Category: Garden Pests

Neem Oil

There is a “new” product making its way to the garden shelves called Neem oil or Neem oil extract. Actually, Neem oil has been around for thousands of years, however, is entering the garden area. It comes from the Neem…

Last year there were two shrub pests and now is the time to control them. One is the honeysuckle aphid, a small black and white aphid that attacks the plant early and leaves twisted leaves and dead twigs. The damage…

Who is eating these tunnels in my carrots? They all called the carrot weevil. The adult in a tiny brown bug with a snout laying eggs on the crown of the carrot. The little white worms burrow down on the…

What is that big bunches of webs in my trees? It is fall webworms hatching from eggs and spinning a protection web over the colony. While unsightly, they do not cause much harm this time of the year as the…

Have you ever found little black beetles with yellow spots on your overripe garden fruit? These little buggers are called picnic beetles and are instantly attracted to your ripening sweet corn, berries, cracking melons, and tomatoes. They burrow into the…

Why do melons and tomatoes seem to crack when the fruit gets ripe? The cause is inconsistent soil water and heat. Do not let the soil dry completely then water. The surge of water in the fruit will expand causing…

Remember those orange spider-looking galls on your junipers early this spring? Now there are brown to orange spots on your apple leaves and fruit. This is cedar-apple rust. The spring galls released spores into the air affecting apple trees. Later…

Powder mildew is showing up in gardens and flower beds earlier this year. It used to not have been a major problem years ago. As our summers get more humid, this fungus is now common. It starts out as a…

Blossom end rot in tomatoes shows up a browning or blackening areas on the bottom of the fruit. It is more common than not on the first ripening tomatoes. Pepper and eggplant also get this condition, but to a lesser…

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…

People are having issues with tomato leaf curl. There are no easy answers without looking at the leaf itself and doing some detective work. If the leaves are distorted with brown spots and the leaves are turning yellow. Answer: foliar…

Tomatoes leaf spots will be starting on the lower leaves and working their way up the plant. The main cause of this is fungi causing Septoria, early blight, and late blight. These are worse in wet, humid weather. The best…

I am noticing tents of caterpillars in fruit trees and other trees now. The adult moth lays eggs in a crotch of trees and the little caterpillars start spinning a web around the congregation. As they grow the tent becomes…

A square stem weed is popping up (seemly overnight) in gardens and flowerbeds and shady areas around the yard. It is called bedstraw or catchweed. When you touch the weed, it feels sticky. This is because of the little Velcro-like…

Spring is tough for gardeners in South Dakota. We get the twitch when temperatures get to the upper 70’s and think it could not possibly freeze now. But how wrong we are forgetting the last frost date is usually May…