All thanks to this little bugger...who I originally thought was cute enough to take a picture of...well now I am declaring war and every time I see one...plop...into the bucket of soapy water he goes!
Meet the spotted cucumber beetle...he feeds on all culbrit (squashes and squash relatives) leaves...and he burrows into the ground to lay his evil spawn, which feed on the roots!
After some help identifying this pest (thanks Foxy!) and realizing he wasn't a beneficial insect...I bought some earth friendly insecticidal soap. Instructions were pretty easy, just spray the plant leaves, be sure to get the underside of the leaves where the little buggers hang out, and all will be well in your little garden!
Ha!
I faithfully sprayed everything (except the tomatoes, thank goodness!) and knocked all the adult buggers I could find into the soap water to die!...and then disaster stuck...take a look:
Zucchini before spraying....
Zucchini the next day...
The cutest little growing cucumber before spraying....
Dead baby cucumber the next day...
Pretty green watermelon leaves on Wednesday....
Spotted leaves on Thursday....
A Cubanelle Pepper before the disaster....
The pepper plant afterward....
Well, all I can say at this point is I hope they recover, and if not...at least I didn't spray my tomatoes (more on those tomorrow...)
And worst case scenario, we will be eating a lot of radishes this year!
Aren't they cute!
Oh MY I would be so upset.
ReplyDeleteDid you find out whether it was the soap or ??? I ended up just killing the ones I found. But something is eating my pepper plants clean :(
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