May 26th, 2012

Beetles & Radishes

by Jonah Holland

Photos & text by Albert Brian Vick,  Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Community Kitchen Garden Coordinator  

Quite an incongruous headline, but it includes just a couple of the topics today in the Lewis Ginter Community Kitchen Garden.

A beetle is riddling the amaranthus volunteers (Redroot Pigweed variety) with holes, while leaving the bush beans. Great. Unless the beetles move to any of our other vegetables. So what’s the actual threat? It seems to be a Pigweed Flea Beetle (Disonycha glabrata). A little research indicates D. glabrata feeds almost exclusively on the Redroot Pigweed.

We also yanked a handful of radishes today. The radishes weren’t grown for yield, but as markers in the rows for our parsnip seed. The parsnips are up, the radishes were getting big, so we yanked them. I think the example bodes well for root crops in our wheelchair-accessible raised beds currently under development.

Which BeetleWhich beetle swarms the volunteer amaranth but ignores the bush beans?
Radish 2012Radishes 2012
About Jonah Holland

Jonah Holland is Digital Content Manager at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, where she has worked for 14 years overseeing social media, the blog, and the website. She is also a mom, yogi, open water swimmer, gardener, and seeker. She's been known to go for a walk in the Garden and come back with hundreds of plant photos, completely inspired to write her next blog post.

You May Also Like