Who is eating my basil leaves?, and more

I just planted sweet basil and in the last couple of days, a few of the new leaves have been eaten up. I cannot find the culprit. I looked under each leaf and the soil, but I see nothing.

How can I deter those critters?

Also I got stawberries this year, but my next door neighbor tells me she planted strawberries last year but as soon as the fruit became ripe, bugs ate them. I wonder what king of bugs eat strawberries and what I can do about it?

tmm9

You can try sprinkling some hot cayenne pepper powder on them until they get larger. Don't forget to sprinkle some around the stems in case there are any cutworms lurking.

THANK YOU!

I just diluted cayenne pepper in little water and put it all over basil leaves and the stems.

Does anybody know what to do with strawberries? What can I put on them to deter the critters from eating them before I get to them?

tmm

Sounds suspiciously like slugs to me. Do you have slugs there? If it's a nasty slug that's the culprit, your strawberries will look like a hole has been eaten into them. Because it has. If you have slugs, I've got lots of hot tricks to stay ahead of them.

Pixydish,

Thank you for your post. I have found a snail on the back side of the rim of the container that the basils are planted, so after taking the snail off (well and stepping on it with my sandal), I put a copper wire around the rim of the container and hopefully, the wire will deter the other snails to climb up the container to eat my basil leaves again.

I haven't seen any slugs but I guss snails are like slugs?

I tried to put the copper wire for the strawberry container also but due to the shape of the container, the copper wire would not stay up.

Any suggestions on what to use besides copper wire?

Thanks,

tmm

Oh yeah! Snails.... slugs... same animal. Only one has a house and one doesn't. But you've found your culprit.

Copper is good, but expensive. Assuming that snails and slugs like the same stuff, there is bait you can get that is safe for animals and for use around edible plants. It's made of iron sulfate. The slug eats it and then goes away and dies. There is other snail/slug bait that is bad for animals but very effective. Here's how I use it:
Take a plastic bottle such as bottled water comes in. Cut the bottle in half a couple of inches down from the top, the turn the top part around and stick the neck down inside the bottom half of the bottle. You are basically making a trap so the bad slug bait can be put inside the trap, the snail will go in an die, and nobody gets hurt in the process. See photo below. I've put some tape on this one, but it wasn't really necessary. I don't tape them usually

They will also be attracted to beer. Just buy the cheapest beer you can get. Don't waste good microbrew on these guys! Take a can and put a bit of beer in it. Then sink the can into the ground so that the rim is just about even with the ground. They love beer and will go in and never come out. This is pretty gross because you have to empty the cans occasionally and it can be disgusting. But effective. It's best if you can put something over the top to keep other animals out of the can. You can buy traps for this purpose but they're fairly costly.

You can also use diatomaceous earth around your plants as they can't crawl across it. But you have to put more out after a rain.
In the summer I trap slugs with watermelon rind. You can use any kind of fruit, as you've determined with your eaten strawberries. Melon rind works great because you can turn it rind side up in the garden then check underneath it each day.

As you can see, I spend a lot of time and energy trying to stay ahead of these guys! Hope some of these suggestions are helpful for you.

There is a thread from 3-4 years ago showing a small stepping stone sitting up above the ground about 2-3 inches on 3 sticks in the ground. That leaves enough clearance to put a pie tin or other shallow container full of beer under it. Keeps the rain and critters out of the beer but the snails and slugs are still drawn in to drink and drown. The dead slugs in the beer actually draw in more slugs.

Here are links to a couple of trap dealers. The first one is just cute, I've never seen it before. But I've bought the traps in the second link at a local hardware store. They are more reasonably priced than any others of the kind that I've seen and they are low-profile in the garden. Sometimes I have to search to find them. Anyway, they give you an idea of what to look for or make.



http://www.solutionscatalog.com/jump.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&iProductID=501

http://www.epinions.com/hmgd-Lawn_and_Garden-Pest_Control-All-Safer_The_Pit_Snail_and_Slug_Trap

Thank you very much for all the ideas.

I took a look at the link on the frog snail trap. It looks really cute but I cannot even begin to imagine cleaning the thing. (It almost made me barf looking at photos of slugs on another website... The slugs are sooo very ugly.)

I will look into the iron sulfate stuff. As long as I don't have to pick up the remains of these critters, I will be happy.

tmm

Lee Valley (see Garden Watchdog) has copper mesh -- sort of in a ribbon width -- they sell. It would be easier to fix onto things. A little pricey, but reusable. And 100 ft long.
http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=2&p=51241&cat=2,51555&ap=1