Friday, March 28, 2008

Pepper Recovery - the overwintering tale

My Fatali and Long Cayenne peppers have been attacked by aphids and I believe spider mites this winter. They have lost a fair number of leaves and all developing buds but then with the longer days, things are improving.

Photobucket

Much to my surprise the long cayenne appears to be bouncing back. I didn't take a picture of it at its worst out of respect for its dignity but suffice it to say that it had lost almost all of its leaves. The only reason I didn't ditch it was because I hesistate to end my experiments prematurely. When it started to re-leaf I thought that the leaves would come in even smaller than the decreased size they were before they all fell off so am pleasantly surprised by their increasing diametre. It even has some flowers on it.

I did repot it once with enriched (compost) soil to see if it was lacking nutrients so maybe that was the solution?

Anyhow, this year it will be planted in the garden as I will be gone for much of the gardening season (cries to herself) and won't be around to baby potted plants.

The Fatali has some leaf buds that haven't opened yet but I have hope. It hasn't lost all of its leaves but it isn't looking its best.

Links

Overwintering and pepper seedlings (really just an excuse to bring you a new gardening blog you might not have come across)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know how it feels to have your indoor plants slowly die. I've been battling a spider mite infestation and I've lost two of five potted Black Lace elders to the darn things. The three that survived were placed in basement windows that had lots of cobwebs and spiders so I think that may have helped fight off the infestation. Good luck with your peppers!

Amy said...

It's looking good! I hadn't heard of overwinting peppers indoors until I saw it on your blog a few weeks ago. I'm off the check out the link..

Michelle said...

Oh how exciting! It looks like such a hopeful little plant. It must be nice in the midst of all that winter!

Anonymous said...

My patchouli plants are stressed out, too, and I'm looking forward to being able to put them back outside, and cut them back. I gave up on the pepper I brought in way back in December!