Mr. Worf, fire photon torpedoes. Full spread.

Okay, the aphids continue to be a problem.  I've tried the nuclear option of sevin all over the place, I've tried neem oil, I've tried speaking to them in a very cross tone of voice, nothing has worked.  In fact, since I moved the sweet potato heart in, its gotten worse.

 As you can see, aphids on the pepper leaves, and eggs/larva all over the sweet potato leaves.

So screw nuclear, time to resort to anti-matter!  Step one, defoliation!

Okay, not a complete defoliation, but pretty hard.  Found lots of the little buggers in some of the dense foliage where the sprays obviously weren't reaching.  This cuts off the heavy growth that protected them.  Then they all got a good soaking with a mixture of water, neem oil, dish soap, and liquid sevin.  I mean dripping wet over every square inch of plant.  Top, bottom, sides, the dirt, everything.

And just for good measure, while the grow box was empty I sprayed the insides of it down with the same mixture on the off chance magical aphids were hiding in the walls or something.

Frankly, if this doesn't end my aphid problem once and for all, well hell, I'm taking samples of the things and sending them to the military for biological weapon testing.  They're clearly immortal super bugs, there has to be some way to weaponize that!

There's a Fungus Among Us!

Of the three reapers in the grow box, we had the zombie reaper (the seedling that appeared dead but survived), the project reaper (the one on the skull), and the third one that was the best producing of the backups.  The third one was the weakest plant going into overwintering due to it being left out the longest to produce peppers, and the fact it had heavy roots that needed a pretty hard chop to get it in before a freeze.  Never did seem to recover completely like the other two did.

And then yesterday I saw this:

This is something I have encountered before, and it is very dangerous.  Do you see how the leaves are wilting and the center of the cut branch is hollow?  Thats a fungal infection.  When an overwintered pepper is weak, a fungus can infect the cut ends like this and it starts burrowing down the center, killing the limb.  If its allowed to go all the way down to the main trunk, the entire plant will die.

This is how much of the limb I had to chop back before I got to a solid center again.  It delved this deep in a couple of days (leaves looked fine two or three days prior when I last watered), and now it was a good 6 inches into the limb.  Only choice was to chop the entire limb off down to the trunk to make 100% sure I got it all.  Kind of like cancer, you gotta cut out the healthy tissue along with the bad to make sure you don't leave any in there.

This also made me take a closer look at the plant, especially the back side.  I've been having trouble with the aphids coming back on the other two plants, now I know why.

The back side of this one where the spray wasn't easily reaching was covered in young aphids, its where they've been holing up and surviving.

Between the aphids, the fungus, the overall weak state of the plant, and the fact it was basically just a backup, I've put it back outside for now.  If we get a freeze, well I won't cry over losing this one.  I still have the two good ones.  Better to sacrifice this one than leave a source of infection and infestation in a confined space with the good ones!

For the time being, the big heart sized/shaped purple sweet potato can have it's spot in the box.

Oh, I've also been keeping the project reaper pruned back in order to start shaping a canopy on it.  I think its been getting extra light from the reflective backing, as that side has denser vegetation than the other arm, so I've turned it around to try and even it out some.  But as you can see, we're definitely starting to get a nice solid half dome going on.

Moss Test Grade: C-

Okay, its been a little over a month since I started the moss test, and I think the results are in.

Despite daily spraying from the bottle with rain water, the moss is looking pretty... autumnal?  Is that a word?  Spellchecker thinks it is, so I'm going with it.  Yeah, it looks more dead than anything else.  Its not entirely dead, as you can still see green underneath the top layers on the soil surface, but it seems the dry indoor air and the fans in the top of the case make it just too dry for it to thrive.

So, verdict overall is a C-.  Its not a complete failure, but its not very good as a permanent fixture either.  For a short term thing though, it looked great!  I'll be sure to give it fresh moss when I dress it up for final show-off pictures.

On a related note, the cultured moss I brought inside is also suffering from dry air, though I have been keeping it in soggier soil so its done better overall.

Same dead extremities, but a much greener under story.  I decided that since its rainy and fairly warm out for the time being, I'd put it outside with the stuff I left out there this whole time (and give it a good soaking of rain water).  The comparison picture here tells the story, IMO:

What I've had indoors is struggling, but is much darker green.  The stuff that has been outside is thriving, but is a much lighter, almost neon green.  Tells me I probably haven't given the indoor stuff as much light as it would have liked, along with the indoor heat and air making it too dry for it.

Anywho, I dug the mostly dead moss out of the skull.  I was kind of hoping that maybe the moss would hold enough moisture to encourage some new roots into the eyesockets from the pepper, but that didn't happen.  Just didn't stay damp enough for long enough at a time, so oh well.

But as you can see, the peppers are loving the conditions in the box.  I gave them a feeding about a month ago with some miracle grow mix (they've been in these containers for a while now with nothing but what was in the leftover soil), and I didn't want them to go hungry on me.  Nice dark green leaves mean happy peppers!