The damage done to this young chard is made by what can be quite a pernicious pest in the spring: Leaf Miner. There are many types of beetles and flies that have offspring which burrow inside leaves. They make trails or tunnels that can meander around inside the leaf, looking like it has been "mined." Another gross thing is that when you hold the leaf up to the light, you can sometimes see the maggot inside its tunnel. Definitely NOT yummy.
The leaf miner in my garden loves the beets and chard the best. No wonder, they are sister plants. Leaf miners also bother (to a smaller extent) my spinach and lettuces, but boy, if there's a beet patch around for them to play in, that's where they're going.
I don't exactly know which species of critter I've got here at Love Apple Farm which is the exact "leaf miner," but I do know how to get a handle on them.
Our first line of defense is to trap them with a blue sticky trap, as you see in the pic below. Position it at plant level in the garden, and your offending leaf miner is attracted to the trap instead of the plant, gets stuck on it, and that's the end of it.
We also can hand pick each leaf off that has the miner inside. Be careful what you do with these Don't simply throw them away, the maggots will hatch in the trash (or compost pile) and continue their life cycle. Either put them in a sealed plastic bag or squish each one, killing the maggot. Better yet, give them to your chickens. They'll love eating the leaves AND the maggots. The ultimate lean protein and leafy green diet.
Don't have chickens and wish you did? Consider taking my class in April on Keeping Backyard Chickens. In the meantime, watch out for those leaf miners, they can do some serious damage!
Chickens will indeed eat everything in a veggie patch, but they can be a vital and symbiotic part of a vegetable garden if you contain the properly. Give them their own small run (limit yourself to three or four laying hens), and then build a simple portable PVC structure to pop over a newly dug or harvested garden bed. Make it ultra-movable, and put a hen or two in the "chicken tractor," for a day. Be sure to put the hens back in their predator-proof coop at night!
Posted by: Love Apple Farm | March 14, 2009 at 08:15 AM
Just recently there have been more and more reasons to get chickens. Just turning over the soil this time of year makes me see all the eggs and caterpillars in the soil for them to eat up. I don't think they would go well in a veggie patch though, I think they would eat everything!
Posted by: Matron | March 14, 2009 at 07:03 AM