If you have JBs bad enough, you'll get their grubs in your garden beds. Yes they will feed on the roots of whatever they're laying under. My dh uses GrubX. As much as we wanted to stay organic, there's nothing strong enough for these muthas in such apocalytic numbers. Personally, I'd like to firebomb the entire lawn, but dh thinks that's a bit much. =P There's a possibility those grubs are the young of a different kind of beetle. You can bring a carcass into your local garden center for ID. Or you could just indiscriminately poison the cr*p out of them whatever kind they are. When it comes to beetles, I've learned to have a hard heart.

Annette, I know chickens can tear up a garden, but isn't there one that doesn't, or at least, much less than the other breeds? Ever since I started gardening I've wanted a chicken, but I live in the city. I haven't been around live chickens often, but one day when I was driving in the country, I saw a rooster chasing 4 hens around and around the front yard of a farmhouse. The 4 hens looked as if they were running for their lives. It was hysterical. I don't know what kind they were but they were beautiful. How many chickens do you have?

I have been battling moles and groundhogs for 3 years. I finally trapped and relocated (secretly to a very large public park that's wooded and safe for these jerky animals without threatening anyone else's garden) two of them with have a heart traps loaded with broccoli and bananas and corn. There is no repellant spray home made or store bought that will get rid of them. The nicer your flower or plant the more then will return to eat that specific root or bloom. Once that's gone they'll go back to your more pedestrian plants because no matter what that's tastier than the drek that just grows wild like grass and weeds and shrubs. The amounts of money i spent on spray pumps, garlic, pepper, marigold oil, natural fatty oil soaps with strong scents like lavender (also good against bugs). I started gagging and coughing just applying the stuff. It all washed off after one rainshower. The cats started sneezing and boogering up. I'd walk around my yard and instead of smelling lilacs and other pretty things I smelled what was like the fumes of an italian kitchen with an indian cook. It was nauseating. AND it did NOTHING to repel the critters. I talked to the groundskeeper at Deep Cut Gardens in Middletown because they have rabbits and groundhogs galore. He said relocation is the only thing and you gotta get them at least 5-7 miles away or they return. He said at his own home he goes to the barber shop and gets human hair. Some people use moth balls. I tried both of those things the hair did nothing and looked gross and the cats were put off a bit. The mothballs were terribly toxic and I realized after i put them everywhere in every flower bed that if my toddler ate one she's as good as dead or at least in hospital. I limited my use of hte mothballs to mole holes and tunnels and under my neighbor's sheds -where all the dens enjoyed a smelly unfettered existence. Because my neighbors flower beds were so exposed the animals went out the back of the sheds into MY back yard where they felt safer and more camoflaged so for as long as I've been here nad probably longer, the critters enjoyed eating thigns off of my yard while my neighbors had lush landscaped gardens and vegetable beds. One neighbor thought I was being horrible going after the cute bunnies and groundhogs. But they weren't throwing money and time out the window on flowers and shrubs that never came to bloom. Their black eyed susans and phlox were fine while mine remained stubs for 2+ years. I even spent at least $100 on shiskebab spikes last year. I made little pungee sticks around my newest blooms to try and save them. It worked with my cat years ago. It had some impact but groundhogs are tough and rabbits are just stupid. The shishkebabs got waterlogged and soon carried all the thread of a pencil eraser. I on the other hand was punctured everywhere EVERY time i went into the garden to weed. My doctor didn't believe me when i told her how i got pricked. I'm sure she thought i was some kind of IV drug user. I bought a spring loaded guillotine type of mole tunnel trap. I put it in 6 different active locations and not ONCE did the mole get impaled. Now it's a $20 piece of rusted material in my back yard. My cat finally got one of the moles but i was clearly still being clobbered by one. I'd eliminated the groundhogs. My cats were great at getting most of the rabbits. The bunnies knew to kick out the mothballs from under the shed they called home unbelievably. But the mole.... To make matters worse. Neighbors on either side of me didn't really cleant he woodsy borders of our properties. Woodsy from years of neglect. I spent all of hte last 3 years clearing hte property lines. Not just because of the debris that becomes mountains for critters to live in, but because midge mosquitoes love to live in rotting plant debris stacked high and wet as things go in this zone. I accomplished all of the clean up...including taking down a massive 15 foot blackberry bramble that had entwined the crappy forsythia cluster next to it.... mountains of trees and rotten leaves and more. Finally cleared it. Then my neighbor got a baby bobcat and pushed all of his weeds into a pile at the back of his (AND MY)yard. That is how they clean up for spring/summer. SO the mole made a new home in his mountain of weeds, and ancient construction rubble. I caved in and tried poison bait. I was worried about my cats but my cats are well fed and pretty smart and the pellets are white and hard. NOthing they'd go near if you handed it to them. I spent all of last spring and summer and this fall dumping poison down the mole's tunnels and holes. I still saw damage and tunnels and holes. Still, the rabbits seemed cut down somewhat and I'd happily unloaded the groundhogs. My yard had a fighting chance. I spent all fall cleaning up -getting rid of the last shiskebab spikes and chicken wire fencing which i also tried... This spring I raked and raked and primed my flower beds and divided things and kept my fingers crossed and my stone pathway that bordered my front yard flower bed...it was a muddy mess. I started yanking and hacking away at crabgrass and broadleaf weeds, picking up stone after stone. I lifted up a small border stone and lo and behold a huge fat ugly and very dead mole. He'd been living right next to the cafeteria of his dreams-my front yard cottage garden. The cats sat on top of his bedroom rock all day and he had no fear. He was fat and large and i am sure he is the nemesis i'd been battling for 3 years. He wasn't injured or starved so i have to believe that he finally ate one of those mole baits that i'd put in every mole hole i could find. And that, my friends, is the only way to stop a mole or ground hog. Capture and release or kill them. Or just hand over your garden and walk away.

Finally, a break in the case!! I agree the head is on left and there are three pairs of thoracic segment true legs, but-- All noctuids have 4 pairs of mid-abdominal prolegs, except for the subfamily Plusiinae that have only two. The highest number of proleg pairs in the order Lepidoptera is five. ------------------- Partial identification key: 5'. 6 to 8 pairs of abdominal prolegs present (Order Hymenoptera = Bees, wasps and sawflies) 5'. 2 to 5 pairs of abdominal prolegs present Caterpillar (Order Lepidoptera = Butterflies and moths) 6. 2 pairs of abdominal prolegs Looper (specifically, Geometrid caterpillars: Order Lepidoptera) 6'. 3-4 pairs of abdominal prolegs False looper (specifically, Noctuid caterpillars Order Lepidoptera) 6". 5 pairs of abdominal prolegs Caterpillar (remainder of Lepidoptera) --------------------------------- Also, all lep cats have 10 abdominal segments, and I can only see 7, or possibly 8 (including the anal segment) in the image. --------------------------------- Cutworms can also just chew leaves, it's just another form of cutting. The caterpillars that chew big holes in my rhubarb look like cutworms.