The pepper plants I brought in from the summer developed an absolutely horrible case of scale while i was away. All the plants were watered right before I got back, so tonight was the first I've been back to water them and talk to them and prune them.

I started crying when i saw it...... It was that bad.....

I haven't yet found scale on anything else, though there are some that feel mildly sickly since I've gotten back that I'm keeping an eye on.

The scale on those 4 pepper plants is so bad they're unsalvageable....The entire plant on 2 of them and all over the other 2 in patches. beyond cutting off affected limbs and treating. I had to put them outside to die.

And now I can hear the plants outside dying and crying out and suffering and it hurts to hear them......

I KNOW that pepper plants are only to be treated as annuals, but usually mine lat me through an entire year and sometimes two.

And any plant screaming like that would hurt me..... It hurts so badly right now as an empath with a green thumb to hear their pain and confusion and to know it's my fault......

But I had to. Before they hatch and spread further than those plants already affected.....

But I can't stand hearing them suffer like this.  I have to. but I wish I could put them out of their misery. but even chopping down all the branches then letting it freeze won''t make them die any quicker or stop their screaming.....

It's breaking my heart to hear them, even through the walls and doors between me and the pepper plants (and the scale on them) dying.....

~*~*~*~*~

In happier plant news, I talked to my almond tree last week after I got back asked her if she was ready to wake up. She's been bagged and dormant all winter. She agreed with me and so I woke her up ((usually a week before I unbag her) and just unbagged her and moved her to somewhere she can get sunlight. She has all sort of new green twigs she's put out in the last week as well as having no dead branches for me to trim!!!!!  Once the budding and flowering starts, I'll have a better idea if there's anything to trim off.

Also, be proud of me for moving her all by myself -- she IS a full tree planted in a whiskey barrel full of soil after all. And moving her is a heavy business, lol. I ought to have waited til tomorrow when my da or someone else stronger than me was here to help. but i got stubborn and decided it HAD to be done tonight before I could water her. Sooooo, here we are, but I got it done. Gonna be sore tomorrow/Weds, but got it done!