Things have gone downhill, to say the least. The good news is I think I have finally discovered at least one of the culprits that have been causing some issues with the plants. The bad news is its going take weeks to deal with it and there's a chance I lose further plants.

Starting Trays

Since the starting tray was not getting enough sunlight indoors I’ve permanently moved it outdoors the other week to try and resolve this issue. They have been doing great outdoors like this till this week. As you can see not only was their lack of further growth. I’m now missing complete columns of herbs.

The Bunching Onion on the far right had something go to town and consume a few of them. There at least some remaining. The good news is they are starting to look healthier. After I took some losses from an unknown source I took a couple out since they did not have much of a rooting system and tried to transplant them in another container isolated away from the tray. Sadly those are not doing well and I don’t have much hope for them.

To the left of C was some Cilantro growing. It is now gone it vanished overnight. While I have an idea what is affecting the other plants I’m not quite sure they would have completely eliminated this crop. I will try again in the future gore more just not this week. This was something I was hoping would work out as I had some plans to use Cilantro more in cooking.

The fourth row to the right has a single Dill remaining. While I did not have too many plans to use Dill I’m also a little sad to see that is all there is at this point. Even more so with how tiny it is. I half want to move it to its own container and yet I don’t want to disturb it either. Even more so since transplanting some Bunching Onion elsewhere has not gone so well so far.

The two columns along A have three remaining Parsley. One of them is very tinny and just now started to show up. I was really expecting this to have grown more by now. This is another one I’ll be replanting and trying again at some point. As I like parsley and have a bigger need then the rest of them for it.

Overall using a growing tray has not gone as well as I had hoped. I think I have a few things I’ve learned from this. I’m least hoping in coming weeks I still have something remaining to take to the next stages. At some point, I wanted to remove them once there roots have developed well enough. With the final goal of having herbs to use in cooking. Otherwise, I might just try buying the herbs already grown and use them in that stage as I want something fresh and not the dried stuff I have store bought-- yuck.

Green Pepper

As you can see the leaves on the green pepper plants are eaten to bits. One of the things I have discovered on the underside of a few of the plants has been small white things where the adults seem to be able to fly. They are around 1/3 the size of my pinky nail. I have also found eggs, and they seem to eat from undersides of the plants. I believe from what I’ve seen they are Whitefly of which variety I have no idea. They are far too small to try and take a photo with my camera and I have a hard time seeing them in great detail. This photo was taken after dealing with them.

Along with this, I think something bigger is eating them. I did catch a worm on a trap I set up so I think they are causing issues as well. Otherwise, this is the newest of the plants I have. I’m rather happy with its growth so far and I’m hoping in the coming weeks to deal with the culprits.

Jalapeno

As you can see trying hide behind the leaves are three Jalapenos! In fact, the one at the bottom is bigger than the ones I get in the store! I’m not quite sure what is considered “ready” for it. I think I will go great mixed in with some hamburgers and other ways as well!

There are also a bunch of flowers and tinny baby little nubbins of Jalapeno all over this plant. The plant also has very few signs of anything trying to eat it or cause harm. My biggest concern is the plant and everything is getting a bit heavy for the stem. I need to find something to help keep it up straight. It is starting to lean one way.

Red Pepper

This one is struggling badly right now the leaves are all wilted looking and not very happy. I have isolated it the best I could from the remaining plants. I’m not quite sure what it’s issue is since most of the leaves remain unaffected. I did remove a couple that had some issues. I’ve also put a random trap at the base just to see what if anything gets caught. As it does have some yellowing of the leaves and something put a couple tinny holes into it.

I was really hoping this one would take off. Out of all the bigger plants, I’m growing I really love red peppers and was hoping to make some stuff pepper meals and use it a few different ways. The growth seems to be really stunted. This is in part due to being in a container that was not dealing with all the rain we were getting. I’m hoping it likes its new home and will want to be productive!

Tomato

This guy has been doing decent compared to all the others. As you can see I even have a trap next along the side of it. So far it has caught a worm and a couple of bugs including some whiteflies. In fact, this was only one where I was not removing leaves from. I still gave it a bath but it seems to be just fine.

I’m really hopeful about this one. I love tomatoes!!!! It would be great to have fresh ones every once in a while in my sandwiches, hamburgers, salsa, and other ways I’ve not cooked with it yet.

Thoughts and Remedies

For a while now I’ve been aware something been chewing things up. Every week I would spray the plants with some stuff from the store. Next few days everything would go great I would think things been handle. Then almost a week later I would wake up and find something went to town on the plants again. I think the spray is working but it alone is not enough. I have to keep fighting this stuff off in stages.

So I did some research and after reading a few articles such as Get Rid Of from wikihow and a number of other sites that seem to agree. I believe I’m just killing the adult Whitefly with the spray. The eggs and younger things might not be so affected by the spray. In addition, they will build an immunity over time and perhaps it’s so bad this week as they finally have.

So I took a gallon bucket and filled it with water and put a drop of soap in it. Mixed the water really well then I hand washed all the leaves on each of the plants. I check for eggs in both the soil and under the leaves and removed any that I found. They were clear whitish with an opaque white of whatever was growing in the inside. I believe very early stages of whitefly or something similar. I also removed leaves that had some white spots, massive brown areas, or anything that I could not wash off the plants. I will be doing this every four days or so. As well as daily check-ins to see if I can find anything else.

I’m hoping with these measures, the spray, and the different kinds of traps I’ve added both sticky and ones that allure different things that I can get this under control. I was hoping to go a more home remedy approach with honey but we have a massive issue with ants and some other stuff as well. So I did not want risk trying that. Let’s hope next week is a much happier and better update!

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Photos were taken by @enjar using a Photosmart M627.