Re: What eats radish leaves?

[Penny Morgan]

Flea Beetles are very tiny beetles that love to chew through the radish leaves. Organic gardeners use radishes planted between other crops to draw the beetles to the radishes rather than their prized vegetables. They will not prohibit the growth of the actual radish, but the leaves look pretty lacy. Sorry about the flower show - maybe you can put a sign that says they were organically grown. I'm not sure what the eggs are. They may be ladybugs.

Good luck.

My daughter is growing radishes & is fed up that there are teeny little > holes in the leaves as she wanted to enter her radishes in the village WI > flower show competition next month - any idea what is eating them? > Also there are some very small yellow eggs on the leaves - I'm wondering > what they are too - ladybirds? > > Thanks for any replies! > Jayne > >

[Pat Meadows]

The small yellow eggs sound like cabbage butterfly eggs to me - they are the small white butterflies you see fluttering around the cabbage-family plants (which includes radishes). The eggs hatch into worms that eat round holes in the leaves.

Flea beetles also eat holes in the leaves.

It's probably too late for these particular radishes now, but next season, the damage from the cabbage worms can be avoided by covering the plants with floating row cover or by spraying them with Bt - a bacterial-disease that affects only insects. One brand of Bt is called 'Dipel'.

I don't think Bt is effective against flea beetles. Sprinkling a little diatomaceous earth around the plants (to kill existing flea beetles near the plants) then covering them with floating row cover is effective. You need to be very careful with the row cover, to fasten it down very carefully. Then you can water right through it.

Or you could try growing the radishes in a container on your porch or deck and hope the flea beetles won't find it.

This seems to me like an awful lot of trouble for radishes (which I don't even like), but maybe it's worth it for a blue ribbon at the fair!

Pat

[Jayne]

Thank you for the replies. The radishes are in a pot on the patio so maybe they could be covered up - I've already told her that the radishes will be fine but the leaves won't be pretty. Come to think of it - I have seen a number of white butterflies in the garden so maybe the eggs are from them.

Jayne

[Jayne]

That's the trouble with trying to grow organically - we have to let the bugs have some too!

Jayne