I was so not diligent about covering the hoop house (or in my case, a hoop box) and leaf miners were out in full forces this spring. They have literally obliterated my beet greens.
I've never grown beets at home before - judging by the poor condition of these plants, is there hope or should I just pull them and count it as a loss?
My herb box is 2/3 good. The Italian parsley has been strongly producing and the cilantro just jumped up, but those stupid leaf miners attacked my spinach (at top of frame) plus they are bolting. Gah!
This is the FIRST year EVER EVER that I have not been able to successfully grow peas. It was because I rotated the crop to a raised bed that is notorious for black ants *remember how they kill my broccoli year after year? Well if you look closely at above pic, you can see I tried to ward off the ants by using ANT TRAPS (yes, poison in my yard,but I wanted to get serious) and yet, look at those poor pathetic pea plants. The brown crispy leaves give it away because that is exactly what my broccoli looks like before the ants kill it. Oh poor poor peas. I wish I could have eaten you this year!
All is not lost, however, I tried a new variety of romaine lettuce called 'Little Gem' and it produced like a gem! They live in the EXACT SAME BED as the beets, under the cover, and those leaf miners didn't eat one drop of Little Gem. Go figure. Oh well, it's been delicious in our nightly salads.
Plus my side bed is filling in like crazy and looks luscious, green, and beautiful so I guess a few crop loses are equalled out a bit, right?
Linked to Tuesday Garden Party at Oregon Cottage.
2 comments:
Oh, Shannan, don't despair! Cut off the affected leaves from the beets (or just the worst ones if they're in every leaf)- they should continue to grow for you, at least to harvest at a small stage. And beets, chard, spinach and that family is the favorite of leaf miners- if they have that they'll leave the other things alone- it was like your beets were your "catch crop." :-)
Did you plant the peas from seeds or buy started plants? Whenever I buy started peas, they look like that for awhile- especially with the hot weather we had a few weeks ago (my spinach bolted in that weather, too- it doesn't like heat). Can you cut off the brown leaves and tie them up? Is there something you can encircle them with to keep the ants from them?
You can see I've never dealt with plant killing ants before, lol.
The rest is looking good- this is the lot of us gardeners, gotta take the good with the bad. I saw the flea beetles have been busy with the potatoes, so I've got to get out there and spray with my organic spray. Ugh. :-)
thanks Jami for the advice!
I went out last night and pulled all the affected leaves and gave them a nice washing of diluted neem oil spray. Hopefully it will work
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