Eggplant transplants under a food safe for protection from pests. Pam Dawling
Crop Protection on a Small Scale
I’m more usually writing about large gardens or small farms, and in the case of protecting crops from pests, long rolls of rowcover or netting. But if you have a small number of important plants you could consider using a food safe. These netting structures close like umbrellas for storage, and keep bigger insects out.
The eggplants above have just been moved outdoors after being raised indoors without any netting, when they suffered aphid predation. The food safe fabric wouldn’t keep tiny insects off – it’s like tulle (bridal veiling). Outdoors it can keep insects and small rodents away, but not whatever creature especially love Swiss chard! This garden had a single chard plant in a bed of tatsoi, pakchoi and Napa cabbage. Those Asian greens stayed protected under the food safes. An exposed row of spring kale was not eaten either. But over a few days Something ate the whole chard plant down to the ground!
Site of the disappeared chard plant. Pam Dawling
The creature ripped through two sides of the food safe (entry and exit?) If you have any idea which creature particularly loves Swiss chard, please leave a comment at the end of this post.
Food safe that failed to save the chard. Pam DawlingThe far side of the ripped food safe. Pam Dawling
Crop Support on a Fairly Small Scale
Raspberry Trellis suiting for fall fruiting. Pam Dawling
In the same garden is this trellis for restraining raspberries in a way that can be easily dismantled to mow for fall fruiting. Fall raspberries fruit on the primocanes, the ones that grow that spring. There are particular varieties developed for fall fruiting, and some that can be used either for summer or fall fruiting, depending how you prune them. They are a great way to extend the fruit season, and their pruning is simplicity itself! Roll up the cords or wires. Mow the canes down after fruiting, and weed. In early spring, thin the canes to 2″ apart, install and tension the wires or cords between the posts.
The same system can be used for summer raspberries, but you’ll have to deal with the wires while pruning, as in other trellis systems.
This trellis uses 4″ x 4″ posts with crosspieces at 1.5′, 3′ and 5′. They have holes drilled towards the ends and paracord threaded through.
Raspberry trellis with paracord threaded through the arms and tied at one end. Pam Dawling
At the far end the cords are tensioned using plastic “camjam” cord tighteners. You could alternatively just pull and tie them off for the season. On a larger scale using wire you could use something from the fencing supplies.
Raspberry trellis paracord tensioned with cam locks. Pam Dawling
Peanuts are an interesting and rewarding crop to grow on a small scale. Growers who offer farm tours will enjoy showing how the flowers “peg down” to develop the nuts under the soil, those concerned about local food security will appreciate peanuts as a source of locally grown protein and oil; and everyone can enjoy the challenge of trying a new crop.
Peanut Crop Requirements
Peanuts need a frost-free period of at least 110 days. Virginia type peanuts require 2,520–2,570 growing degree days (GDDs) above a base of 57°F (14°C). Consult Weatherspark.com to make sure you have enough frost-free days. One way of tracking GDDs is on the Climate Smart Farming Growing Degree Day Calculator website from Cornell, which can show you the season to date and the 6-day forecast, as well as the 15-year average and the 30-year “normal” for your location.
Peanuts like warm or hot conditions, with adequate but not excessive water. If you can provide these conditions, as well as relatively light, loose, free-draining soil and attention to controlling weeds, then I encourage you to give peanuts a try. We plant our peanuts in a raised bed, which helps provide looser soil. They can be hard to lift from heavy soil.
Carolina Black peanut. Photo by Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.
We get our seed peanuts from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. Twenty-eight grams will plant about 25′ (7.6 m). Prepare a bed or row ahead of time. You can warm the soil by covering it with rowcover or plastic for 3–7 days before planting. The pH should be 5–6, and if calcium levels are at all low, add gypsum — the start of blooming is the latest time you can effectively do this. Calcium deficiency results in unfilled pods and low yields (see the “Peanut Production Practices” chapter in the annual Peanut Information publication from NCSU Extension for more on soil nutrient requirements). The NCSU website also has an interesting “Peanut Risk Tool and Field Log.”
Those thinking of pre-sprouting or transplanting peanuts should be alerted to a peculiarity of the crop: they do not germinate well without soil. Exactly what peanuts need from the soil remains a bit of a mystery. So if you want your peanuts to get an early start, don’t try to sow them in a soilless mix, or in paper towels or a glass jar. To successfully transplant peanuts, use actual soil or a sand/compost/soil mix.
Peanut Varieties
Carwile’s Virginia peanut. Photo by Raddysh Acorn for Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
If you have a relatively short growing season, I recommend starting with the 110-day variety Tennessee Red Valencia. It’s easy to grow, very productive and has large sweet kernels, 2–5 per shell. If you don’t want to hill, this variety is said to be the most accepting of this. Another 110-day variety is the unusual Carolina Black, an heirloom with a black skin. It’s sweet-tasting and slightly larger than the Spanish varieties. Virginia Jumbo needs 120 days, produces large rich-flavored kernels, 2 per shell, and prefers loose soil. Whopper also needs 120 days, and its claim to fame is obvious. Carwile’s Virginia is a 130-day heirloom variety with superior flavor and good drought resistance (though only average disease resistance). MorningChores.com has an excellent beginner description of seven pests and two diseases. Peanuts are prone to the same diseases as beans, with bacterial wilt being especially damaging. Sclerotinia blight is more prevalent at high pH.
Morning Chores’ Beginners Guide to Growing Peanuts
Sowing Peanuts
Sow around the last frost date. The soil temperature should be 65°F (18°C) at noon, at a 4″ (10 cm) depth, for 3 consecutive days. For us that’s late April. May is safer. Count back from your first frost date to find your last sowing date. The beginning of June is about the latest I’d want to try here. Shell the nuts (don’t split the kernels into halves) and sow 2″ (5 cm) deep, 12″ (30 cm) apart, in rows 30″–36″ (76–90 cm) apart. Inoculating the seeds with Rhizobium bacteria can produce enough nitrogen in root nodules to sustain the crop, as with other legumes. Active nodules are pink or red inside.
The seedlings may be slow to emerge, so preemptive weeding may be needed. If you have not interplanted, you could try pre-emergence flame-weeding. Peanuts are native to an area subject to periodic drought and fire, and have evolved to withstand heat. You can flame them soon after emergence, as the growing point is still in the soil. Older peanut plants may be damaged and then recover. The seedlings look somewhat like peas or clover. Because they grow slowly for the first 40 days, they will not thrive if you lose them in weeds (guess how I know?). Flaming or careful hoeing as soon as the peanuts emerge will effectively deal with broadleaf weeds. Grasses are not killed by flaming.
Small peanut plant . Pinterest photo
Peanut Cultivation
Once the seedlings are 12″ (30 cm) tall, you can hill them up, as you would potatoes, to increase yields. We skip this step —the peanuts have no difficulty pegging in the loose soil of our raised beds. We’ve grown Virginia Jumbo and Carwiles without hilling and got plenty of peanuts. But if you are not interplanting and have a good hiller attachment on a tiller or wheel hoe (or a visiting school group, perhaps), then hilling can deal with weeds and provide more loose soil for the nuts to develop in. Avoid disturbing the soil after pegging has begun.
Watering Peanuts
There are two periods when adequate watering is vital. The first is at planting, to ensure germination. The second is from 50 days after planting, when pegs start to enter the soil, until 2 weeks before harvest. This is the time when the pods are filling. Stop watering 10–14 days before harvest, to help the peanuts dry for storage.
Harvesting and Drying Peanuts
You can wait for a light frost to kill the tops, or you can simply harvest when enough peanuts are mature. You’ll have to dig some up and open them to see. The University of Florida has a helpful publication, “Methods to Evaluate Peanut Maturity for Optimal Seed Quality and Yield.” If the fall is wet, it might be best to pull or dig the plants early, when the seed is almost ripe, and dry them indoors. This will minimize losses from rotting.
Varying pod sizes on a peanut plant. Removal of all pods is critical, from match heads to full-size pods. Credit: Ethan Carter, UF/IFAS
In dry light soil, you can just pull the plant, and the peanuts will come up attached to the stems. Then you can bunch and hang them in an airy barn. Mice really love peanuts and will run off with them and stash them at a phenomenal rate, so be sure to set traps or provide a good cat. If the soil was dry and loose enough for you to pull the plant, the nuts will likely be relatively clean, so you can dry (and cure) them on the vine, which takes up to 3 weeks.
In heavier soils, dig the plants up lightly — no need to go deep. You can pull the nuts off the stems by hand and gather loose ones from the soil. For small-scale production, you can strip peanuts off the vines by dragging the plants through a V-shaped piece of equipment, from the far side towards yourself, letting peanuts collect in a tote.
If needed, wash the peanuts, spreading the loose ones out on trays to dry. Mold is an enemy when drying: moldy peanuts contain toxic aflatoxin, so get them dried quickly. Set up fans indoors, or dry the peanuts outdoors in the sun: 3–7 days is a likely amount of time. You could spread the peanuts on screens on wheelbarrows. Just wheel the barrow from place to place to catch the sun, and under cover if rain threatens. A second screen inverted over the first keeps mice away. This system works for very small-scale production. You could make mouse-proof lidded trays from rat wire and dry the peanuts on greenhouse benches, with fans.
Curing and Storing Peanuts
If vine-drying, you can also cure the peanuts on the vine, as described above. Otherwise pick the good nuts off the plants once they have dried and cure them in the sun for a few days. Peanuts will cure to a storable state in 2–3 weeks indoors at ambient temperatures or 6 days in a solar dryer of the type described in my book. It’s important not to heat the nuts higher than 85°F (29°C). Drying too fast causes skin slippage and kernel splitting. To find out when peanuts have finished curing, taste some. If they still have the watery crunch of water chestnuts, they are not ready; once they taste good, they’re cured. For long-term storage, a sealed container in a freezer works well. They need to be kept very dry. Like most seeds, peanuts are very good at drawing moisture from the air.
Immediately after harvest, you can eat all or some of your bounty, without drying or curing. These are a big hit! Here’s how we cook them for a party: fill a large pot two-thirds full of water, add 2 handfuls of salt and enough peanuts (in their shells) to fill the pot, but still have enough room to move. Cook for 5 whole hours, strain, and serve.
Roasting Peanuts
To roast peanuts, spread them shelled or unshelled in a single layer and cook at 350°F (175°C) for 20–25 minutes in the shell, or 15–20 minutes shelled.
Read More
This post is adapted from a chapter in my second edition of Sustainable Market Farming. The chapter in that book also includes peanut history, information on growing peanuts in a hoophouse, interplanting lettuce and peanuts, solar drying them, and saving seed.
String-weaving has kept these tall tomatoes in good order. Photo Nina Gentle
What is string-weaving?
String-weaving (also known as Florida string weaving and basket-weaving) is an easy way to support lots of tomato plants. If you have long rows, this method is ideal. All you need is a simple handmade tool, stakes and twine. All you need to store over the winter are the stakes. No bulky cages or heavy cattle panels or bulky rolls of wire mesh. This system also works for growing peppers and peas. We have used it for large determinates (Roma), heirloom tomatoes, and indeterminates.
ATTRA’s very useful publication, Organic Tomato Production
The ATTRA publication Organic Tomato Productionincludes a comparison of different tomato training and support systems. According to ATTRA, string-weaving comes equal-best or second best in almost all categories: earliness, fruit size, yield, quality, protection from sunburn and pest control. It is worst as far as labor cost, although the labor is spread out through the season, so it doesn’t seem so bad. We like the string weaving system for indeterminate varieties, large determinates (Roma), and even small determinates, peppers and peas.
If earliness, large fruit size, and good pest control are important factors for you, choose a high wire trellis between posts, and strings dropped down to wind each plant stem around, and prune out suckers. Trellising with a high wire comes out best for earliness, fruit size and pest control (but worst for cracking, and thus not so good for marketable yield).
For high yield and protection from sunscald and cracking, use cages. Cages are best for marketable yield, but caged tomatoes do poorly on earliness and fruit size. People who only grow relatively few plants could choose this method. Off-season storage can be an issue, as well as the labor to set out the cages.
The cheapest support system is no support at all – letting the plants sprawl on the ground. But the fruit quality and quantity is poor, (pests, rotting, cracking and sunburn reduce potential yields). Plus you have to bend down all the time to harvest!
Another good resource is Training Systems and Pruning in Organic Tomato ProductioneOrganic, Bonnie Cox, Oregon Tilth, 2015. It’s hard to find online. If the link here stops working, you could try the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. The helpful people at ATTRA found it for me.
Planting tomatoes for string-weaving
For the string weaving method, we set one post after every 2 plants along the row, with the plants 2′ apart along the row.
A young row of tomatoes showing string-weaving. Photo Wren Vile
Although it might not seem like it on planting day, it’s usually easier to put stakes in soon after planting, while the soil is still soft and everyone remembers where the drip tape is under the mulch, (and which side the roots are, if you planted in diagonal trenches). We use 6′ (1.8 m) steel T-posts, with one T-post after every two plants along the row. Our rows can be up to 150′ (45 m) long without any special bracing at the ends. Some people put an extra stake at an angle tied to the end stakes as a brace.
Tools for string weaving
Our string-weaving tools. A fabric glove is needed too. Photo Pam Dawling
We use a stringing tool made from a 2′ (30 cm) length of an old canoe paddle with a hole drilled near each end. Any comfortable rounded length of wood will do. Thread the twine through one hole and back out the other; the twine is not tied to the tool but moves through it freely the whole time. A length of plastic pipe could be used if you prefer (pipe doesn’t need holes drilled through, as the twine can be threaded through the pipe).
The tool functions as an extension of the worker’s arm, to get the twine over tall stakes, and you can give it a quarter turn to pull the string tight. (Pulling twine tight against your hand for several hours can cut through the skin.) For maximum efficiency, keep the tool in your hand all the time.
Our variation on string-weaving looks quite like the drawing above. We have a couple of tweaks that make string-weaving work even better. Our first trick is to park the bale of twine in a bucket at the beginning of the row and leave it there. No need to lug it with you! (We have long rows!) Putting the bale of twine in a bucket makes it easy to carry and provides a space to store scissors and gloves. Stand between the working end of the twine and the slack being pulled out of the bucket – get yourself inside the loop when you start, to avoid tangles. That is, the spare twine will be running out behind you as you work the first side of the row. You’ll use it for the return journey.
Tomato string-weaving step-by-step
When the plants are 1′ (30cm) tall, tie the twine onto an end stake, about 8-10″ (20-25 cm) above the ground.
Starting the first round of string-weaving. Note the bucket of twine, the working end of the twine tied to the post and the line of loose twine trailing along behind the weaver. Pam Dawling
Keep the working length of twine between you and the plants and go to the next stake, sweeping the twine in front of two plants.
The twine has passed two plants and wound round the next stake. Pam Dawling
Cross in front of the stake. Use the tool as an extension of your arm, wrap the twine around the back of the stake, pull it tight, and twist the tool to help tighten it.
String weaving tomatoes using the tool as an extension of the arm, to get the twine around the post. Use the non-tool hand to keep the tension on the first winding. Credit Kathryn Simmons
Keeping the tension you have created, using the thumb or forefinger of your other (non-tool-holding) hand on the crossover to keep it tight, loop the twine around the stake again, going a tiny bit lower so that the second loop crosses over the first and locks it in position so that if you let go, or later on a groundhog chews through your twine, the whole row doesn’t slacken.
Close-up of the twine crossover on the second wrap round the post. Photo Kathryn Simmons
Continue along the row to the end, wrapping twice around each stake, then flip the twine over the end post and walk round to the other side of the row.
String-weaving on the second side. Note that the twine is at the same level as the first side. Photo Kathryn Simmons
Weave back along the other side of the same row, putting another row of twine at the same level as on the first side. You will need to flip the twine that was behind you on the first side, over to your new working side as you need it. You are creating two “walls” of twine with the plants in the middle. You’ll see that with our method, you never actually wrap twine around a tomato plant, so there is never any injury from tight twine.
The final step of the string-weaving round is to tie the twine back on the first post and cut the twine. Photo Kathryn Simmons
Once you reach the end, tie off the twine on the stake you started at. You will be back by the twine bucket where you left the scissors! Cut the twine free.
About once a week, as the plants grow, add a round of twine every 8″ (20 cm) up the stakes until you reach the top 2 months later.
About a week later the plants will have grown tall enough to need another round of string-weaving. Photo Kathryn SImmons
At the end of the season, pull up the plants, cut the twine each side of each post, and pull it out, then remove the stakes and compost the tomato plants. See this post.
Laughing Stalk Farm in Missouri has posted a video of a string-weaving variation on YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1S3mVaOCLI. They have the bale of twine spooling off a stand at the beginning of the row, and they weave the twine between plants, and then around the stakes.
Cabbage moths, see my December post. In mid-April we finish filling gaps in broccoli & cabbage plot, and plant alyssum every 6 ft in center of beds. Alyssum is a wonderful flower for attracting beneficial insects. Link to Good Seed Co. post on decoy butterflies:https://goodseedco.net/blog/posts/cabbage-butterfly-decoy. Encourage paper wasps, they will haul away lots of caterpillars! Use Bt against caterpillars. The Action Threshold is an average of 1 cabbage looper, 1.5 imported cabbageworms, 3 army worms or 5 diamondback moth larvae per 10 brassica plants.
Keep eggplant above 55°F and netted against flea beetles.
Colorado Potato Beetles Deal with potato beetles with Spinosad [or Neem] once larvae are seen, if >50 adults/50 plants or >200 larvae/100 plants. Spinosad: Shake well, 1-4 Tbsp/gall (1fl.oz=2Tbsp=30ml.) Repeat in 6 days. See this June post on monitoring for CPB. Also see this post on potato pests and diseases from June 2020
Special Topic for April:
Garlic Pest Field Notebook. University of Maine Cooperative Extension, 2022
Garlic stem and bulb (bloat) nematode (Ditylenchus dipsaci)
As garlic is growing, be on the alert for bloat nematodes. Anytime your garlic grows poorly and you can’t tell why, send a sample with the soil it’s growing in to your Extension Service to be tested for nematodes. Symptoms of garlic bloat nematode are similar to some other pathogenic organisms, such as bulb mites or Fusarium, so get an accurate diagnosis and take the appropriate management steps.
Nematode infestations show up as stunted, distorted, bloated, spongy leaves and bulbs, perhaps with brown or yellow spots. Cloves may turn soft and brown. Top growth yellows and dies prematurely and may separate from the root system. Pull up a suspicious plant and the roots may stay in the ground. Cracking may be seen around the basal plate later in the season. Infested bulbs are light in weight, shriveled, soft and brown.
Large numbers of nematodes (microscopic worms) can congregate as a visible woolly mass between wrapper layers. Weakened plants are more vulnerable to other pests and diseases. These nematodes can overwinter in the soil and can attack any allium, as well as other bulbs, celery, parsley, nightshades, and some varieties of peas and lettuce. Even low populations (less than 10 nematodes per 0.5 quart/liter of soil) have been recorded as causing significant crop loss.
Garlic infested with bloat nematodes. Eric Sideman
The lifecycle can take as little as 3 weeks in favorable conditions – this pest is favored in cool damp conditions. The eggs hatch in the soil, and when the soil is damp, the fourth and final juvenile stages swim to the surface and enter the garlic through wounds, leaf axils and even stomata. Nematodes at this stage can survive years in dead plant matter. The final molt occurs inside the plant tissue, and the adults emerge to reproduce. An adult female nematode can lay 500 eggs.
The problem is usually spread by infested seed, so if you suspect nematodes, carefully do the hot water pre-plant seed treatment in future. See Pre-plant seed garlic treatments against diseases and pests (including garlic bloat nematode)
Destroy known infested bulbs (don’t make a cull pile that can spread the nematodes through rain runoff later – they move in a film of water). Do not replant any cloves, even from bulbs with no visible symptoms, if there was any infestation in the crop. Nematodes can survive winter and very dry conditions, in the plant or free in the soil.
Use a 4-year rotation away from all susceptible crops. Practice very careful sanitation and consider biofumigation with mustard or sorghum-sudan cover crops ahead of the garlic planting season. Be careful not to move infested soil to clean areas: this is the main way of spreading infestation (other than introducing infested cloves). Nematodes cannot move far under their own steam.
Garlic beds in April. Keep them healthy! Photo Kathryn Simmons
Poromarto, S. H., et al. Decrease in Population of Ditylenchus dipsaci in Garlic Cultivation with the Application of Mycorrhizae and Organic Fertilizers. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 1114(1), 012062, 2022. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/1114/1/012062
Daffodils in our garden on March 16. Photo Pam Dawling
We have daffodils flowering, one of the phenology signs that conditions are warm enough to plant potatoes. We have our seed potatoes chitting (pre-sprouting) in the basement. The plot has had one round of disking and the addition of a nitrogen fertilizer, but it is now far too wet to work. We must wait!
It’s been a month since the “Snowcrete” snow, ice and very cold weather, including 3F on the night Feb 9-10. Since then, we’ve had some very hot days, including 68F on Feb 28, 87F on March 11. You can see pictures of that time here.
Today I took photos of the same crops that appeared in that post. I’m loading them in the same order to make visual comparison easy.
Overwintered Vates kale bolting, with weeds. Photo Pam Dawling
And here’s a bonus:
Overwintered Champion collards March 16. Photo Pam Dawling
Unfortunately, we haven’t got accurate outdoor temperature readings as our weather station was the victim of a hit-and-run, and we haven’t set it back up yet.
Now we’re bracing for a very cold night Tues/Weds March 17/18, maybe 18F here. According to WeatherSpark, the average daily high here in mid-March is 50F and the average low 28F. 90% of the time the low is above 26F and the high is below 76F. We can see the climate is changing. Such wide changes are hard on us (we have not acclimated yet to high temperatures, and our brains think such low temperatures should all be behind us!). Fruit trees have fewer chances to get their Chilling Hoursin. Overwintered greens are kicked into bolting.
Allium leafminer pupae on bulb onion. Photo by Debbie Roos.
Here’s another post in my monthly series on pests. I feature the pests I’m most familiar with here in central Virginia. If you are in a different climate, you can use the Search Box on this site. All the crop chapters in the new second edition of Sustainable Market Farming also have sections about dealing ecologically with pests. If you have other good strategies, please leave a comment on this post.
Pests in February covered how to remove aphids with insecticidal soap.
Pests in January covered vegetable weevil larvae, a hoophouse winter greens problem here.
Pests in December featured a mystery cocoon, the buck moth, various brassica caterpillars, the beet webworm, grasshoppers and crickets.
Here’s information from my book Sustainable Market Farming, 2nd edition (2025):
Allium leaf miners (Phytomyza gymnostoma) are invasive pests attacking all allium types in the South, feeding on the sap. Penn State Extension has some good information on them. The adult form is a small (0.13”/3 mm) long-winged black fly with distinctive orange patches on the head. The female emerges from the soil in spring and makes slits as a straight line of white dots in the leaves, depositing eggs.
The yellow larvae are about 0.3″ (8 mm) long, and drill down towards the bulb. Weakened plants are prone to fungal and bacterial infections. The pupae, mahogany cases the size of a rice grain, are found all summer under the outer skin of the bulb or neck of the plant. A second generation emerges in the fall, and pupae overwinter in the soil. There is no cure.
Allium leaf miners can be a problem here in central Virginia in March/April and Sept/Oct. Covering alliums with hooped rowcover or very small-mesh netting tightly fastened down to the soil, during the periods while the miners are flying, can keep them out.
Follow stringent crop rotations, use preceding brassica cover crops, avoid excess nitrogen fertilizer, do very good postharvest cleanup. Soil solarization works well to deal with a heavy infestation.
Examples of oviposition marks left on allium leaves. The far right photo also shows mining by an allium leafminer larva. Photos by Debbie Roos.
Debbie Roos reported on Growing Small Farms in spring 2024, that some growers in the North Carolina Piedmont noticed new problems with their allium crops, especially bulb onions, leeks, and garlic.
Allium leafminer was first detected in the northeastern U.S. in 2015, and in North Carolina in 2023.
Symptoms include twisted/distorted leaves, stunted plants, and even plant death. Below ground, brown pupae infest the plants and larvae feed inside the leaves and bulbs.The crop damage may be small (rows of oviposition dots on the leaves, that also feed exudate to the flies), medium (twisted leaves on leeks and scallions, worst in the fall), or terrible (rotted leaves and bulbs infested with yellow-white larvae and pupae resembling mahogany-colored rice grains or sesame seeds.)
Dead allium leafminer fly found inside a garlic bulb. The allium leafminer fly is only 1/10″ long and has a mostly yellow/orange head. Photo by Debbie Roos.
Allium Leaf Miner in Virginia
We found this pest in 2025 in our leeks in Virginia, and I wrote a post in September 2025 that included allium leaf miners.
I had a comment on that post from someone who netted her leeks and had great success with that. She said she let the weeds get bad because it seemed like a hassle to “unwrap” them to weed. Even so, she got a much better crop than in recent years without netting.
We tried netting in 2025, but a worker removed it, thinking it was squashing the leeks. Our hoops are too small for a full bed (4 rows) of our leeks. We could use two sets of hoops with each set covering two rows of leeks, offset. With one roll of netting over the whole lot. We could get bigger hoops. Johnny’s sells some square hoops 32″ wide x 22″ high.
Photos on Growing Small Farms shows netting successfully draped over bulb onion beds with no hoops.
Crop covers are the most effective control for allium leafminer. They must be deployed before egg-laying begins. Photo by Debbie Roos.
Common Asparagus Beetle. University of Minnesota ExtensionSpotted Asparagus Beetle. University of Minnesota Extension Service
Adult asparagus beetles overwinter in crop debris and soil, emerging in central Virginia in April to lay eggs on the spears. Depending on your climate, March may be time to start scouting. Certainly it’s a good time to tidy up your asparagus patch in preparation for the harvest season.
Asparagus has very few pests, but the two species of asparagus beetle are to be taken seriously. Adults of the Common Asparagus Beetle (Crioceris asparagi) are 0.25″ (6 mm) long, slender, and metallic blue-black with wing covers each having 3 or 4 yellow-white square spots and reddish margins. The thorax is red and usually marked with two black spots. The Spotted Asparagus Beetle (Crioceris duodecimpunctata) is more common in the West and mainly feeds on berries on female plants, so it is less of a problem on the all-male hybrids. The adult Spotted Asparagus Beetle is orange with 12 spots on its wing covers and is slightly larger than the Common Asparagus Beetle at about 0.3″ (8 mm) long. I have seen a few in Virginia.
Eggs of both species are shiny black rods 0.1″ (3 mm) long (about the size of a hyphen), attached by one end to the asparagus spears, giving a bristly appearance to badly infested plants. The eggs are harmless and can be removed after harvest by spraying with water, tub-washing, or wiping.
Asparagus spear with beetle eggs (enhanced). Kathryn Simmons
The eggs hatch after 1 week. Larvae of both beetles are olive-green to dark gray with black heads and legs, becoming plump and humpbacked larvae as they develop, about 0.3″ (8 mm) long. They join the adults feeding on the spears (causing deformed hooked spears) and ferns (reducing the strength of the plants and their ability to photosynthesize).
Larvae mature through 4 instars (over about 8 days) then enter the soil and pupate, emerging as adult beetles in 5–10 days. Later in the season, these new adults lay another generation of eggs. In Virginia, there are two generations per year; in warmer climates, there are as many as five.
Asparagus beetle larvae. University of Minnesota Extension
Good descriptions of both asparagus beetles, along with detailed photos of all life stages can be found on the University of Minnesota Extension page.
Biological Integrated Pest Management advocates for a systematic approach to pests, starting with controls that do least damage to other life-forms. The goal is to reduce pest damage to an economically viable level, while minimizing the damage to the environment.
Monitoring, scouting for asparagus beetles once a week from the beginning of the harvest period (that’s early April for us), is the next step. Inspect 15–20 crowns at 4 different parts of the patch. Creep up on them — they drop to the ground if they sense a threat. During the harvest period, the action level is 5–10 adults/100 crowns or 2% of spears infested with eggs. Postharvest period, the action level is 5–10 adults/10 crowns. If control measures are not taken when the infestation is above these action thresholds, permanent damage to the plants will occur.
Control measures, if needed, can start with cultural controls, i.e., management strategies that do not add any new materials. Harvesting all spears taller than 7″ (18 cm) every day removes all the eggs, and hence breaks the life cycle. Asparagus beetles are a threat mostly in the first 6 weeks of harvest. By harvesting for more than 6 weeks, you are gaining control. A practice of culling unsaleable spears can significantly reduce the population.
Asparagus spear damaged by beetle feeding. Kathryn Simmons
Biocontrol options include encouraging or introducing beneficial predators or parasites. Birds may eat asparagus beetles and larvae for the extra protein, which appear conveniently during nesting season. Ladybeetles, lacewings, and a chalcid wasp are predators of the eggs; ladybugs and lacewings also eat the young larvae.
Encourage ladybeetles or consider planting an insectary flower strip in your asparagus patch, to attract ladybugs (see the ATTRA publication: Farmscaping to Enhance Biological Control,by R. Dufour). Flowers that attract beneficial insects include yarrow, phacelia, alyssum, and borage. Planting tall sunflowers in the rows can encourage predators to eat pests, add visual interest, and mark progress when you are harvesting. It’s easy to pop a sunflower seed in the soil alongside every 10th asparagus plant or so.
As a last resort, if the preceding methods have not reduced beetle populations below the action level, use botanical insecticides. The daily harvest makes treatment difficult because few want to spray anything close to harvest time. Insecticidal soap may be effective against larvae. Grandevo CG is a bacterium with spent fermentation media, OMRI listed against asparagus beetles. Spraying in the afternoon is recommended as that is when the beetles are most active. It also allows time before the next morning harvest. Spinosad, also OMRI listed, is a naturally occurring bacillus derived from a soil bacterium. It is not toxic to most beneficial insects but does kill bees, and some fish, birds, and mammals.
An early fall frost caught these asparagus ferns. Photo Twin Oaks Community
Over-wintered Acadia spinach emerging undamaged from under the ice and snow. Ken Bezilla
Cold winter weather damage to our vegetable crops
Like people and gardens in many parts of the US, we had a very cold February snap. We had at least two nights down to 2°F (-17°C). In December 2025 we had one night at 13°F (-11°C), one at 14°F (-10°C), most were in the 20s. We had one 20°F (-7°C) night in January (1/4-1/5), one at 10°F (-12°C) (1/15-1/16), one at 7°F (1/23-1/24), then two nights at 3°F (-16° C) (1/26-1/27 and 1/30-1/31). In early February we got at least two nights at 2°F (-17°C). Our weather station was the victim of a hit and run, which broke the pole, so we haven’t been consistent at recording our outdoor temperatures. We need the soil to melt before we can dig a new post hole.
Our garlic beds before the snow Feb 2026. The tops can be seen poking through the hay mulch. Photo by Ken BezillaOur garlic beds totally covered in snowcrete February 2026. Ken BezillaOur garlic beds after the thaw Feb 2026. The tops are all still alive! Ken Bezilla
Luckily we had thick snow before it got really cold and the snow froze in place, forming what is now called “snowcrete”. Crops completely covered, like our spinach and garlic, seem to have survived. Ones that had tops out in the air suffered much more. Our Tadorna leeks and our Vates kale don’t look much good, but they are not dead.
Tadorna leeks damaged by exposure to cold weather Feb 2026 Pam DawlingVates kale exposed to cold above the snow Feb 2026 Pam Dawling
I keep records of how well our crops do in winter, both outdoors and in our double-layer hoophouse. I record this as Winter-Kill Temperatures of Cold-Hardy Crops, and I note each increasingly cold minimum temperature and when the various crops die of cold, to fine-tune our planning for next year.
We are in zone 7a, with an average annual minimum temperature of 0-5°F (-18°C to -15°C). According to https://weatherspark.com our temperature is rarely below 15°F (-9.5°C). Here’s screenshot from their site for Winter 2025-2026 so far.
The winter of 2024-2025 was fairly average in temperature
The winter of 2023-2024 was more like the average temperature, with extra precipitation in December and January.
The winter of 2022-2023 included a spell with a deep dive in temperature in late December, and again a cold March. Precipitation was fairly even.
Reflect spinach in the open got damaged but not killed at -9°F (-23°C), in a previous year Photo Pam Dawling
The winter of 2021-2022 was colder than the 90th percentile average several nights each month, particularly in November and April, meaning it felt like a long winter.
The winter 2020-2021 was mild, with our lowest temperature being a single late January night at 10°F (-12°C). We had one night at 11°F (-12°C) one at 17°F (-8°C), three at 18°F (-8°C also) and one at 19°F (-7°C). Very little snow or ice, similar to temperatures in the 2019-2020winter.
The winter of 2018-2019 had lowest temperatures of 6°F (-14°C) in late January 2019, 8°F (-13°C) in December 2018 and a couple of 11°F (-12°C). In early January 2018, we had some extremely cold temperatures of -8°F and -9°F (-22°C and -23°C). Our Vates kale got freeze-killed centers. Averaging our winter low over the four winters 2017-2021 gave 4.8°F (-15°C), within the zone 7a range.
Posts on aspects of winter growing, to help you be better prepared next winter!
Winter Preparations for Vegetable Gardens, includes an article Autumn’s first frost is falling later. For farmers, the consequences are wide-ranging by Sarah Vogelsong, November 3, 2020 from the Virginia Mercury.
Growing vegetables in a winter hoophouse
Lettuce in our hoophouse in winter. Pam Dawling
No crops died in our double-layer hoophouse, where we spread inner rowcovers when the outdoor night temperature is forecast to be 8°F (-13°C). We did get some cold damage to lettuce stems and chard stems but not much, considering.
Another aspect of early spring in our hoophouse, is bolting of the overwintered greens. See Success with Asian Greens in Spring. In spring the order of bolting of some Asian greens is: tatsoi, Maruba Santoh, Tokyo bekana, Koji, Napa cabbage, pak choy, Yukina Savoy, Komatsuna, mizuna, leaf radish, senposai. I wouldn’t even try sowing tatsoi after the winter solstice. Yesterday (2/17/26) I was researching bolting in order to find something to sow in some short-term open space we have. From memory I wasn’t sure which of Yukina Savoy and senposai bolted first, so I counted bolting plants in the plots which were sown on the same day. Yukina Savoy had 15 bolters among 67 plants (22%). Senposai had 9 bolters among 220 plants (4%). Then I considered that the senposai grow enormous quickly and I was sowing in the outer thirds of beds that would be interplanted with tomatoes, squash or cucumbers transplanted down the middle on March 15 or April 1. The shorter, smaller Yukina Savoy was my choice. We can eat the thinnings small in salads, and then harvest larger leaves as the plants grow bigger. In milder weather, it takes 21 days to baby size and 45 days to full size. I’m hoping we’re moving into milder weather now!
Unless you store seeds well, there’s no point in carrying them over for next year. Good seed storage conditions are dry, cool (42°F/5.6°C), dark, and pest-proof. Paper packets on a sunny window ledge in the breezeway are fairly doomed! Seeds have an amazing capacity to draw in water from the air, soil, or damp fingers. Once partially hydrated, the seed respiration rate speeds up. The seeds revive from dormancy only to die when the conditions aren’t good enough to really grow.
A handful of Bandit leek seeds. Keep one hand clean and dry while sowing, as soil carries moisture. Photo Wren Vile
When planting in our garden, we ask our crew to keep one hand clean and dry for sowing the seed and avoid putting any seed that gets mixed with soil back in the packet. Soil always contains some moisture, so dirty = damp. The paper packets that seeds are sold in are not designed for long-term storage. Foil packets are a lot better but add to the cost of seeds, therefore many seed suppliers sell in paper packets. It’s wise to put freshly arrived seed packets in waterproof containers, away from humid air. Airtight conditions are generally the same as watertight: plastic, glass, and metal boxes can all fit the bill.
During the sowing season, we keep our seeds in plastic coffee jars with snap-on lids. Glass jars are probably more airtight, but we try to keep glass away from our garden because of the danger of cuts from broken glass. Also, the plastic jars are almost opaque, so they help keep the seeds in the dark. We group seed packets by family: one jar for nightshades, one for big leafy brassicas, one for rooty brassicas, and so on. This means we can take the cucurbit seed tub to the field to sow the squash, and if the Zephyr seed runs out, we can finish the row with Gentry, as we have the seed right there.
Some other growers prefer to keep seed packets in alphabetical order in rectangular plastic shoebox-size containers. Heavy-duty plastic zip lock bags are useful as a first layer of defense against the elements. We store bigger seeds like beans and corn in 2–5-gallon (8–20 L) buckets with tight-fitting lids. We store the seed jars and buckets at the back of the shed, where it is quite dark. At the end of April, May, and June, we take the seeds we won’t need again till fall (or next spring) to a cooler storage space in the basement. In April, that’s the spinach, peas, chard, and beets; at the end of May, it’s the radishes, alliums, watermelon, and winter squash; in June, it’s the nightshades, okra, peanuts, and melons. The shed is dark, dry, and fairly cool, but for summer, we’d rather keep the seed we won’t need soon in a cooler place. For every 18 Fahrenheit degrees above 32°F (10 Celsius degrees above 0°C), the storage life of seed is halved. Also, the life of seed is halved for every 1% rise in the moisture content of the seed above the very dry 5%. Ideally, the storage temperature in Fahrenheit plus the relative humidity should be less than 100.
Pre-sprouted spinach seeds for sowing in early September when the soil is till hot. Pam Dawling
We put spinach seed (double-bagged for air-tightness) in the freezer for 2 weeks or more before we need it for fall sowing. This helps break the heat-induced dormancy. I have heard some people keep lettuce seed in the fridge during the summer, and I often have good intentions, but so far I haven’t managed to do that. Fridges are nice and cool, but also very humid, so seed containers for refrigerated seeds must be properly watertight.
If you have seed you won’t sow for many months (for instance, you deliberately bought enough for 5 years, or it’s an heirloom from Auntie Doris that isn’t available commercially), then you can store the seed in the freezer. Freezing doesn’t kill seeds! When you do remove seeds from the freezer, leave the container closed until its temperature matches the surrounding air, to avoid warm air condensing on the cold seeds. Also, large temperature fluctuations (such as cycling a seed container in and out of the freezer many times) can reduce the germination rate.
Parafilm grafting and sealing tape. Photo Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
Some growers believe plastic bags do let some moisture through, and they recommend freezing in glass jars, with the lids sealed with Parafilm self-sealing plastic/wax tape. Parafilm is a laboratory sealing and field grafting tape available from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and other companies who sell supplies for grafting or seed saving.
Seeds that are dry enough to freeze are those at 5% moisture content or less. They snap or shatter when bent or hit —they don’t bend or mush. If you need to dry your seed further before freezing, put it in a jar with some desiccant such as silica gel until you can snap the seed. Use a volume of silica gel equal to the volume of seed. In a pinch, far from town, you can use 3 times the volume of dried milk in place of silica.
Dried milk powder can be used to keep stored seeds dry. Horizon/Sam’s Club
More resources
The Garden Shed article Good Seeds, Bad Seeds explains how to test seeds prior to planting
Mystery cocoon (not chrysalis!) on Tokyo bekana in our Virginia hoophouse in November. Photo Pam Dawling
Pests in December started with a “Mystery Chrysalis,” and confidently claimed I now knew the difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon. Well! I sent the photo to our Virginia Entomology department and they told me it is a cocoon, not a chrysalis! And indeed, now I know, it is plain to see that this structure is spun fibers, and therefore a cocoon. The shape is not typical of the long oval cocoons I have seen previously. The entomologists told me they thought it was some kind of parasitic wasp. I rushed back to see if I could collect it and save it until the creature hatched out. But I was too late. Something had either already left, or died in the attempt.
My monthly series on pests
I feature the pests I’m most familiar with here in central Virginia. If you are in a different climate, you can use the Search Box on this site. All the crop chapters in the new second edition of Sustainable Market Farming also have sections about dealing ecologically with pests. If you have other good strategies, please leave a comment on this post.
Pests in October discussed squash bugs, squash vine borers, spinach webworms, squirrels and groundhogs (not insects!)
Incidentally, while searching online for a picture of the vegetable weevil larva, I found that many of the images were pure fiction, generated by AI. When my cursor hovered over the bottom left corner of an image I saw the admission. This meant I had twice as many pages to trawl through as I would have if I’d known and had filtered for NO AI. I recommend searching directly in BugGuide.Net or Bugwood Images.
Vegetable Weevil Larvae
Vegetable Weevil. Pest and Diseases Image Library , Bugwood.org
This month I’ll focus on a pest that is a particular trouble in our hoophouse and greenhouse in January: the vegetable weevil larva. Both the larvae and the adults feed on leaves and roots of chosen plants at night, hiding during the day. They eat a wide range of plants: brassicas, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, beets, beans, many weeds and some ornamentals. They especially like turnips, pak choy and the flavorful mustardy greens.
Vegetable Weevil larva, Debbie Roos, N.C. Cooperative Extension, Chatham County Center
This pest, Listroderes difficilis Germain is native to South America and is now found in southern and western parts of the US. The adults are gray-brown 6-8mm (1/4-1/3 inch) splotchy bristly snouted creatures. Newly hatched larvae are slender pale c-shaped grubs with darker heads. Mature larvae are about 14 mm (0.6 inch) long and are chubby whitish grubs with pale brown heads.
Damage by vegetable weevils of Listroderes spp. John C. French Sr., Retired, Universities:Auburn, GA, Clemson and U of MO, Bugwood.org (The light in this picture is a bit purple.)
They live in the soil and stay underground or deep in the heart of the plants during the day, so if your leaves are holey, but you can’t find any culprits, or even any frass (insect poop) you can suspect vegetable weevil larvae. Close inspection of the plants may reveal small larvae in the crown of the plant, at the base of the leaves. Often I don’t see any. The feeding holes start as small round holes, but can grow to irregular shapes, and leaves can even become skeletonized. Young plants can be killed by stem girdling.
Stem girdling damage by Vegetable Weevil. Ronald Smith, Auburn University, Bugwood.org
Lifecycle of the Vegetable Weevil
There is only one generation of vegetable weevils each year and adult weevils live 1-2 years.
No known male vegetable weevils exist. The females are parthenogenetic (reproducing young from unfertilized eggs). They lay eggs near the soil line of the plants in late summer, and sometimes early spring. Eggs and larvae develop slowly and the mature larvae pupate underground in the winter, with adults emerging the following spring.
Adult weevils have been known to feign death when disturbed, even dropping off the host plant.
Adults aestivate (it’s the opposite of hibernate) during the summer. They don’t fly much, and so undisturbed crop debris at the field edges is a good off-season location for them. Remember to mow!
Vegetable weevil larvae hiding in bok choi leaves. Debbie Roos, N.C. Cooperative Extension, Chatham County Center
Biological Management of the Vegetable Weevil
Removing crop debris can reduce their numbers. Crop rotation away from susceptible hosts is helpful, as is soil cultivation and tilling after crop harvest.
Natural enemies include ground beetles and rove beetles which search for prey at night. Plant insectary flowers and create habitat to encourage generalist predatory insects.
We have successfully used Spinosad against them. We sprayed with Spinosad on a Monday, then again on Friday, and the next Monday and Tuesday I couldn’t see any new holes.
Neem oil and pyrethrins are other organic control options. Insecticidal soap can be used against the larvae.
Debbie Roos of Growing Small Farms wrote about this pest in “The Bok Choi Problem” which has very good photos.
Resources
Also see resources in earlier Pest of the Month posts
Preparing to sow Rainbow Chard in 2020. Photo Pam Dawling
As you prepare to order seeds, or start planning your seedling sowing schedule, you may be wondering if you can still use the seeds leftover from last year. To my surprise, I have not addressed this topic for 12 years! Naturally, seeds have not changed much in that time! But we have more information about the factors influencing seed viability, and things you can do with old seeds that don’t pass your germination test or have dates too long ago to be reliable.
Factors influencing seed viability
It’s a waste of money to throw out all seeds leftover at the end of the planting season and buy all new for next year. Yet it’s a bigger waste to keep everything and risk poor germination of a vital crop. Here are nine steps to minimize the chances of throwing out good seed, keeping bad seed, buying too little, or buying too much. The key components are:
Store your seeds well, so you know you can rely on them to grow next year
Know how much seed is usually sown per 100′ (30 m). See Johnny’s website
Calculate how much your farm uses per 100′ (30 m) (optional fine-tuning)
Quantify how much seed you have left
Plan your planting quantity of each crop for next year
Calculate how much seed to buy
Decide how much extra to buy in case a sowing fails
Place orders early, to increase the chances of getting exactly what you want.
Opinions vary about how many years seeds of different vegetables are good for. The fuller story is that storage conditions make a big difference. You can make your own decisions, weighing up the information supplied, your knowledge of how carefully you stored the seeds, the information on each packet about percentage germination when you bought it, and the economic importance to you of that particular crop. If you always transplant lettuce, as we do, and you sow several varieties each time, you can risk one of your four varieties in that sowing coming up poorly and just plant out more of the other three if it fails.
The front cover of the New Seed Starters Handbook, by Nacy Bubel and Jean Nick
Many seed catalogs include information about seed longevity, as does Nancy Bubel in The New Seed Starter’s Handbook. My updated book Sustainable Market Farming, Second Edition is the source of most of what I have here.
A simplified version is as follows:
Year of purchase only: parsnips, parsley, salsify, scorzonera, and sea kale, as well as any pelleted seed. Pelleted seeds are primed (nudged to start germinating), then coated in clay. The priming is necessary to support the seed in getting through the clay coating.
2 years: corn, peas, and beans of all kinds, beets (2-5 years), onions, leeks, chives, peppers (2-5 years), okra, dandelion, martynia. Lettuce is very variable at 1-6 years.
3 years: carrots (3-4 years), asparagus, celery and celeriac (3-5 years), Asian greens, turnips, and rutabagas.
5 years: most brassicas, beets (2-5 years), tomatoes (maybe up to 7 years), eggplant, cucumbers (3-6 years), muskmelons (3-6 years), lettuce (1-6 years), endive, and chicory.
Rather than deteriorating with age, some very fresh seed has a dormancy that needs to be overcome by chilling (lettuce). Other seed contains compounds that inhibit germination; these can be flushed out by soaking in water for about 1 hour (beets).
A challenge with seed ordering is converting between grams, ounces and seed counts. Look in the description (perhaps under “Additional Information”) for Seed Specs info such as “Avg. 52,000 seeds/lb” then use your online calculator, slide rule or abacus to easily convert all to the units you are most comfortable with.
Sunn hemp seeds at the start of a seed germination test. Photo Pam Dawling
Seed germination testing
If you hate to throw seeds away, consider running some germination tests on critical packets of seed. Take a sturdy paper towel, folded in half, or a coffee filter, and dampen it by spraying with water. Count out 10–100 seeds and set them in a line in the fold or seam of the paper. The more seeds you can test, the more representative your result will be. Roll the paper loosely and put the roll in a plastic bag in a warm place, at a similar temperature to seed starting for that crop. Once I made the mistake of trying to germinate watermelon seeds in winter on the bathroom counter — it was too cold!
Unroll and check the seeds twice a day. Initially your inspections just provide an air change for the seeds, but soon you should see little sprouts emerging from the seeds. Spritz the seeds with water as needed. Count how many germinate and notice if they are quick (vigorous) or slow (low-vigor seed, not for use in challenging conditions). Old seed may still germinate but only produce weak seedlings.
When no more germinate, convert your final figure to “germinated seeds per 100” (percentage). Compare your germination rate with that of fresh seed you would buy to replace it. This will help you decide whether the seed is worth relying on next year and whether you need to sow it thickly.
We sometimes use a mixture of old seeds for a short-term summer cover crop. We consider the preceding and following crops and customize a mix that avoids those crop families, for a good rotation. Naturally, some small, slow-growing crops like parsley never make good cover crops, but peas, beans, corn, and brassicas can all make quick growth. Be careful not to leave your free cover crops growing so long that they become problematic. One year we had a bed of southern peas, corn, and random old lettuce seed sown beside our sweet corn. Our plans for that bed changed, and before we knew it, we had cover crop popcorn tasselling out next to our sweet corn. Luckily, we noticed in time and cut them down before hey crosspollinated our sweet corn and ruined the flavor.
Consign unwanted old seeds to a special Old Seeds Bucket, which may provide you with a backup plan if you somehow run out of seed during the growing season. You can reorder from a quick-to-respond seed company and meanwhile make a sowing with your old seed. If it germinates, you will be ahead of where you would be if you had to wait for the new seed to arrive, and you can keep the new seed for next year. If the old seed doesn’t come up well enough, you can use the new packet and be no worse off than if you had composted the old seed back in the winter.
Brassica (mustard) salad mix in our hoophouse in late November. Photo Pam Dawling
A third use for old seeds is microgreens or salad mix. We have used leftover brassica, endive, beet, and chard seeds to get a quick crop of salad mix from an unexpectedly empty spot in our hoophouse. But beware of turnips and radishes with bristly leaves! Having these three worthwhile uses for old seeds has helped us be more ruthless about buying new seeds at the beginning of each year.
