insects eating my tiny seedlings.

it happened several times, they ate the stems! so of course, the seedlings died afterwards even though the stems look healthy and strong.

One of my artichoke seed germinated, it had two nice leaves, but some insects ate the stem! So how can I protect the seedlings? I am thinking about putting a transparent plastic cup on top of them, will that help? should I only cover them during night time, do insects eat those seedlings during daytime as well?

There are breathable row covers you can use to keep insects off your plants. I think plastic would smother the plants. Are they in a greenhouse, in the ground outside or where?

Look up cut worms. This sounds like whats eating your stems. For them, you make a collar of folded newspaper or 1/3 of a toilet paper roll, and press it into the soil around the seedlings,

This message was edited Oct 3, 2008 4:04 PM

First of all, congratulations on persevering in your gardening attempts, despite some setbacks. You are a determined young man!

If you cover your artichoke plants with plastic cups, you might want to cut the bottoms out, because the days are quite warm in your area this time of year, and the trapped heat wouldn't be good for your seedlings. The insects or whatever pests are eating on the stems of your artichokes won't climb up and over the plastic.

Beverly Hills has some nights when the temps get down in the thirties in January and thereabouts, right? I'm worried that this may be too cold for artichokes. Most gardeners, if they live where these plants do well, start new plants in the spring when the nighttime temps are around 60 or higher. Do you have very hot summers? Artichokes don't like extreme heat or cold.

Best of luck, and hang in there!

nanbernier, your method seems to be good, i will try that, when my artichoke's seeds germinate again.

kwanjin, i just planted it outside in the ground. it has happened before, so i waited for a while before i transplanted it. it still happened.

When I transplant my seedlings into my gardens I HAVE to use the collars of paper to keep the cut worms a bay. I've tried killing them with chemicals......does not seem to last all that long. I have given up on pesticides and just use the barriers.

very interesting, I just looked up info on cutworms, i think that that is what i have.

I have actually found a light green cutworms nearby. I thought that it was some kind of butterfly. i didn't plan to kill it first, but it grabbed on one of the plant so tight, eventually i destroyed it.

i thought that my seedling was eaten by some kind of tiny insects, such as small grasshoppers or something.