So – when we were building our garden beds I kept finding grubs, being the heartless person I am, and the fact that I love magpies, most of the grubs ended up as a magpie dinner. Which was great, as I’m pretty sure those lads sing for their supper and a magpie warble is lovely.  A lot of the soil we filled the beds with was from the old veggie patch, so what I found there has made it into the tubs…

What I didn’t think to do at the time was find out what the grubs were. Then the night time bandits struck.  Plants would ‘disappear’ over night, or be left very damaged, like this poor bean, that was one of three who didn’t  ‘disappear’, ( though I’ve noticed that now the potato plant is sticking it’s head out the damage seems to have halted… maybe that companion planting is starting to work?)

So between google, and my gardening books I’m taking the educated guess that those grubs were cutworm larvae. From what I gather, these suckers cut the seedling down at the base, hence cut worm, but what really clinches the deal is that they are nocturnal… which explains why my earnest searches to find the culprits through the day was failing.

Cutworms are the larvae of moths – in my area, most likely of the Bogong moth. I’m not an entomologist – so I admit I’m making some pretty broad statements here, so if you know more I’d be delighted to hear.

I’m don’t like using pesticide when I can avoid it, and this year I’m trying a lot of companion planting to minimize the pest impact – but these bugs aren’t even letting me get the planting going! So I’m going to try cuffing my seedlings. Like so;

Easiest thing in the world to do; all I have done is cut the bottom out of some plastic cups I had in the kitchen and push it into the soil around the seedling – ideally you would place the cup, then plant to avoid root damage, but I’m hoping to save this seedling.  Next time I spot some wide PVC piping at the tip I’ll buy make more ‘permanent’ cuffs. PVC pipes also work well for celery making it grow taller and pale with out the mess of dirt. Yum Yum.

Interestingly (or I think so anyway) was that last year, pre wicking bed, we planted a lot of the seedlings in the top half of soft drink bottles to ensure that water was funneled directly to the  root balls. This year, as the beds are self watering, we didn’t – and this year the damage from pests has been far more obvious.

I guess the test will be if the seedlings are there tomorrow morning? Wish me luck!