Examine the undersides of the leaves with a magnifier and look for dots that move . Could be mites -not the spider variety. Or-take to county extension office for expert diagnosis. They found my mites with a microscope.

I have definitely found spider mites recently; and clover mites, or some other larger bright red ground mite. I have been spraying with an alcohol solution for the last few days, but the growth seems to be getting worse. It does not seem like I can find or have found mites on many of the plants exhibiting this issue.

I spotted what looked like a fungus gnat, could that be a culprit? It surprised me because I wait until wilt to water, so fairly dry.

Any weed killer used nearby? By you or someone else?

Jean, that is a great thought, it is an apartment complex so I cannot say for sure. The complex has a landscaping company that comes weekly, but I do not think they sprayed recently, if ever. Last year my garden in the same location did not have an issue.

I will try to look into that further, but the complex does not even know the sprinkler schedule so I doubt they know this. Maybe I can call the landscaping company.

I would still be suspicious of mites.

Well I either overdid the alcohol spray or they must have sprayed herbicide. A couple plants are entirely wilted today, basically dead. Some of the growth is dark brown/black also. I am going to pursue this because I do not think 50/50 alcohol would cause this. They should be more careful spraying, a lot of people have plants around this complex.

This is far too destructive to be mites, pics to come.

Phil, I'm sorry to see this. I don't know the cause, either.

Did you spray the plants during daylight hours? I completely defoliated and killed
a Thai Chile by spraying with water/alcohol and leaving it in sunlight. Since then, I've switched
over to a soap product to control pests.

Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this.

Josh

Josh, thanks, ill get pictures later today when I get home from school. I am terrified of what I might find. The landscaping company is going to get back to me on when they last sprayed this complex. I could easily have moved my pots inside...

I was careful to spray in the evening only, but the plants are young and I sprayed heavily, it does have a significant cooling effect, so I am not typo g out that. I think I will hold off on further alcohol spray unless I see mite infestation.

Well the Jamaican Hot Chocolate looks done for, every single leaf dropped and the stem has
black parts at the leaf joints. The plant tissue seems to be black, and not the surface if I try to wipe it off.

Not all of them are this bad, which makes me wonder whether it was an herbicide. However, I had a
broken conversation with one of the landscapers today. He told me that they used round-up last week
and that it was a possibility they sprayed too close to my plants. Last week had wind every day, and
this is about how long roundup takes to work. I used it growing up on the ranch a lot and if that is what
is going on then I am in for a massacre over the next day or two.

Luckily, they do not all seem to be effected, a privileged few only have to deal with mites and aphids.

You would think that if they died from auxillary Round Up spray, that the mites would have taken a hit too.

I'll never use Isopropyl again on my plants(50%).
It killed several of my plants in 2 days.

I think why it killed the ones it did was because those plants might have had wetter soil and allowed the alcohol to get to the roots-didn't evaporate or that the alcohol has something that leaves a residue in it that kills plants.
It didn't seem to burn the leaves.
It looks more like the plants had cutworms or something eating the roots.
The only plants I sprayed were indoors and in 4 in. pots,no gnats or other bugs in the soil.
Roots in several pots looked like they were just dead,not eaten or over watered.
I think the alcohol did it.

Well, past the horrid death of the JHT, the others are hanging on, a couple leaves have dropped but nothing close to that.

I have continued spraying alcohol for mites on select plants and paying close attention, and they still seem pretty happy. Maybe you are right about the soil being more moist or something, I plan to continue with isopropyl as sort of an experiment at this point, unless the mites start to get worse in which case I will have to invest in miticide.

We will know over the next few days whether they were hit with round-up or not. As I recall a plant cannot really recover from round-up, because it is systemic. Anybody verify this? Or can I pray that the plants will pull through?

Two observations. First, have you considered using Neem spray for the mites? Second, I've got several plants growing along the stone wall where my neighbor has sprayed Roundup. They were stunted with malformed leaves. They survived though.

Neem by itself did nothing for me.
I even mixed the concentrate 2x strength.
Like soap sprays it barely slowed them down.

neem and the miticide at first seemed better than either alone though.I think the neem thickened up the miticide so it covered better.
Now I'm just spraying neem 2x a day-sunrise and sunset.
still have mites but my plants seem to be able to handle the number the population stablised at.

As I said before,once you have mites you are screwed.You will never totally get rid of them.

I am now hosing off the plants after i spray the alcohol to be safe, and now that they have a bit more strength to take the water! I noticed today that my cilantro had a nice few webs in it, and I have had trouble finding them on the peppers lately. Maybe I will move the cilantro/add a few plants and leave it there with the spidermites, I cannot put it THAT far away though, but on the other side of a wall!