I did cut down a holly tree that was getting huge and shady (and even
sending roots into the garden). I have hundreds of hollys, but it
was still painful. The canopy of the hundred foot trees is making
more and more shade each year, because they are closing in around the
space created by my house being built. I have cut trees before. No
way I can remedy these huge old oaks, poplars, sweet gums way, way up
there, but in reality, they are not casting much more shade than they
did last year.
My garden is only about 15 x 30, but I do rotate, and have the rows go
in different directions each year, so all the soil is used differently
each year.
I have the peppers growing in several areas of the garden, and I could
see this malady spread slowly across them all, from one side of the
garden to the opposite. I bought one jalalpeno and 2 hot banana
plants, and I have a feelling I brought it in on one of those.
I've grown peppers from seed all these years, with the fun of never
knowing quite how they will mix and match with each other and what
kind of peppers will appear. It is a disaster to me to lose all that.
I have ALWAYS had a huge bumper crop and mammoth plants. I now have
ONE lonely jalapeno pepper on a very dwarfed, warped plant, and 4
banana peppers that were already starting when I bought them. All my
lovely other 16 pepper plants have not produced a single pepper. I'd
have bushels by now, in years past. Leaves continue to fall off (and
flower stems), as tips try and try and try to grow.
Kira