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Vegetable Gardening

Please help solve my eggplant mystery .

7 years ago

So admittedly I'm new to gardening this is my first year trying out vegetables since I just moved to North Carolina from New York City, not much room to garden there!

I haven't planted my Japanese eggplants in the raised beds yet since we just went though a patch of unseasonably cool weather. However even though they are on my second floor wooden deck, no where near the ground something is eating the heck out of the leaves! Whatever it is is not touching any other plant even though there are much easier targets. I've never seen a pest near it and the damage looks different than what I can find on the Internet. I'm totally baffled! Please help identify the culprit so I can put an end to the damage. It'll definitely be it for them it it keeps going on the leaves are just destroyed.

Thanks Katie

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Comments (8)

farmerdill
7 years ago
looks like slug damage.
habjolokia z 6b/7
7 years ago
At night go out with a flashlight and if it's a slug you will find it. Also check the undersides of the container you may just find it hiding there.
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gumby_ct
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
<looks like slug damage.> I was thinking the same thing. Where did you get the soil that is in the pot?

Yea slugs don't like light so they only come out at nite when no one is checking. But as mentioned if you look under the pot you may find one or more. Don't think there is only one.

You can use scissors to cut em in half if you don't want to touch it. Or what I like to use in the garden is 2/10 ammonia/water in a spray bottle. It just melts them after a minute or two, if it doesn't add more ammonia.

What I like about the spray bottle is that many times it will cause one or more you didn't see to squirm and come into view.

HTH
centexan254 zone 8 Temple, Tx
7 years ago
Iron phosphate pellets sprinkled around the plants works well,
digdirt2
7 years ago
Something else to consider as a possibility is birds since they are on a second floor balcony. Birds are nest building right now and like the leaves for nest linings. The sharp torn edges remind me of the bird damage to leaves I have seen here lately. Watched a sparrow working on one of my tomato plants on the deck yesterday. The little bugger thought he could take the whole big leaf but only managed about 1/4 of it. Bigger birds take bigger pieces.

Dave
Laura at Rather Square
7 years ago
Can slugs really climb up to a second-story balcony? Otherwise the bird theory sounds more plausible to me.
Humsi
7 years ago
Depends on where you live and the type of slugs/snails you have. I know I've had brown garden snails (our biggest slug/snail pest) hanging out under my roof line here in southern California. So it's possible...whether or not the OP has climbing slugs/snails where they live is the question.
zeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin
7 years ago
Looks like animal damage, see the rips & torn holes... slugs don't cause such damage, and would also leave trails. Birds are the most likely culprit (because of what appears to be pecked holes), but a squirrel is another possibility. I've had damage from both; birds usually go for the outside of the leaves, squirrel damage would likely be more severe (they like the younger leaves in the center).

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