Discriminating tastes?

Okay, something is eating my lettuce.... I have a few romaine plants under my pea tee-pee, and something finds them quite delectable! I'm guessing it is the cabbage worms that are eating my broccoli and cauliflower in the same box.... are these little guys simply not fond of peas? Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT upset that they have by-passed my peas, just find it very curious as the peas and the romaine are in such close proximity! Or are the lettuce, broc., and cauli. the first course, and soon they will be moving on to the peas? I squished the 4 critters that I found this morning (as my 5 yr. old looked on saying, "it's nice of you to let them live"... little did she know I was dispatching them as she spoke... )

Dead center in the pic is what is left of one poor little romaine plant.


a little more perspective.... the peas look great... the lettuce not so much.... can you see it under there?


One of my poor little ravaged cauliflowers.... I pulled 4 worms off of 4 plants today... ugh!

I have never had cabbage worms go after my lettuce. Do you see any on the lettuce plants?

When big chunks like that are taken, I always suspect snails and slugs.

hmmmm.....

well, I know for sure that I have cabbage worms eating the cauliflower and broccoli, but I have not actually seen them on/near the lettuce... slugs and snails do their dirty work at night don't they? The romaine leaves were about 2ish inches long, and have been disappearing on a daily basis off of this particular plant. Another critter picked the two new first leaves off of one of my newly sprouted bean plants... I'm suspecting a bird on that one. Oh, how I dislike these critters! I did not have issues like this last year!

You might check for cutworms, too. They were eating my cabbage leaves earlier this spring. They're fatter than cabbage worms, and gray colored. They also have kind of a greasy or waxy look and feel to them. They can completely shear off small plants, or eat leaves from larger ones. They usually sleep in the dirt surrounding the plant, so if you don't find them on the leaves, you can sometimes gently poke around the soil at the base of the plant and uncover them. Mine were quite happily snugged up next my cabbage heads down inside the leaves. I saw the droppings first, which clued me in to their presence.

They'll eat almost anything in the garden.

Thanks ander217, I'll definitely keep my eyeballs peeled for the little buggers.... yuck! And I don't even want to know how you know a cutworm has a waxy/greasy FEEL to it.... If I have to remove a pest, I do it with a stick or something of the sort! No touchy/feely for me... hehe!

Yup, it seems like just when that hot spell broke, all those stupid white wings started fluttering around my brassicas. I quickly covered that box (all of them are in the same box) with tulle. BUT I must not have been fast enough because they still got in a laid a few. So I picked em off. But some went to cocoon before I get em, so I still picked em off and laid em on a plate, they were gone by lunch, thank you robins.

I think went out and purchased some BT call Thuricide.

jkdistad wrote:Thanks ander217, I'll definitely keep my eyeballs peeled for the little buggers.... yuck! And I don't even want to know how you know a cutworm has a waxy/greasy FEEL to it.... If I have to remove a pest, I do it with a stick or something of the sort! No touchy/feely for me... hehe!

LOL!

My grandma taught me that sometimes all the gardening tools you need are a thumb and a finger. They will plant, weed, harvest, and yes, they will handpick bugs, too.

ander217 wrote:My grandma taught me that sometimes all the gardening tools you need are a thumb and a finger. They will plant, weed, harvest, and yes, they will handpick bugs, too.

They can, but they won't! You can't make me do it!!!