I have been dealing with leaf miners all summer. I just find the worm and squish it with my fingers and if it's at the pupae stage, I just unroll the leaf and kill the larvae there too. They are really tiny so I am not squeemish about killing them. Once I kill the worm, I leave the leaves on.

Yeah, that looks like CLM, I have them here too in Louisiana, thankfully they are a relatively minor pest

Hi Laura, your trees look gorgeous and loaded with fruit. I like the lime trees, especially the hanging fruit, so beautifu! Your trees are happy and still outside, longer season for them to grow and bloom. I don't have experience with fighting CLM but someone will surely help you here.

I do not have CLM et. I wish you well deally with you clm

I have been battling CLM since late August. I finally brought my trees in on my screened in porch after getting fed up with it. I‘m not sure what temps you are experiencing, but that answers my question if they are gone yet. Good luck with it. Your fruit looks great!!

Ugh, Laura! I am surprised too that you have found the clm on your plants and need to deal with it. Did you follow the trail and squish the little buggers? I have no experience with it here in the Midwest.

Your trees are looking really good! The red lime and chinotto fruit sure look pretty hanging on the tree and the red limes are a bit ahead of mine. I am looking forward to tasting them and then deciding on how to use them. How do you plan on using the Chinotto fruit? The lemon bars sound delicious!

Nice collection, you just have to add a couple more, i see some empty spots in your yard.

To change the subject, i hung a couple of these strips a couple of years ago and i really like like this product, made by Raid. They catch a ton of gnats and whatever else. Just use 2 per year, 8 feet apart.

The clm came as a complete surprise. I’ve never had them and thought I lived too far north. I remember them from when I lived in south Florida. I did not squish them, but will from now on. I just hacked off the growth and fed them to my guinea pigs lol ! Jinny, I don’t have plans for the chinotto fruit yet - any suggestions? I think you’ll like the red limes. They are pretty and taste good. I know I’m pushing my trees a little by keeping them out. We’ve had two nights with a low of 37, but they’ve been fine. I think the benefits they reap are greater than the risks of a few hours of cold temps.

Laura, I found this wonderful blog with a few recipes using the chinotto fruit. From what I have read about this sour orange it is best to clip the fruit while still green, the fruit can get dry and turn more acidic the longer the fruit is left to hang on tree and the temps get colder..

recipeshttps://www.asmallkitcheningenoa.com/chinotto-of-savona/

More recipes on this blog if you scroll down.

Jinny, very interesting article, maybe Laura could spare me a twig.

Hi Bob!! I missed your earlier post. I love the tape idea and may use it this winter. Jinny, thanks for the link....it sounds incredible! Bob, maybe next spring I can send you a little cutting. My tree is very small and is very slow growing, although with your green thumb, it will be a monster before you know it ;)

Laura, there is no green thumb anymore, it has been replaced by Google and post like yours on this forum.

That strip is only a week old and it is loaded already. Walmart sells them. Maybe a dollar.

Last year no problems with gnats. I have issues with more tree's so i might have second thoughts,

We have quite a bit of CLM here in SD. I try to squish when I see it but am not interested in treating it chemically.

Usually they go away when our weather gets “colder” and I don’t see any more trails. I might consider traps at some point but for now they just make leaves look ugly but don’t stop them from producing. They seem to like the flavor of my mandarin over my navel and blood orange.

Laura, congret, that would make me happy too, with a Mom like you I wouldn’t expect any less, tell Hubby and kids job well done, don’t let up.

Love to have some footage!!! Would be nice for my big screen set up, don’t you think, Laura.

My tree’s get a few hours of outdoors and when it gets in the high 50,s or higher the bee,s are in the shop, not a lot, maybe 3 or 4. Just open the garage door. There so much bloom now, it smells like working in a perfume factory.

Hi Laura,

Is there any way the leaf miner came from a recently purchased tree that originated from an area with CLM? Sometimes the damage from CLM is very subtle. I would very much suspect that your winters would kill any leaf miner that was outside.

-Brett

Good point, Brett!! That’s how we get stuff from China. They used to come by ship, now they come by plane, don’t even have to buy a ticket, all free.

Hey Brett! It’s a good idea, but I did not buy any new trees this year. It must have come up from further south. It was surprising bc I’d never seen them here before.