Well, my weekly gardening update this time has turned into a monthly gardening update. My garden is pretty much leveled. When all is said and done, I probably harvested between 50 – 75 peppers. It was great to go out and pick peppers every day. I know my last few posts about my garden had me complaining about leaves, branches, peppers and more being eaten. Well, EVERYTHING has been eaten. There are still some branches left, but all the peppers, leaves, tomatoes, etc are gone. It was crazy – there would be a few huge chili peppers hanging one night and then the next morning they were entirely gone. I know many of you said horn worms were destroying my garden? I am not doubting you, but it is just odd because I never saw any horn worms after careful inspection of my garden. And, can a horn worm really eat an entire chili pepper in less than 8 hours? So so odd. I’m worried about planting my fall garden because I am concerned that if my soil is infested with horn worms, they will return when I plant more. Do any of you have any thoughts on that?
Above is the remnants of my pepper plants. They were thriving and doing so well until the branches, leaves and peppers were eaten. 🙁
Close up of pepper plants. So sad.
One lone Cayenne Pepper. I do still have about 25 Cayenne Peppers I have drying in my kitchen.
I do have a huge surprise for you! Do you remember me complaining that my basil plants were dead? Originally I planted the basil in a small pot but then I transplanted them into my raised garden bed. Well, they were doing horrible. They were yellow, had black dust on them, etc. Well, I had given up on my garden over 4 weeks ago and then a week ago, I was looking at it and saw that not only was my basil flourishing, but it was spreading! SO exciting for me! If there was any herb that I could literally cook with three meals a day, it is basil. So, I’m happy about my thriving and spreading basil! 🙂
How are your gardens doing? Did you find that any of your fruits and vegetables flourished? Which ones did poorly? Would love to hear your updates and any tips you have on my fall garden, I would love to hear! Because remember – I am brand new to gardening. This is my first gardening experience!
Thanks for coming to Addicted to Saving! Here’s a little bit about me so you can know who’s behind all these posts!
My name is Liza and I began my money-saving journey in the Spring of 2009 as a way to stretch a limited household income. I had lost my job and my hubby was self-employed. I launched Addicted to Saving in November of 2009 and it has grown by leaps and bounds. Since then, my hubby and I have struggled with the ups and downs of two failed adoptions and are now LOVING being parents to our little man Asher who we brought home from Ethiopia in August of 2013. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to help you save money. My goal is that you will have FUN and become empowered to save more and more money each week..
We had horn worms eating our tomatoes and peppers. We went to lowes and bought a spray to spray and it worked. I can’t remember the brand but they had several to chose from and it specifically states horn worms on it. I haven’t had any problems at all since we sprayed.
Looks to me like deer are eating your harvest….The deer and the rabbits around my home took some liberties and I was able to harvest much from my garden this year – I have already started erecting a fence around my raised garden to hender/deter the deer & rabbits from eating from my garden – keeping my fingers crossed for pumpkins!@!@!
I think you had the hornworms, I finally found one on my sweet potato vine. They had already eaten two jalapeno pepper plants and marigolds that I had in a large pot. Just read on wikipedia that marigolds are a deterrent to them. Didn’t work in the pot, but apparently it’s working so far in my garden, where the marigolds are much larger (they were tiny in my pots). Maybe that is what has been eating small holes in another pot of sweet potato vine elsewhere at my home. Wiki also said that they commonly attack tomato, eggplant, pepper, tobacco, moon flowers and potato. Also there is a tobacco hornworm that is very similar and I think they said does same type damage.
Yay on the basil! Mine had a similar life cycle this year of barely living through the spring/summer, and now doing quite nicely. I even had enough to hang and dry. I love to dry the basil when the plant gets very large. Also, you should know that after the basil flowers, you can cut the ariel off and dry that. Once it’s dry, you can remove the little black basil seeds. One plant will produce hundreds of seeds. They are very easy to collect and start from seed as well. Never pay for basil again! Oh, and if you want to keep the plant growing longer, just pinch of the clusters that are going to turn into flowers. This will cause the plant to bush out more and keep producing those savory leaves.
I am saddened by what happened to your peppers. It needs tremendous amount of horn worms to devour a whole pepper overnight. I do think it is a larger pest. But don’t fret, we learn through experience.I just hope you caught the culprit.