A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Plant pests and problems Unknow vegetable garden problem(s)

Hi there. I'm new to the group and I'm trying to find out what is going on with my garden. I friend told me it might be caterpillars, over-watering or lack of nitrogen, and other bugs eating the leafs.
My pumpkinleafs have brown spots all over.
My tomatoes have holes on the leafs and also a light brown color at the edge of some leafs. These edges are dry and curled.
Some of the leafs on my squash are yellow.
Some of the leafs of the melons have hole all over.
Could someone tell me what it could be and how to rid off it? (This is an organic garden, and I live in the hot arid climate of Las Vegas).

Thank you so much!

Geisa

hi geisa, i don't have your answer, but i wanted to welcome you

Welcome.

Your friend's analysis made me laugh-- indeed, any or all of the things your friend mentioned might[/i][i] be problems. But you are still left with figuring out which is which doing what.

I am completely ignorant about gardening in an LV type of climate. But I can offer some suggestions. First, you are describing symptoms. Have you spent some time looking carefully at the affected leaves and plants? So for example, the curling of the tomato leaves might be a symptom of an aphid infestation. The holes on the holes in the leaves suggest caterpillars, or possibly beetles. Have you turned over some leaves-- do you see aphids? Have you gone out in the morning and inspected for caterpillars? What's flying around your tomatoes (would be a clue to what kind of larvae are present)? Point is-- you need to stick your head in there and look for things (bugs, etc.) that might be the culprits. The same would apply to yellowing squash leaves. Just the leaves or the leaves and stems? Does there seem to be anything growing on the leaves (like a fungus or mildew)?

Next suggestion-- find the Nevada Ag Extension site. Most states have gobbs of stuff on-line to help home gardeners identify common pests and problems. You can use this information in conjunction with closer inspection of your plants-- it might suggest particular things to look for, as well as how to control the problem.

Sorry I can't give more specific help. You might want to post some pictures of the symptoms on this web site. A picture is worth a lot here!

Oh! If you prepared the soil well, it's highly unlikely that it N-deficiency. Of course, you do live in a desert, so I could be wrong.

Good luck!

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. Last night I went to the garden with a flashlight and found the bugs. I took pictures of them and tried to match them (there were 2 different types) with identifiers online but couldn't. One of them honestly looks like tiny roaches (yuc!). I don't know how to add pictures here... I'd love to post them. I put 2 beer traps on the garden and this morning they were full (yeay!). I don't think that solved my problem, but it made me happy to see a bunch of them dead :-).
I need to look again, but I haven't seen caterpillars or aphids there. I'll stop by the store today and buy organic pesticides and fungicides.
I think the brown spots might be a fungus. I changed the evening watering to half the time (5 minutes) and to be a little earlier so the soil dries more before night comes. Now, would it still be a fungus problem on the leaf (I haven't checked the stem yet) if I water it using a soaking hose, so it only waters the soil not the leafs?

To add picks you use a free photosite...I use Photobucket. You upload there and copy and paste to here.

Welcome from me as well.

if you could post a picture that would help us immensely. size them to no larger than 640x480 and use a photo hosting site like photobucket and we'll see what we can do to help and to identify the bugs.

Ok, let's see if this works. I posted the pictures on Webshots
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/565556373XZQyQv

I hope you can open them.
As far as people told me, I have roaches and crikets. I didn't know these 2 were garden pests... I wish the pictures were better, but having to compress them it gets a little harder to see the bugs as clear.

Thank you all for the welcomes and the help!

Geisa