Tag: garden pests

How Can I Prevent Digging in the Garden?

Wild animals can be a real nuisance in the vegetable patch. Here are some ideas that may help of keep the animal pests out of the garden.

As backyard gardeners, we face many obstacles to growing a nice little crop. From weather, to pests and soil problems, it sometimes feels like a full time job. My ongoing fight is in finding ways to prevent digging in the garden.

The Problems

Each morning when I go out to inspect the yard, I find the damage done overnight. Sometimes it’s not bad, and other times it’s a mess. 

My animal pests may be different from yours. I have southern pests that live in the neighborhood. My daughter in New Hampshire has a very hungry groundhog that eats her things. It seems that we all deal with something.

Raccoons

The raccoons are my biggest problem. The little bandits are unafraid and love to mess with everything. They arrive in groups and are like naughty little children who want to touch and destroy. They knock over my pots, play in the birdbath, pull up seedlings, pick vegetables, and steal things. I mistakenly left my water shoes outside to dry overnight and found one shoe at the edge of the woods. 

Last summer they managed to open this small watermelon. And they wait until the tomatoes are nice and red and get them just before I can! For that reason, I’ve begun growing tomatoes in fabric bags so I can drag them inside overnight.

raccoons broke into a watermelon
Watermelon disaster

Armadillos

I also have armadillos and they dig deep small holes all over the place in search of bugs and food. Even though they can be destructive, they are less so than raccoons.

It helps to remember that animals are just doing their thing.  They are hungry, and are in search of some things that you might actually want gone from the yard, like roaches, spiders and grubs.

deep holes in garden
digging at base of eggplant
beans dug up
hole by bean plants
hole dug in garden

House Cats

My cats do go outside and they will try to do their business where there is nice dirt to dig. If I go outside with them in the morning, I can shoo them off the garden area. Neighborhood cats also come into the yard, but overall they leave the garden area alone. Cats are not nearly as destructive as my overnight visitors.

Solution: Block Access

I need to take preventative measures that will keep animals away in a humane way. I’ve considered putting up a fence, but raccoons will climb right over. Each problem area needs to be blocked. Fortunately my garden area is small.

Tomato cages come in handy for blocking (somewhat) access to plants. It doesn’t always work, but it might be enough of a deterrent for some. 

For instance, something is climbing my Moringa tree, and this is a new problem. Branches are broken off, and scratch marks are all up and down the trunk. I have cages all around the Moringa trunk to make climbing the tree more difficult. I hope this works.

Use tomato cages to surround a moringa tree base to keep climbing animals away.

Large and small boards, wood scraps, placed randomly on the dirt could deter digging. Also use rocks if you have them. The photo below shows wood placed between my rows of beans. Doing this also helps to keep my cats from digging here.

wood boards as prevention for digging in vegetable garden area
Placing bits of wood to prevent digging

This does help I think, but does not keep hungry critters from moving the obstacles and then digging. The eggplant in my photo below got dug up even though I had made a base of bricks around the stem. The plant was fine.

holes dug around base of garden plants
Bricks as digging prevention – didn’t work here

Thorny Stems

Surround the vegetable plants with thorny stems, prickly vines and other things animals won’t want to touch.

Along the edge of my property, which is next to an overgrown lot, there are wild plants growing that have very thorny stems. They are the Southern Dewberry. The vines are full of thorns which make them difficult to deal with if they invade the yard, but the flowers attract loads of bees and the fruit feeds wildlife. Now, the thorny stems, when placed over, or near, seedlings and planted beds, can also be used to deter raccoon paws.

I have put those thorns to good use by placing them over may beet seedlings. Eventually the dewberry stems die and turn brown, but stay thorny.

Store Bought Spikes

I’ve recently considered buying spiky mats to strategically use as protection. At first I thought of using upside down bathmats with grippers on the bottom. While searching Amazon, I found “cat repellent” mats (paid link) – actually a lot of options for this – to use inside and out. 

The item doesn’t have to be dangerous, just uncomfortable to touch or walk on. But, the raccoons could easily move these. Also they couldn’t be left down on top of the soil, so this option includes work and remembering to do it. I’m not sure this type of thing would work for my needs.

Raise the Garden Beds

Possibly the best way to prevent animals from digging up seedlings and picking ripe tomatoes, is to plant in a container that is high up off the ground. My son brought home barrels and cut them in half to make tall, raised beds. He also made the wooden stands. 

But even these tall, white barrel boxes sometimes have footprints and signs of digging. Many night foragers are also climbers. Nothing and no place is safe, can we agree?

barrel raised garden bed with tomatoes growing
These tomato plants need more sun.

Scatter Natural Repellent Smells

You’ve probably heard about items that can be added to the garden, and plants, that might keep animal pests away. 

One is to make a hot pepper spray to coat plants. I’ve never done this because I hate sprayers. They work once and then no more. I have sprinkled Cayenne pepper and it has done nothing but turn the leaves brown. 

Moth balls are too gross to put near my food. 

BUT, TRY THIS: Citrus slices and peels can be a natural repellent to wildlife. Many animals apparently dislike oranges, lemons and limes. 

Image by Marijana from Pixabay

My Goal is to Deter and Not Remove

I am not trying to get rid of these animals. Some people use traps and take the animals far away to live in the wilderness. I actually feel sorry for all of the wildlife around me that has been pushed out of a natural environment by the clearing of land and building of houses.

Not only that, many homeowners choose to have companies come and spray chemicals all over their yards. They want pristine lawns and bug free grass. In doing so they are removing vital food from the food chain and depriving animals from finding the food they need to survive.

Raccoons and armadillos need to eat, just like we do, and I don’t mind sharing my yard with them. I am an organic gardener, and they can probably find food in my yard, which I am okay with. My goal is to steer them away from the garden area. Maybe it’s futile, and I know it will be ongoing. If only they could read, I’d put up a sign.

sunflowers funny garden sign for animal pests
Garden sign available for purchase in my store.

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Cutworms in the Garden

Cutworms can quickly defoliate a plant and ruin garden crops. How do you know if it’s cutworms chewing on the leaves and stems?

How do you know if your garden problem is cutworms?

The short answer to that question is that whole stems will be cut off at the base. This is how the cutworm gets it’s name. The other part to that answer would be you won’t spot anything that could be doing the damage. It will seem to be a mystery.

Unlike many insects and worms that show up in a garden, the cutworm hides. When inspecting damaged leaves, you’ll likely see nothing. Cutworms sleep in the dirt during the day and feeds at night. Sneaky little buggers!

I noticed that something was eating my potato leaves. I was thinking “potato beetle” or slugs, and kept inspecting the plants and leaves closely. I saw nothing. Each day more leaves were eaten, and then the stalks began to fall – chewed off at the base. That clicked, because I know I’ve dealt with this before. Cutworms! Now, what is it they do? And how do I deal with them?

potato plant
Potato plant
Chewed leaves on my potato plants were caused by cutworms.
Leafless potato plants

Organic Spray Did Not Help

I got my handy organic spray and sprayed the heck out of the plants. That didn’t seem to stop the problem one bit. I have two raised beds of potatoes and one was doing very poorly and then it began to show up in the other bed.

It was time for drastic measures. This meant researching online. Sure enough, it seemed the culprit was cutworms. I read that they overwinter in the soil and emerge in spring.

My Mistake

I believe I brought the cutworms into the raised beds when I added leaves from the yard as mulch. The potatoes were planted in dirt – new this year – from bags purchased at the local Home Depot, so I think the only way they could have been introduced was through the leaves and Spanish moss I added.

While researching the problem, I read that slugs will also eat potato leaves and mounding the soil around the plant will help. ( This page about slugs and potatoes is a good one for advice if you have that problem.)

I began scraping away all the leaves I had on top of the gardens and throwing it in the woods. Then I began digging up hills to mound around each of the plants. And that is when I saw it – a big cutworm! Altogether I found about 6 worms, large and small. One was greenish, one was pink and the small ones were black.

Leafless potato plants
Cutworm photo
Fat, juicy cutworm which became a meal for the cardinals.
greenish worm
Pink cutworm dug up from the soil in my potato garden.
Large pink worm, small black worm
Black markings on a pink cutworm found in the garden.
Markings on the cutworm

The pupae stage is when the worm / caterpillar has become a cocoon. The adult moth will emerge from this reddish orange shell to fly around and lay eggs that become more worms. But the worms are the worst in Spring – just in time for planting.

This hard orange-red thing in the dirt is cutworm pupa.
Cutworm pupa is reddish-orange

Getting Rid of Cutworms

My potato gardens are small. I have two raised beds with a total of 10 plants growing. I simply continued to dig around in the dirt searching for the worms.

Hand-picking

The cutworms I found were placed into my tray bird feeder and within a couple of minutes a cardinal was having the worms for a meal! This is a very simple way to get rid of the worms while helping out the birds. If you don’t have a tray feeder, just set them on a board or rock in the yard where birds visit. The birds come fast for the juicy meal.

I also went out at night to inspect the plants and found one more worm which I hand picked off. I continue to check for worms but haven’t found any more.

Eggshells and Coffee Grounds

Lots of online sites have advice about getting rid of these destructive worms, but I like to do so as naturally as possible. I had a few eggshells leftover from my eggshell seed starters project, so I crunched them up and sprinkled them around the base of the remaining potato plants. The only problem with this is that the shells get moved around when watering.

Also, the worms do not like coffee grounds so you could do the same thing with leftover grounds.

Eggshells sprinkled around the base of potato plants

Make a Collar

After checking on my potatoes, I came over to the other raised bed and one of the bean plants was totally chewed off! Just in case the cutworm was to blame, I made tin foil collars for the other plants. They have to be pushed down into the dirt and must surround the stalk.

This is best done when the plants are very young so the roots will not be disturbed. I used foil, but other things work. Think toilet paper and paper towel cardboard. Plastic cups, plastic bottles, and anything round and open will work.

Now my potato plants (in garden number 2) look like bare stalks. I’ll continue to check for worms and watch to see if the stalks come back.

Ways to Prevent Cutworm Problems

The worms emerge from eggs in Spring and they have been existing underground. Till the garden or dig down a few inches to search for the worms and remove them before planting. Take precautions by using the collars mentioned above – this is not that difficult to do if the garden is small.

Please visit this page at The Real Dirt Blog which is full of excellent information and advice about the cutworm.

How to know if you have cutworms in the garden, and what to do about them.

Read more here about cutworm stages: adult larvae and pupa drawings.

Cut Worms, Pill Bugs and Squash Vine Borers Invade My Space

My little garden has been growing like mad, but now the cut worms and other creatures are making a mess of it.

Cut Worms

I’ve seen black worms eating leaves, and they are not picky which plant they attack. These are the cutworms – pictures below. Cutworms can also nip a new seedling at the base and kill the entire plant, but these are concentrating on the leaves.

Cutworm eating fennel
Cutworm eating fennel

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.30.39 PM
Black spots are tiny worms

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Small worms huddled together

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.30.32 PM
Tiny cutworms living underneath a cucumber leaf

It turns out getting rid of the cutworm is easier than getting rid of the other pest, the pill bug. I can pick the worms off the plants. The large ones are fairly easy to spot, and my garden is small. I plopped them into my tray bird feeder and the cardinals came and had a meal!

Pill Bugs

My other problem is all the tiny bugs, which I believe are Pill Bugs. They are everywhere from huddled along the wooden sides of the raised bed, to deep down under the soil. And I’ve found them munching on my cucumbers too.

At first I thought these were a form of the cutworm. These bugs range from tiny to fingernail size. I thought they were harmless, but have found them eating the vegetables, so they need to go.

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.51.52 PM
Along the inside edge of the raised bed

As I was inspecting the garden, I found colonies of the pill bug along the edges of the garden. Too many to pick off. And as I dig, I find more underground!

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.52.37 PM
Single pill bug

I’m always looking for organic, natural ways to deter destructive bugs because I don’t use harmful sprays in my yard.

I read that the cutworm will eat corn meal and that will kill it. I’m hesitant to use cornmeal because of the raccoons that visit my yard each night.  I don’t want them digging through my garden because they smell corn!

One site suggested using Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth. I just happened to have some of that!  It’s made of crushed fossils which cut open bug that crawl across it which causes them to die.  I sprinkled it over the dirt in my garden paying attention to the edges.

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.52.28 PM
Pill bugs roll into a ball when disturbed

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.52.53 PM
Bug on the cuke – hard to see, but he’s there a little left of center.

Besides these two destructive pests, I’ve got worms boring into my cucumbers and summer squash. While I was outside dealing with these bugs, an orange wasp (it’s really a moth, but looks like a big bee) was buzzing around my garden. Come to find out it is a squash vine borer moth looking to lay it’s eggs in my garden!  The link has a photo of what those eggs look like.

The link above will give you lots of info about how to prevent the borer moth from laying it’s eggs all over the vegetables.

One idea is to use a Floating row cover.  If the moth can’t get to the crops, it can’t lay the eggs.

Another suggestion which I found to be a simple try is to place a yellow bowl of water in the garden to attract the moth and drown it.

Troubles With Worms in the May Vegetable Garden

I would ordinarily consider May to be the beginning of vegetable growing season, but already I am giving up on one of my tomato plants and the summer squash.  Worms are doing a number on everything else, and I am not sure it’s worth having a garden at this point.

Almost as soon as I planted the squash I had trouble with blossom end rot. I began watering less, and added a fertilizer with calcium.

I managed to pick two very small squash, but that is it. Other than those two, every squash that has grown, on both plants, has wizzled up and rotted. One squash plant has no flowers and no squash. The other has flowers and little squash, but all the squash are doing the same thing.

summer squash plant with yellow flowers
The summer squash began fine, then went downhill

I will be pulling up the plants and putting something else in the fabric bags. I do have zucchini seeds which I may try. Summer means fresh squash to me, and I hate that I can’t seem to grow it here.

Tomatoes should be easy to grow here in Florida. Tomatoes like sun and lots of water. Of the two plants I bought, one is a “celebrity” which is still doing okay. Currently it has around 8 tomatoes growing.

The other plant didn’t even have a name, and that one has bit the dust. The leaves began to turn brown and then the green tomatoes are rotting and falling off the vine.

I’ve grown tomatoes for many years, and very successfully, in New Hampshire. Just one year I had a problem with late blight. I don’t have blight this time, but I don’t know what the issue is. Honestly, I think the plant may have simply been bad stock. I hate having to buy my vegetables from a big box store.

green tomatoes
This tomato plant turned brown and the tomatoes are rotting off the vine.

Also I have been overrun with cutworms. They are eating the leaves of nearly every plant I have in the garden. I started picking them off by hand, but many of the leaves are already chewed. Being more vigilant will help, I hope. It’s been very rainy, which keeps me inside. Garden pests can get out of control if they are not caught quickly.

These worms are eating everything from the cucumber leaves to the tomatoes, basil and pepper plants.  Cutworms can also cut off the new stems of seedlings.  I don’t have that problem.

cut worm
Cut worm that fell into the birdbath

The squash and cucumbers have another kind of worm which bores into the vegetable and makes it mushy.  They also eat through the stems which makes the rest of the vine droop and die, like in my photo.  For more info on growing cucumbers and dealing with the pickleworm, read the post at the Central Florida Garden blog.  It seems there haven’t been too many newer posts, but I intend to search it for useful information.

Screen Shot 2018-05-31 at 5.21.42 PM

All in all, I am disappointed in my May garden.  The orange ruffle hibiscus still has fuzzy mites on the leaves even though I have sprayed and trimmed it way back.  I’ve seen this same circular white ring on the backs of some of my pepper plants.  That is all I need!  I didn’t have half these problems in the North.  No wonder I don’t see farms around here!

Hot pepper plant with chewed leaves
Hot pepper plant with chewed leaves

Dealing With Aphids and Hoping for Lady Bugs in the Spring Garden

Aphids in the garden and how to deal with them.

A while ago I had aphids on my lime tree. I simply sprayed them off and they went away.

Now I am dealing with aphids on my pepper plant and eggplant. I’m doing the same thing – spraying them off with water. Also I wipe them off with my fingers.  I never spray insecticides on anything in my yard.

But, the key here is to check for the presence of ladybugs – in all their life stages. I don’t want to get rid of those.  And, in order for ladybugs to choose your garden to lay her eggs, she wants to see some aphids for her children to eat.

So maybe I should be leaving the aphids there and see what happens?  A large aphid infestation can kill plants.  (Update: by May, every aphid was gone!)  Aphids suck the juice from the greenery. They excrete a sugary substance which then attracts ants, but ladybugs eat lots of aphids every day.

getting rid of aphids
Aphids on my pepper plant

These aphids were brown in color. Aphids can be many colors, such as green, black, brown, pink, yellow, white, and blue (really?) and even furry (wooly aphids).
The little buggers are even inside the white flowers on the pepper. And I recently purchased a hot pepper plant and noticed they were also on it.

aphids in pepper flower
Aphids inside pepper flower

Aphids in Their Many Colors

aphid colors
black aphids
green aphids
green aphids
pinkish red aphids
pink / red aphids
yellow aphids on lime tree
Yellow aphids on my Persian Lime tree
aphids on squash flower
Aphids on squash flower

Because I have a small garden with only one or two plants containing aphids, I can easily control them with a spray of water.  Or wait patiently for lady bugs to show up.

A natural way to destroy aphids is to have ladybugs eat them. Unfortunately the beautiful spotted ladies never seem to show up at the right time, or in large enough numbers.  Or could it be that the garden is not welcoming enough?  Or I am not patient enough!

black bug on pepper plant
Black bug on pepper plant could be ladybug larvae?  The clue: black bug with 6 legs and red to yellow markings, so I say “yes”

I will begin paying better attention to the eggs, bugs and pests in my garden.  In fact after writing this post, I went outside to check on my hibiscus.

Hibiscus plants are notorious for attracting aphids.  I figured there may be some and possibly some lady bugs or eggs.  Wow, was I in for a surprise when I saw my hibiscus infestation!

Can Borage Grow in Florida?

This winter I have been experimenting with growing various herbs and vegetables. Borage is something I always loved in New Hampshire, but can borage grow in Florida? Well, yes and no. What I’ve found is that it will grow when the weather is nice and cool.  My borage seeds were planted in late October and by the…

by Pam

Organic Control of Grasshoppers in the Garden

I’m trying to control a grasshopper infestation in the garden.

grasshopper control
Grasshopper Pests

I have millions of grasshoppers in my garden.  They are chewing up the leaves on my parsley, sunflowers, oregano and pretty much everything.  Now they are eating the flower buds off the coreopsis which seems to be a favorite of theirs.

As I walk along the edge of my small garden area, they jump away from me in a wave of moving leaves.  There are a lot of them.

I am an organic gardener, so I’ve been searching for natural ways to get them to leave, or die.  The organic product (Semaspore Bait) that kills them, is best used when they are young, so I don’t know if mine are young enough.  Even a small container is quite expensive, and since I don’t know if it will work at this time, I’m hesitant.  I’ll look for it at Agway.

A post at Home Guides has given me some advice for keeping the pests off my leaves naturally.  I know that garlic spray works well for insect control, but I don’t want my herbs to taste like garlic.  I might use it on plant leaves I won’t be eating.

I am going to try the molasses in jars approach.  By mixing molasses with water, the sweet drink attracts grasshoppers.  I have lots of little canning jars which may work for this experiment.  The idea is to attract the grasshoppers to the liquid and then they drown.  I have to bury jars in the dirt and fill them halfway with the mixture.  I hope it doesn’t attract beneficial bugs as well.  I’ll keep an eye on it.

Since I have molasses, and lots of canning jars, I plan to get started on that right away.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  I might combine that with the garlic spray approach and between the two, I may have some success.  There is no way I can kill them all within the short span of summer.  I’d love to have more birds, toads, frogs and even snakes around to chow down on the little critters.  I’ve seen some toads, and even a frog.  But my cats tend to keep everything away.  I only feed hummingbirds in summer because of the bears in my area.  The smell of sunflower seeds can bring bears into the yard, and I’ve had them destroy my feeders when left out in summer.

grasshoppers eating rhubarb
Eating Rhubarb Leaves