Friday, April 6, 2012
White grubs!! Ick factor: infinity
I'm glad I decided to empty out the container before sowing/transferring transplants. In one of the 5 gallon container, I found this:
Nasty! Nasty! White grub! I think this is larvae of some sort of beetle. This container was FULL of grubs (picture below). But others had none - it is possible that I missed some but they are pretty easy to spot because they are so white. Once you take them out of the soil, they start crawling around looking to dig themselves back into the soil. I feel a little guilty throwing them on the cement for the birds to find them...but their crazy looking mouths looked like it can do some serious damage to plants so it is probably best to get rid of it now.
There is a great article about recycling soil in containers at you grow girl blog. I'm glad Gayla also reuses her soil. I can't imagine buying new bags of soil, plus it would be extremely challenging to find a place to put the old soil.
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I 'm totally with you. Ick city! When I turn over my soil in my raised beds, I double glove. Lol!
ReplyDeleteThese little things really freaked me out. I should think about wearing gloves too!
DeleteThose are japanese beetle grubs. When I find them in my digging I squeeze them between gloved fingers. It seems a bit gross at first, but when I think about the problems they cause later, I get over it quickly. I used to have a cat bird that would follow me around in the spring waiting for me to toss him the grubs.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I could squeeze them...I get shivers down my back when I just think about them crawling on my hand...even with gloves. Thanks for letting me know what they are!
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