[00:00:00] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Callie, and I'm so glad you're here today. We are solving a mystery what is eating my plants? The answer matters because prevention and treatment are pest specific, so a fix that works for aphids will not have any effect on rabbits.
[00:00:23] Another example is bacillus theory and gensy. It stops caterpillars but not beetles because it only works on insects in their larval stages. If you spray first and ask questions later, not only are you going to waste a lot of time and money, but you can also hurt the beneficial insects that help to keep our gardens in balance.
[00:00:44] So the goal today is super simple. I want to teach you how to read the clues that your pests leave behind so that you can first identify the culprit, and then you can choose the most effective response or prevention. First, let's talk about how pests communicate. We have to get into a diagnostic mindset.
[00:01:07] When someone asks me a question on social media or I get a question from a student, it's never just, here's the problem and I give a solution. I will ask a lot of questions just like a doctor would because I need to fully understand what's happening so I can identify the cause before I recommend a treatment.
[00:01:28] Pests communicate with damage patterns and things they left behind. Just like a crime scene. We don't wanna jump to just what the suspect is, we need to read the evidence. And there are three kinds of clues that pests leave behind. One is how the plant tissue is damaged. Two is what is left behind, on or around the plant.
[00:01:52] And three is the pattern in time and place, meaning when it happens, and also where on the plant. It shows up. So once you have those three pieces, you can start to narrow down to the right pest group and then the right intervention or the right way to prevent it happening in the future, which is the best way.
[00:02:17] Even organic treatments can disrupt our ecosystems. Our goal is to prevent pest problems from being so bad that we have to treat them.
[00:02:28] I mentioned the kind of damage on the plant, and we can figure out who is doing what based on the types. Of damage that these pests leave behind. So the first thing you need to do is look closely at the plant tissue itself. If you see ragged holes, , scalloped edges on the edges of leaves or shredded leaves, that typically points to pests that have chewing mouth parts.
[00:03:14] But it's important to remember that not all chewing looks the same. And the differences in chewing is also how we can narrow down. What's doing the chewing caterpillars tend to leave irregular patches and can even skeletonize whole leaves into a lace pattern. I deal with this tiny, tiny microscopic caterpillar on my amaranthus plants, and that's the symptom that, that they leave behind.
[00:03:42] Beetles make smaller, more uniform holes, almost like the leaf was peppered with shot flea beetles. Leave lots of tiny little holes in the leaves of plants in the nightshade family and they are most damaging to potatoes and eggplant, but can also affect tomatoes and peppers.
[00:04:05] Grasshoppers, they tend to take big, jagged bites right in the middle of leaves, and they often do their work in broad daylight where you can catch them in the act.
[00:04:16] When the damage is neat and precise, that's a different story. Rabbits are very tidy eaters. They make a clean, angled cuts as if someone sniffed the plant with scissors. Squirrels on the other hand, are quite sloppy. They'll pluck a nearly ripe tomato, take a deep bite, and then completely toss it aside.
[00:04:37] , And most of the time, they're not even hungry at all. They're thirsty. That's the main reason why squirrels and birds eat tomatoes. Not because they're actually seeking them out as food sources, but because they want the juice. So an easy way to help prevent damage to your tomatoes from squirrels and birds is to set up a bird bath.
[00:04:59] Then there's a different category altogether, piercing and sucking damage. If your leaves look flecked with tiny yellow spots or new growth is curled and sticky, you're not dealing with chewers. You are looking at sap sucking insects like aphids or white flies or stinkbugs. Instead of chewing, they siphon the juices out of the plant, which leaves behind.
[00:05:27] These discolored and deformed leaves, stink bugs also ruin fruit from the inside. They leave those hard pale spots on your tomatoes, which are so frustrating, and they tend to be a problem toward the end of the season, which is why we need to focus growing our tomatoes in this spring and the fall, and sometimes the plants just disappear, which is the most frustrating at all. So seedlings that are standing one night can be completely gone by sunrise. Anything that occurs overnight, you're looking for night feeders like slugs and snails or rabbits at ground level. I had a student who had a whole flat of seedlings.
[00:06:08] Outside at night on a table, and when they came back, half of the seedlings had been eaten. And my suspicion was that it was slugs or snails. Once we have looked for the damage, the next clue that pests leave behind are droppings and secretions. Caterpillars are messy. They leave behind lots of droppings, very dark green, and coarse droppings.
[00:06:37] It's what we call frass. Also squash vine Boars can leave behind that yellow gunk. That's squash vine bore frass so if you see chewed foliage and droppings, then you know it's caterpillars. Now for rabbits, typically, you know, if you have a rabbit problem because you're going to see them throughout the day, they might do their majority of their damage at night, but you will see the rabbits around, but they also leave their dry round pellets near the beds or along the fence line.
[00:07:09] And the other thing you wanna look for is areas where the rabbits will go under the fence. Typically, if you have a problem with rabbits like I do, you will see locations around the fence where they have burrowed underneath and they create a little tunnel to get into your yard.
[00:07:24] So that's a pretty solid sign that you've got a problem with rabbits. Other pests can leave sticky traces behind instead of solid ones. Aphids and white flies, they leave behind. A tacky substance that we call honeydew, and it's a sugary liquid that coats the leaves.
[00:07:44] So if your foliage feels tacky or you see some black city mold growing on that sugar, you're looking at sap suckers and ants are another dead giveaway that you have an aphid problem because the ants and the. Aphids have a symbiotic relationship. They love that honeydew, and they will often follow the aphids around to eat it.
[00:08:06] This especially happens on okra, if you see ants on your okra, that's not the problem. The aphids are the problem because the ants are just following them up there.
[00:08:18] Slugs and snails, they leave behind little trails, little glistening, silver trails, either across the soil or around the rim of a pot. Now let's talk about clues in timing and location. So the final layer of evidence is when and where the damage shows up. We mentioned overnight loss of seedlings and that points to that night.
[00:08:37] Feeders like rabbits or slugs, midday chewing. , Usually means grasshoppers and beetles and then early morning tomatoes with one fresh bite. That's classic squirrel behavior, but even the position on the plant can help
[00:08:51] When we think about the position of the plant. If it's occurring at the leaf tips, so where the brand new leaves are growing at the top of the plant, if that growth is curled and yellowed, that's an indication of aphids. So If something is eating your plant very high up like someone's eating the tomatoes. That are on your plant and it's toward the top of the plant, you'll know that it's something that has been able to climb up there. Most of the time we're dealing with squirrels or we're dealing with rats, both animals that can climb up the tomato cages and reach fruit that are very high on the plant.
[00:09:29] So that's a third way that we can. Trying to figure out what's at play is what time of day they're doing their damage, and also where on the plant the damage is. So now how do we put this all together?
[00:09:50] Once we have identified the pest, then. The solution becomes specific. For Caterpillars, the first easiest non-chemical solution is to hand pick them off. That does require scouting. However, you do have to be able to find the caterpillar and then pick it off. Tomato horn worms, they're huge.
[00:10:09] And usually you can very easily find them and after you pick them off, they do not come back. That's the great thing about tomato hornworms. People tend to freak out about them, but the good news is they're extremely easy to treat without having to spray anything. You just pick them off and that's it.
[00:10:23] They're not gonna come back again. Typically, you have caught the problem and ended it. If you have a Caterpillar problem where. They're either too small to pick off like the caterpillars that eat up my amreth, or you just don't see them. A very effective, very low toxic way to treat them is with a product called Bacillus three and Gensy. And this only works on insects in their larval stages. It's not going to treat aphids. It's not going to treat grasshoppers. The treatment is specific to the pest.
[00:10:53] Bacillus three and Genesys is very effective. It's organic. You typically only have to apply it once or twice, and then the infestation is gone, and that's why it's one of the very few products that I do choose to use if I need to treat a problem
[00:11:08] for beetles and grasshoppers, we can use a twofold approach. One is protecting seedlings with row covers until they're large enough to withstand the damage. However, grasshoppers and flea beetles can still damage plants that are quite large. Flea beetles. It's very effective to.
[00:11:28] Use diatomaceous earth food, grade diatomaceous earth, and you can buy a little squeeze duster , and you dust the plants with this diatomaceous earth and you typically only have to do it . For a few weeks until the flea beetles go out of that particular lifecycle of feeding if you can cover the plant with a di tenacious earth early in the morning before the bees are active, or when it's not windy so it doesn't spread to any other plants or flowers, that's a very low impact way to protect your plants from flea beetles.
[00:12:00] If you have grasshoppers, they are very difficult to treat. They are attracted to tall grass and tall weeds. That's where grasshoppers multiply.
[00:12:10] So you have to look, do I have areas of tall grasses or tall weeds anywhere near my garden? If so, that needs to be mowed down so it won't attract the grasshoppers to your landscape and. Then it won't attract your grasshoppers to your garden. There's not an effective way to treat them with any kind of, , spray or anything else. For SAP suckers like aphids and white flies, we wanna start with the hose, especially for aphids. We can dislodge them with a strong jet of water and they won't climb back.
[00:12:40] That's the first thing that I do whenever I notice white flies or aphids as I use the jet spray on a little hose nozzle, and I spray the plants to knock everything off. If that's not enough, then you can use Insecticidal soap. Insecticidal soap is an organic treatment, but it's very important to know.
[00:12:58] That you want to find an Insecticidal soap that does not have pyrethrin in it. Pyrethrin is an ingredient that is approved for organic gardening, but it is very damaging to pollinators and to beneficial insects. I do not use rein at all, and it should be a product that. You want to avoid in your garden
[00:13:19] I like Safer brand and if I have a bad white flyer aphid problem, I'll spray to dislodge them with water. And then I will follow up with a spraying of Insecticidal soap. Make sure that you're focusing on the undersides of the leaves, 'cause that's where the aphids and the white flies hang out.
[00:13:36] If you've got slugs and snails, head out at night with a flashlight and you can pick them up and drop them into soapy water. You can also use, , iron phosphate baits that are both safe for pets and wildlife, if that's a big problem for you. The easiest way is preventing them from being a problem by making sure that you don't have an excess amount of moisture around your plant, you're not keeping the.
[00:13:59] Soil overly moist. You're not having areas that are staying damp that will attract those kinds of pests. Rabbits require barriers, but the good thing is rabbits don't wanna jump into a place they can't get get out of. I make little temporary fences. They only have to be about two feet high and you can use hardware, cloth, or the temporary plastic fencing, and then you just.
[00:14:23] Protect your plants with a little bit of fence. Once the plants are large enough, rabbits won't bother them. Rabbits are opportunists. If it is an easy thing to eat, like a little seedling, they're going to go eat that. They tend not to damage plants once they are mature or full size. The other thing you can do is use floating insect mesh.
[00:14:42] Really easy to find on Amazon and you can, , drape that over your plants. I prefer to use a support hoop to keep them off the plants so they don't smush the plants. And that's a very good way of keeping rabbits off plants when they're very young. The other thing you can try with rabbits is sprinkling blood meal around the plants that they tend to affect.
[00:15:04] This can also be effective with keeping squirrels away from digging up your bulbs as well. Squirrels are trickier because squirrels don't have that fear of being trapped. Squirrels will go anywhere, so fences. Forget about it. They're not gonna keep them from getting in there. You can try netting, but the problem is with netting is that squirrels can get trapped in the netting and then you have a problem with how do you get the squirrel out of the netting.
[00:15:29] So netting, I would say is a no-go unless you are gonna. Figure out how to get the squirrel out of the netting. Personally, I don't wanna do that. You can use motion activated sprinklers in some gardens, but if you're like me and you forget you have a motion sprinkler going, then you just walk out into your garden and then you're the one who gets sprayed by the water.
[00:15:48] If you have them digging up your bulbs, your bulbs are probably not planted deep enough. If you have them bothering your tomatoes, you just need to set up a bird bath because they're most likely thirsty. And then the other thing that you can do for squirrels, set up a bird feeder.
[00:16:02] I have bird feeders set up. The squirrels are obsessed with them, and I'm very happy for the squirrels to eat my bird seed instead of my tomatoes. To recap , notice that every. Treatment or every preventative measure is directly tied to the pest that's doing the damage. There's no one size fits all fix because each pest behaves differently, and each treatment only treats specific pests.
[00:16:28] The next time you walk outside and you see something that's been chewed or EC clipped or even completely stolen, remember that we need to identify. What is causing that problem? Look for clues. Is the damage ragged or neat? Are there droppings or slime trails? When did it happen?
[00:16:46] Did it happen overnight or did it happen in the middle of the day? After you put all those details together. The picture becomes clear. It's like when you're watching Law and Order and you start to figure it out for yourself. Aha. It's that guy. Once you figure out who the prime suspect is, then you can figure out how to prosecute them.
[00:17:07] The most important thing to remember though, is that your garden will never be perfect, and that's okay. One of the most important things about becoming a very successful, effective, happy, stress-free gardener is understanding that nothing is perfect.
[00:17:23] And if you see a garden that's completely perfect, you should be very suspicious I eat kale that's been chewed on by. Caterpillars, I'm still standing.
[00:17:31] I eat tomatoes that have a little bit of stinkbug damage. I'm still standing. What you see in the grocery store. There is a cost for that perfection. And the great thing about growing things in our own garden is that we know where they came from.
[00:17:46] So to have them look a little not absolutely perfect when they come onto our plate, I'm willing to take that chance. All right.
[00:18:01] Thanks for listening. I hope you found this helpful. And remember, , even if you just came away with one thing, that to me is significant progress, and I bet that one thing when you apply it is gonna make a really big positive difference in your garden.
[00:18:17] August is slowly slipping away. But. Fall is coming, and fall is the best season for gardeners in North Texas. There is still plenty of time for you to plant things for your fall garden, so if you would like a free planting schedule for fall, that tells you exactly what you can plant month by month.
[00:18:36] There is a link in the show notes to that free download that you can print out, you can keep on your fridge, and so you would know exactly what you need to do, what you need to start by seat and doors, what you can direct, so what you can transplant, and then also some ideas for beautiful annual flowers that you can be adding to your containers and to your garden beds as we move into this cooler season.
[00:18:58] Happy gardening, and I'll see you next week.
