Organic Growing Guide: Who Else is Eating Your Herbs?

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Organic Growing Guide: Who Else is Eating Your Herbs?

We get the question all the time. "Something is eating my herbs, what is it?" Our patent answer: "We hope you are!"

But bugs in the herb garden are a fact of life. Herbs are little chemical factories, prolifically producing their essential oils that give them their wonder flavors, scents, and healing properties. That is why we are so attracted to these herbs. Can we expect plant-eating bugs to ignore these wonderful aromas and just eat the crabgrass!? The same aromas that attract us to herbs also attract the bugs, and they come wearing little bibs with basil leaves on them.

In upcoming issues of the Lingle’s Herbs Newsletter, we will try to cover all of the bugs which damage the herbs in your garden. But for this issue, we are going to address the ones that conspicuously consume your plants, leaving noticeable holes in the leaves.

Firstly, let us state that in organic gardening it is essential that gardeners identify the exact bug that is eating their plants. This is because we are not using broad spectrum chemical insecticides that indiscriminately kill every bug (insect or arachnid, harmful or beneficial) in the garden. We use very specific organic means of barring, deterring, or killing the specific bug that is doing the damage to our plants, while inflicting little or no damage on the beneficial bugs in the garden.

So, something (other than you) is eating your herbs. You can tell by the holes in the leaves of the plant. As several different bugs eat holes in leaves, it is important to identify which bugs are doing so. And we try to do that by examining the holes in the leaves, and trying to answer this question: Are the holes in the leaves emanating from the outside edge of the leaf and being chewed in, or are the holes originating in the center of the leaves?

This is because two of the major groups of leaf eating scoundrels in the garden are 1) snails and slugs, and 2) caterpillars. And they both eat holes in leaves, but usually in different ways.

Snails and slugs are a major problem in states with mild winters, but the freezing temperatures in winter of more northern states kill them, so they can not become established pests.

Snails and slugs generally start eating leaves from the outer edge of the leaf. They usually do not begin chewing on the center of a leaf. Snails and slugs lay their eggs in soil, not on leaves, so young or mature snails and slugs crawl up the branches of the plant and start chewing the edges of the leaves. The other tell-tale of snails and slugs is that they leave a shiny trail along their path from their ‘slime’, which glistens in the sunlight.

Caterpillars are the larval stage of any butterfly or moth, and are found throughout the U.S. in many different forms, and all of them feed on plants.

Caterpillars usually begin chewing on a leaf in the center, or away from the edge of the leaf. The adult butterfly or moth usually lays its eggs on the leaf surface (or sometimes the bloom). As the egg on the leaf hatches, the tiny caterpillar comes out and immediately begins eating the leaf. They don’t crawl to the edge of the leaf to begin eating. These holes start out as tiny pinholes, and as the caterpillar grows, become increasingly larger.

The tell-tale sign of caterpillars: They leave their waste in the form of small black or green ‘pellets’, which collect on the leaves below where they are residing and eating.

Now, what do we do to rid our garden of these pests organically?

Controlling Snails and Slugs: The four main organic means of ridding our gardens of snails and slugs are 1) collecting, 2) trapping, 3) diatomaceous earth, and 4) copper barrier. Most people pass right over collecting, as it is not entirely pleasant going out after dark and picking up these slimy creatures from the garden. And then what do you do with them? Smash them, put them in salt water, throw them in the neighbors yard?

We often collect snails and slugs at night, and quickly euthanize them with our big garden boots. But...yuck!...who wants to do that after dinner!? Traps, which are usually laden with beer (because snails and slugs like yeast), are effective and will sometimes catch earwigs and sowbugs too. But emptying these traps may make you look at a frosty cold beer in a whole new light. Still, these methods are more appealing than using poison snail bate. Especially if you have pets or children.

Diatomaceous earth (DE) is the residue of a single celled plankton called the diatom. It comes in the form of a white powder which is spread around the garden. It kills snails and slugs in two ways. First, DE lacerates the underside of the snails or slugs as they crawl over it, and they eventually die from the injury. Second, DE absorbs the moisture from the underside of the snails or slugs, drying them out so they can’t crawl anymore, and they eventually die. But DE must be reapplied often to remain effective.

Lastly, you can use a copper barrier, which ‘shocks’ snails and slugs as they come into contact with it. We have found this to be the most effective means of keeping snails and slugs from damaging our plants. We use a product called Snail-Barr® (which yes, we also sell). It is the most effective means we have ever found for deterring snails and slugs from damaging our plants. It comes in 20 foot lengths by 3 inches high and you can just cut it into 12-16 inch lengths and collar a plant, or use longer lengths to surround a garden bed with it like a copper ‘benderboard’. No snail or slug will ever cross it. We experimented with an 8 inch diameter ring of it one time, placing a big snail inside if the ring. It was in there for a week, unable to get out, before we euthanized it with our big garden boots. The copper Snail-Barr lasts for years, developing a nice patina, but never loosing its effectiveness. Look for it in your local garden center, or we sell it for $15.50 for a 20 foot length. We are now shipping it only with plant shipments, but plan to ship it on its own when we find suitable boxes.

Controlling Caterpillars: Firstly, let us state that if there were no caterpillars, there would be no beautiful butterflies. No monarchs, no swallowtails, etc. Tolerating a few caterpillars in the garden is part of encouraging nature, and that is what gardening is all about. Here at Lingle’s Herbs, we always have a common fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) growing to insure some safe habitat for our native Swallowtail butterfly, whose native habitat is diminishing with increased development. However, when we have an infestation of ‘bad’ caterpillars devouring our basil before we have a chance to, it’s time to dispose of them on that particular plant.

The best and safest means of doing so is by using a naturally-occurring soil bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a very specific organic insecticide. It affects only leaf-eating cutworms, and does no harm to ladybugs and their larva, lacewings and their larvae, spiders, the wasps and hornets which devour caterpillars, or humans. You simply spray a liquid form of Bt on the leaves of a plant, and when the caterpillars come to dine the next time, they ingest the Bt, which proliferates in their intestines and paralyzes their digestive systems. The caterpillars quickly starve to death.

Too graphic a description for you conscientious objectors out there? Sorry, but consider this: Malathion, a neuro-toxin, was formulated from a derivative originally used in the trenches for chemical warfare in World War I. (Pretty nasty stuff.) If you prefer, you can get out your magnifying glass and pick off the caterpillars from you plants and quickly euthanize them with your big garden boots, as we occasionally do.

Bt is available to the home gardener under the brand Safer® Caterpillar Killer. You can find it at your local garden center. Or a couple of different brands of Bt are available via mail-order from Gardens Alive®, 5100 Schenley Place, Lawrenceburg, IN 47025, (812) 537-8651.

In conclusion, if you find large chewings on the outside edge of plant leaves, accompanied by slimy trails, you have snails or slugs eating your plants, and we recommend Snail-Barr copper barrier. But if you have small holes chewed in the center of the leaves, and tiny green or brown ‘pellets’ on the leaves, you have caterpillars and we recommend applying Bt to the affected plant.

 

 

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.~ Albert Einstein ~

 

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