What's eating my garden???

[krenat]

I found several small holes in my strawberry leaves. Upon further investigation, I found these creatures on the bottom of the leaves, curled up. They are very small, 3-4 mm maybe. Yellowish-green body and brown head. I don't know if they are caterpillars or larvae. I attached a picture. I also found holes on the leaves of my hazelnut tree, so it's possible the same thing is eating them but I am not sure.

Does anyone have a clue what they are? Are they dangerous to the fruit or just the leaves? How do I get rid of them?

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[David Hare-Scott]

caterpillars = larval form of insect (mainly moth or butterfly) = larvae

Unlikely, probably two different things, holes on fruit tree leaves have several different causes and if they are from caterpillars it is likely to be two kinds as they tend to specialise.

They are caterpillars, I don't know the specie. You can:

- pick them off and feed them to the chooks, the chooks will thank you very nicely

- spray with BT, a natural control that does not hurt anything else but caterpillars that eat it

- spray with insecticide which may hurt other organisms (eg bees) especially if you spray too much when they are around, if doing this use one of the milder sprays such as pyrethrum and don't go crazy with it.

Different grubs eat leaves and burrow into fruit, you don't necessarily get both. Generalising, the one grows into a moth or butterfly the other into a fruit fly.

David

[krenat]

Thank you, David!

I think I will try to pick them off, if there aren't too many. Unfortunately I do not have chickens, in fact I only have this little strawberry patch and a few fruit trees - but I guess you can tell that by how little I actually know about it :) I've had the patch for a few years, and had no problem with it so far, apart from a few slugs.

BT sounds like a good solution too, I've never used any pesticides at all and don't intend to as I'd like to protect the bees and other creatures.

Thanks again, I shall go and try to get rid of them!

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[Pat Kiewicz]

This could possibly be a sawfly larvae, which can look a lot like caterpillars but are not controlled by Bt. Hand-picking (if practical) or insecticidal soap would be the first strategies I'd recommend.

The fruit is probably safe, from these leaf-eaters at least.

[songbird]

i've yet to find any bug which eats the leaves of strawberries faster than they grow and spread... some small green catepillars will curl the leaves together but i've never bothered to get after them.

as far as bugs that get at the fruit, i make sure when the fruit starts to ripen to pick all of it (even any which may have fallen to the ground) and those go to the worm farm, this way it doesn't encourage bugs.

i've been growing strawberries without using any sprays/*cides for some years now and they keep on doing well.

of course, this means they also get turned under in places every few years so the plants can regenerate. i also add mulches/wood chips/ pine needles/shredded bark and plant peas/beans in them in mid summer here as we can get fairly hot and dry and they seem to do well with a bit of shade then. i chop and drop some of the beans/ peas and some i leave for the frost to knock back.

songbird

[krenat]

Thanks everyone for your answers! I still haven't been able to identify them, although I do have a better picture which I'll attach so maybe someone will know... They are not in clusters, I find only one or two of them per plant, I don't know what kind of moth/fly/butterfly lays their eggs like that.

I've been picking them off by hand, found about 30-35 of them so far (in a patch with about the same number of plants), so I hope I got the most of them because today I only saw one. Under no circumstance will I spray them with anything now as the strawberries are beginning to ripen and I don't want to risk us ingesting anything. They don't seem to eat the fruit, or at least not that I can see. Now I'll have to begin fighting off slugs as in a matter of days literally hundreds of them appeared, and I know they do love the berries so I just have to make sure to pick them as they ripen.

Thanks :)

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