Kira,


Dang, girl, where have you been????? I have missed you here at
triangle.gardens!!!!

You might indeed have brought the problem into your garden with the
"purchased" jalapeno -- but I just wanted to add my own little cautionary
tale here.....

For those of you who have had problems with swallowtail butterflies
decimating your parsley plants: if you repot the parsley and put it on a
porch, say, before you bring it into the kitchen for the winter -- Check
to make sure there are no voles in the pots when you bring the plants
in!!!!!

Been there, done that -- and NO, I have no excuse for not noticing the
"hole" in the nice soft potting soil!!!

Anne


"Kira Dirlik" !! wrote in message
...

However this year, something has gotten into my 19 pepper
plants (of 6 varieties). Starts on the lowest leaves.

It sounds more like a blight or a fungus then insects, so an insecticide
like Sevin isn't going to help. Maybe stem blight?

http://chatham.ces.ncsu.edu/growings...ghtpepper.html
Steve


Thanks, but no, that isn't it. The stems look perfectly healthy, and
no weird stuff at the bases. And the really unique symtom is what
looks like "cooked" spots. These are especially apparent on the
underneath of the leaves... darker green, wet, "cooked" spots as
though boiling water had been splashed onto them. Gets the
bottommost leaves first and works up. I think it is the same as what
got my sunflowers in years past.
Confession: about 4 days ago I sprayed them all with Home and Garden
Raid! Since no flowers, much less any peppers, had formed yet, I
figured I wouldn't poison myself. I set it up for each in line thus:
spray can, pepper plant, cafeteria tray as barrier, other plants
behind. I made sure none got on plants that were totally edible like
dill, basil, kale, etc. AND I just saw now that new leaves have come
out the top looking good, and even some new sprouts at the joints
where former leaves had fallen off.
Last year I put some of my sunflower leaves that had this in between
some wax paper and pressed them. Weeks later I noticed little trails
coming from the leaves of something trying to escape, but invisible to
the eye. I wonder if I brought this into my garden on a purchased
jalapeno (others all were grown from seed). That plant just never
"was right".
Kira