If you are a Canadian vegetable gardener, you know how destructive insect pests can be to your success. The best way to get rid of them is to identify the type of insect quickly and take steps to remove harmful ones from your garden. Here’s a list of some of the worst offenders:
Colorado Potato Beetle
The stout, little, oval Colorado Potato Beetle thrives in the cooler Canadian weather. As an adult, this insect is readily identifiable by its yellow and black stripes running down its oval body. It is vital, however, to identify this insect while still in its larva stage. Take a stroll through the garden and lift leaves, looking for 12 or more yellow eggs on the underside of the leaves. They attack potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. Part of the problem with eradicating this insect is adults winter by burying themselves in the ground. During the next season, they can lay eggs up to four times.
Wireworm
Wireworms, also called Click Beetles, can be very harmful to beets, beans, cabbage, carrots, corn, lettuce, onions, peas, potatoes, and turnips. These insects love to eat the underground part of plants causing them not to germinate. These minuscular black insects live in the soil. The difficulty in identifying wireworms is they closely resemble the Ground Beetle, which is a beneficial insect in your garden. Therefore, it is essential to have an expert tell you what type of insect is attacking your garden.
European Earwig
The European Earwigs are a small, elongated insect that live near the ground. If you harass one, they give off a foul odor. They look intimidating because of the long pincers near their rear end. They like to eat beets, beans, celery, lettuce and strawberries, but also feed on flower seedlings.
Maggots
There are various subspecies of maggots that can cause gardeners trouble, including cabbage and onion maggots. These insects, resembling a small housefly, eat the lower leaves off plants. They are extremely harmful because of the bacteria they can introduce to gardens.
Spinach Miner
Spinach Miners resemble a slender, grey fly. They eat on chard, celery, carrots, sugar beets, spinach and parsnips. They often damage the stem of these plants as they prefer to eat between leaves and not on them.
There are also many types of beneficial insects that help gardeners succeed. Therefore, gardeners should work with experts like us at Cottage Pests Control Services to develop and carry out a plan that helps gardens to thrive. Give us a call and get great gardening gains!
