Garden Pests

Leaf Miner Injury

This week I am hearing about leaf miner injury in various plants. You look at the leaf and see tunnels winding around between the tissues of the leaf. I have not seen heavy infestations that skeletonize the plant, however, they are unsightly.

Leaf miner injury on swiss chard
Leaf miner injury on swiss chard


Caused by a little black fly laying eggs on the leaf. The eggs hatch and the little larva burrow into the tissues of the leaf. The type of leaf miner is specific to the plant (they do not cross to other plants).


I have seen them on hollyhock, beets, bean, tomatoes, and columbines this year. Certain species also attack cottonwood, birch, pine trees, vine crops, peppers, and eggplant.

Leaf miner injury on columbines
Leaf miner injury on columbines


Since the larva is in the leaf, control is hard. For flowers (non-eatables) you can use a systemic insecticide. For the garden, it is best to pick off the damaged leaves and dispose of them. A newer way is to use neem oil which reduces the number of larva becoming adults.

Flowers (annual and perennial)

Cleome Plants

Cleome plants are not too popular anymore and I do not know why. They are hard to start indoors but come up readily in the garden if you allow the seeds to drop. Once the flower spike opens up, cleomes draw attention. They bloom all summer long on 3 to 4 foot high plants and are drought tolerant. As for pests, grasshoppers and deer hate them.

Purple flowered cleome

As I stated before, cleomes are hard to start indoors because of lighting, temperature, and needing bottom heat. Also, they are hard to transplant, so just plant the seeds in the flowerbed. Once germinated they grow fast. The hotter, the better.

Coming from South America and parts of the Southwestern U.S., the Navajo Indians tribes used this plant to eat and use various parts for herbal uses. The dark violet cleome was used for a dye for rugs and pottery. England adopted this plant for use in its Victorian gardens.

Cleomes in the flowerbed

They are also pollinator plants bringing bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds in the garden. Also called Rocky Mountain flower, spider flower, cat’s whiskers, and grandmother’s whiskers.

Garden hacks, Vegetables

Red Plastic Mulch

Been reading about using red plastic mulch being good for tomatoes. I did this and the results are very noticeable! The tomato plants growing on red plastic are showing twice the growth versus the plants without the plastic. I had some plastic leftovers and tried it on peppers. I have twice the growth of those also. It has to do with reflecting the red light wavelength back to the plant increases the production of chlorophyll especially plants in the tomato family and strawberries. The plastic also holds soil moisture and controls weeds. Do not use the cheap pink plastic, like I did last year. After two weeks the pink faded to clear and acted like a greenhouse for the weeds under the plastic.

Red plastic mulch under tomatoes


There are studies now stating to use silver mulch for vine crops. They show bugs like aphids, cucumber beetles, and squash bugs get confused and travel somewhere else. Next year’s test!