Leaf Miners

First it was the weevils, and now, leaf miners.

Amaya informed Amber that the leaf miner bugs

put their babies inside the leaves, and then the

when they hatch they eat the leaves. This is true

of course, what I can't figure out is how she knew

that.

You can see on this chard leaf the damage they do.

If I let them get out of control, I can expect they'll

jump to my beets soon enough.

We have a bunch of magnolia trees in the area - and

we've seen evidence of their eating on their leaves

as well, which unfortunately means they have an

abundant natural habitat all around; and there are

probably millions of them.

I went to Sky Nursery to see what they had -

Originally I was looking for some kind of pheromone

trap (they didn't have one for leaf miners).

However, I did see that the capsicum spray they

were selling indicated it worked on leaf miners.

Perhaps the mama leaf miners don't much care for penetrating a leaf that's been treated with

pepper spray. I sure hope so- because that's about the only mitigation I've found. Other than

that, the only recommended treatment is to cull the infected leaves at first sign of infection, and

hope the little &^#@!*%$ don't find the rest of your crop.

We were able to actually see the leaf miners eating away when we put the leaf under the

microscope. Two that are in focus are on the left. There's more movement in the upper right,

which I'm sure are more of them, but the field of focus is limited.

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.