New chillie plants with small white spots on them

[tmb1986]

Hi,

I received some chilli plants today and when I opened up the plants all of them have small white spots on the leaves with little holes in them. One plant when I opened it up had a fly in it and this plant is the worst one, on one of the plants two leaves have big holes in them causing one of the leaves to curl. What shall I do? do I get rid of the leaves that have big holes?

Apart from this this they look healthy if abit sun burnt, just a little worried about them and wanting advice

[rustylady]

Where did you get them from?

[tmb1986]

I got them from ebay, which probably was not a good idea. I will post up some photo's.

[tmb1986]

These are the photo's:

[rustylady]

Holes in leaves and leaves curling over like that sound like caterpillar damage. Give your plants a really thorough inspection. The small white marks with holes could also be early caterpillar damage.

[tmb1986]

Thankyou I will do that, is there anyway that I can get rid of the caterpillars?

[rustylady]

Pick them off and squish them with your fingers. Also have a good look on the underside of the leaves to see if there any tiny eggs there.

[tmb1986]

I will definitely do that, thank you for your help

[tmb1986]

Definitely caterpillars, got one on my 'bird's eye' it was satisfying squelching the little bugger, he was quite big!

[Two_Sheds]

Sometimes you find caterpillars inside the chillies ... that's really yuck

[tmb1986]

That is definitely yuck, the bird's eye plant has no buds just yet but the sweet banana and early jalapeno do.