Herb-loving Garden Pests
May 9, 2024 3:40 AM Subscribe
Something's eating all the leaves off certain specific herbs in my community garden. But who?
Last year we had issues with herbs getting chewed up - but only the mints. This year I got brand-new herb plants and put them in a different place - and the same thing is happening; the peppermint, both thyme plants, and the dill are all getting nearly all their leaves stripped. Something is eating all the leaves and leaving just the stems. And it's just those specific herbs. I also have some oregano, chives, parsley, and lemon verbena in the same spot, but those are untouched.
We do have the occasional rat in our garden - but I had heard that rodents don't like mint. So I'm completely stumped.
Any ideas? And how can I mitigate?
Last year we had issues with herbs getting chewed up - but only the mints. This year I got brand-new herb plants and put them in a different place - and the same thing is happening; the peppermint, both thyme plants, and the dill are all getting nearly all their leaves stripped. Something is eating all the leaves and leaving just the stems. And it's just those specific herbs. I also have some oregano, chives, parsley, and lemon verbena in the same spot, but those are untouched.
We do have the occasional rat in our garden - but I had heard that rodents don't like mint. So I'm completely stumped.
Any ideas? And how can I mitigate?
Bunnies? They definitely will eat all the leaves and leave the stems, and they can be picky about what they eat.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:21 AM on May 9
posted by hydropsyche at 5:21 AM on May 9
Response by poster: Bunnies?
Coming back in because you've inadvertently pointed out that I neglected to mention:
This is a community garden in Brooklyn, New York, and therefore rabbits are likely not the problem as they are few and far between. We've seen rats and squirrels, people sometimes bring in their dogs, and sometimes we've seen a cat. I've heard of raccoons in other neighborhoods occasionally.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:15 AM on May 9
Coming back in because you've inadvertently pointed out that I neglected to mention:
This is a community garden in Brooklyn, New York, and therefore rabbits are likely not the problem as they are few and far between. We've seen rats and squirrels, people sometimes bring in their dogs, and sometimes we've seen a cat. I've heard of raccoons in other neighborhoods occasionally.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:15 AM on May 9
Best answer: The neighborhood animals will eat just about anything they set their mind to. As in, deer-proof ( in my neck of the woods) is completely meaningless. They will browse and eat without considering that the purchased plant said specifically that deer wouldn’t like it. The NERVE!!!!
What has worked for protecting individual plants has been bird netting placed over repurposed metal yard sign supports. It creates a box around smaller plants so they can get established (or recover).
posted by childofTethys at 6:48 AM on May 9
What has worked for protecting individual plants has been bird netting placed over repurposed metal yard sign supports. It creates a box around smaller plants so they can get established (or recover).
posted by childofTethys at 6:48 AM on May 9
Response by poster: Maybe aphids?
Another clarifying note: these aren't just holes in leaves, this is a case where several stems of a plant have been completely stripped of all leaves in the course of only 3 days. I think if it was aphids, they would have had to have been in numbers way too big to have escaped any earlier notice ("dude what the heck is that huge swarm of bugs doing over there").
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:08 AM on May 9
Another clarifying note: these aren't just holes in leaves, this is a case where several stems of a plant have been completely stripped of all leaves in the course of only 3 days. I think if it was aphids, they would have had to have been in numbers way too big to have escaped any earlier notice ("dude what the heck is that huge swarm of bugs doing over there").
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:08 AM on May 9
I'm sorry you don't have bunnies! They are awesome, if destructive to gardens.
Hornworms (could be tomato or tobacco) are another suspect that will eat all the leaves but leave the stems. They're really big, so once they finish off one plant, they move on to the next one. Look for suspects on neighboring plots in your community garden.
posted by hydropsyche at 8:40 AM on May 9
Hornworms (could be tomato or tobacco) are another suspect that will eat all the leaves but leave the stems. They're really big, so once they finish off one plant, they move on to the next one. Look for suspects on neighboring plots in your community garden.
posted by hydropsyche at 8:40 AM on May 9
Other gardeners?
I had a plot in a community garden once, and noticed that there was a fair bit of minor casual theft by other people while they were there tending their own plot. If someone didn't show up regularly the theft could be extensive - I presume the people picking all the fruit or pulling the radishes etc. were justifying it to themselves on the ground that the absent gardener was going to lose the harvest anyway.
This would only apply if you are just missing leaves and/or stems, not if there were at least some holes in the leaves.
Check with other gardeners if they have been losing crops when they get to a stage where they can be harvested, but not before.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:01 AM on May 9 [1 favorite]
I had a plot in a community garden once, and noticed that there was a fair bit of minor casual theft by other people while they were there tending their own plot. If someone didn't show up regularly the theft could be extensive - I presume the people picking all the fruit or pulling the radishes etc. were justifying it to themselves on the ground that the absent gardener was going to lose the harvest anyway.
This would only apply if you are just missing leaves and/or stems, not if there were at least some holes in the leaves.
Check with other gardeners if they have been losing crops when they get to a stage where they can be harvested, but not before.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:01 AM on May 9 [1 favorite]
I do feel like in NYC, rats can do anything, so I wouldn’t assume it’s not them or a neighborhood cat with an odd habit. I once had a dog would eat strawberry leaves but nothing else out of my herb garden. Animals are weird. Humans are weird. Kids running around a garden can do strange damage.
They’re way less common, but I did see a woodchuck in a neighbor’s yard in Crown Heights and they eat most vegetation. Supposedly there are also possums and skunks in Brooklyn, but I’ve never encountered any.
posted by A Blue Moon at 9:38 AM on May 9
They’re way less common, but I did see a woodchuck in a neighbor’s yard in Crown Heights and they eat most vegetation. Supposedly there are also possums and skunks in Brooklyn, but I’ve never encountered any.
posted by A Blue Moon at 9:38 AM on May 9
Best answer: Maybe caterpillars? Might be too early but neighbors planned for sacrificial parsley and dill for the swallowtail caterpillars that populated our urban condo planting spots each summer.
posted by paradeofblimps at 10:18 AM on May 9 [1 favorite]
posted by paradeofblimps at 10:18 AM on May 9 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Swallowtail butterfly caterpillars eat my rue and dill most years but it comes back and then I get butterflies. So it's possible it's some very specific lil guy like this.
posted by cobaltnine at 1:40 PM on May 9 [1 favorite]
posted by cobaltnine at 1:40 PM on May 9 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I was just in the garden today to work on this; I was thinking maybe rats, since the patch is near another box that was definitely seeing some rat activity; they lined the base of their box with chicken wire and that stopped things in their box, so the rats may have moved onto my herb patch. And there was a hole dug near the dill in that big pot. We have some rolls of small-mesh chicken wire, so I rigged up a wall around each of the big pots and rigged up a sort of cage over the smaller pot with the mint; that should keep out the mammalian pests.
However - as I was doing this, another gardener came by with his mum who is apparently an "expert gardener." We chatted a bit, and I pointed out the chewed herbs - she also suspected caterpillars, and gave me the idea to try spreading some crushed-up eggshells around the base of each plant. The broken shell would be a physical barrier (it's scratchy so they don't like it, she said) and will add calcium to the soil as it breaks down, so it's a bit of a win-win. So I've also put out an APB call to the other gardeners for eggshells.
The dill may not make it, but we'll see about the others.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:06 AM on May 11 [1 favorite]
However - as I was doing this, another gardener came by with his mum who is apparently an "expert gardener." We chatted a bit, and I pointed out the chewed herbs - she also suspected caterpillars, and gave me the idea to try spreading some crushed-up eggshells around the base of each plant. The broken shell would be a physical barrier (it's scratchy so they don't like it, she said) and will add calcium to the soil as it breaks down, so it's a bit of a win-win. So I've also put out an APB call to the other gardeners for eggshells.
The dill may not make it, but we'll see about the others.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:06 AM on May 11 [1 favorite]
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