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Worms in my pots, I've got worms in my pots!

DrEMHmrk2

DrEMHmrk2

I've been having some problems with my peppers lately, a number of them had strange white spots under the leaves, which showed up after I moved a tomato into the garden a few months back.

I diagnosed it as whiteflies, and applied an insecticide to the plants that seemed to clear it up. Only one plant actually died, and while all the other plants which lost a majority of leaves have sprouted new leaves and are trying to come back, I feel like something is holding them back.

I'm starting to think it's a soil problem or a nutrient problem that's holding them back. All of the plants were bought at the 12" tall stage and were immediately repotted into 12" tall pots using MG potting soil. All of them have been repotted since into 5 gallon buckets with 1" of rocks on the bottom with holes in the buckets 1 inch up the sides, when going to the large buckets, the plants kept most of their soil intact and the remainder was filled with garden soil as opposed to potting soil.

I had to repot a few of them again 3 days ago into new 5 gallon buckets as my old ones were falling apart. When transplanting, I had a lot of worm casings and a number of beautiful earthworms were spotted.

One extra piece of info is we are in South Florida and when the plants started looking bad we were in a drought but now we are getting maybe an inch or two a day of rain, I doubt the pots are even coming close to drying out between rain.

Now that I've pained this picture, my question is what might be holding the plants back from growing up? I've only ever fertilized maybe once or twice in their 10-month long lives, not counting whatever fertilizer was in the MG potting soil. Is it moisture? Still more bugs? Nutrients? Or is it the soil density/drainage?

Once I sprayed the insecticide, the plants instantly stopped declining but now I would really like to see them perk up a bit for the fall harvest.

Thanks a bunch, and if need be I can snap a bunch of photos of the plants later this evening when I get home.
 
Being in south Florida, I wonder how much salt is in your rain, too much salt in the soil will stunt growth. One thing you can do to make them nice and green and give them a growth spurt is give them some Fish Emulsion. You can get it at most garden centers. Lowes has it for around $8/quart bottle.
 
DrEMHmrk2 said:
All of them have been repotted since into 5 gallon buckets with 1" of rocks on the bottom with holes in the buckets 1 inch up the sides
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This is acually a bad thing to do in buckets in todays container growing world and having the holes up an inch is furthering this issue there are a few other threads that we have explained this water table issue in(cant seem to find them right now) by having rocks at the bottom only creates a place for water to sit(and with holes not being on the very bottom sides it is allowing this water to sit even more so) and reduces the amount of growing space for roots so thats just an FYI

as far as a boost as matt said get some fish emu plants dig it

best of luck on your grow

:cheers:
 
Would adding a bunch of additional holes to the bottom of the buckets help? I use the rocks because otherwise the rain washes all the soil out through the bottom holes, and sometimes we do have maybe a month without rain so I figured a bit of water retention would help.

Regarding the fish emulsion, I havent been able to find how much to use exactly, I see many people writing to use 1/2 or 1/3 the recommended amount, but should I go even easier the first time, because they are stunted, or should I go stronger?

Also, can fish emulsion be applied through a drip system with a fertilizer attachment or is it "lumpy?"
 
Some worms will turn to eating your roots if they aren't well fed. That could be your problem. They could also be insect larva, unless you are absolutely sure they are earthworms.
 
ChicosAStar said:
Some worms will turn to eating your roots if they aren't well fed. That could be your problem. They could also be insect larva, unless you are absolutely sure they are earthworms.
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Absolutely sure they are earthworms. I was always taught that having earth worms in your garden was a good thing, as they make their own high quality soil, so to speak. But perhaps in a container there isn't enough room for the worms and the plant's roots to coexist?
 
DrEMHmrk2 said:
Absolutely sure they are earthworms. I was always taught that having earth worms in your garden was a good thing, as they make their own high quality soil, so to speak. But perhaps in a container there isn't enough room for the worms and the plant's roots to coexist?
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You are correct they are good for gardens, where they have plenty of room. I had an idea to add earthworms a few years back to some plants of mine, but decided to research it first. It turns out it went bad for a lot of people who tried it. The worms ate roots or negatively changed the soil properties (due to the limited room).
 
What about another factor, temperature. Don't peppers kind of go dormant at around 90-95 deg.? I'm assuming it's pretty hot in SoFlo. Just a thought...
 
Heres some photos taken with my phone, i hope they can help.


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Worms eat organic matter. They are great in a compost pile, great in a soil where they eat organisms that exist in the ground.
They are bad bad bad in a pot, there's not much there for them to eat except the organic matter that your plant's roots are made out of.
I've lost a few plants in pots entertaining the worms appetite.
Re-pot your plants if you suspect worms.
Also your plants look like mine after an aphid attack, disease or bad soil etc. My old neglected ones in the ground at the corner of my block look like the pictured ones, and that isn't due to worms since they are in the ground, it was aphids and then disease due to the damage aphids did.
Worm damage or my favourite, root knot nematodes cause wilting and a slow die off.
Aphids, disease etc cause leaf drop, which is what it looks like from the photos.
 
Well this morning I applied about a gallon of insecticidal soap and 2.5 gallons of diluted fish emulsion.

Is there anything else I can do right now to give them a chance of pulling through?

A full repotting of all of the plants will have to wait till next weekend due to finances and time, so Im hoping I can do something in the meantime to keep them happy.
 
I don't think it's the earthworms, I have worms in my planter and the plants couldn't look healthier, but I don't use woodchips as mulch, I mulch with cut up weeds that the worms then eat.

It kind of looks like Phytophthora Blight that came in with the Tomato plant especially the white patch on the stem of the seventh picture down.

Best wishes, it's probably not too late in Southern FL to start over. But you might want to destroy the sick plants first so the new ones won't get infected.
 
GiftOfChilies said:
I don't think it's the earthworms, I have worms in my planter and the plants couldn't look healthier, but I don't use woodchips as mulch, I mulch with cut up weeds that the worms then eat.

It kind of looks like Phytophthora Blight that came in with the Tomato plant especially the white patch on the stem of the seventh picture down.

Best wishes, it's probably not too late in Southern FL to start over. But you might want to destroy the sick plants first so the new ones won't get infected.
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I grow in a semi-urban area, essentially I have a small paved patio between two building to grow. How much sterilizing will I have to do to keep my next crop alive? Everything is of course in containers.

Would a diluted chlorine washdown over the whole area then laying down black plastic landscaping fabric be enough or am I just going to get it again from a nearby source?

I ask because I just put some bhut, aji limon, pablanos and some high yeald jalepenos to germinate with plans of them going outside in about 2 months... now I'm worried all my work is just going to end up dying.
 
Probably larva of some kind. One year I had tomato horn worms nibblin' on some of my pepper plants. If there's any leaves left, a chemical call BT will take care of them. You spray it on. the larva ingest the leave.....stop eating, turn black & die.....good stuff & safe for us.
 
DrEMHmrk2 said:
Would a diluted chlorine washdown over the whole area then laying down black plastic landscaping fabric be enough or am I just going to get it again from a nearby source?
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I was thinking just to pull the plants and throw them in the garbage instead of composting them, but I'm not an expert... I wouldn't know about bleaching stuff, it might be bad for the plants.
 
GiftOfChilies said:
I was thinking just to pull the plants and throw them in the garbage instead of composting them, but I'm not an expert... I wouldn't know about bleaching stuff, it might be bad for the plants.
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What I mean is I will tear out every plant in the grow area, spray it all down with dilute bleach, put down black landscaping plastic, then start with new peppers, is that enough to keep my new potted peppers clean?
 
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