Question
I planted a bell pepper plant in a five gallon pot and placed it in partial shade as I live in Southern Texas and it has been an extremely hot summer this year. It has done extremely well up until recently. The leaves were healthy and green, and it bloomed beautifully. Now I have three small but very healthy looking bell peppers growing, and there are about 4 more blooms. I water once every morning, or every other morning as needed and I have recently fed it. The soil is a mixture of aprox. 50% fully decomposed compost, 40% plain, un-tampered potting soil and the rest is a mixture of sand, fine mulch and crushed granite. I also have covered the top of the pot with a layer of mulch. Two days ago I went outside to water and found a small colony of aphids had moved in over night. I immediately sprayed them with highly concentrated soapy water which killed them within a matter of 30 minutes. Since then the health of my plant has dropped dramatically. All the leaves are yellowed with darker green along the veins and some extremely small spots along the veins and tip of the leaf edge. The underside of the leaves are still slightly yellow but other wise there is no discolor. The larger of the leaves have been distorted. The peppers themselves do not appear to have been affected but all the leaves are dropping. Do you know what's wrong?

Answer
Amy:

It may be that the Aphids carried a fungus or a virus. It seems like you are doing everything correct. Reduce the watering to every 3 days and then fertilize each 15 days. Start with an application of organic fertilize and water it in.

Purchase an all purpose fungicide and try spraying. If it is a virus there is no cure.

Hoping that your plant recovers. We take good care of our plants and then something like this happens and it is heart breaking.

Best wishes for the speedy recovery of your pepper plant.

If it recovers please E-mail me at [email protected].

Don Battles