Weevils and Me, Pas De Deux

Yup.. that's him. The little *!@)$&*^ that's been eating my snap peas and bush beans.

The kids have learned that we find leaves that are damaged, and then we pull out The Vegetable and Herb Expert to make a diagnosis. Once we have a firm idea about what we're dealing with... we gather more data. Capturing a specimen for analysis under the microscope so we can see get a visual is key. Ugly furry ^%!@#$. He's at x40 in this photo.

Here he is at x20. The top of the image is dominated by a penny for perspective of scale.

I only applied the tobacco tea mixture to the ground around the snap peas once. I've applied the hot pepper/soap mixture to the snap peas twice - and only twice due to rain (Rain may have washed off the first round. I'm trying to keep my response proportional). The snap peas that made it out of seedling stage have taken off and the new growth is unadulterated so far. Very few bush beans made it through the war. The mounds in this photo are the second round of bush beans. I've also done a second round of snap peas. Now that I know what to look for, I won't be caught unawares. I know the enemy, and I'll be ready with the appropriate response next time.

Evil Weevils

Both my bush beans and my snap peas are getting ravaged. Grrr....

Using one of my favorite books "The Vegetable Herb Expert" by Dr. D. G. Hessayon. I figured out that I've got a serious weevil issue. (This book is the ultimate resource for diagnosis).

Also called "brown beetles" or "pea & bean weevil", it munches up the leaves of your snap peas and bush beans (bastards!).

These little $@!*ers have been chewing up the leaves on my plants so fast, the seedlings die.

After learning that they were nocturnal, I had to go out to the garden and see them with my own eyes.... I realized that I'm officially in need of a gardening 12-step program after crawling around in the garden with a mag-light at 12:30am.

With visions of one of my favorite crops disappearing for the year, I asked my father-in-law for assistance... he created two different sprays for me. One is a mixture of hot sauce, mouthwash, oil soap, and 'tobacco tea'. It's "for ground use only". I need to do more research, but it's my understanding that pretty much nothing survives that mixture.

Is this earth friendly? Um... I don't know, but I'm thinking that the probability leans towards 'NO' (research pending.... I want to nail this down). That said, it's now in the arsenal when desperate times call for desperate measures. The other spray bottle he hooked me up with is a bit more simple - a mixture of hot sauce and (bio-degradable) dish soap to be used on the leaves directly. I'm inclined to think that one is probably OK - but I still have to research that as well.

In any event - since I started using the sprays the new growth on the snap peas *does* look a whole lot better. I treated the ground (once) with the tobacco tea mixture, and I've been making sure the leaves always have a fresh coat of the chili sauch/soap mixture. I won't save this entire rotation of snap peas, but I think the damage control has been effective,

Bush Bean Seedling

My initial planting of of bush beans (Jade - 60 days) hasn't gone too well.

First thing - a majority of the seeds that were planted haven't germinated.

Second thing- the seedlings that have come up are pretty sad looking.

The seedling on the left is representative of what I'm getting... the leaves are a pale shade of green with yellowed tips. At this point I think the most likely reason (for both problem) is that the soil temperature

is still too low. We were having lots of warm days when I first planted, but since then we've had quite a few stretches of where the nights were in the 40's and the days haven't broken 55. The lowest temperature I've seen listed for germination is 60 degrees - but a more typical range is 65 - 85 degrees.

Beans are great companion plants with for nearly everything thanks to the fact that they create their own nitrogen, so I'll just keep planting them. I've got plenty of seeds, and I want staggered crop production anyways.