On Thu, 29 May 2014 17:48:48 -0400, songbird
wrote:

bluechick wrote:
...
One problem we're having this year that we never had until now is
wilt. One day our peppers were fine, the next day they looked like
they needed water. I knew they didn't, but put it down to the heat of
the day getting to them. They never rallied and just got worse. Some
basil nearby had the same problem. The basil was common Genovese and
the peppers were three Bonnie green bells, Bonnie's Big Bertha bell
and another variety of golden California Wonder. Oddly, there's a
Bonnie red bell that is unscathed and it was next to one of the
afflicted green bells. Everything I've read points to a fungal wilt,
possibly from contaminated soil, even though the soil was "new". These
peppers and basil plants were in small raised beds and large
containers. Other large planters and other raised beds were
unaffected. I've had plants affected by wilt before now. I have
destroyed those plants and haven't planted anything else in the two
planters and that small raised bed that were affected. Don't know
what else to do.

aw. hard to say from such a distance. it would
be very sad if you brought in diseased garden soil.
all i can really recommend is to avoid small raised
beds as the soil temperature fluctuates probably a
lot more than some plants would prefer.

The more I examined what may have gone wrong, and what may have been
the true culprit, I'm beginning to suspect the plants themselves had a
problem, even though they looked fine when we bought them, and the
heat may have tipped them over the edge. For one thing, I had two
peppers in a whisky barrel. The green bell wilted while the red bell
wasn't affected. I checked my gardening database after I posted here
and I noted that all the peppers that died in the whisky barrels and
all but one in the small bed, were bought at one garden shop. Same
for the basil. The red bell was purchased elsewhere. The monkey
wrench in my logic is one plant that died in the raised bed was
purchased elsewhere. Yet, the basil I grew from seed, planted next to
the store bought basil plants, is perfectly fine. We used the same
soil mix in the herb bed, the raised bed in the veggie garden and in
the planters. So, it's still a mystery.

We could have brought in a grub or two from the compost bin but we
tried to screen it pretty thoroughly before mixing it in and I didn't
see any this time. We've seen a few grubs survive the heat of the
compost process before. Must be Super Grubs. I hope they weren't
munching on the poor plants' roots but it's another possible culprit.
The "small" raised bed isn't actually small. It's small compared to
the big bed that is now up to 20 feet long (has been extended twice).
Both are over two feet high, to save my back, and both are just over 4
feet wide. The small bed, new this year, is about 8 feet long. Also,
we have to use raised beds. We can't easily plant directly into the
soil here because we hit rocks after digging down more than a few
inches. It was hell getting the fruit trees in, not to mention the
bamboo we planted several other places as a screen. The soil at our
old house was gorgeous, black loam. The stuff here is lousy. All we
can do is bring in garden soil and work in compost and other
amendments every time we plant anything.

i have heard of vascular collapse being caused
by hot weather driven evaporation from the leaves
exceeding the plant's ability to take up new moisture,
but i'm not sure if that is what happened to your
plants or not.

I'm not sure either. I wouldn't be surprised if the heat played some
part. But more plants than the ones we lost should have been
affected, seems to me. Who knows? I'm keeping a close eye on all the
other peppers and the tomatoes to see if this is a troubling trend. So
far, so good. Nothing looked wilted today even though the tomatoes
are still shell shocked from the hail storm that hit Wednesday.

as to remedies for diseased soil, worms, good
compost, rotate to a different crop and time. i
sure hope it isn't diseased.

Pretty sure our compost is good. It's the first thing we did when we
bought the new house. My husband started several compost bins of
chipped up leaves and grass clippings even before we moved in any
furniture! You can tell what he thinks is important.

Thanks so much for all the suggestions and tips. I'll see if I can
narrow down the culprit(s). I hope it's not diseased soil, too.