Something is snipping off my seedlings....

I have seen this happen in recent years to tender vegetables right after I put them in the garden - things like tomatoes and peppers and eggplant. I now use paper cups or toilet paper rolls to protect them when I set them out. Never before has this happened to crops I plant from seeds, like beans and limas. But something has neatly snipped some of them off at the base, and it's even attacked one of my new hollyhock plants. I can't use barriers for all the seeds in a long row and I don't know what to do now! I'm also organic so pesticides aren't an option. This is really frustrating.

greenhouse_gal - the only thing I know that would do this to young seedlings is a cutworm - which is actually a caterpillar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutworm

I have tons of TP rolls I can send you :)

I figured it was either a cutworm or a sowbug; sowbugs did in my tomato plants a couple of years ago. Before that happened I would never have suspected them, but I had the little sticks up against the stalks and that usually deters cutworms; then I saw the sowbugs (pill bugs) at work. Cups seemed to take care of that issue on my plants.

The problem is that no way could I or anyone else put TP rolls around all the bean plants in my two rows of Fortex and two rows of limas - or my other seeds, either. It's very depressing!

greenhouse_gal - Sluggo Plus will kill sow bugs, and is organic

http://www.wormsway.com/detail.aspx?t=prod&sku=SLUP710

Are you sure? How long are your rows? My row is only 12' long but it didn't take very long. I used Solo cups -- I can make 2 rings out of each cup and cut up a whole lot of them in short time. (You could do that part in front of the tv!). The hardest part is getting the cup down *into* the ground, because the cups are not all that rigid, but I found that if I take a sharp knife with me and run it around the cup as I put it in the ground, it goes in easily. I didn't lose any beans to those stupid bugs this year. (Now, lately the beans are getting some sort of virus as they finish out the season here -- but that's a different topic).

Too bad there isn't a "bulk" way to put down those collars. Like a plastic "chain" of them, that you could cut to length, and then just plop all the collars down at once om a ow. Easy, peasy, just lay out the collars *first,* press them securely into the ground, pop a seed or two into each spot, and you're done. When this gets invented, I want a cut of the profits!

I'm not so sure about Sluggo Plus - http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1067325/?hl=Sluggo

My rows are about 8 feet long but I have four of them and I can't see putting cups around every bean seed! Maybe I should try coffee grounds if they may work, or just take my chances for the rest of the season. I'll definitely use TP rolls or cups for my tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, but one of the things that really infuriates me is that something is snipping off the only hollyhock that grew well from seeds I got in France this past fall, and I'm not sure enough of it is left to continue growing.

G-gal, are the tops of the plants completely gone, or are they laying on the surface next to their stalks?

Shoe

Shoe, the whole stalk has been toppled over as though someone went after the base with a chain saw. I'm going to try some diatomaceous earth and see if that helps.

Okay, so it hasn't been eaten, as if by rabbits or the like, eh?

DE will help as will cornmeal. Much easier to apply than barriers in rows of beans like yours.

I know when the robins first appeared this year they went after a lot of my beet and broccoli seedlings. Dang birds would just snip them off and leave them laying. Hope that is not your problem.

Best,
Shoe

I hope that's not the problem either. We have plenty of birds but I've never seen them go after my plants, just the bugs that are attracted by them. We do have some robins around though, so maybe that's what's going on. I know a couple of years ago it was sowbugs that did in my tomato plants. Rabbits don't come into the garden; it's fenced and we also have a barn cat.

I had this problem with meadow voles. They cut down the plant and let it wilt to make it more succulent. I usually let my grass get long, which encourages them. I would see them jumping out in front of the mower. I actually got some plastic meadow vole traps, which no vole deigned to enter, although I think they were insulted by them, :) but what really helped was Mole-Stop, which is just castor oil mixed with an emulsifier so it can mix with water. It doesn't kill them, just makes them avoid that area. You don't have to spray it on your entire garden. With me it was the pepper transplants that were getting hit. They were just going down the row and chopping them down. Some people have said this would kill the worms, but it doesn't.

I've tried castor oil for voles but it was late in the season so I don't know if it helped. I have been scolding my barn cat, though, because taking care of such vermin is HER job!

greenhouse_gal - thank you for posting the links for Sluggo-Plus. Another label that cannot be trusted!

Yeah, it's just enough to make me leery of using it. Apparently it's not the active ingredients but the inert ones, if my memory serves me.

I just put out thirty-six pepper plants with cup collars around their stalks. So far the beans and other veggies that I sprinkled with diatomaceous earth are looking good. I asked the garden manager if they had any in the store so I could stock up, and he sent me to the home pesticide aisle. Talk about not knowing your inventory!

I thought I'd chime in here...I've also been noticing something eating my new sprouts (Yo choy Sum?sp) Each night I've been covering it with an upside down container. Well yesterday I went into my raised garden bed and I saw a rat in there.....he's also been chewing off my cucumber (female flower's), the Okinawa spinach is only left with 2 leaves and I wouldn't be surprised if he is the one that has been eating my strawberries. I thought it was squirrels that are everywhere here but now I'm not too sure.

I will be setting traps....no rats in my garden, ewwww

Yuk, rats! We had a rat once in our compost bin, but normally our cat takes care of them. That must have been an unpleasant discovery!

We have a nice shiny black snake that calls our crawl-space home - she/he's welcome to any rodent that dares enter the garden! I'm really hoping it's a female and that there is a daddy snake around, too - I had a huge problem with voles last year that I don't want repeated.

We have voles, a cat, and snakes, but the latter two don't seem to do a very good job of controlling the former!

greenhouse_gal - unfortunately, voles (which are really field mice) breed faster than snakes can eat them!

That doesn't surprise me!

I thought voles were different from field mice, though.

Me, too, GHG. Now, I'll have to go look them up.

Here's what wikipedia says about voles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vole

Ray_Der_Phan - I'm pretty sure it's a black racer. It's black on top and white underneath and looks like those pictured here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coluber_constrictor_priapus

Racer it is if it has a white chin and part of the belly. Indigos are shiny, deep, solid black are very rare these days. It was a long shot of it being one. Just was hoping. Racers are great snakes to have in your yard as well. They can be a little aggressive but I assume you aren't planning on picking it up any time soon :)

Ray_Der_Phan -

As a quick aside, since we're on the topic of black snakes, I uploaded a video of two black snakes mating last year. Most folks have never witnessed it before so thought it would be interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SWpe6cFu9k

Shoe

Thanks for the link to the video, Shoe.

You're welcome. I have two black snakes trapped in a rain gutter/downspout. Going to carry them to the woods this afternoon to set them free. Just had baby chicks hatch and I know they would like a sample of them so off they go....

Shoe

Shoe, I'm so glad you are going to let them free. So many people think the only good snake is a dead one!

Yeh, well, they sure have their place here. They keep mice/rodent population down very well. Sometimes they'll pilfer an egg or two but I just haul them out of the chicken coop and carry them off, sometimes sharing them with other farmers/gardeners who could use them around their fields/barns. I had to trap these two though for fear during the night they'd want a snack so have to protect the chicks.

One of the snakes recently shedded its skin and I was amazed how it left behind a perfect "face skin", complete with eye sockets (almost glowing at ya)!

Shoe (who just realized how off topic we are...whoops)

This message was edited May 18, 2011 4:21 PM

Great vid Shoe! You definitely don't see that very often. Couldn't get an exact ID of what they are but probably Black Rat Snakes. Sound about right?

Ray_der...true, I've only snakes mating a couple times, and that's been in the past five years. I thought it was interesting to witness, especially right outside my shoffice door.

Yes, I've seen rat snakes here, just much smaller than those two. I suppose they get that big though, don't ya think?

More often than not we'll see a snake and just say howdy and walk around it. It's not a daily event but enough to know our rat or mouse population will stay in check.

Hope everyone had a great day today. Time for me to go sit back a while.
Best to all...
Shoe

Daughter and I were walking on the Greenway recently and someone kindly warned us about a snake he had seen. We heard him tell others, and they turned around and walked the other way. Daughter and I hurried to the spot where he said the snake would be, but it had already moved on.

There have been bear sightings in the area recently. I asked hubby what he would do if he saw a bear in the garden. He said: "I don't know". I said: "Close the door!"

So after thinking that there was a rat in my garden eating all my home grown veggies....I was mistaken....it was an opossum. I set a humane trap last night with beef jerky (burned on the end to emit a BBQ smell), this morning I have a small opossum....now what to do with it, I don't want to release it back into my garden since it is the one that has eaten every single cucumber of my 4 cucumber plants, peppers, beans, strawberries etc. (he really has had quite the feast from my garden) So any suggestions as to what to do?

Do you have a local animal control group that could come and take it away? Possums can be a real problem here as well. As you've experienced they can wipe out a garden. They can climb over anything and are hard to control unless you remove them permanently. If this is a young one are the parents around? Hope not!!!! Now you can get on with your gardening, hopefully!

You have a baby. The mom and siblings are nearby. Please let it go. My hound just killed three babies and I can't find the mom. I feel terrible. I have a huge garden and see no damage from possums.

You can see where my hound bit her the first time. Here is one of her babies. She would leave them under a little space in the vestibule floor of our weekend cottage to go off and hunt at sundown. She let me pat her and her babies. I know this sounds weird and they are ugly and supposedly mean, but she did not eat my veggies. We have a quarter acre garden. Possums mostly prefer meat (including already dead animals) and fruit.

This must be the year for wildlife. I have come to an agreement with the snakes in the chicken coop who ever gets there first gets the eggs. I put some food out for the cats a couple nights ago, heard funny sound and looked to see the cat had turned into a raccoon. I was wondering why the water kept getting dirty. Then a couple evenings ago there was a grey fox by the barn. It just looked at me and walked away. Also, our pea hen had 4 babies. I must say they are cuter then the possum in the picture above. : )