Jalapeno Update

After a long and drawn-out battle against the aphids, my jalapeno plants are finally starting to bloom and produce chilis!! So exciting!

I still have to spray the plants, especially the blooms (yes, even inside the flowers), with water about every other day, depending on how many aphids I see, as well as wipe off any aphids on the undersides of the leaves. Talk about tender loving care - these plants are spoiled! Almost daily care! But it does make me happy to see that my efforts are finally paying off and becoming fruitful...

Also placed one of my two habanero plants outside, too, where it's a bit cooler - this has worked in the past to force blooms. Am keeping one indoors to be safe!

one of my purple jalapeno plants

...with purple flowers!

the normal green jalapeno plants are flowering too, especially my larger one

...and the first pepper is growing! Hurray! Finally!

More updates on these later, hopefully I will then have 3 varieties of peppers to photograph for you!

I'm so mad I could kill 1,000 aphids....

...so I did! Those little *#"§()&?!-ers!!!!!

Since I've been home from my vacation, I've been a bit worried about my chili pepper plants. Although some are getting buds and have even produced some flowers, the new leaves all do not look very healthy - kinda shriveled (not in a lack-of-water kind of way), and even have spotty discoloration:

....jalapeno that I have indoors now

At first I attributed at least the spotting to construction damage (see recent post), but upon closer inspection I discovered:

APHIDS!!!!!! Those stupid little *+"!"§$%!"§! Look at them all on there!!!

  

And of course on the backs of the leaves, too. I mean, just look at all of them on there! Greedy buggers! Groooossss! 

so many....right at the sweet center! eeww!

Of course they go for the good stuff, the nice, new, sweet, tender little buds and flowers. They would do that.

But they can kiss the good times goodbye - I just took action, a sort of balcony genocide if you will (did I really just say that?!)

How to get rid of aphids:

Step One: Power-blast them off with soapy water (I used a hand sprayer and a water/dish soap mix).

Step Two: Swab the rest off (carefully!) with a soapy paper towel. I just sprayed the mix on the towel and wiped off the tops and bottoms of the leaves, not forgetting the stems too.

Step Three: Hope that lasts a while and my plants survive all the soap exposure :) If they come back, I will probably just try spraying with water to see how long that lasts.

These aphids appear to be the monophagous kind, feeding only on one species, in this case my chili peppers. At least they aren't spreading to devour all my plants, and are fairly easy to keep under control (I hope?!) since I have a small garden. I think the plants wanted a little TLC anyway!