pepper update, Monday 7/11/16

twelve peppers, Monday, 11 July 2016



the pepper with fusarium wilt, last week



the pepper with fusarium wilt, this week



these leaves are growing in really weird...



which I am inclined to blame on the Bonide Repels-All (center bottle)


I applied fungicide (technically a 3-in-1 fungicide, miticide, and insecticide mix) to the soil around all the seedlings, but most particularly to the one with fusarium wilt. I wasn't expecting very much, but not only has that plant managed NOT to die, it seems to maybe even be recovering slightly? At any rate, its leaves aren't limp anymore -- though whether that's a permanent change or merely a temporary blip caused by yesterday's lovely and very welcome hours of morning rain, who can say.

As you can see, I have staked all of the peppers except the possibly-dying one and the second-smallest plant (on the far right). This is because of the aforementioned rain, which was heavy enough that all the other plants tipped sideways. Whoops. So I gave them a little support before rushing off to church.

This year I'm not seeing any problems with the sort of translucent papery wilt that has affected some leaves in prior years, but I am seeing at least one instance of weirdly crinkled leaves at the growing tip of a plant. I think this is some kind of adverse reaction to chemical sprays (which is why I made sure to only aim the fungicide at the soil), and given that I've had to reapply anti-squirrel measures every week, I'm inclined to place blame on the Bonide Repels-All...

Which I will hopefully no longer be using! I did get out to Home Depot when my parents visited last week, and while I couldn't find any Ortho brand anti-squirrel sprays (either they're not making the product anymore or Home Depot was sold out), I did find essentially the same compound in granule form, and I have duly sprinkled the stuff around the base of the mulberry tree and each support post for my back porch. With any luck, that will keep squirrels from getting onto my porch in the first place and I won't have to keep spraying the floorboards themselves. *crosses fingers*

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