A Pepper Weevil
Pepper weevils are small black insects that look just like grain weevils. They bore holes into both sweet and hot peppers and sometimes eggplant. The weevils appear to be active from May through August.
The weevil is smaller than a pepper seed and difficult to see in the above photo. It has a small pointed head, round body and spider like legs.
Pepper Weevil Damage
Weevils bore holes into the green or ripening fruit but they usually don't remain inside. It took me a while to ID the insect that was causing the damage but eventually I found them.
Supposedly, they lay their eggs inside of the fruit but the eggs were too small to see without magnification.
In
the summer I have lots of pepper plants growing in my garden. Out of 5 summers
seasons, I only had problems with the pepper weevil during the summer of 2011.
And, they attacked all the varieties of peppers in my garden.
The damage was done to these peppers late in the growth cycle and large portions of the fruit were still usable.
I've used Concern Multi-Garden Insect Killer to deter the weevils. Pyrethrins are the active ingredient so any other product with pyrethrins should work. I recommend spraying the entire pepper plant at least once per week.
And, I've also used organza bags to cover the peppers. It's time consuming when there are a lot of peppers in my garden but it does work.
I love Japanese Trifele tomato - delicious. It performed fairly well here too. Ah well, you and your hot weather can have loose leaf chicory. Do you like sugarloaf? It's a nice lettuce kind though it probably neeeds frost to develop full sweetness. Palla Rosa is a favourite of mine for looks too.
ReplyDeleteThose tomatoes look wonderful. I love the taste of black tomatoes though I've never had that variety. And I bet those peas were good.
ReplyDeleteHi Ottawa Gardener! I bet the Japanese Trifele are really colorful in your cooler weather. Surprisingly the black tomatoes grow really well here - most of them are really tasty. I haven't tried growing sugarloaf - I'll have to try that next winter. I grew 12 different radicchios this winter with mixed results - I'm happy to have found 3 that grew well enough to at least be able to use in salads.
ReplyDeleteHi Daphne! The Japanese Trifele are good but not as tasty as the Purple Cherokee or Black from Tula. I can't stop eating the peas right off the vine - they are like eating candy!