A bug is bugging me
Greetings everyone. I haven't been pestering you all for quite a few months. I'm the silly old girl who built a bunch of garden beds last winter, planted in the spring and expected to have a nice summer garden. You all were kind enough to advise me that the growing season was over just as my plants were staring to come up. The Tradition helped me by identifying Pseudoperonospora cubensis issues with my cukes and watermelon. I also got some help with the armyworms that were eating my tomatoes.
Well, that was yesterday. I've been reading everything I can get my hands on to learn all about gardening in So Central FL. I was just a little late (ahem) getting my fall garden going. I took a page from Silvia and started growing my tomatoes in containers. I got 20 buckets from the bakery lady at my Publix. I bought all heirloom seeds from Baker Creek and started with 10 different varieties. Not so crazy about the way it looks so I bought 30 4 gallon resin pots at big box store for the spring plants. It will look a little less like The Beverley Hillbillies in that central part of my garden. I'll keep the white buckets and use them in other places around the yard.
So the main thing I leaned from all of you last summer is to be vigilant and to stay on top of issues. I noticed that there were holes in my broccoli, kale, rapini, waltham 29 and spinach. I snuck out there at the crack of dawn every morning and found little worms on the underside of the leaves. Same thing with eggplant in another bed. I went to work quickly with the BT and got it under control. Same thing with the lacy leaves on the tomatoes. I went out and found little caterpillars and hit them with Bt right away.
Well my green beans were getting eaten too, The Bt didn't do anything. I thought maybe it was a slug since I had found one of those in a raised bed one morning. But there were holes in leaves waving in the wind 7' in the air.There was no particular pattern and the damage was random. I started seeing tiny slimy white things on the leaves. I'm like Mrs. Magoo so I thought maybe it was some kind of white worm. This morning I went out and sprayed insect soap. I checked again a little later when it hit me that the white things were eggs! D'urrrrr. I went back out AGAIN and found these bugs on the leaves. I have looked every day but have never seen them until now. There were around 3 or 4. I took a pic and then schmushed them. I've looked everywhere and can't find out what kind of bug this is. I think it's some kind of beetle but I don't know. I did read somewhere that there are insects that look a lot like ladybugs that can do a metric ton of damage to green beans before you get them under control.
My friend in Portland has been gardening for quite some time. He said I should mix a cup of apple cider vinegar into a quart of water and spray them with that. As a reminder, I'm a stage 3 breast cancer survivor so I'm not using chemicals in my garden areas. I do use a grass and weed killer in some spots, but not the extended control type that lingers for months. I dig out the grass and quite a bit of the sand in the few places where I have tried this. Then I replace the sand with peat, composted cow manure, top soil, earthworm castings and mushroom compost.
Any thoughts as to what this might be and how to get rid of it?
If anyone would like, I'd be happy to post some pictures (in a separate post) of the work I've done with the big blank canvas that was once a lawn over the last year.
Much gratitude.
Sun
Comments (8)
sunqueen57Original Author
abnorm
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