In article ,
Natural Girl wrote:
On 5/4/2013 10:19 PM, Ecnerwal wrote:
In article ,
Natural Girl wrote:
Has anyone grown those hot peppers before?
What sort of pests would be eating the daylights out of the leaves? I
planted a couple and have babied them through the spring temps only to
have something chew up those pretty leaves!
Any ideas? Will the plants survive being eaten like that?
As I grow older and mix up pyerthrum and rotenone in the crevices of my
mind, I find considerable benefit to just looking. But carefully, and
over longer periods of time than I could manage as an impatient
youngster. If you watch carefully (or let a cheap videocamera do it),
you may catch the leaf-eater in action.
Major leaf-eating is usually caterpillars around here - may be
leaf-cutting ants in other places. At least, that is, until you move up
to deer (rats with hooves) or rabbits. Telling the difference involves
looking at the way the leaf is eaten, for tracks, for frass (caterpillar
manure) and for webs. Or a line of ants carrying leaf parts.
Look under the leaves, along the stems, look for/in rolled-up leaves.
Caterpillars can, surprisingly, be somewhat hard to spot as they can
match color very well (though some don't, in positively
Alice-in-Wonderland ways.) Any "spiderwebs" on the plant were probably
spun by and may be hiding a caterpillar.
Also look for egg masses under the leaves, but an egg mass isn't eating
- yet.
Thanks for the info ... now I'm going to practically dissecting my
pepper leaves. 
All the advice is good, but you haven't told us if there are slugs or
snails in your garden. If you have them, Steve's suggestion that you try
a ferric phosphate (iron phosphate) bait is a good one. It is harmless
to just about everything except gastropods (slugs or snails). Do you
have white flies? You may try spraying your plants with water,
especially underneath. To cover all bases, take a flashlight and go look
at your plants at night.
"The best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow."
- Anon
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