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Help!  I have planted out lettuce, green beans, swede and kale and the leaves are all being eaten by something.  Sometimes it's wee holes, other times whole chunks out the leaves.  Am worried I'm going to have nothing left.  Even ones under cloches are being eat.  Any ideas/suggestions?

Thanks.

Check carefully for caterpillars! This sounds exactly like the preferred diet and typical damage of the larvae of the cabbage-white butterfly. You are looking for small, green voracious herbivores. Squash every one you find.  >:(

Lizann, here's a close-up of the suspect I think you're after. Also known as the 'small white'. They're very good at hiding.
http://socalbutterflies.com/images/cabbage_larva3.jpg

Also some good info on habits and treatments (bio and chem):
http://tinyurl.com/bbc-on-cabbage-whites

The little blighters are very good at hunting down brassicas, so it doesn't altogether surprise me that they've managed to defeat the cloches. One even found one of my cauli seedlings last month before they'd even been put outside.  :o

Small holes could be flea beetle.

I agree rc,
Bit early for cabbage whites - especially in Scotland!

Telboy, like I said, I squashed this year's first small-white/cabbage-white butterfly caterpillar a month ago. So I didn't think it impossible for Scotland a month on.
And 'whole chunks' out of leaves sounded to me more like caterpillar damage than anything else. But yep, tiny wee holes would be more like flea beetle.

Liz, if you can't find the culprits on the plants, post a picture of the damage here: that'll help peeps ID the pest.


 

slugs?
they've been eating my swede.

I've just been out squashing teeny tiny slugs on bean plants hiding on the underside of leaves. They've gotten around my slug pellets which may have washed away and gotten past some of the yogurt container "walls" which sometimes have slowed them down.  Some were even able to climb a couple feet high up a pole bean! Why they by-passed all the lower leaves is beyond comprehension.

Thanks for all replies.  Should have also said these wee seedlings are in raised beds, so really thought the slugs wouldn't make it up there.  Will try and post a photo if I can catch the perpetrators at it!

Thanks again.

I get slugs on the roof of the conservatory, ditto snails so raised beds wouldn't prove any problem I'm afraid!
If your leaves looks like doileys, then flea beetle is likely to be the culprit. Perhaps it is several?

I fought the FBs on my cabbages for years before giving up and buying some ultrafine mesh; it gets put over the cabbages on a blue water pipe frame and works very well

moonbells

if its tiny holes like pin pricks i think its prob flea beetle.  i base that on finding flea beetles on my swede and pak choi seedlings.   combined with dry weather seedlings arent doing too well.   I used nemaslug this year in last few weeks as in previous years i thought slugs were causing this and i have done some night checks and not found any slugs or slug trails (im sure dry weather is helping or maybe my night checks arent late enough for em hehe.   just hope it lasts till i get through my strawberries- had 2nd ripe one today heehee.
anyway flea beetles really are tiny, what can i do to combat them??? 

Invest in some ultra-fine enviromesh or a clone thereof.

It costs a fair bit, but is reusable for years if you don't accidentally strim it (!)

http://www.organiccatalogue.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=527 is the one I have. I make large beds of 1.5m x 3.5m and use blue water piping (you can get big rolls from Plumb Center or smaller ones from Wickes) as a support.

This is my cabbage bed - it was subsequently extended as I planted more out!


It also means you don't have to bother with brassica collars - the cabbage root flies can't get in. And you can make similar things with normal enviromesh for carrot fly - here was my carrot bed at cropping time one year (with a few radishes for good measure - they get flea beetle too!):


moonbells