Most of my plants (and not just the chillis) were damaged in a big hailstorm about a month ago. Many of them lost a lot of leaves at that time, and even the leaves that didn't get ripped off are still showing the effects. This is one of my "Nosferatu" plants, with its leaves riddled with holes:
After the storm, I adminstered a generous dose of "Tomorite" tomato food to anything I thought would benefit from it - tomatoes, chillis, peppers, cucumbers - basically all the "fruiting" vegetables. This coupled with some much better weather, including a fair bit of warm sunshine, has brought about a noticeable recovery. Most of the plants have a good number of fresh young leaves.
Unfortunately my plants have been affected by the same weedkiller-contaminated compost as that which has struck my tomato plants. The obvious symptom is distortion or puckering of the leaves.
I'm hoping that the damage is superficial and that the plants will recover from this, but at very least it has retarded their growth.
This is my array of chilli plants now, mostly lined up on the paving-stones around the raised beds. A few of the bigger plants (the ones from last year) are elsewhere.
Some of them are setting fruit now, for instance this "Red Jalapeno":
The fruit pictured here is still tiny, but it is round rather than long and thin as I would expect. I just hope this is not another effect of the weedkiller contamination.
This is "Piment d'Espelette":
And this one with the masses of tiny flowers is the one I nicknamed "Redfeilds Small Red".
If you look really carefully you might just be able to make out one or two tiny fruits forming.
This is Sweet Pepper "King of the North", worryingly small for this stage of the game. The plant is about 25cm tall and so far has only one fruit:
One of the two "Turkish Sweet Pepper" plants has no fruits at all yet, but the other has these two, which are looking fairly satisfactory:
"Ohnivec" is looking the most promising at present:
I have two plants of "Ring of Fire", which I thought would be a fairly safe bet for my "main crop" chillis. Guess which type has yet to set any fruit at all...
I see that you have nice varieties of chillies, the Redfields Small Red - looks great, I've never heard of it. And I like your Nosferatu chili, it's sad that it suffered the storm.
ReplyDeleteThis year I have a few black varieties, and a lot of green ones. Mine suffer cold temperatures right now, I'm waiting for a hot summer, because I really want to have some spicy fruits :)
The "Redfields Small Red" is a nickname I have given to a chilli I got from my local Garden Centre - which is called "Redfields"!
DeleteWhat a pity the storm damaged your plants and then this contaminated compost. The plants look pretty good considering all.
ReplyDeleteLook like they've recovered well Mark. I had a similar effect on the leaves a few weeks ago and put it down to the variable night/day temperatures in the greenhouse - leaves getting chilled at night, maybe it was some type of contamination, although they seem to have grown through it now and the leaves are quite big and dark green. I have lots of growth but the plants are only just setting fruit. Hopefully we'll have plenty more warm weeks for the fruit to reach maturity.
ReplyDeleteConsidering the travails your chillis have endured, they look good. My plants have a very similar distortion of the leaves, but in my case it's a virus, it happens every year after the annual aphid attack. I hope your plants pull through and produce a good crop.
ReplyDeleteYour plants have suffered this year in one way or another, that must have been some storm to pierce the leaves like that. I hope you manage to get some sort of harvest and that the fruit isn't affected too. It's so disappointing after all the work and care to get them to this stage.
ReplyDeleteAs if the hailstones were't enough, Natural damage I can except but not the man-made variety
ReplyDeleteAfter all that damage and contamination it is amazing that you still have chilies. And mostly they are looking good. We sometimes get hail here but I always hope not.
ReplyDeleteYou have a lovely selection Mark & they seem to be coping with the damage quite well!
ReplyDeleteThere is still plenty of season left Mark. Let's hope for the best!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post. Yes am rather late for it but have been trying to diagnose the problems with my chilies at work and this is the only thing that matches up. Ironically it is the Ring of Fire that are looking the worst. I initially also thought it was down to difference in night and day temps or the fact that as a hotter species they were slower growing. My big sun habaneros are doing much better though and seem like much stronger bushier plants!
ReplyDeleteHi Aimee; As you have probably seen, I have had a lot of problems with contaminated compost. Fortunately, it is rarely fatal in the case of chillis. You may get a few deformed fruits, but they will probably mostly be OK. Next year, use a different brand of compost!
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