wisconsindead
Senior Member
Posts: 168
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:48 pm
Location: Zone 5b

What's eating my winter carrots?

I have small carrot plants that I sowed September 22, 2018. They reached about 2 inches tall before the sun being too low to do much growing. Recently, within the past month or so, something has begun eating them.

I have them under Agribon AG-19 (frost blanket) inside of an unheated greenhouse. I don't see any obvious evidence of burrowing from possible voles. But they are what I am guessing it is from. I also am not seeing any disturbance of the agribon fabric, but I didn't check every spot for burrowing/holes etc. The spinach, kale, lettuce and beets that are also growing underneath that same fabric do not have any damage.

On November 17, 2018, they looked like this...
3.PNG
Today (January 3, 2019), they now look like this. Any suspects?
1.PNG
2.PNG

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applestar
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Posts: 30545
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

If it’s warm enough, maybe slugs?

One way that I’ve read about but only tried a couple of times is to sprinkle something powdery — sand, corn starch, ground lime, DE, etc. depending on environment and expected pests — all around the crop and check next morning for foot prints/tracks. Slugs will leave slime trail.

It does work but only if it doesn’t rain or heavy dew is not expected — this is where I ran into problems ...but since yours is under cover, it might be effective

wisconsindead
Senior Member
Posts: 168
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:48 pm
Location: Zone 5b

Thanks Applestar. I will look into that. I am not positive I can make it happen though as it is quite moist underneath the cloth. So keeping things dry is a bit difficult.

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jal_ut
Super Green Thumb
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Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:20 pm
Location: Northern Utah Zone 5

Interesting. Ever figure out what was eating them?



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