Garden pest & animal profiles

Acalymma vittatum / Diabrotica undecimpunctata

A quarter-inch yellow beetle with black stripes (striped) or black spots (spotted) that swarms cucurbits. Worse than its feeding is the bacterial wilt it carries. A single infected beetle can doom a plant.

Hits

Cucumber, Zucchini, Squash, Pumpkin

First fix

Row cover until female flowers

Tetranychus urticae

Spider mites are not true insects. They are eight-legged arachnids, barely visible without a hand lens. A single colony looks like pale dust on a leaf underside; by the time you see fine silk webbing between stems and leaves, the population is already booming. They love heat, drought, and still air, and in hot weather a generation can complete in 5 days.

Hits

Bean, Tomato, Strawberry, Cucumber

First fix

Blast leaf undersides with water

Lycorma delicatula

An invasive planthopper from Asia, first found in Pennsylvania in 2014 and now spreading across the eastern and midwestern U.S. It sucks sap from grapevines, hops, maples, walnuts and fruit trees and coats everything below it in sticky honeydew that grows black sooty mold. Its favorite host is tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima). Many states run quarantines, so report sightings where your state asks you to.

Hits

Grape, Hops, Apple, Peach

First fix

Scrape egg masses

Drosophila suzukii

Unlike common fruit flies that only attack overripe fruit, this small fly's serrated egg-laying organ lets females cut into firm, ripening fruit. Larvae hatch inside, so damage often isn't visible until the fruit collapses.

Hits

Raspberry, Blackberry, Blueberry, Strawberry

First fix

Harvest ripe fruit daily