What's Eating My Peppers?
Peppers usually shrug off light feeding, so real damage is worth a close look. The culprit list overlaps with tomatoes — they're cousins — with a couple of pepper specialists.
The usual suspects
Aphids
The signs: Sticky, curled new leaves and shiny honeydew film, often with ants in attendance.
What it looks like: Soft pinhead-sized insects clustered under leaves and on tender tips.
What to do: Hose them off hard, repeat a few days running; insecticidal soap if they rebound.
Flea beetles
The signs: Small round 'birdshot' holes concentrated on younger leaves.
What it looks like: Tiny jumping black beetles, worst on spring transplants.
What to do: Row cover until plants size up; mature plants tolerate the cosmetic damage.
Cutworms
The signs: Transplants toppled at the soil line overnight.
What it looks like: C-curled gray caterpillars in the top inch of soil near the damage.
What to do: Cardboard collars at transplant time end the problem before it starts.
Hornworms
The signs: Big ragged holes and stripped stems — less common than on tomatoes but the same dramatic overnight damage.
What it looks like: Large green caterpillar with white side markings and a rear horn.
What to do: Handpick at dusk; spare any wearing white parasitic wasp cocoons.
Pepper weevil
The signs: In warm regions: premature fruit drop, and a small dark exit hole with a grub inside dropped pods.
What it looks like: A small dark snout beetle; larvae are cream-colored grubs inside the fruit.
What to do: Pick up and destroy all dropped fruit promptly — sanitation is the main control for home growers.
Spider mites
The signs: Fine pale stippling on leaves, bronzed dry look, and delicate webbing on leaf undersides in hot, dry spells.
What it looks like: Specks barely visible to the eye; tap a leaf over white paper and watch for moving dots.
What to do: Raise humidity around plants and hose the undersides; insecticidal soap or horticultural oil for outbreaks.
When it's not a pest at all
A pale, papery sunken patch on the side of a fruit facing the sun is sunscald, and a dark leathery patch at the blossom end is blossom end rot — both environmental, no chewing involved.
Or just point your phone at it
Snap a photo of the leaf, the bug, or the droppings, and Harold — the advisor built into Homestead Paradise — names what he sees, tells you friend or foe, and what he'd do next. Honest when he's unsure, and careful where it counts.
Put Harold's Eyes on it — free 14-day trial