Does anyone know what's up with my Lemon Habanero?
The newer growth has been coming out all mishapen and weird.
The plants in general are running behind schedule because I planted the late but that's ok. I'm not too precious about getting fruit from them this season as I have plenty from my Thai Birdseye, but I was hoping to overwinter this one and maybe get an early crop next year.
I potted it up into its current pot about a month ago. It's in a 9.5 litre pot. I had a good look at the roots at the time and they seemed fine. It was having a lot of blossom drop a few weeks back which I hear is normal when it's still establishing but that has slowed down now and it's holding onto most of its buds now. I've been checking the soil daily on them to make sure it's cool enough and mildly damp without being wet, and water deeply when it's feeling a little dry.
I had been giving it a weak solution of chilli focus every two weeks up until about 2 weeks ago, and have switched to a 0-10-10 fertilizer (also very weakly diluted in the last fortnight to encourage the blooms) but the deformed leaf issue had started before that.
They live on a sunny balcony which gets direct sun from about 0800-1500. They weather has been around 22-28°c lately and not dropping below 15°c at night. The leaves are nice and green but just gnarled and mishapen. Could it be too much fertilizer? Or some other kind of environmental stress? Everything I've seen online suggests aphids or something kind of root pest but I'm pretty confident it's not that as I checked the roots recently and there's no aphids on the plant. My compact tomatoes and Thai Birdseye are in the same compost mix and live near to this plant but are having no issues.
I'm trying to diagnose it by process of elimination and am at a loss.
by PurpleyPineapple