plant-care Are my plants borked?

See below. In the last couple of days, I've lost a couple more plants, where they went from looking perfectly healthy to wilting/withering within 48 hours. I've noticed some white fungal growths near the affected plants, and one I had earlier was taken out by leaf rot. Please see pictures below. I've added some of the normal seedlings as well. I sprayed all the plants already last week with Bacillus bio-fungicide, before they started wilting, and I'm starting to fertilize them with a mix of liquified bat guano (link) and CalMag (link) on the lowest possible setting through my automatic fertilizer, which I'll slowly increase as the plants grow (or hopefully will grow)

Is there anything I can do to save these plants? I've ordered myco to put into the soil as soon as possible.

Looks like transplant shock and/or more hardening off was required. IMO that's super young to have them outside in those big containers, especially in a higher humidity environment. Personally, I'd consider transplanting them out of the big containers into smaller ones, like 3.5" or 4" pots, and protecting them from harsh conditions until they're more established with their root systems, perhaps more gradually reintroducing them once they start to show healthy growth. Supplemental nutrients are likely best avoided for now.

OK, thanks for the info. I have a new batch of seeds I just put into seed trays this past Tuesday (pics are in my glog), so I'll wait a little longer before transplanting them to containers. I'll also keep the trays inside for a while since I keep my AC at 75 all day

Do you have shade cloth over where they are growing? The sun down here is fairly brutal already and will get worse soon. I always started my peppers in January when possible so they would be producing by now. Soon with the heat and rain come the Florida bugs/pests.

What does your soil mix have in it? Any pine bark?

skullbiker said:

Do you have shade cloth over where they are growing? The sun down here is fairly brutal already and will get worse soon. I always started my peppers in January when possible so they would be producing by now. Soon with the heat and rain come the Florida bugs/pests.

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The awning and the fencing around my patio do provide a measure of shade, and I'm prepared for the buggies with some organic pesticides. I also hardened the sprouts by having the seed tray outside before many of them even sprouted, transferring them with the entire seed pellet into the container.

Marturo said:

What does your soil mix have in it? Any pine bark?

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It does have what look like pine flakes on it, but I can't ID whether it's pine bark. The soil I used was one I got at Home Depot, but I'm thinking of switching to the basic topsoil instead of the name-brand one I bought until now.


All that being said, I think I may have discovered a possible culprit. Looks like the HOA here decided to kill all the ficus bushes by spraying some kind of herbicide to kill them. A neighbor let me know yesterday that there was some sort of an infestation of an invasive insect (they weren't sure which), so the HOA had someone come in and spray all the bushes. It so happens there were such bushes no less than 20 yards from the patio where I'm growing, and the ones affected were closest to the part of the patio not being blocked by my tarp.

It so happens that right under my patio is a section of a dead bush that looks suspiciously similar to how the ficus bushes that are already dead or dying