Official Poll: What is the #1 pest/problem in your garden?

[digitS']

I wonder if you might have the same experience with deterring snails as I had with slugs, @baymule .

Slugs will move into the garden during the night to eat on lettuce. If I spray insecticidal soap on the ground, they don't seem to want to cross it. Sliming their way through the soap may be uncomfortable.

Of course, rain will interfere with soap as a deterrent.

Steve

 

[buckabucka]

We have snails too. Three years ago there was a snail every square inch. They mysteriously disappeared for two years. Now they are back, but not so thick. We use Sluggo, but that also washes away with rain eventually.
Your weather sounds awful @baymule! Is that normal? I do think most places are experiencing this global weirding. I'm not sure I'd want to see what happens 100 years from now.

 

[baymule]

Now the rains have stopped and we just have the heat. But it rained almost every day, just enough to keep everything damp and the blight/mildew/brown crap on my lawn/tomatoes/eggplant/whatever took off and everything is dying earlier than usual.

 

[digitS']

. . .We use Sluggo, but that also washes away with rain . . .

Yes, but it's expensive! You and I both must have greenhouse/hoop house problems, @buckabucka . I have to put sluggo down at least twice in the 3 little structures I've got. The slugs would be everywhere inside of those things in March and April!

Steve

 

[Carol Dee]

ARGH, I just came from the garden. The Japanese beetles are BACK!

 

[buckabucka]

Yes, but it's expensive! You and I both must have greenhouse/hoop house problems, @buckabucka . I have to put sluggo down at least twice in the 3 little structures I've got. The slugs would be everywhere inside of those things in March and April!

Steve

Actually, I don't have snails in the hoop house, although I may come across one occasionally. I line the entire bottom of both houses with black plastic, so maybe that is why. It is the other 2 "open" quadrants of the garden that get the snails. I think they like nestling in those weedy areas.

Mine aren't heated, either, so I don't plant in them until at least mid-May.

 

[Gaz]

I hate potato beetles! But i love the Beatles!

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

My #1 garden pest this year is definitely weeds! Last year the garden became completely covered in weeds (we were bust getting the farm set up and were quickly overwhelmed). All of the rain that we've been having this year is making them take off. As soon as I get the top layer of hard to pull grasses and purslane out a second layer comes from all of the dormant seeds laying on the surface of the soil. I've been trying to choke the weeds out with pulled weeds.

Next would be mold (it's a problem with drying down pea and bean pods this year) and chipmunks (nibbling at the fruits and plants). Oh, and a few of my cilantro plants got water wilt so I had to pull those.

 

[Kevin B Walsh]

Hi Kevin,

Just going out the door. Here's a simple list:

Pyrethrin, at times
Spinosad
Insecticidal Soap
Btw thuricide, at times

Steve
edit: BTW: dang you auto correct! B.thuringiensis (Thuricide).

Thanks for this. Right now, we are picking the CPBs off the eggplant by hand. It has been good enough in the past, although time consuming. So far, no flea beetles this year. I will look into Spinosad.

 

[jhook1997]

# 1 pest is SQUASH BUGS! Every year without fail!

# 1 disease is UNKNOWN name it it kills my cucumbers and musk melons every year!