Hello all
I’m newish to gardening in-ground, and have large vigorous pepper (mostly sweet bell paprika) and tomato (normal large type) patches. I’ve spent a lot of time on them, and they’re doing really well. Both are loaded with flowers and green fruit that’s about to mature. As is normal, it’s very hot and wet now.
I’m a bit concerned. There are a LOT of bugs in the garden. So many types, coming in waves, good and bad, I can’t keep track of them all. Literally overnight, about half of my more mature bitter peppers and ALL my jalapeños had holes in them, and I noticed new beatles eating them. Earlier, some of my unripe tomatoes had large bug holes drilled in them, not sure by what.
I’ve seen beatles, snails, slugs, and stink bugs so far damaging plants.
Additional, all the peppers have a bit of rot on the lowest leaves, but the weaker plants get it worse, and some kind of black rot almost destroyed 2 plants.
What can I do?
I’m not averse to ‘non-organic’ chemical solutions, but hope to avoid lethal poisons if at all possible. Should I be spraying for bugs any fungus on some kind of schedule?
Also, does ‘homemade’ stuff like garlic hot pepper hydrogen peroxide etc spray etc work, or is it some faux neo pseudo-hippie pipe dream?
Or should I ‘hands off’ like I’ve been doing and let all the natural elements duke it out?
Thanks!
It’s been totally organic so far, only added aged chicken manure at planting in the spring.
Yikes! Let us know what part of the US you are in as the conditions greatly differ in different spots. I already know you are not in California based on all those problems
The first thing to do is to figure out what particular bugs you have, then move on to how to solve that problem. If the beetles are really small they may be flea beetles. If you can’t recognize a bug post a picture here. If you don’t see the perpretrators, go out at night and you may see them in action.
Scott is right. It’s best to know what kind of pest you are dealing with. Still a broad spectrum insecticide will probably take care of your problem if you have trouble identifying the pests. Most broad spectrum insecticides are labeled for tomatoes and peppers (Sevin, Triazicide).
Spraying your pepper plants with copper may offer some control to bacterial and fungal pathogens which affect pepper plants. Copper can be phytotoxic so make sure you follow the label carefully.
I have not sprayed in the last years, I had some disease and bug problems but still had enough of fruits. But the disease pressure tends to increase with the years of gardening and the current year is very wet, so this summer I started to spray from the early spring. I spray mostly tomatoes and peppers, and sometimes add leftovers to the other veggies. I use 1 once of liquid copper and 1 once of neem oil per gallon, once a week. Both of them organic, but copper may accumulate over time, there are some controversial discussions about it. Recently I started to add spreader sticker to the mix since we have so much rain every week and the dew every morning. And sometime I add liquid bloom fertilizer in the mix as well. Tomatoes still have fungal septoria quite badly, they show some of early blight too. I am not sure if my spraying even works on them. I still remove lower tomato leaves on the regular basis. Peppers do not have any problems so far. No bug problems as well. No whiteflies. The other veggies such as broccoli, do not have their regular caterpillars on them this year. All diseases and pests tend to accumulate in the August and September here so we’ll see if the spraying brings any improvement. It can be quite costly, if it is done on the regular basis.
Thanks Scott
I’m in Japan, maybe equivalent zone 9B. I’m usually gardening at night, so I think I’ve seen a lot of the bugs already. The ones I listed above I’ve caught in the act of eating fruit or leaves.
The soil is very rich, there’s a lot of earthworms and other bugs like woodbugs and millipedes eating dead vegetation, and centipedes and frogs eating other bugs. I wasn’t sure if poisons or even ‘safe’ treatments would kill off the good stuff too.
At this point I’m still harvesting most of what grows. But the bulk of the crop ( tomatoes and sweet peppers) is just on the verge of ripening, and I’m getting a bit antsy.
I think a lot of it can be improved by drying it out and getting some air moving through, but not sure how that can be done. I know some of the other local farmers build clear rain covering structures for tomatoes and grapes etc just for that purpose. I don’t really want to go to that expense this year for this crop.
I suppose there’s no general things I can do, and I’ll have to ask a local farmers for region and insect species specific treatments?
I’ll try h2o2 on a couple of the worst peppers tonight and see what happens.
Thanks for the replies everybody, I didn’t see them until now, must’ve been while I was typing the response to Alan.
I’m wondering how the sweet orange peppers will do, or if I should harvest them green. Last year I grew everything in pots in ideal conditions. Somehow, bugs were able to find my sweet yellow red and orange peppers before they could fully change color. I ended up harvesting all those before they fully turned.
The jalapeños were a bit of a surprise. Nothing ever touches the habaneros though. Gorgeous looking fruit.
There’s a local slightly bitter smallish green pepper that is an excellent producer and bug resistant, so I was s big concerned to see about half the large ones with holes.
I’ve been riding the wave so far, let it do its thing, but keep it weeded snd clean as possible, harvest slightly early, and harvest all when a plant looks under serious attack. I always harvest tomatoes at first sign of blush, ripen indoors.
I’ll ask around about pesticides, as I’m curious what an easy garden looks like. But to be honest, poisonous pesticides and herbicides around food kind of freek me out. I imagine most of my grocery store food though has much more used on it than I ever will, lol,
General advice: With members of the Solanaceae–which is a huge group–it is important to not plant another member in that exact location once the current plant is removed. Some other, non-Solanaceae should be planted there or let it lie fallow. A Solanaceae can be planted in that spot after three year or better four year absence. This prevents buildup of disease or soil based non-traveling pests that favor Solanaceae at that spot.
Second, finding something in a hole may or may not mean it made that hole (started the damage). They may be detrivores attracted by the damage something else caused. This is where identifying a bug and looking up its lifestyle works out. I have found beetles and worms in bird strike holes. Detrivores would not normally damage the fruit, but are attracted to the damaged areas. So in this case the treatment is to prevent the birds from damaging the fruit not to combat the secondary arrival of “pests.”
Fungi (mold) is combated by keeping foliage/fruit dry. This is done with pruning to allow air circulation, sunlight penetration and keeping the vegetation and fruit up off the soil surface. Root rots by allowing the roots to dry out somewhat between waterings and having well draining garden soils. And even by selecting seedlings with specific resistance to identified diseases or pests or transplants with rootstock resistant to rots (Japan leads in this category of research).
Several Solanaceae suffer from blossom end rot and I was thinking one of your descriptions could be that environmental disorder. It would help if your area had experts to consult. Problems are unique to an area; and the best council comes from the locals.
Yes, and good general advice. I’ll try to find a knowledgeable local, and hope I can before it’s too late.
As a side, does hot pepper/garlic spray deter some of the pests I mentioned above - and hydrogen peroxide mixed with water sprayed on affected mold or bacteria areas likely have any positive affect?
Thank you
Ok, I was wondering because I have a bunch of old frozen habenaro stock from last year, and it’s the only thing I grew that no bugs ever touched. I thought maybe making a liquid out of it and spraying it on things would keep bugs off.
By the way, here’s some shots of the worst, although most still look pretty good:
I read that planting hot peppers around the perimeter of a garden works very well at keeping elephants from tromping and eating gardens. I have mostly sweet peppers planted, and have had no problems with elephants, myself, though I strongly doubt that is the reason.
Maybe your mice keep the elephants at bay. My tomatoes started to come in. Able to harvest some easily. Some of the tomatoe patch is a real horror show though. Compacted foliage/fruit/mud/rot. Struggling to find an easy way to get them up off the ground. I’ve already broken maybe 1/3 of a patch moving it about.
Maybe I can use leftover bird netting to make a kind of hammock.
Peppers are looking better. I cleaned out the underbrush and lower leaves so air whistles through. Sprayed dilute h2o2.
Do I understand correctly that tomatoes flower and fruit farther and farther out along the vine as the season progresses, and that the lower leaves basically die leaving you with bare lower parts? So you need to continue providing support farther and farther out along the vine as the season proceeds?
I have given up on peppers due to problems. I don’t like them enough to do the extra work or whatever. I have very little expertise on tomatoes, but harvest a lot from my messy looking vines each year. Tomatoes do need support. I have mine in a row and have wires running down the row, then tie to the wires with twine, leaving plenty of slack for diameter growth.
One last thing. this forum has a some really passionate and experienced people and is definitely the place to get accurate info. You may get no answer, but never the wrong answer. Lots of bad info elsewhere on the web
Yes, tomatoes need their support. Depending on the variety they can grow 3-4 feet (determinate or dwarf) or as tall as 10 feet (indeterminate). You know what varieties you have so you should plan accordingly. A sturdy stake is often enough to lift them off the ground. It is too late right now for any king of cage. You may look for the Florida weave method of tomato support. The lower part of the plant will defoliate . Depending on your way to grow you may let the new suckers grow from the lower part to produce fruits or to provide energy. I would suggest to start using fungicide if you did not start yet. If you have a lot of rain add a spreader sticker to it. Plus you may add some kind of foliar fertilizer to the mix. My tomatoes started to set fruits again after two times of spraying with liquid bloom fertilizer so I think it did help. Do the same thing to the peppers.
It’s messy work, but all those tomatoes in the photo turned red and I have another rack full now despite the family eating them as much as we can. Cherry tomatoes are another issue- far too many to eat. Peppers I’m dicing and freezing.
I’m wondering if anyone has had success takeing sweet bell paprikas to full color? Despite ideal pot conditions last year, bugs somehow found my large orange/red/yellow ones as they were turning and drilled holes in most of the few I had. I ended up eating green, which was still good. In my current garden I know they’ll have no chance.
So I am getting lots if I kept going everyday nd harvesting early, but I know there must be better ways of doing things.
Guy, those tomatoes on the rack look really good. I would have made fried green tomatoes with some of those that were just starting to turn. It’s difficult to get tomatoes that are just right for that unless you grow your own. Also, when you are ripening them off the vine, turn them upside down to ripen. It was once thought to be an old wives tale, but it’s true. They do ripen better that way.
Yes, on the question about developing fruit farther up the plant as they go, and on losing the bottom leaves. Take those leaves and branches off as they get nasty looking. It will give you better air circulation. If you start getting rotten spots on the blossom ends of the tomatoes, it’s usually because they can’t uptake enough calcium. It’s common here when it’s very hot, especially after a heavy rain.
I haven’t grown paprikas, but grow mostly bell peppers, and almost always let them color fully. Some get attacked or sunburned, but many make it all the way. They always seem to do better later in the season when the plants are big and the temps aren’t as hot. I planted a mix of seeds for red, yellow, orange, and chocolate. This year it seems like almost all that got put in the ground wound up being orange ones. Green bells are fine, but we like the fully ripened ones the best.
Maybe it is actually mice keeping the elephants away from my garden. I haven’t seen them. Perhaps both the mice and the elephants are just hiding under the cantaloupe leaves or among the cannas.
The leaf footed stinkbugs are destroying my tomatoes. The cherries produce faster than they can get at them, but the full sized tomatoes can’t get to maturity. I have resorted to picking them green and letting them ripen indoors.
Not sure what I can do, as there is a retention pond right behind my garden.
I’ll need to take pikchurz of these thingamabobs, but in the meantime i’ll describe them with wurdz.
found a couple black, ovoid attachments on my pepper plants today. they’re about half a centimeter in size and very adherent. wondering if they’re collections of eggs or a couple cocoons.
I know this description isn’t a lot to go on, but any idea what I might be dealing with? thanks in advance.
