Common Lettuce Pests Aphids. Armyworms. Corn earworms. Crickets. Darkling beetles. Flea beetles. Garden symphylans. Grasshoppers.
How do I keep bugs from eating my lettuce?
Keep your plants well watered and healthy and prune away unhealthy, discolored leaves. Harvest the problem plant to avoid further exposing your healthy plants. Using organic pest management sprays like Neem Oil, Bt, or Spinosad on your remaining plants, coating the leaves evenly 1-2 times per week.
What is eating holes in my lettuce?
These small holes are telltale signs of the cabbage worm. Actually, the are several insects that cause this type of damage and are generally referred to as ‘cabbage worms’. This includes the imported cabbage worm, the diamondback caterpillar and cabbage looper.
What pest eats lettuce?
Key to Lettuce Pests. Caterpillars attacking the fall crop are usually the most troublesome field pests of lettuce. In the greenhouse, aphid and cabbage looper infestations often give problems. Cutworms, whiteflies, leafminers, and slugs are slightly less important greenhouse pests.
Is it normal for bugs to be on lettuce?
Aphids in lettuce can be a real nuisance, even a deal breaker when lettuce is when severely infested. Most folks dislike the idea of ingesting a little extra protein in the form of a bug in their salad, and I am no exception.
How do I get rid of aphids on my lettuce?
So you have to swish them around in cold water that has a pinch of salt (or a drop of soap) in it. The salt or soap act to reduce the surface tension between the aphids and the leaf. Leave the greens in the cold water for a few minutes, swish them around, drain and rinse the greens.
What is eating my lettuce at night?
Slugs and snails love lettuce, but they nibble from the outside edges toward the center. A leaf with a center rib intact and a scalloped edge has been visited by a slug during the night. Only if seedlings have just sprouted will slugs eat the whole plant. In spring there might be flea beetles eating lettuce.
Is it OK to eat salad leaves with holes?
If slugs take a little chew out of your lettuce or a weevil leaves a small hole in your pepper, cut away the damage and thoroughly inspect what is left. If it all looks good, then feel free to eat the rest. If something has nibbled at your lettuce, look around for signs of rabbit pellets or deer poop.
Can I eat leaves with holes?
If the hole is due to insects or diseases, then the leaves are safe to eat. However, an herb damaged by an animal should avoid and threw away as the risk of the transmission of disease, if ingested, can be high.
How do I keep bugs from eating my vegetables?
Spread crushed eggshells beneath the targeted plants and creepy-crawlies will move along. Make A Stink: Many aromatic herbs, like yarrow, citronella, mint, fennel, catnip, basil, and lemongrass are natural deterrents for garden pests from aphids to potato beetles.
How do I stop slugs eating my lettuce?
Hand picking on a regular basis, daily or weekly, will greatly reduce the number of pests feasting upon your lettuce. Barriers– Copper barriers are a common deterrent for slugs and snails in the garden. Interestingly, electrical current is generated when the “mucus” of these mollusks comes into contact with copper.
How do you protect lettuce?
Prevention is the best cure, so cover lettuces with insect-proof mesh (such as Enviromesh) from June until August, as this will prevent aphids getting to the roots. Some lettuces are resistant to root aphids.
What animal is eating my plants at night?
Wildlife that feed at night include rabbits, deer, squirrels, chipmunks, voles, woodchucks, groundhogs, and skunks. They do a lot of damage. But so do insects. Nighttime feeding insects include caterpillars, Mexican bean beetles, flea beetles, Japanese beetles, the tarnished plant bug, and slugs.
What happens if you eat a lettuce bug?
Pritt, for the most part, eating a bug isn’t cause for worry. In general, your body will digest arthropods, which include arachnids like spiders, mites, and ticks, and insects such as gnats, flies, mosquitoes, fleas, and bedbugs, “just like any other food,” she says.
How do I get rid of aphids on my lettuce before eating?
The best way to remove the aphids is to submerge the vegetables in cold water for at least 10 minutes. Then drain, rinse them off, and dry them. Salad spinners are perfect for this. Once the aphids have been drowned and rinsed off, the greens are perfectly safe to eat.
What is the best aphid killer?
How to Get Rid of Aphids: Top-7 Best Aphid Killers Garden Safe HG-93179 Neem Oil Extract. With 70% of neem oil extract, this concentrate combines an insecticide, fungicide, and miticide in one product. Safer Insect Killing Soap. Garden Safe 80422 Insect Killer. Bonide Product 951. Bayer Advanced 701710.
Do banana peels keep aphids away?
Natural Pest Repellent Avoid using potentially hazardous insecticides to repel aphids and ants from the garden by using orange and banana peels to keep the pests away. Cut up banana peels to bury 1 to 2 inches deep in the soil around plants that are prone to aphid infestations to repel and remove aphids from the area.
How do you clean lettuce?
Separate the leaves, dropping them into the water, and swish them around with your hands. Leave the lettuce in the water a minute or two to let any dirt or sand settle to the bottom, then lift the leaves out of the water and put into a colander to drain.
What can you not plant with lettuce?
Try to avoid growing lettuce next to broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, or kohlrabi—while some varieties of lettuce may help these cabbage-family (brassicas) crops to grow, these plants have particular root secretions that can prevent lettuce seeds from germinating.