Normally, I grow peppers from my own seed stock or overwintered plants without problems. However, this year I got behind and purchased seedlings/plants from some different sources. Most of them came from big chain stores (Wal-Mart, Home Depot, etc.), but a few plants came from a local gardener with whom i have not had any previous dealings. Normally, I would not include plants of questionable source in my plot. However, as I mentioned, I was behind in my seed starting and we are moving this year so I wont's be bothering to collect seed or overwinter plants this season.

   I started everything as I normally do, in 14 gallon pots with clean dirt amended with a balanced organic fertilizer. (We have a somewhat shady yard, and I move the pots to follow the sun throughout the season.) I'm mostly a hands-off gardener--perhaps even bordering on abusive to my peppers; I only really bother to step in if i see something sreiously wrong (heavy pest infestation/damage, birds, groundhogs, deer, etc). This has seemed to work fine for me so far.

   I normally have a couple of plants that lag behind at first, but with a little extra help they usually catch up. So it didn't really alarm me when one of the unknown gardener's jalapeños wasn't doing very well (he mentioned he had started them a couple of weeks late); I gave it a bit more fertilizer (something a little more nitrogen-y) and some extra water for a couple of weeks. It perked right back up.

   A few weeks ago, I noticed the smae plant had a few deformed leaves on the new growth (curled/curved), a quick check for aphids and flies revealed nothing; I figured it was probably water/fert related (as we were in a bit of a dry spell and I had just moved them to a sunnier spot). In typical fashion, I decided to do nothing and figured it would probably clear itself up.

   A week or two has passed, and I am now much more worried. The curling has turned into severe puckering and spotting of the leaves. The plant's growth has been stunted and all new leaves are coming out severly deformed/stunted. It managed to set one fruit which is also deformed. I noticed today that a few leaves on another previously healthy plant (from a store) has started to exhibit some mild deformations on new leaves. Old leaves do not seem to be affected. In doing some research, it seems that this might be mosaic virus (I do have tomatoes also, but this has never before been a problem). I do not smoke, however, The initially affected plant came from that other guy and I'm not sure if he does (or another customer handling the plants at his sale might have). I'd like to avoid having to destroy the "healthy" plant as it's the only one of that variety I put in, but that jalapeño can go as I have others. Any help would be appreciated.

Here are some pictures of the originally affected plant.

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Here are some pictures of the "healthy" plant's affected leaves.

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