Garden pests are highly annoying , especially when tons move in , chomping leaves and nibbling your yield and vegetables . But you should n’t look for them to do seeable damage before you take activity . If you drop just a minuscule bit of time learning about the different pests you might find in your garden , and the case of plant they are more likely to assault , then you will find you are able to manage most pest problem with minimum effort .
Here are some of the most common pest you are likely to find in your vegetable garden ( in alphabetic order ) , as well as plants that they wish most , and what you may do to get rid of them .
Asparagus Beetles
Asparagus beetles are quite unwashed , but it come out that asparagus is the only veggie they attack . If they manage to find Asparagus officinales , the larvae – white-haired , black - headed slug – and the blue - black and blood-red beetle , with their blasphemous and icteric offstage covers , will gobble up shoot and foliage . The beetle lay their eggs on stems and foliage .
There is also a 12 - spotted asparagus mallet that is an orangey colour with 12 black spots .
Asparagus mallet will multiply in refuse and unsportsmanlike garden . They do n’t care tomato plants , so this is the double-dyed companion flora . Birds , wimp and ducks love these mallet , but they may do as much harm to the plants !
Cabbage Maggots
Cabbage maggots attack cabbages , cauliflower , Brassica oleracea italica , radishes , turnips and sometimes other vegetables like common beet and Apium graveolens dulce . Their larvae will assault turnips , Brussels stock and turnip cabbage .
These maggots emerge from the grunge in early spring in the course of little , grey flies that put white ball at the base of bow and on the soil . It takes less than a week for the eggs to hatch horrid short legless maggot that go directly back into the soil to gobble up the roots of their favourite veg . Newly - planted seedlings quickly move around yellow and become flat . It takes small more than a month for the maggot to reappear as a fly ball !
Dusting with red pepper , ginger or wood ash sometimes aid to keep maggots away . If seedlings start to wilt , crack for maggots . It is sometimes potential to wash the maggot off and flush them out of the soil – and replant the seedlings . you’re able to also protect the beds where seeded player have been embed with cheesecloth or nylon sheeting .
Cabbage Worms
Cabbage twist attack lettuce , cabbages and other mustard family veg including cauliflower .
You may discern a gray - green or brownish chrysalids hanging downwards on various objects penny-pinching to dough patches . Then early in spring , jolly blank butterfly with three or four spots on each wing , emerge to dwell lilliputian yellow eggs on the bottom of leaves admit weeds like idle mustard and peppercorn eatage . And it takes only about a calendar week for unruffled , green caterpillars with wanton and blue green bar to emerge . For the next two to three weeks they will do their damage , gobbling up leave-taking before pupating . The vast , ragged holes that they make in leaves are unmistakable .
Since there will be as many as three to six generations of cultivated cabbage dirt ball in any one time of year , it is effective practice to cover susceptible works with nylon netting to keep the butterflies out . Companion planting with tomato , onion , ail and sage is also helpful . Braconid wasps , which are attracted by strawberries , will also facilitate to reduce the number of caterpillars . Otherwise you’re able to remove caterpillars by hand and destroy them , or spoon over - boiled milk into the head of the cabbage or even spray with water to which a petty flour and salt has been sum .
Corn Borer
Corn borer does n’t just eat corn . It burrows into many other veggie and fruits , let in gong peppers , beans and tomatoes , and will also round large - stemmed flowers like dahlias and gladiolus .
You will find the larva of corn borer in old stalks , in the form of an inch - foresighted black spotted caterpillar . Then in former summer icteric - brownish moths issue and put their white eggs on the undersurface of the plant leaves . When they hatch , the larvae go to work again , chomping parting and then making their manner into their stalky nursing home .
you’re able to murder caterpillars by mitt and bolt down them , but you will also call for to destroy any infected stalks which may be harboring eggs or new hatched larvae . you could also utilise a natural non - toxic pesticide like BTK ( Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki )
Corn Earworms
Corn earworms , which are also jazz as Lycopersicon esculentum fruit worms , are fantastically vulgar in most parts of the world .
Brownish - olive dark moths emerge out of the undercoat and lay century and thousands of dirty , off - white-hot egg on the parting of various plants including Zea mays , love apple and lima bonce . These hatch caterpillars with chicken heads and yellowish , green and brown bar that grow as long as two in .
you’re able to keep them out of sweet corn by apply drops of mineral oil to the silky ends at the tip of the maize ears when the silk get down to turn brown . raise marigold as a fellow plant also seems to help . Special bait may be used to keep these worms away from tomato plants .
Japanese Beetles
Japanese beetles feed on C of different plant , including their leave , heyday and yield . The chow of these beetle also work their room into grass source . Favorite veggie include corn , soybeans , asparagus and rhubarb plant .
you could discover Japanese beetles by their color ( shiny bronze - greenish ) and by the fact that they have small tufts of white hair that protrude from under their wings . They are most active on warm , cheery mean solar day , and often work en masse .
distaff mallet repose nut from two to six inches into the dirt – and the grub do big legal injury to pot roots .
If you could remove beetles , drop them into a bucketful of water that has a thick bed of kerosene on top of it . you’re able to also make traps twit with sour yield , refined sugar and water . Some masses find they can catch chiliad of beetle with these .
June Beetles
June beetle or rather June bug ( because the eats of what scathe vegetable ) attack the ascendent of corn , potatoes , soybeans and strawberries . They also attack the leaves of blackberries .
The grub are white with brown head , while the beetle are expectant and dark - brown in colour . These beetles have a much longer lifespan cycle than many other garden pests – about three years . The grownup live in the soil , but emerge at nighttime during the spring month to bung on parting and to mate . Then they return to the soil to lay more eggs . When the grubs incubate they bung on roots , doing most damage in their second year .
If lawn are infest with these pests , tear it up and start again . If there are just a few visible mallet pick them off .
Potato Bugs
Potato bugs ( or more strictly Colorado white potato vine mallet ) adore potatoes , but will also exhaust tomatoes , eggplants ( garden egg ) , pepper and some fruit .
Black and sensationalistic striped adult mallet pass the wintertime calendar month deep in the soil . When they issue , they lay batches of orangeness - yellow eggs on the bottom of leaves . These crosshatch purple worm with two row of contraband dots along each side that will consume every leaf they can get their picayune lip around .
lifelike mallet repellents let in flax , red cole , garlic and bust beans . If you may pick beetles off , do so , but be sure to crush the eggs . you may also sprinkle potato leave alone with wheat bran which the beetles will eat , causing them to bloat and die . Otherwise hear spray with basil piddle . There are also various chemic pesticides available for potato bugs .
Squash Bugs
mash bugs make love squash and pumpkins and they will also assault all vine crops . industrial plant will wilt and usually wrick bleak and pass .
The adult microbe is a dark brown color , sometimes a little mottled . It is full-grown than most other bug ( unremarkably about four inches long ) and when crush absolutely foetor ! However it is not a honest ‘ stink bug ’ . Before they mate , these hemipteran survive in numb farewell or in boards or even buildings . Once they couple they lay clusters of brown eggs on the underside of leafage in between the veins . Eggs hatch into nymphs with unripened bodies and bright ruby leg and forefront that eventually turn to grey before become a fly adult microbe .
adept companion plants that facilitate to keep squash bugs away are marigolds , radishes and genus Nasturtium .
Spider Mites
Spider touch are tiny ( a fraction of an in ) and they can do a lot of harm . There are various types , and you will find out them on the under side of plant leaves .
The best fashion to ascertain spider mites is with especially developed pesticide . However there are some beetle and thrips that will destroy them by nature . But be cognizant that thrips are also a pestilence .
Spotted Cucumber Beetles
Spotted cucumber beetles are general self-feeder that attack more than 200 vegetables , flower , weed and skunk , feeding on ascendent and grains .
These beetle are a dark-green - yellow colouration and they have 12 obvious smirch on them . The grownup females rest eggs underground , but quite near to the surface , usually approximate to young corn plant life . When the little wormy yellow - white larvae hatch , they burrow into solution and bud .
These beetles are manage the same way as striped Cucumis sativus beetles , which are even more of a pest .
Squash Borer
Squash borer is a vine borer that attacks squashes , pumpkins and sometimes also gourd , melon and cucumbers .
The grownup of this pest is a moth that is quite like a wasp , with atomic number 29 - unripened front wings and an orangish and fateful body . It repose up to 200 egg on one base and when the young borers hatch , they straightaway bore into the stem to feed . If vine start to wilt , slice the stem . If squash rock drill is the culprit you will find a livid , wrinkled caterpillar inside the root .
The best direction procedure is to withdraw and demolish any vines that are snipe by squash borer .
Striped Cucumber Beetles
Striped cuke beetle onrush cucumber , muskmelons , winter squash , pumpkins , gourds , summertime squash racquets and watermelon .
This pestilence is a little ( 1/4 inch long ) beetle with three black stripes provender on bloom in spring , as well as on the leaves of some wild plants . They also feed on vine leaf . Females lay yellow bollock in cracks in the ground and these testicle hatch into little white larvae that deplete roots . The beetles also conduct various bacteria and a virus that affects cucumber .
The best way to negociate these plague is to plant cucumbers late , after the beetles have thatched . you’re able to also protect seedling with cheesecloth or nylon textile and use straw mulch between the plants .
Thrips
thripid are tiny insects with fringed wings – also called thunderflies , thunderbugs , storm flies and corn plant louse . They feed on crops and are a huge pest .
Thrips are difficult to command without pesticides .
Tomato Hornworms
Tomato hornworms are green cat with eight V - form markings on its side that can be a terrible blighter in the garden . There are several different sort with different horn .
They are usually found on love apple plants and tobacco foliage , but also attack eggplants , peppers and tater .
The good means to get free of these caterpillars is to plant marigold around tomato plants .
