something bad with the spinach

johnp 6/6/2014, 4:53 pm

All my spinach leafs turned a yellowy gray. I pulled out the two squares before taking any pictures which was dumb. Anyway today while watering I noticed my beets and card have the same thing. Hope someone can help.

Beets:

Chard:

boffer 6/6/2014, 5:05 pm

Those are leaf miners. There are different types of leaf miners that favor different veggies. I have the same issue with a leaf miner that likes chard and beets. I don't recall if they they like spinach too.

There is a type of fly that lays eggs on leaves that hatch and then the 'worm' crawls around inbetween the layers of the leaves. If you take a leaf with fresh tracks on it and hold it up to the sun, you'll be able to see the worm which is about ¼ inch long.

Put on your best glasses and look on the underside of the leaves for eggs. They look like this
something bad with the spinach Leaf-miner-eggs

something bad with the spinach Leaf-miner-eggs

johnp 6/6/2014, 5:41 pm

Thanks for the information boffer. I just remembered the lady up at the corner had this last year and said it was some kind of worm. Any kind of spray help?

boffer 6/6/2014, 5:58 pm

Since the plants don't need pollination, you can cover them with tulle, etc. to keep the flies from laying eggs. Since I hand water, I just look for signs of a problem, and when I see them, I start checking for and squishing the eggs.

Generally, a few bad leaves won't kill the plants. If the leaves are bad, remove them. If the worm is just getting started, squish the worm, and let the leaf be.

I've not looked into sprays.

johnp 6/6/2014, 6:46 pm

That's what I'll do. I won't be home for two days but when we return it is off to the garden center. The beets are hit hard so I am going to plant more. Now I wish I would have planted more chard. Actually I will go out tomorrow before we leave and check every leaf. If it's war you want then... Cool

boffer 6/6/2014, 6:56 pm

Sounds like you need a helper!

something bad with the spinach Zzzzzz23

lyndeeloo 6/6/2014, 9:05 pm

Supposedly BT works on some of the leaf miners if you're not opposed to using it. I just had to break down and use it yesterday. Hated to but didn't get the netting on soon enough and I got cabbage worms, miners and cut worms throughout the gardens. Ugh.

johnp 6/7/2014, 10:20 am

Found just what you said. Checked every leaf I could and got rid of a lot of little white dots. Checked the kale for worms but did not find any. Drug out my 4x4 cover that I thought was to much trouble and put it over some of the kale and beets. Should help some until I buy some tulle.

CapeCoddess 6/7/2014, 1:10 pm

boffer wrote:Sounds like you need a helper!

Heeeeeyyyyyyy...that's my Lilly kitty! She's the BEST guard cat ever!
I'm saving that photo! Classic!

CC

where did she go? How come the image doesn't show up in my post?

boffer 6/7/2014, 4:03 pm

CC, when I used the quote button on your post, I saw that the code for the picture is:

Code:: [img]http://i42.servimlg.com/u/f42/14/92/49/47/zzzzzz23.jpg[/img]

"servimg" isn't spelled correctly in the URL. I don't have a clue why.

Taking the 'l' out works:

Code:: [img]http://i42.servimg.com/u/f42/14/92/49/47/zzzzzz23.jpg[/img]

CapeCoddess 6/7/2014, 5:11 pm

So THAT's where that 'L' went! When I need to correct a weird word used by the voice feature on the tablet, sometimes I'll type the correction and a letter or 2 will bounce out to where ever. I've pretty much always hunted them down and found them before but I guess this one got away from me.

Silly tablet. Thanks for solving my mystery, boffer.
good idea

What WOULD we do without you???

CC

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