These little black caterpillar type things showed up' about 6 weeks ago and began decimating just about all of my plants.
They started out skeletonizing the leaves of the bean plants, then the Brassicas, snow peas, tomato etc... I think they are sawfly larvae but am not sure. BT works for caterpillars but not sawflys so knowing what they are makes a big difference.
They seem to have four sets of legs on the body, two in front and one at the end. They start off about 1/4 inch long and the biggest I have seen is about an inch. Don't recall seeing these before but this year they are EVERYWHERE, multiple batches showing up. I have been smooshing them when I see an infestation. Odd thing is my
lawn man who knows a lot about the flora/fauna in this area (a 65+ year old redneck that has seen everything there is to see around here) mentioned that something was skeletonizing the leaves of
trees, then it started happening in my garden so I wonder if it is an odd outbreak.
Photos of the culprit:
Damage on bean plants:
Damage on Brassicas (could be slugs/snails though)
1
