Don't forget that BT powder!

17 years ago

Came home after being gone for a week. When I left my beans looked fantastic. Came back, tons of eaten leaves. Of course I look and don't see any obvious cause:

This morning I looked and found the culprit. Caterpillars. Found the obvious ones:

Then went back and looked for any dog-eared leaves (They roll themselves up in the leaves to protect themselves from birds and me during the day) and found and smooshed another 60-75 from the size of a pencil lead to 3" long. [Bean Leafroller Caterpillars aka Long-tailed Skipper Butterfly] (great blurb there about their lifecycle)

Next step: sprinkle with B.T.

The bean plants are just starting to flower so hopefully they'll bounce back. I'm glad I planted ~120 plants. :)

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Comments (3)

fliptx
17 years ago
Some leaf rollers started in on my bean plants a couple weeks ago. I sprayed with BT and they were all dead the next day or so. Then I forgot to spray again as a follow-up and found more of the boogers last night. Luckily, the ants found them, too, and ate a few for me.
topsiebeezelbub
11 years ago
I wondered what these oragami folding critters were, and when I found out they are beautiful long tailed skipper butterflies I was relieved that I hadn't harmed them. Do we really want to kill all the butterflies? I can buy a can of beans any time.
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cindy_ga
11 years ago
I will squish the eggs or caterpillars if there are a lot of them on one plant, but I don't worry too much. They don't seem to damage that much foliage and the butterflies are beautiful and they pollinate other veggies. All in all, I think they are a good thing in my garden.