Yes, please post your images.

Ok, I will post them tomorrow afternoon as soon as I get home! I have before 1st days pix, first week pix and will take some tomorrow as well!

Thanks!

nickerbokker

Sounds like what is happening to mine! it started indoors, and has continued! can't find any bugs and as you say really neat cuts but then just left there?? strange?

It's probably snails. I had the same problem. I would wake up and the stems to my pepper plants were cut off and around the base of the plant were chewed up. So I woke up at 4am and went out to look and there were snails eating them.

Try coffee grounds. They add nitrogen to the soil which is good for the plands and little pests usually don't like them. Epsom salt is also good for pepper plants.

a tupperware lid with beer in it will attract the slugs/snails and kill them .... I also read that a clay pot placed on its side away from the sun will give the snails a place to hide in the day allowing you to gather them before feeding time

I had the same problem earlier in the spring with a basil plant. All leaves gone, only the stem remaining. It was suggested here that slugs must be the culprits so I proceded to put out beer traps. After about a week and 4 traps, I caught a total of 2 slugs (one of them was tiny). I concluded it was not slugs, but never found out what was causing the problem. The good news is it does not seem to be repeating. Would love to know who was responsible!

I would have concluded the 2 slugs were responsible! ;-)

nickerbokker, I am having the exact same problem with my bell and banana pepper plants. It's driving me nuts!

Hopefully someone know what is going on here.

My peppers were suffering for three weeks until I discovered tiny slugs on a late nite visit to the garden. Elsewhere on this site I found the solution.
1. Yeast, not beer, does a better job of attracting them. A little yeast/sugar/water in a pie pan caught about 50 of them the first night.
2. Ammonia. Spray the plants and around the garden at night or early morning when they're active. Dilute it about 5 to 1.
Thanks to this forum, my peppers are making a comeback.

medcave - I would have concluded that too, had I caught very many...

You guys really saved me. I had no idea what was slithering from the earth in the dark of night. I went out at midnight and I was amazed! There must have been hundreds of these slugs on the ground, in the grass and on the privacy fence and I had never seen more thn one or two before this in the yard.

I set out beer traps as was suggested, no yeast because we don't bake, and immediately these things came out to feast. Easily caught 50 of them. I periodically checked the plates I set out and dumped them in one bucket and added more beer. However the ones in the bucket started crawling out. Fixed that buy adding a little salt.

Does anyone know if they will avoid the beer trap if you add a little salt to it for effect? I think some of them survived after a night of binge drinking and will live to tell the tale! One thing I did find is that the plates need to be slightly in the ground if possible for easier access to the trap.

Not sure of the spelling. Diatenous Earth is supposed to keep soft bellied slithering bugs away. It acts like cut glass to their bodies. It is quite expensive around here. Kinda looks like a dark sand.

Diatomaceous

I'm surprised the slugs went for the peppers and not the lettuce.

I was having this issue as well. It was like someone was take clippers and cutting off each leaf and also cutting the starter plant right at the middle of the stalk.

First i thought it was birds so I covered my plants with netting. Didn't work. Then I thought it was squirrels. So I covered it very good with a cage. Nothing was going to get in for sure. Still my plants were losing leaves over night. Right down to the stalk,

One night while enjoying a beer I decided to try the slug trap and walked over to my plants to catch the dark grub in the act. There he was chewing away at the stalk and sawing down my brand new jalapeño plant :( I was upset but happy I know knew who I had to target.

Although I want to go all natural. I feel I'm left with no choice but to use some type of pesticide. Any ideas? BTW THERE WERE SLUGS AND NIGHT CRAWLERS ON MY PLANTS TOO.

darryl:

Diatomaceous earth is all natural. And like others have mentioned, beer traps. I've also read that a ring of sand around the plants help. Some people will take a board and lay it in the garden -- in the morning, lift it up and dispose of them. Copper strips is another deterrent.

Kevin

I was so stressed out because something was eating my bell peppers. After reading some of the posts, i decided to go out to my garden with a flashlight about 10 pm to look around; and thats when I saw them! Lots of Snails! I picked up about 12 of them, put them in a cup & doused them with salt! Whew! that was such a relief! I think I will try the coffee grounds method to keep them away.