Monday, October 13, 2008

Tiny critters are eating my vegetable leaves

I knew I was having too much beginner’s luck! Drats. Some tiny bug-things are starting to chomp on the seedling leaves of my broccoli, lettuce, and kale. Now I'm trying to figure out what they are and what to do about them.


broccoli leaf eater


lettuce leaf eater


lettuce leaf eater

Otherwise, all my small veggies appear to be faring pretty well, although I've still got some thinning to do. I sowed some arugula (Eruca sativa) seeds yesterday and stuck some garlic cloves in a pot.


cauliflower seedlings


sorrel seedlings

Husband Kurt and I also spent time in the front (non-veggie) yard excavating nutgrass:


Pink skullcap, Mexican bush sage, and blue plumbago

5 comments:

TexasDeb said...

Aww - that is the down side of trying to grow food to some extent.

Those little salad lovers have full time access to the plants whereas most of us gardeners are at it only part time.

We are having problems with digging squirrels. They are wreaking holey havoc in several beds and tend to be repeat offenders.

Iris said...

Our squirrels are busy digging everywhere, too, but the ratwire dog fence enclosing the main veggie beds seem to be deterring the squirrels from digging there, at least.

Rock rose said...

Tis the time for caterpillars. You can always spray with BT or pick off the eggs or the caterpillars themselves. I think the first leaf is showing leaf miner damage. Shouldn't affect them too much.

Iris said...

Thank you! And pardon my ignorance, but what's "BT"?

(I thinned and harvested allot of the mesclun and buttercrunch tonight for dinner in my amateur attempt to deprive the buggers!)

I'll not worry about the leaf miner damage for now.

Bird said...

Long time, no talk. I will gladly send all my squirrels over to your garden to eat your bugs. All of them. Pesky hole-diggers!

Every morning I have to go out and re-bury my tiny Mexican Feathergrass plants.