hey ANGIE...so sorry to hear about that darn grub, but he wont be bothering you again...LOL How are you ? hope to get to talk with ya again once all the plants are planted !

I just took my tops off !! BUT still have 50 containers with no sprouts...

Hey Kym! I have just been released from wedding prison...lol..it was a beautiful wedding,worth all the hard work! :) I am finally free to play now,it was a long 2 weeks!

I have only taken the tops off of a few that insisted on it,I know we will have some cold nights still,I am not fooled by these 50 degree nights we have been having! So I figure until we are past our frost date,I am leaving lids on my tender annuals and once some of the perennials get a little bigger,I will take those tops off.

I have been thinking all day about that "grub",it sure looked like a grub,but I am not sure if grubs eat leaves ,do you know? To late to take a pic...lol...

Of course we will find time to talk!:)

It may have been a cutworm. It is similar to a grub. They chew the plant at the stem and can eat the whole thing if the plant is small enough.
There are different kinds of grubs, but most are white with a darker head. The cutworm looks greenish and can be very fat like a small caterpillar if it has eaten a lot.

I hate those little boogers! I smooshed some yesterday, when I was preparing an area in the garden. Last year I had a nasty time with cutworms, slugs & snails. This year my biggest nemesis is aphids! I lost a lot of flowers and some peppers before I was aware they were there. I caught them on some tomatoes yesterday evening so I watered them this morning in hopes of drowning and flushing out the little boogers! It's so early to already be having trouble!

I have been seeing alot of cutworms here! Last year it was the japanese beetle. I would take a small coffee can with a few rocks in it when I went out into the garden, every time I found a beetle I'd put him in the can!! "Shake,shake,shake-shake your beetle" always went through my head!!LOL!!
-B

Oh Angie, my heart goes out to you! I feel your pain. Just yesterday I checked a bunch of Thai Silk CA poppies that I'd planted out a few weeks ago, and found that SOMETHING had eaten the tops off EVERY SINGLE ONE, leaving only the bare stems. Arrrgh! If I'd seen the culprit anywhere nearby, you can bet I would've been doing the stomping-dance too!

Jap. Beetle larvae feed on roots as do the June Beetle larvae. Get this though the June beetle larvae live in the soil for 3 years before they pupate and are the most damaging their 2nd year! ACK!
I feel your pain Angie! I only have one remaining this spring that I can tell...I imagine the other's would be too if they were alive. I don't know what did them in! I was seeing them off and on thru the winter and I know I spotted a few around early-mid March.
I hope you still have time to try again :D

Vera

Well this thing I thought was a grub was brown and very soft bodied and ugly! I could see him threw the bottle on the side as if he was a baby in the womb! Like duodecad,I only had stems,no leaves! I wish I would have snapped a pic before I stomped!...lol..If I find another one I will do just that!Thanks for your help! :)

Brandy,you crack me up! ...lol....

Alyse! I miss you! We must find time soon! My Agastache you sent is sprouted under lights and getting ready for the big world soon,the Bachelor Buttons you sent are all sprouted also,I will be starting the Mignotte tomorrow in peat pots. I cant wait! Thanks again for those and I am so sorry to hear about your poppies,I hope you have spare seeds!

Yuck June bugs! I can not stand them,I had a bad experience once at an Aunts house in the middle of a corn field,she put the screen on backwards in the guest room by accident and left a night light on for me,I guess you can only imagine my horror of waking up to them everywhere,even on me! :O

I read of your Sea Holly loss also Vera,what a bummer! I do have plenty of Sea Holly seed left over,just let me know if you want to try again,I'd be more than happy to send you some. I am going to hold on to this bottle and see if maybe they will survive,I beheaded a tomato seedling trying to help it out of the shell and thought I had done it in,well it is now putting off a few leaves and seems like it will be ok.I am still going to resow some more of those Sea Holly though,just to be safe. I have visions of lots of it!:)

Woohoo Angie! My agastache is coming along nicely too, I was wondering how yours was doing! Yay! Happy to hear about the others too! I hope you're planning to post pictures eventually... I certainly am, assuming that the egg spray protects all my babies from getting chomped that is! (I didn't use it on the CA poppies-- didn't think I'd need to. Apparently I was wrong about that!)

I think I may need to invest in some good "stomping" shoes! You all are cracking me up here-- I'm having visions of enraged, fiercely protective WSers, defending our babies en masse, stomping and shaking and flushing all over the country, LOL!!

LOL....I love your imagination! I did stomp him into nothing but a smudge,maybe a little over board, but I was angry,I must have yelled pretty loud too,because there was silence from the trampoline a couple yards up for a brief second...lol..
I haven't started the egg spray just yet,time flew by me so quick,alot of my plans got rearranged. The deer have been through and did a little of this and that,just glad none of my babies are out there yet. I am planning on giving the egg spray a whirl this weekend. I have not seen one sign of a vole yet,which is unusual,either those coffee grinds are keeping them at bay or we have a new stray in town that doesn't mess around! Whatever it is I am happy they are gone!

I do plan for more pics soon,alot of my sprouts are now looking like plants,and I have more and more popping up everyday. I just got caught up on logging them in today! Ya Hoo! :D

I thought Grubs only ate roots also. I found a ton of grubs when I was planting last year in fact I found so many that I had a local robin trained to come around whenever I was digging in the soil. I would find a grub and then throw it toward my compost pile sure enough she would show up and start pecking around looking for it, I don't think that she missed a one and it was some real nice justice for those little critters. As the spring went on she started to show up with her little ones and she'd grab that little grub up and give it to her little chick bye bye little grub.

Strouper

Thanks Angie, but I do still have some. I'm pulled them out today :D
Speaking of Agastache...I didn't except A. foeniculum to start coming up so early, but they've been at it for about 1 month. Can't wait to see how they perform this year. Someday I'd like to get some of the Golden Jubliee to grow with it.
If your worm was brown then it probably was a cutworm! Did it curl up when touched? BTW some species of cut worm DO climb!