is limited. There are several branches that grow right up against my upstairs neighbors' windows.

And two days ago, some enterprising squirrels investigated one of those windows, discovered its screen had a hole, wriggled through, and were gleefully tearing up the kitchen when my neighbors got home. Upstairs Neighbor E complained to Landlord Dude -- as she damn well should! -- but who knows when he'll get around to doing anything. I wish to god he'd just admit he can't handle all the necessary repairs himself and hire contractors, but apparently pigs will fly before that day comes. *headdesk*)

But back to the peppers. When I righted the poor seedling and packed dirt back around it, I noticed its stem had a funny weak/brown section perhaps a quarter centimeter long, suggesting that it's doing poorly because the roots and leaves are barely able to send energy and/or nutrients to each other. I have no idea how to fix that, or if it even IS fixable, so I'm just going to water that pepper along with the others and expect it to die. :(

There continue to be some minor leaf irregularities. I have not sprayed insecticide, so I think this may be a reaction to the (obviously completely ineffective) anti-squirrel spray. Yet another reason Bonide Repels-All sucks!

[[original Tumblr post, for when the embedded images inevitably break]]

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ETA: madamehardy informs me: The symptoms you describe – a browning stem, withering leaves, and stunted growth – sound exactly like fusarium wilt, a.k.a. "damping off". It's a fungus that hits anything in the nightshade family (potato, tomato, eggplant, pepper) and is viciously destructive of basil. I've given up trying to start basil from seeds. You can, of course, use fungicide.

For tomatoes, your best bet is to look for varieties that are labeled as fusarium resistant. Tomatoes will generally be labeled something like VFN or VFNT in the variety name: that means they're resistant to the fungi verticillium, fusarium, nematodes, tobacco mosaic virus: it's a long list. Alas, there's nothing similar for peppers because no resistant varieties have been discovered

Tl;dr: Damping off sucks. It's not really under your control; you just throw away the plant (NOT in the compost) and move on.