Pepper problems, little holes in leaves, not growing

11 years ago

So my peppers seemed to be going okay until about a week ago. Three of my bell pepper plants now have small holes over many of the leaves, that don't look like the snail bites I've seen elsewhere in my garden. The plants haven't been growing well at all and aren't much bigger than when I planted them. They aren't flowering. Two of them have 1 single pepper on them. The third aborted the pepper it was growing, the stem connected to it just shriveled up.

The two hot peppers I have seem to be doing fine. I have a at least one jalepeno, with more flowers, and a bunch of tiny thai hot peppers. The hot peppers are planted in a different area, and they may get less water, and actually probably get less sun due to the apple tree being a few feet behind it.

I have tomato and basil planted near it, and they're all growing well. Is there any saving my peppers? Should I dig them up and replant in a less wet area, or an area with less root competition? Have no idea what's causing the holes in the leaves. I thought I had a pic with me to post, but when I looked at it from a week ago the leaves were all fine. The holes are small, less than the width of a pencil eraser.

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Comments (7)

IAmSupernova
11 years ago
Look up pictures of flea beetle damage and compare to your leaves.
allhaileris
Original Author
11 years ago
Hmm, I don't think it's flea beetles, the holes are a little bigger than those, and there is no yellow spotting like the other pics show. I tried to google "flea beetle damage peppers" and didn't come up with anything that matched, but the slug pics looked closer. I'm wondering if they're tiny slugs that I can't see. I did run out of sluggo about two weeks ago, so I'd be overdue for an application. We don't seem to have any caterpillars here either, we have very few butterflies. I did see a small green grasshopper yesterday hanging out on one of the corn stalks.
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allhaileris
Original Author
11 years ago
I went out and looked at the leaves again. There really aren't that many holes on most leaves. One of the plants has more than the others, but definitely not flea beetles. I was looking around and saw that my bean leaves are being chomped on too, and not by snails, way too high up (they're growing around the corn).

Grasshoppers? I just saw the one, but it was a baby so I'm sure there are more around.
jean001a
11 years ago
need pictures please
steven1032
11 years ago
you went from small holes flea beetles. to medium holes snails and catepillers to chewing marks grasshoppers to bee cutters etc... on your pepper leaf. that is why jean001a suggested pictures. pictures of wholes can tell you alot about the culprit.
allhaileris
Original Author
11 years ago
Um, didn't say anything about bee cutters (I don't even know what that is). I mentioned the bugs I'd seen and not seen. Obviously my small holes aren't the same as another's small holes, to me they're small. I'll post pics when I can.
lori_ny
11 years ago
My peppers ( along with 95% of the garden) were decimated by snails/slugs this year. The snails outright killed all the tomato, squashes, lettuces, cukes, melon seedlings by eating the starter leaves. I'd plant a sprouted seedling and the next day would come out to a leaf-less stalk that never produced another leaf!

The peppers they harmed and made them stunted. They chewed around the stem in a circle. So the stem is half the circumference at ground level as it is at the 3 inch level. They also chewed holes in the leaves.

I never saw the snails and slugs till I went out after a rain and it was almost dark. They are nocturnal, as far as I can tell. I tried hand picking them but got discouraged when I picked up 200+ and went back to the 1st row in the garden and there were just as many crawling ones again!

I bought Natria at a Lowes store and it's a slug bait that is organic- approved. It's iron phosphate and the slugs eat it and overdose and pass away. It works extremely well, if that turns out to be your culprit.