Chilli Plants Goes Chop Chop!

Tall and lanky chilli plant, it is not doing good at all. 

There are however, lots of chillies, but they are not turning red like they are supposed to, not like the last few months when I have gorgeous red chillies to harvest daily.

Most of them are rotting and wilting instead of turning red, eventually they will dropped off.  And all thanks to the mealybugs! They are killing the chilli plants, sucking the life out of the plants. 

Mealybugs...found them under the leaves of the chilli plant, and the whole plant is infested. I really hate these little creatures. Mealybugs can cause severe damage to plants by sucking the juice from the plants, and eventually the leaves will turn to yellow and drop off. The fruits and flower buds will prematurely dropped off too, and that was exactly what happened with my two chilli plants. The leaves dropped off with the slightest touch. Same thing with the chillies, obviously the plants are getting weaker.

I have done all the necessary, used the organic neem spray and other organic sprays. I sourced from the internet on ways to get rid of these insects, and even made my own sprays, none of it work! I have even resorted to clean the leaves, manually with water, it works for a while, but I got tired of cleaning the leaves one by one, it is a tedious and time consuming job. 

I can actually see them flying around in my garden when I was watering the plants, and have spotted them at my tomato plant, which I quickly wiped them off from my precious tomato plant!

The best thing to do is to cut off the chilli plants, making sure the stems that are left behind, are free of these bugs and hopefully the plants will thrive again, though I have not made up my mind whether to rid of these plants entirely. Most likely, I would get rid of them and use the pot for other plants. For the meantime, I have given these plants another round of neem spray, and I'll leave them as they are until I decide what to do. 

sigh.....!!!

The last of the chillies! Now I got to buy my daily dose of chillies from the market!

Happy Gardening !

Some garden updates

Update from my previous post on my Pomegranate plant, about 5 weeks ago, I was really happy to see that out of the one dozen flowers that bloomed, two have turned to fruits!  Even though almost all of the flowers have dropped off, I was quite happy as I've bought this young seedling less than a year ago, and did not expect it to grow so quick and now with fruits too! 

This photo was taken about 2 weeks ago.

The same fruit, today. The calyx at the bottom which looks like a crown, have dropped off, making the fruit looks so "un-pomegranate" LOL!

The second fruit, photo taken about 2 weeks ago.

The fruit today. It still has it's calyx at the bottom of the fruit. With it's "crowning glory" this looks more like a pomegranate, unlike the "naked" one from the second photo above, which looks like a small young mango fruit!

I can't wait for the fruits to ripen. This is the first time I'm growing pomegranate, so I'm not sure when is the suitable time to harvest. From what I've read from the internet, it takes about 6 months from the start of the flowers to harvesting the fruits. I guess that I'll have to wait a little longer, and probably not as long as 6 months, depending on the variety. I really do not know the variety of this plant in my pot, all I knew was, it is our local variety, as was told by the seller from the nursery, and she herself do not know the variety of this fruit.

 My chilli plant. I have harvested all the red ripe chillies and have been enjoying at least 3 to 5 chillies with my meals, almost everyday.

Look what I've discovered in my belimbing tree! A bird's nest! I have seen the mother bird only once yesterday, and before I could take my camera, it flew off! Wondering if there's any eggs in the nest!

Probably there's no eggs in there yet, as I have not seen the mother bird other than that one time yesterday. Maybe she's just getting the nest ready for her big moment! Will monitor the progress of this nest!

Happy Gardening !

Too smart to be caught!

An update on my chilli plants from my previous post.  I never did get to catch whatever it is that has been snapping off the stems from my chilli plants. A trap was set, but it was too smart to be caught. However, a couple of days after that, I noticed some droppings on the ground which looks like it belongs to a rat. Nothing since then, and I hope it stays that way! 

The chilli plants are coping well at the moment.

Plant A - 2 weeks ago

 Plant A - today. I have loosen the plastic around it to allow for more sun, and will remove it sometime soon, though I prefer to keep it there at least for the time being. (If you are new to my blog, and wondering why the chilli plant is surrounded by sheets of plastic, you may read about it from my previous post). It has grown so much these two weeks, and there are tiny little chillies growing, and lots of new flowers. A few flowers has dropped off just when it is beginning to fruit! I hope this is not a trend with the rest of the flowers, as I do not have much luck with chilli plant! 

Plant B - 2 weeks ago. The second chilli plant with all the stems totally bitten off. I have transferred this plant to a pot as I wanted to use this container for other plant.

Plant B - today. New young stems have grown.

I have 3 other chilli seedlings which I grew from seeds, and placed them at my backyard. While the ones at my front yard has missing stems, the one at my backyard.....

 

....... has missing leaves! Only the stem is left now! I fully suspect this is the work of a grasshopper! The other two seedlings are not touched, thank goodness, though for how long, remains to be seen!

I'm linking this post to Garden Tuesday @ Sidewalk Shoes

Happy Gardening !

Chilli Plants and The Unknown Culprit!

Last weekend my sisters and I went to Sg. Buloh nurseries to look for some plants. I came back home with three colours of gerberas, which I shall be sharing on another day, and two chilli plants. The chilli plants were really cheap, RM10 for 3 medium to large sized plants! Could not help buying those even though I have some seedlings growing in my garden pots.  Gave one to my sis and took home the other 2. Did not buy any other plants as could not find what we were looking for.

I transferred the two chilli plants to bigger pots and placed them in my front porch garden. A few days later, I noticed some leaves on the soil. I thought it strange, as the leaves are not being bitten and they just seem to dropped off in perfect piece. At first I thought it was the rain, as it has been raining quite heavily these past week. 

Plant A

On the next morning, to my horror, I found that some of the stems of both plants are missing! Look at the photo above, it looks like the stems are being snapped off or bitten off!

Plant A

See those stems on the soil. The weird thing is, neither the leaves nor the stems are being eaten, look at the perfect condition of those leaves!

Plant A

And notice the corner of the pot, where there is a little hole, looks like something stood in that corner while busy bitting off the stems, and thus the stems dropped off to the other side of the pot!

Plant B

This is the second chilli plant. 

Plant B

Notice the same pattern. The broken stems are on one side of the container.

I have to do something to protect whatever are left of the chilli plants, before the rest of the remaining stems are all gone! It was raining very heavily that evening and did not have time to get some wires to do a proper cage, so here's what I did at 9.00pm that night, as soon as the rain stops.

Plant A

LOL!!! I know you must be laughing, I certainly laughed at myself when I took these photos! I used old rice plastic bags, some strings, staples and a couple of sticks to hold the plastic in place. Do you think this would work? Keeping my fingers crossed.

Plant B

Now you really must be laughing! I was laughing too when I took this photo and my neighbours must think I'm a crazy woman, laughing to herself, taking photos in the garden late at night (with flash on!) just after a heavy downpour! I have used a metal stool as I could not find anymore sticks to support the plastic bag. A smart idea too, I might add!  Hehe!

Well, it worked. The next two mornings, found my plants safe and sound. Seems that my method worked! I took the stool off Plant B on the second morning to allow the chilli plant to enjoy some sun, and I have forgotten to place it back that night.

Plant B
This was what I found this morning! All the remaining stems from the plant, are now on the soil, just as I've feared would happen if I did not protect the plants! My chilli plant is now bald! I placed back the stool over the plant this evening, as there are other young stems growing.

Plant A is safe!

Very weird and strange. Which creature did this? My guess is either a rat or a squirrel, though my guess is, the culprit is a rat. My hubby has caught a couple of rats these last few months, as we have seen them scurrying around the drains outside. And I have seen a couple of squirrels in my neighbour's mango tree a few months ago. Could either one of them is the culprit? Strange thing is, whatever did this, did not eat the leaves, but merely snapped off the stems, and it came back a few nights to do it's naughtly job! Have this happened to any of your plants before? Any ideas? 

I guess the only way to find out is to set a trap! And hubby is setting the trap as I'm writing this post. Hopefully the culprit will be caught, better sooner, as I have other chilli seedlings growing, and it seems to favour chilli plants over the rest. 

Happy Gardening!

Some Herb Plants

A few months ago, lots of Thai basil plants seems to be popping everywhere in my potted garden. Must be from the seeds that are found in the soil in some of my pots. Many months ago, the last of my basil plants have dried and wilted due to the extremely hot weather, and now the seeds from those plants that must have dropped into the soil have sprouted new seedlings. I sometimes transfer my other plants from smaller pots to bigger ones, and I supposed that was how the seeds got distributed when the soil was mixed, and also because I placed the pots rather close to other plants due to limited space, the seeds must have fallen into the other pots as well.

Thai basil plant, growing happily at the corner of the rectangular pot of my sawtooth coriander.

Two young seedlings which I planted in two separate pots, are doing great, growing well right now.

The ones here, sprouted on their own and I left them in their own chosen spots, which seems to suit them fine. There are a few more plants in separate pots, and I even had to discard some of the seedlings, as there are just too many, and I do not have enough of space! 

Sweet Basil

Thymes, it was growing really well until..... see photo below.....

...it was infested by some sort of white fungus. I was really disappointed as the thyme plant has been thriving  so well and gets so big, and now this! 

Rosemary, have been growing rather slow, but have been supplying me with fragrant leaves for my bakes and cooking pot.

Chilli Plant, which I bought from a nursery about two months ago, could not resist getting this plant when I saw those cute little tiny chillies growing all over. They are all ripe now, red and ready to be harvested. There's even more small chillies growing! 

What are the herb plants that you are growing in your garden?

Happy Gardening!