Is something eating my pepper leaves?

givvmistamps 5/4/2012, 5:45 pm

I have no slime trails, it's really too dry this year for slugs or snails anyway, and I can't find evidence of any other visitors to my garden besides ants... However, I have little roundish holes showing up in my green pepper leaves, and now it's starting on my cayenne pepper leaves. Shocked

What's going on???

Is something eating my pepper leaves? 6996849060_8eb0e87dfb

Roseinarosecity 5/5/2012, 2:07 am

Possibly a flea beetle. Go outside late at night with a flashlight, maybe you might see a bug to help you identify what is damaging your pepper plant.
Here is more info:

http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/vegetable/common-pepper-plant-problems.htm

BillOcala 5/5/2012, 6:44 am

That is one of those mysteries of nature. Sometimes I almost consider putting a web cam, or hunting camera on time lapse, cam on the plants haha (and I am only 1/2 kidding!). To stray off topic just a hair - Last year something was eating my corn at night. I wonder what bugs are active at night (other than mosquitoes)? I never did find out what it was but whole leaves would go missing.

This year I caught ants eating setting up their version of farming on some of my watermelons. I had to resort to what was labeled as "natural" chemicals to put an end to that - but at least I solved it.

givvmistamps 5/5/2012, 11:09 am

@Roseinarosecity: Thanks for the link. It does look like what they describe for flea beetle damage, and it says that mature plants can usually withstand a flea beetle attack ok...though I think I'll just go out at night to make sure this is tiny beetles, just in case. So far they've left my tomatoes alone...they're separated by about 8 feet, so we'll see what happens.

@BillOcala: I'm with you on the garden cam! The most mysterious things can happen overnight while we're inside sleeping.

nanmartinb 5/20/2012, 8:46 pm

This flea beetle -- or whatever it is -- is really wreaking havoc on our one and only pepper plant. What can we do? (We're disabled and only able to do a few plants in pots.) So far the tomato plant seems fine. When I bought them, they were about the same size. The tomato is like five times the size of the pepper so whatever is eating the bell pepper is staying away (knock on wood).

Thanks,

Nan

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