Grow your own Chilli Plants: Pest Control

Pests and Problems:

Even the best and most experienced gardeners among us suffer from pests affecting our plants and crops. When giving grow your own a go here are some useful notes from articles I have read adding in my own personal experiences from the past few years to protect your red hot chillis.

Slugs and Snails can be of the biggest outdoor problems for the Chilli grower, usual signs of a slug or snail attack are the usual slime trails, the young branches near the base of the plant have been stripped away overnight or often the centre of the leaves have been munched away. These prefer dark damp places to live so keep your plants free from any fallen leaves and manually remove any slugs or snails you find. Alternative methods to deter slug and snails include that I have found useful include copper tape or rings, or sprinkling egg shells or sometimes used coffee grounds round the base of the plant.

Greenfly/Whitefly: When the plants produce lush new growth they become vulnerable to these aphids that spread viruses quickly and lead to the determent & health of the plant. These can infest you chillies at any time of the season when you least expect it. The organic method is best to just hand pick them off or spray your chillies with a very weak soap solution. If you want to get technical you can introduce natural predators like lady birds and hover flies, attract these to your garden by planting marigolds and other bright flowers around your chillies. If you are growing in a greenhouse you could go as far as purchasing a parasitic wasp (Encarsia Formosa) from a specialist over the Internet. I try to go for the organic methods but do occasionally use a simple pesticide spray suitable for vegetables available form any garden centre. Before you spray the best poison you can find on them though think about the fact you hope to eat the chillies. You can buy pesticides for cropping / growing food you want to eat that makes it safe. Gardeners word magazine suggests that if you have a complete infestation to snip off the worst bits and put them on your bird table for the birds to eat.

Thrips produces a silver white discolouration with tiny black dots on the upper leaf surface. The leaves become distorted and flower and fruit production is affected. It likes hot, dry conditions so water regularly and regulate the temperature with shading and ventilation. Having my plants on the decking last year gave them afternoon sun, shelter from wind and plenty of ventilation. I do have a south facing garden though so the plants get a lot of nice warm sun. just experiment in your garden once your plants and strong and see which are the best positions for them. i was hesitant at first as the British weather is not the best climate to grow chillis but I was then pleasantly surprised when some plants thrived.

Botrytis may also pose a problem especially at the base of the plant and the fruit. It begins as a brownish spot that develops into a grey mould. It is particularly prevalent when it is cold & damp. Good ventilation will help stop this occurring, removing all dead or injured plant material before it becomes infected. Remove all infected material by cutting back into healthy stock and burning or binning the infected stem. Do not compost diseased plant material. Isolate infected plants to prevent the disease spreading don't be tempted like I did once to keep them going to get just one more chilli!

Phytophthora Blight and Southern Blight (fungal infections) develop on the stem and the disease spreads to the rest of the plant leading to its collapse and wilting occurs. Splashing water can dislodge spores and so spread the disease may affect plants particularly if grown outside during a typical British damp wet summer. Southern Blight is characterised by the presence of a white, cotton-like growth on the surface of the stem accompanied by tan or brown spherical bodies. Fungal diseases spread rapidly and it is best to burn infected plants straight away at the first signs of infection. In moist weather a white fungal growth also develops on the underside of leaves. From experience if your plants looks very unhappy just get rid of it to avoid damage to the rest of your precious season of plants.

Mould and Rot If you are growing in pots, do not over crowd the chillies, keep them well ventilated, and water regularly but not too much. Symptoms can include mould on the leaves, soft fruit, and fungus around the stems. The usual causes of this is over watering or under watering. I sometimes use a Propagator and they have vents on the top to let air out. Once I did not leave these open and the environment got very wet and I lost most of my plants from mold at the base of the stem. Learn from my experience and failures keep that ventilation there.

Maddie

Pets not an obvious one but one of our cute moggies 'Maddie' is very partial to munching pepper teptin, twilight and jalapeno plants. For some reason she appears to avoid other plants types One year in the morning I awoke to find that an entire crop of twilight chillis has been mysteriously munched!! Look out for further cat mischief throughout the 2011 growing season. :)