Hello. Hello? Anyone there?

I would think this is a common problem. The big holes look like caterpillars, but I don't see any. The beets are adjacent to collards, which get BT spray, and whose leaves are perfect. Maybe the pests retreated to the beets, which have not been sprayed with BT? I grew beets last year in this bed and never saw any such problems.

My first guess is slugs. You might want to take a look at night to see if you find any of the slimy critters having a feast.

Rodney

No, absolutely no slugs. I have no slugs anywhere in any of my beds. We had a few nights close to freezing. I wonder if that killed off some larger pests. Big holes usually mean big mouths.

Not many people posting this time of year...

I would guess caterpillars or slugs, but you don't think it is either.

Yeah, it's pretty dead around here. But I garden plenty in the winter, and I really stand down completely in August and September. Different world down here. I'm still harvesting eggplants. We *may* get a freeze in any given winter. Really two growing seasons.

sorry for being unable to help Dan. Never saw those holes on my beets. at most I get some leaf miners.

3 most common culprits that make those sort of holes: slugs; snails; caterpillars.

And, yes, I saw that you said not slug damage. Frankly, that's hard to believe.

Small mouths can make big holes with repeated/continued feeding. Also small holes can become large as a leaf continues to grow, even though the active feeding has stopped.

Look morning, noon, and night.

Around here, we have caterpillars well adapted to coolish weather. They eat at night, any time the temps are above 40F. The name, Noctua pronuba, which goes by the names winter cutworm or climbing cutworm.

Oh, yes,. Need to say that those are old holes. The edge of the each hole is gray, not a fresh green. Perhaps the damage has stopped of its own accord.

Yes, I have to suspect caterpillars, though they seem to have departed, or are hiding in the soil now that the weather has cooled. Good observation that the holes must be old. I notice that the smaller new leaves seem to be largely untouched. I will start BT treatment along with my collards. The beets themselves are all forming nicely, however.

We have occasional small snails, but I have *never* seen a slug here. I hear people don't ever see them in Houston either. Kinda strange, really.

Just because you don't see them, doesn't mean they're not there.

If the damage is due to slugs or snails, the Bt won't help.

And if the pests are caterpillars, no Bt is needed because the damage has apparently stopped.

I agree with daninthedirt that whatever made the holes has moved on. The damage isn't fresh.

I first saw signs of damage a month ago, and I didn't pay any attention to it. But now that I'm starting to harvest, I'm kind of shocked at the extent of the damage. Beets kind of take care of themselves, so they didn't get a lot of attention. My bad.

But yes, if I don't see slugs, they aren't there. I've been down on my hands and knees for more than a decade in my beds, and I've never seen one. I used to garden in the PNW, and slugs are everywhere there.

I'll note again that I've never seen this damage in previous years. Someone has just moved in.

Are the beets a good size? If so the leaf damage doesn't really matter, does it?

I'm harvesting 3-inch beets from plants that had a lot of foliage damage, and weren't even that well thinned. Yes, I was surprised that the root production seems tolerant of a lot of foliage damage. I did start them in September, when the heat is still on, and the sun is pretty high so, all in all, they probably absorbed as much sunlight as beets normally would in the deep winter.