Carnage in the garden- please help!!

[lozac123]

Hi everyone. I am being destroyed this year by insects. For the last few weeks every morning I've woken up to new holes in my leaves. Looks like caterpillars, but there isn't any signs other than holes missing on the leaves, I cannot find a single caterpillar. Turns out its been a bumper year for earwigs, and I think they are creating the holes.

I've been using neem oil (pure neem oil, about 1/2 tsp to 500ml of water mixed with Dr. Bronners), but it hasn't made a bit of difference to the bite marks. I've used it now for about 3 weeks.

There's been a few white specs on the leaves that I've noticed. But I haven't really noticed any damage from the specs yet. Until today, where I've seen several adult thrips on the leaves now, hiding in new leaf growth. I want to get this sorted ASAP, as my garden is extremely small. Any loss now will be a huge hit to my overall result. I am around the preflower stage, just a few pistils have popped up but no proper signs of flowering yet.

Can anyone recommend a decent cure? I did want to only go organic for this one, but I am willing to try anything at this stage. I was initially thinking of getting a pyrethrum spray, but I would love the opinion of the Mr Nice crowd please!

Thanks

Lozac

 

[Fish]

Photos please.
Fish

 

[sneakyfeck]

check out this thread bruv, i think it contains a lot of options for you.

Would you invest money in insecticide?

Hi all, I’ve got trips. Big time. Don’t like spraying chemicals so I found a product which is a bio solution against all types of insects. But would spraying them with a homebrew of tobacco and neemoil work equally good...

mrnice.nl

i would definitely consider putting some companion plants around your herb to attract more insects, diatomaceous earth might help to just throw all over the plants, im pretty sure your bugs wont like it, but the plants do. But yea, check out the thread above, and post some pics as fish said. Cos who knows, maybe you have some very small plants or smth, and you can just dip all the foliage in some ice water or smth to get rid of most bugs. i dont know im just spitballing at this point... give us pics

 

[alecky]

Earwigs aren't a huge problem and unless there are 1000s of them your plants will be fine. They won't eat the buds in my experience. For organic gardening if you stick a bamboo cane into the soil beside the plant then take a small empty flower pot, stuff a bit of straw, dry grass, clippings, anything like that in the bottom then place the pot upside down on top of the cane, the earwigs will crawl up into the pot to hide for the day. You can empty it each morning then and dispose of the little fkrs.

The white spots could be spider mites but you would see webs on closer inspection, its most likely thrips/ greenfly/ whitefly.

Good luck withe the rest of the grow!

 

[sneakyfeck]

this here is beautiful. " For organic gardening if you stick a bamboo cane into the soil beside the plant then take a small empty flower pot, stuff a bit of straw, dry grass, clippings, anything like that in the bottom then place the pot upside down on top of the cane, the earwigs will crawl up into the pot to hide for the day. You can empty it each morning then and dispose of the little fkrs. "

 

[lozac123]

Thank you for your responses so far guys. Spidermites could be a potential issue, as the plant does have a lot of cobwebs on it. However I did have a spider living at the base of the pot so I presumed it was from that. I am attaching some pics as per @Fish request. They are not the best photos, and I cannot see the thrips now they're in hiding. But I have take a pic of the white specs that I mentioned before

 

[alecky]

From those pics you have nothing to stress or worry about! Save the worrying for when she's full of buds, at that stage caterpillars and mold will break your heart

 

[sneakyfeck]

any chance you got some snails visiting you? do you have a picture with a bit more context? i.e. the entire plant and what the garden looks like?

 

[sneakyfeck]

but indeed doesnt look too worrisome, kinda part of the fun of growing outdoors, it gives it that extra edge compared to indoor weed. The plant needs to really use her own defense mechanisms against these attacks, so more resin, more volatile aromatics.

 

[lozac123]

any chance you got some snails visiting you? do you have a picture with a bit more context? i.e. the entire plant and what the garden looks like?

So the plant is in a container, it has a slug collar and copper tape around it so I don't think its slugs or snails. I also can't find any of the silvery trails that they would normally leave behind- any you see on the leaves are from where the neem spray has dried and left a residue. I would take a pic of the whole plant, but it is in my back garden, and I live in an illegal state so do not want to risk my security I am afraid. I might try and put the plant against a random background in the house later though to show what the whole thing looks like- the actual damage is only a small bit of the whole plant.

Guys I really appreciate all of the feedback- I think perhaps I am panicking too much and just need to relax a bit! This is my first grow in about 10 years, so I am definitely rusty!