Friday, July 10, 2009

Avert your eyes!

So yesterday I noticed that my pepper plants were not doing very well. I cut off the bottom few leaves that were covered with a sticky residue and what looked like little shinny bumps of sap or something. I wasn't sure what was going on, so I took a picture to email to my Mom:

I forgot all about it, until I was loading my pictures from my camera onto my computer.... I use photoshop to rotate and re-size pictures and happened to zoom in on the pic..... lo and behold the little bits of 'sap' have eye balls. Little black beady eyes belonging to little buggies that are killing my pepper plants!
I am guessing that they are aphids, which I thought I could just spray off when I got home from work. I thought that I had caught them fairly early, but when I got home they seemed to be everywhere!
I gave up on the peppers, they went down the trash shoot.
Further inspection of the surrounding tomatoes and avocados reveled no more buggies, my fingers are crossed that they stay that way!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes my dear they are aphids the dreaded aphid... The problem with them is they lay eggs in the dirt and keep hatching out... You can spray your plant (peppers are prone to aphids) with a soapy water mixture but it takes consistent effort... Mine have them too so I moved them out of the green house into a "time out" but just moving them doesn't mean you've curred the problem.. In your small space keep watching ALL other plants.. Do not reuse the soil from the pepper plants GOOD luck ... I want to read a homemade life when your finished PLEASE!! Love mom